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

[anglolawyer]

Or maybe none of those things.

From your photo and the pictures I assume the hair around a cats foot makes that circular pattern but it's not what I would expect. What else could have made it and how come that cat didn't bleed to death?

ETA where the heck do you get these pictures anyway? That one looks nothing like what I would expect a cat's paw to look like. WTF is it? Can someone walk a cat through some paint and take some pictures?

 

[Samson]

Here is a study to consider. Let's imagine Raffaele and Amanda are on death row.

quote
Estimating the rate of false convictions, which the study put at 4.1 percent, is no easy task since there is no central database and many are never identified, in part because some sentences are commuted.

Nevertheless, "false convictions are far more likely to be detected among those cases that end in death sentences than in any other category of criminal convictions," said the article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Everyone, from the first officer on the scene of a potentially capital crime to the Chief Justice of the United States, takes capital cases more seriously than other criminal prosecutions—and knows that everybody else will do so as well."

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-percent-death-row-inmates-innocent.html

I would particularly welcome reflections on this article from anyone convinced of their guilt.

 

[Desert Fox]

Here is a study to consider. Let's imagine Raffaele and Amanda are on death row.

quote
Estimating the rate of false convictions, which the study put at 4.1 percent, is no easy task since there is no central database and many are never identified, in part because some sentences are commuted.

Nevertheless, "false convictions are far more likely to be detected among those cases that end in death sentences than in any other category of criminal convictions," said the article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Everyone, from the first officer on the scene of a potentially capital crime to the Chief Justice of the United States, takes capital cases more seriously than other criminal prosecutions—and knows that everybody else will do so as well."

http://phys.org/news/2014-04-percent-death-row-inmates-innocent.html

I would particularly welcome reflections on this article from anyone convinced of their guilt.

Doesn't help when governors want to get reelected and cannoit be "Soft on Crime"
Link

 

[Samson]

Profile 36B is clearly Meredith's profile, but it should be tossed as evidence for many reasons. For me the biggest problem is that there is no way to clean a knife of blood but not DNA. On top of that, if you clean a knife of blood, you should also remove starch.

Chris, is this equivalent to saying that if the knife had been taken from the drawer, and analysed by people and laboratories with no connection to the case, Meredith's profile would be impossible to find in any data?

 

[Bill Williams]

Profile 36B is clearly Meredith's profile, but it should be tossed as evidence for many reasons. For me the biggest problem is that there is no way to clean a knife of blood but not DNA. On top of that, if you clean a knife of blood, you should also remove starch.

Chris, is this equivalent to saying that if the knife had been taken from the drawer, and analysed by people and laboratories with no connection to the case, Meredith's profile would be impossible to find in any data?

One of the reasons I do not think this thing was an intentional framing is the testimony of Stefanoni with regard to 36B.

Stefanoni readily admits the problems with it. It requires four tersts, does it not? And all four are destructive tests, meaning that you do not get what you tested back.

Add to this that there was only a sufficient sample size, so she claimed, to do one test. She had the choice of finding the composition of it, or who it belonged to.

It was perhaps the only sound decision she made, she decided to test to see who 36B belonged to. That test said it was Meredith's.

Yet the standard is to do a second confirmatory test, and obviously she could not do that.

And here's the kicker.... What was it? It was Meredith's but what of Meredith's was it? This is BEFORE even considering the "too low" issue.... or the missing data that other experts complained about.

The testing did not reveal it, because there was nothing more to test - not to mention, that no one else in the universe has ever seen the so-called-crevice in the knife which it was supposed to have hid to escape cleaning.

If THIS is the frame up, it is the most incompetent frame-up in the history of crime.

 

[Dan O.]

From your photo and the pictures I assume the hair around a cats foot makes that circular pattern but it's not what I would expect. What else could have made it and how come that cat didn't bleed to death?

You are making a couple of presumptions. The first is that this is from a cat's foot and not a drip. The second is that the cat survived.

 

[Dan O.]

I had in mind the dripping of dilute blood onto concrete and then coming back the next day to see what it looks like. Unfortunately, I don't have any blood handy. But, I have a strong suspicion that the blood would wick away from the center of the drop. Maybe like this example of a skeletonized blood drop: http://forensics4fiction.com/2011/06/28/skeletonization-an-artifact-of-blood-drying/

For that you need something to wipe away the blood from the center after the ring has dried. How about the dripping of undiluted blood onto the sidewalk that is then washed away by rain after the ring dried.

 

[Diocletus]

For that you need something to wipe away the blood from the center after the ring has dried. How about the dripping of undiluted blood onto the sidewalk that is then washed away by rain after the ring dried.

