Continuation Part Eight: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Diocletus]

Diocletus,

His summary of the case has some inaccuracies, but I don't think that his opinion rests on those problematic points.

Yes, but this guy has probably read every extradition case that has been written. His gut feeling is worth a lot.

 

[Diocletus]

Not a legal scholar...but I dont think double jeopardy is relevant in this case. And the ECOHR is on the side of Italy and those other countries that allow prosecution appeals...that seems clear and so making an argument based on that seems like it would be a waste of time.

Besides there are enough confounding issues in this case to easily prove that RS and AK never got a fair trial...not one of the 10 or 20 or 30 it will finally take????

Realistically this case could go on forever. No matter that Del a Dope A called it unfair to have a never ending trial...what could keep it from going back and forth at least a few more times? There appears to be no statute of limitations that kick in until idiots stop appealing...which is why Italy has most violations for speedy trial. They just pay a fine and keep right on offending though.

Terrible little ancient culture. What can one expect from people who had ancestors who enjoyed watching lions rip innocent people to shreds as Sunday entertainment though?

I wonder if the lions ever escaped into the crowd? Bet that was funny.

You have to die to finally escape Italian justice. Oh wait, that didn't work for Jesus. Never mind.

 

[acbytesla]

Not a legal scholar...but I dont think double jeopardy is relevant in this case. And the ECOHR is on the side of Italy and those other countries that allow prosecution appeals...that seems clear and so making an argument based on that seems like it would be a waste of time.

If it is isn't, but it should be, while I can't imagine the ECHR over-ruling it based on double jeopardy, the US courts however are a different matter. But that probably isn't Amanda's best argument here either. The best argument is that the evidence not only proves she didn't do it, it proves she couldn't have done it.

 

[Desert Fox]

If it is isn't, but it should be, while I can't imagine the ECHR over-ruling it based on double jeopardy, the US courts however are a different matter. But that probably isn't Amanda's best argument here either. The best argument is that the evidence not only proves she didn't do it, it proves she couldn't have done it.

If I read you link right, Italy violated their own rules on double jeopardy.

 

[acbytesla]

If I read you link right, Italy violated their own rules on double jeopardy.

I think so too, but they also said the interrogation statements were inadmissible and then allowed them into the trial. Italy has had then endless trials before, so somehow they have been allowing it.

 

[GWCarver]

I think so too, but they also said the interrogation statements were inadmissible and then allowed them into the trial. Italy has had then endless trials before, so somehow they have been allowing it.

Presumably the experienced judges of the Court of Cassation knew when they ruled Amanda's statements inadmissible the jury would hear them anyway. With around 30 years of experience, Mignini had to know the same thing the instant he acquired the statements.

 

[Desert Fox]

I think so too, but they also said the interrogation statements were inadmissible and then allowed them into the trial. Italy has had then endless trials before, so somehow they have been allowing it.

Attorneys are never cheap and having to defend yourself in multiple trials is sure to defeat everybody.

 

[Mary_H]

What would the revised Treaty language look like? "Any country that has a trial that lasts for 7 years or more is SOL?" "A jury trial is a jury trial even if you call the jurors 'judges' and give them Ms New Jersey sashes . . . and you only get to do it once?" "No extradition if you're just trying to save face?" The Senate would be like WTF.

I just think that we shouldn't enter into extradition treaties with countries who have legal systems that suck. Either that, or we should make sure that they have a big brother like the ECtHR. Which, BTW, I believe is the exact reason for the revised Italy extradition treaty.

It should be a country's constitution that counts when it comes to foreign relations. It should be implicit that the US doesn't enter into extradition treaties with countries whose constitutions don't honor basic human rights.

Italy, or any country, has the right to as messed-up a legal system as it wants, although Italy's multiple-trials system has many admirers. The question is not whether the system is bad, it's whether, in this case, they violated their own constitution as specified in the treaty between our countries.

Teasing out whether they violated the defendants' constitutional rights over the course of the many trials and appeals is one way to go, but acknowledging that they violated the defendants' constitutional rights during the arrests is easier, because the Court of Cassation has already ruled it. Everything that happened subsequent to the arrests was just throwing good money after bad.

On the other hand, from what I understand, the extradition process does not necessarily have to describe any specific legal violations to justify a denial of another country's request for extradition. It is an executive decision and a political one. If Italy asks and State says no (upon which we most fervently depend), what further choice does Italy have?

 

[codyjuneau]

.
Another thing I noticed while looking at the crime scene photos is that there is a thin double wire at least 1/2 meter or 18 inches long coming out of Meredith's white bag and going under the duvet that Meredith's body was found under. I think that there may be an earphone on the end under the duvet, and a radio or Walkman inside the bag. If so, it strongly implies that just before Meredith was attacked she was not only wearing her jacket, she also had her white bag on her shoulder and was listening to a radio or Walkman that was inside it. That in turn implies she was attacked within minutes of arriving home, and was not aware of any threat until it was too late.
.

 

[anglolawyer]

.
Another thing I noticed while looking at the crime scene photos is that there is a thin double wire at least 1/2 meter or 18 inches long coming out of Meredith's white bag and going under the duvet that Meredith's body was found under. I think that there may be an earphone on the end under the duvet, and a radio or Walkman inside the bag. If so, it strongly implies that just before Meredith was attacked she was not only wearing her jacket, she also had her white bag on her shoulder and was listening to a radio or Walkman that was inside it. That in turn implies she was attacked within minutes of arriving home, and was not aware of any threat until it was too late.
.

Interesting Cody but it entails either that she was listening to music while walking home with Sophie or that she decided to listen on the short solo part when also attempting to call her mother.

 

[Desert Fox]

.
Another thing I noticed while looking at the crime scene photos is that there is a thin double wire at least 1/2 meter or 18 inches long coming out of Meredith's white bag and going under the duvet that Meredith's body was found under. I think that there may be an earphone on the end under the duvet, and a radio or Walkman inside the bag. If so, it strongly implies that just before Meredith was attacked she was not only wearing her jacket, she also had her white bag on her shoulder and was listening to a radio or Walkman that was inside it. That in turn implies she was attacked within minutes of arriving home, and was not aware of any threat until it was too late.
.

Kind of depends on her. . . .
Was she the type to always put her MP3 Player in a specific place or did she just kind of drop it wherever?
Basically, how organized was she? If "not very," does not show much.

 

[JREF2010]

"There are no generally accepted thresholds for how high peaks must be to qualify as a "true allele." Applied Biosystems, Inc., which sells the most widely used system for STR typing (the ABI Prism 310 Genetic Analyzer(tm) with the ProfilerPlus(tm) system) recommends a peak-height threshold of 150 RFU, saying that peaks below this level must be interpreted with caution. However, many crime laboratories that use the ABI system have set lower thresholds (down to 40 RFU in some instances). And crime laboratories sometimes apply their standards in an inconsistent manner from case to case or even within a single case. Hence, a defendant may be convicted in one case based on "peaks" that would not be counted in another case, or by another lab. And in some cases there may be unreported peaks, just below the threshold, that would change the interpretation of the case if considered.

Finding and evaluating low-level peaks can be difficult because labs can set their analytic software to ignore peaks below a specified level and can print out electropherograms in a manner that fails to identify low-level alleles. The best way to assess low-level alleles is to obtain copies of the electronic data files produced by the genetic analyzer and have them re-analyzed by an expert who has access to the analytic software." link.

Alot of the ability of the tools will be decided by the environment and procedures used.

A "cleanroom" has many different quality levels. Which is determined by cleanliness but also the humans and how they perform in the room. (Humans being the main cause of problems).

Cleanrooms can range from Class 1 to Class 10,000, and the latter cleaner than a surgery room. The environment is classified by data and other tools designed to measure the room. In addition, all the working tools, like the ABI, for example are calibrated and verified /operated based on the humans using the tools. The humans can ignore procedures and not run controls for example, or they can ignore "too low" readings and present the data as something its really not to a room full of sleeping jurors and a judge texting on his cell phone during testimony.

example-
- Cleanrooms are classified according to the number and size of particles permitted per volume of air. Large numbers like "class 100" or "class 1000" refer to FED-STD-209E, and denote the number of particles of size 0.5 µm or larger permitted per cubic foot of air.

 

[Diocletus]

Kind of depends on her. . . .
Was she the type to always put her MP3 Player in a specific place or did she just kind of drop it wherever?
Basically, how organized was she? If "not very," does not show much.

She couldn't possibly have bern as neat as Filomena. Nobody is that neat.

 

[Bill Williams]

It should be a country's constitution that counts when it comes to foreign relations. It should be implicit that the US doesn't enter into extradition treaties with countries whose constitutions don't honor basic human rights.

Italy, or any country, has the right to as messed-up a legal system as it wants, although Italy's multiple-trials system has many admirers. The question is not whether the system is bad, it's whether, in this case, they violated their own constitution as specified in the treaty between our countries.