The cat licked it.

Either that, or the blood just wicked out to form a ring.

 

[acbytesla]

Profile 36B is clearly Meredith's profile, but it should be tossed as evidence for many reasons. For me the biggest problem is that there is no way to clean a knife of blood but not DNA. On top of that, if you clean a knife of blood, you should also remove starch.

From my perspective there are a few reasons to toss 36B. The first being the non-repeatability. It was a single test that could NOT be verified by a second test. The RIS testified in the latest trial that this would unacceptable in their lab. Second, it was an LCN test in a lab that was not certified for LCN testing. Third, only the egram was provided, not the EDF file

I could go on and on about the absurdity of this knife being used in this crime, but I wont I'll stick to the DNA.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

two caveats

Chris, is this equivalent to saying that if the knife had been taken from the drawer, and analysed by people and laboratories with no connection to the case, Meredith's profile would be impossible to find in any data?

Yes, but that means that the lab could not test any items of Meredith's including a reference profile. Also, there is one other caveat. I don't think that we can rule out accidental contamination, given that the knife was opened for no reason before it even got to the lab.

 

[carbonjam72]

A Cat's Paw print? Not like any cat I've ever seen, eh grommit?

[qimg]http://forensics4fiction.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/img_2707.jpg[/qimg]

I really don't think this can possibly be a cat's paw print, IMO.

Don't cats have finger like paw pads with claws? Try to imagine cats paw prints tracking in the dirt, almost fingerlike indentations, no?

That looks like a droplet where the top part got dragged to the left, like for example, blood dripping off clothes, and then getting dragged by the clothes, but the viscous edge isn't wiped fully clean.

Similar to the bloody half footprint on the bath mat, these types of visual evaluations are really better the province of legitimate experts.

 

[carbonjam72]

The Two Stefanonis; incompetent angel or mischievous devil?

Yes, but that means that the lab could not test any items of Meredith's including a reference profile. Also, there is one other caveat. I don't think that we can rule out accidental contamination, given that the knife was opened for no reason before it even got to the lab.

Contamination sounds like an innocent accident, unless the item is exposed to the target DNA in hopes of generating a 'happy accident'. Stefanoni undoubtedly committed perjury on the witness stand regarding her concealing having done blood tests on footprints revealed by luminol that came up negative.

It seems like for the prosecution to have any case at all, they had to get a positive DNA result from Stefanoni's lab.

Is there some way for Stefanoni to guarantee she gets the results that will make her bosses happy? Is there some way for her to know in advance she will get a match, such that 'any knife will do'?

Do you think Stefanoni fraudulently concocted the lab results? Was the contamination plausibly a planned event? Or did she just get lucky with an innocent contamination match?

 

[anglolawyer]

You are making a couple of presumptions. The first is that this is from a cat's foot and not a drip. The second is that the cat survived.

Guilty to both charges. I have seen paw-sized rings leading down (or up) the steps to the boys' place. They were closely filmed. Surely I am not the only one. I assumed this was made the same way but you are right - Diocletus just jettisoned it onto the thread without explanation so maybe it's not even from the crime scene.

 

[anglolawyer]

One of the reasons I do not think this thing was an intentional framing is the testimony of Stefanoni with regard to 36B.

Stefanoni readily admits the problems with it. It requires four tersts, does it not? And all four are destructive tests, meaning that you do not get what you tested back.

Add to this that there was only a sufficient sample size, so she claimed, to do one test. She had the choice of finding the composition of it, or who it belonged to.

It was perhaps the only sound decision she made, she decided to test to see who 36B belonged to. That test said it was Meredith's.

Yet the standard is to do a second confirmatory test, and obviously she could not do that.

And here's the kicker.... What was it? It was Meredith's but what of Meredith's was it? This is BEFORE even considering the "too low" issue.... or the missing data that other experts complained about.

The testing did not reveal it, because there was nothing more to test - not to mention, that no one else in the universe has ever seen the so-called-crevice in the knife which it was supposed to have hid to escape cleaning.

If THIS is the frame up, it is the most incompetent frame-up in the history of crime.

On the contrary, it is the most successful frame up of all time given that two innocent people are (probably) about to have their murder convictions finally confirmed by the ISC. This is Italy. They don't do science in court. Rather, it's a pantomime in which everything is suffused in a miasma of poisonous ad hominem, no one can ever be accused of lying (even when they plainly are), 'compatible' = proof, possible = probable, inconvenient testimony can be selectively spliced away, findings made somewhere else count and the Supreme Court blatantly subverts the system by substituting its own findings of fact for the trial court's.