Teasing out whether they violated the defendants' constitutional rights over the course of the many trials and appeals is one way to go, but acknowledging that they violated the defendants' constitutional rights during the arrests is easier, because the Court of Cassation has already ruled it. Everything that happened subsequent to the arrests was just throwing good money after bad.

On the other hand, from what I understand, the extradition process does not necessarily have to describe any specific legal violations to justify a denial of another country's request for extradition. It is an executive decision and a political one. If Italy asks and State says no (upon which we most fervently depend), what further choice does Italy have?

Correct me if I am wrong..... but all a treaty does is give a legal system "reach" into some other country's legal system. It in no way shape or form, at least it shouldn't, abrogate the rights of someone in that other system.

I cannot image that The United State of America would enter into a treaty that allows rights for an American to be eroded....

I could be wrong. I keep going back to the Bembenek case, where Canada extradited Laurie Bembenek back to Wisconsin. She'd escaped jail and fled to the Great White North.....

..... but Canada applied its own values within its own system when (acc. to treaty) Wisconsin reached its grubby hands north to get help to recover an escaped con.

Canada actually DID look at the case and attached conditions to the return. Bembenek sought refugee status in Canada and got a sympathetic hearing once authorities looked into the handling of her case.

The point being, by treaty the US of A has reach into Canada's courts, but Canada applies Canadian law and values to the request. It's a request, because Canada never gives up sovereignty over its own system and hasn't (since 1982).

I would suggest that the constitution of a country in which the person currently resides takes precedence, as Mary_H has said. With due respect to katy_did, the US Constitution is not subject to the treaty, it is the other way around. One can interpret the US Constitution without reference to the treaty, but one cannot interpret the treaty (or Article VI) without reference to the US Constitution.

So you may be correct, that the treaty itself does not give protection against double jeopardy, but there's a rumour that the US Constitution does!

What may be at issue here is the way in which a system sees itself giving protection from double jeopardy. In the US it seems that one acquittal and that's it. In Canada there are rare cases where a prosecutor can successfully appeal that an acquittal was unjust, and they have at it again. For some reason Canada does not see that as violating double jeopardy.

 

[codyjuneau]

.
This is a photo of Meredith's white bag with the dual wire coming out of it and going under the duvet. Click the image to get a higher resolution version, but not the highest resolution version available. JREF limits the size of photos that can be uploaded. The far higher resolution original is dsc_0143.jpg in the zip file of the Nov 2 and 3 files that Charlie made available a while back.

I have the zip files that Charlie made available but I don't recall how to get them. Most of the photos that are available, even on IIP seem to be low resolution versions of the originals. I would highly recommend getting Charlie's zip files if you don't already have them.
.

 

[Grinder]

You gotta love the dark side -

I think the petition fail was the big tell. As someone pointed out, she had 11 days of sycophantic coverage, but despite this failed to reach much over 2000 signatures on her petition. This demonstrates to me that the support is whipped up when an event in the case occurs, and then dies down pretty quickly. I just don't think she's bankable any more really. Her interviews were the worst idea of all, as she really does come across and cold, hard and thoroughly unsympathetic. In the early days there was tremendous interest from supporters, but looking at comment sections under articles and on twitter, there only seem to be about five die-hard supporters left. And those that there are are do her no favours at all. They all come across as cold and hard, and just the sort of people who would be drawn to a murderer.​

But what about all those Marriott workers and the bots feeding all those comment threads and twitters?

 

[Mary_H]

Correct me if I am wrong..... but all a treaty does is give a legal system "reach" into some other country's legal system. It in no way shape or form, at least it shouldn't, abrogate the rights of someone in that other system.

I cannot image that The United State of America would enter into a treaty that allows rights for an American to be eroded....

I could be wrong. I keep going back to the Bembenek case, where Canada extradited Laurie Bembenek back to Wisconsin. She'd escaped jail and fled to the Great White North.....

..... but Canada applied its own values within its own system when (acc. to treaty) Wisconsin reached its grubby hands north to get help to recover an escaped con.

Canada actually DID look at the case and attached conditions to the return. Bembenek sought refugee status in Canada and got a sympathetic hearing once authorities looked into the handling of her case.

The point being, by treaty the US of A has reach into Canada's courts, but Canada applies Canadian law and values to the request. It's a request, because Canada never gives up sovereignty over its own system and hasn't (since 1982).