In that system what Stefanoni did was just fine. Try squaring the bra clasp panto with mere incompetence. Explain how a science officer happened to store this key item in an environment that destroyed its usefulness and (since you can't) note that nobody has taken her to task over this or any other of the many lapses and lies that render her work useless.

Of course it was a frame job. It can't be anything else. The fact it's staring you in the face but you still can't see it shows how well-judged it was. Someone once said that any fool can build a bridge that won't fall down. The trick is to build one that only just won't. So far, their bridge has withstood everything thrown at it.

 

[Planigale]

Contamination sounds like an innocent accident, unless the item is exposed to the target DNA in hopes of generating a 'happy accident'. Stefanoni undoubtedly committed perjury on the witness stand regarding her concealing having done blood tests on footprints revealed by luminol that came up negative.

It seems like for the prosecution to have any case at all, they had to get a positive DNA result from Stefanoni's lab.

Is there some way for Stefanoni to guarantee she gets the results that will make her bosses happy? Is there some way for her to know in advance she will get a match, such that 'any knife will do'?

Do you think Stefanoni fraudulently concocted the lab results? Was the contamination plausibly a planned event? Or did she just get lucky with an innocent contamination match?

I think that this is likely to represent an in-laboratory contamination issue. It is possible that there was some physical contamination of the knife elsewhere, but I think in-laboratory contamination more likely. For Stephanoni I think this was a happy accident. She followed a non-standard protocol which involved more processing of the sample than usual, and use of a machine that was not usually used. I think this increased the risks of contamination. She did this in a laboratory not set up for dealing with low copy number DNA, so did not have the processes in place to prevent AND detect contamination by trace amounts of DNA. The latter is an important issue, the negative controls and laboratory environment swabs need to have been run to detect contamination at the level of DNA found in the sample from the knife blade.

There is a whistle blowing letter (anonymous) that implies that this had been done before. I think the lab utilised contamination to get results without realising that was what was happening.

There is an interesting comment from the cassazione report suggesting for the bra strap that since the only DNA of Sollecito found in the flat was on a cigarette mixed with Knox DNA then contamination of the bra hook would be more believable if both Knox and Sollecito DNA was present! I can see how that would play. Sadly this shows that they fail to understand that there is not mixed DNA, that remains mixed, but separate DNA of both Sollecito and Knox on the same item. It also indicates that they fail to understand this was only on tested items, and does not exclude there being DNA of Sollecito elsewhere. There are several illogical statements in this ruling, which since the argument of the court was on the logicality of the appeal court seems a bit hypocritical.

 

[Samson]

Yes, but that means that the lab could not test any items of Meredith's including a reference profile. Also, there is one other caveat. I don't think that we can rule out accidental contamination, given that the knife was opened for no reason before it even got to the lab.

If I were to ask one more question, do you regard it as a scientific certainty, that as that knife lay quietly in Raffaele's drawer, there was no Meredith dna present?
I am sorry to be pedantic, but it does seem important.

 

[Vibio]

This is Italy.

Sounds very Italian.

Oh it's just so very Italian. Etc.


Meanwhile the screaming headline in todays Huffington Post:

STUDY: 1 IN 25 DEATH ROW INMATES LIKELY INNOCENT

"Shocking Number Of Innocent People Sentenced To Death, Study Finds"

"“The great majority of innocent people who are sentenced to death are never identified and freed," said Samuel Gross, lead author of the study and a University of Michigan Law School professor, in a statement.

Ah Italy... yes indeed.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/innocent-death-penalty-study_n_5228854.html

 

[anglolawyer]

Oh it's just so very Italian. Etc.


Meanwhile the screaming headline in todays Huffington Post:

STUDY: 1 IN 25 DEATH ROW INMATES LIKELY INNOCENT

"Shocking Number Of Innocent People Sentenced To Death, Study Finds"

"“The great majority of innocent people who are sentenced to death are never identified and freed," said Samuel Gross, lead author of the study and a University of Michigan Law School professor, in a statement.

Ah Italy... yes indeed.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/innocent-death-penalty-study_n_5228854.html

Miscarriages of justice come in many shapes and sizes. The Italian variant is distinctive. Nobody here is saying these things don't happen elsewhere, Vibio, so you are attacking a straw man.

 

[CoulsdonUK]

How much time do the defence teams have to respond to the Florence motivations?

 

[carbonjam72]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...iact=rc&uact=3&dur=818&page=1&start=0&ndsp=19

cat with paw prints for comparison