I would suggest that the constitution of a country in which the person currently resides takes precedence, as Mary_H has said. With due respect to katy_did, the US Constitution is not subject to the treaty, it is the other way around. One can interpret the US Constitution without reference to the treaty, but one cannot interpret the treaty (or Article VI) without reference to the US Constitution.

So you may be correct, that the treaty itself does not give protection against double jeopardy, but there's a rumour that the US Constitution does!

What may be at issue here is the way in which a system sees itself giving protection from double jeopardy. In the US it seems that one acquittal and that's it. In Canada there are rare cases where a prosecutor can successfully appeal that an acquittal was unjust, and they have at it again. For some reason Canada does not see that as violating double jeopardy.

Actually, I did not say that. However, the United States Supreme Court did, in Reid v. Covert

The Court found: "No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution." The Court's core holding of the case is that U.S. Citizen civilians abroad have the right to Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment constitutional protections.

In Italy's legal system, the multiple-trials custom lets everybody know right up front that a person can be found guilty after being found innocent. If the United States didn't like that custom, it should have objected to it before or while Amanda was being tried. I don't see how it can let the whole process play out, all the while giving it tacit approval by saying they were keeping an eye on things, and then come back later and say they didn't like it.

As Machiavelli (and possibly the Italian court) would claim, if they didn't like it, they should have said something.

However, my original point is that it should not have to get to the point of citing Amanda's rights under the US constitution, when her rights under the Italian constitution were plainly breached.

 

[Diocletus]

Actually, I did not say that. However, the United States Supreme Court did, in Reid v. Covert




In Italy's legal system, the multiple-trials custom lets everybody know right up front that a person can be found guilty after being found innocent. If the United States didn't like that custom, it should have objected to it before or while Amanda was being tried. I don't see how it can let the whole process play out, all the while giving it tacit approval by saying they were keeping an eye on things, and then come back later and say they didn't like it.

As Machiavelli (and possibly the Italian court) would claim, if they didn't like it, they should have said something.

However, my original point is that it should not have to get to the point of citing Amanda's rights under the US constitution, when her rights under the Italian constitution were plainly breached.

The US didn't "say anything" because it didn't expect Italy to violate its own constitution. It seems to me that all extradition treaties implicitly provide that the requesting nation has complied with its own laws and applicable international laws, which Italy did not. So, you see, Italy is the party that has violated the treaty and has dirty hands.

 

[Grinder]

However, the United States Supreme Court did, in Reid v. Covert

That case involved a dependent of a military person who by agreement with the brits was going to be tried by military court. Had that agreement not been made the person would have been tried in England where the crime occurred.

The 5th:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.​

just doesn't seem violated by the Italian system. The system has the stages we are all familiar with and it allows for innocent findings to be over turned. If she had been tried here and found guilty the appeals court could have overturned the verdict and it would have been over but they could also send it back for a second trial.

The Italian system certainly seems bad in this case and many others but probably has worked in many other cases.

Perhaps we will change our treaties and not allow for more trials once an innocent finding is reached. There certainly should be some sort of limit on how long a case can go on.

ETA - I think this is a better article

Based on my very limited understanding of the Italian judicial system and the facts of this case, I must say that I don’t find the “double jeopardy” here particularly egregious. Knox was in fact convicted by the trial court. In the US system, at least, that’s the level where matters of fact are settled. That conviction was reversed on appeal because, according to press accounts, the six judge panel decided that the DNA evidence used at trial was less than compelling and there were questions about the conduct of police. In the American system, this would almost certainly not have led to an outright acquittal but rather a vacating of the original verdict with prosecutors left to decide whether to retry the case without the evidence thrown out by the higher court.​

 

[Diocletus]

If she had been tried here and found guilty the appeals court could have overturned the verdict and it would have been over but they could also send it back for a second trial.

That's not what happened. In fact, she was found innocent by the lower court (Hellmann).

just doesn't seem violated by the Italian system. The system has the stages we are all familiar with and it allows for innocent findings to be over turned.

Blah blah blah. This whole argument is semantics.

Are you really fooled by their sneaky definition of a "final" judgment?

In this particular case, they have conducted their appeals on issues of fact, and thus they have effectively had a series of trials, each with its own jury, which have had outcomes including people being jailed as a consequence. This seems to me to be the very definition of double jeopardy. Moreover, they've rigged the system to get the outcome they want, and the process has taken the better part of a decade, which are the very reasons why double jeopardy prohibitions exist.

It seems so typically Italian to me that they have a constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy, yet they play a semantics game to allow the government to have a series or trials on the merits extending over a period of years. Italy doesn't just have double jeopardy . . . it has infinite jeopardy.