Cont: The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 32

[SpitfireIX]

It's not my intent to imply that an unlawful act (violation of procedure) is necessarily malicious. I believe that many such acts are not intended as malicious, even when done intentionally.

I completely agree.

However, it is the responsibility of the state (Italy, in this case) to be sure that the police, prosecutors, and judges are trained, and this training must achieve a high standard of compliance with procedural law, otherwise, miscarriages of justice are likely.

This raises an interesting question. Were these officials properly trained and then just ignored their training, was their training so utterly deficient that such a gross miscarriage of justice as occurred in this case was bound to happen eventually, or was it something in between these two extremes. I strongly suspect that it was in between, with the police likely tending toward poor training, and the judiciary [ETA: likely] tending toward failing to follow what they'd been trained the law was.

The assignment of blame for Knox being denied a lawyer is not necessarily relevant, because, to my knowledge, there is no criminal law in Italy for that violation of procedural law. The remedy for the denial of a lawyer is to throw out (court declares inadmissible) the alleged evidence (incriminating statements) gathered when there was no presence of the lawyer. Obviously, both the police and Mignini were responsible for Knox being denied a lawyer during the interrogations and the period immediately after them. Whether the police denied Knox a lawyer on Mignini's instructions is unknown to the public; of course, he was the supervisor of the police team for the investigation.

That's what I was getting at, although I probably should have tried to make my point clearer. You asked what the implications of police officers' being able to assert incompetence as a defense to their illegal activities; what I was attempting to illustrate is that, often, there would be few additional implications, as there is no criminal penalty for the illegal activity.

At least in US law, it is assumed that the person accused knows the law, unless there is some good reason otherwise. Thus, if one is accused of trespassing on US government property, if there were no signs and perhaps fences in relevant places to warn someone, an accusation of trespassing would very likely be dismissed by a court. If speed limit signs were not posted in relevant places, then your example could be a good one.

Your example actually isn't on point, and, in hindsight, mine may not be, either. You're talking about a situation where a person doesn't know he or she is trespassing, rather than a situation where he or she doesn't know trespassing is illegal.

I was thinking of a situation in which a local ordinance is passed setting an unreasonably low speed limit along a certain stretch of road, and said speed limit is then either not posted or very poorly posted (e.g., sign mostly concealed behind heavy underbrush). So, yes, technically, the speeder would be ignorant of the law (the speed limit in that area). However, anyone with a valid drivers license is presumed to know that the speed limit has to be obeyed. So, again in hindsight, I'd say this would be more a case of knowing the law but being unaware one was breaking it, rather than not knowing the law.

Cases where ignorance of the law is allowed as a defense for ordinary people, in certain circumstances, include:

• Advice of counsel (your attorney gave you the wrong information)
• Advice from the government (an agency gave you the wrong information)
• The government gave everyone the wrong information (e.g., official hunting regulations list an incorrect bag limit)

In other words, if you can show that you either made a good-faith attempt to learn and comply with the law, or you couldn't reasonably have been expected to have known the law, then you should be okay.

There was a case I remember quite a while ago (about 40 years, I think), where a man in Ohio was criminally charged in the death of his son in a car accident, because the boy wasn't in a car seat, which was required by a recently passed state law. The man's defense was that he didn't know about the law because he was illiterate and didn't own a TV. He was acquitted, but IDK whether that's because the jury actually bought his argument, or they just felt sorry for him.

However, for the Knox case, the alleged criminal violations under Italian law would have included the use of threats (the alleged threats of prison and not being allowed to see her mother) and violence (the alleged hits on her head) to obtain statements, filing a false official document (possibly based on the truncated wording quoting Knox's text message to Lumumba that Mignini used in the arrest document), and calunnia (falsely accusing someone, known to be innocent, of a crime). I'm basing these charges on the Boninsegna MR (as I recall it) - note that in order to charge Knox with calunnia against the police and Mignini, an Italian prosecutor needed to identify in Knox's testimony before the Massei court the crimes that she was implicitly accusing the police and Mignini of committing.

IANAL, but I think even a zealous prosecutor would have had trouble making any criminal charges stick, even if one of the police officers or the interpreter had suddenly gotten a guilty conscience and corroborated Amanda's account of what happened.

If there's a question as to why the police knew Knox to be innocent, that is the kernel of the matter. Knox was known to be innocent by the police and Mignini during the interrogation because she had not been finally proven guilty by an Italian court. That's based on the Italian Constitution and Italian procedural law. Those thinking that the police and Mignini, because they may sincerely have strongly believed Knox to be guilty could not have committed calunnia against (that is, framed) Knox simply don't accept or don't understand this principle of the presumption of innocence. If her statements during the interrogation were coerced - in violation of CPP Article 188 - then her statements cannot be used because they were gathered contrary to law (CPP Article 191). This would mean that the arrest document was false in that respect as well, another instance of the criminal act of filing a false official document as well as an act of calunnia.

I wouldn't say she was known to be innocent; I believe that ought to refer to factual innocence. If mere legal innocence opened one up to a potential charge of calunnia, very few people would make accusations, even upon very strong evidence, for fear of being charged if the accused were to be acquitted. I will certainly say that they had no reasonable basis upon which to accuse her.

I am, however, actually willing to give the police and Mignini the benefit of the doubt and say that they are probably not to be to be blamed for the fact that Amanda's failure to show grief in the way that they, as Italians, expected that she ought to have, aroused their suspicions.

Of course, that in no way excuses Mignini's idiotic theories ("Only a woman would cover the body"), the incompetent investigation, and the abusive and criminal interrogations of Amanda and Raffaele.

 

[TruthCalls]

None of this abnegates the fact there WAS a sadistic cruel murder, at Halloween/All Souls bank holiday,

When the murder happened is irrelevant.

wherein the perps went back afterwards to clean up,

No evidence of a clean-up.

pose the body and create a mise-en-scène in an elaborate act of deception,

No evidence of posing the body.

complete with broken window, strewn about clothing

As a result of Guede breaking into the cottage.

and the body undressed and set in an obscene position to make it look like a rape.

It looked like a rape because Guede did sexually assault her.

You might call this clowning about and a prank

No, I said Raffaele was clowning around when his FB picture was taken, and Amanda pulled a prank back at UW. I never called Guede's sexual assault and murder a prank.

and I dare say, whilst the pair were high on drugs it seemed like a great laugh.

High on pot, not "drugs".

The pages of the last couple of weeks torn out of her diary to hide the planning and fantasies of this sick pair.

No evidence of this.

Mez was bullied, tortured by her tormentors:

Clearly Guede bullied her, but there's no evidence he tortured her.

more than thirteen additional knife point jabs and bruising around the neck indicating strangulation and an extremely painful breaking of her hyoid bone. This was cruel calculated sadism not a chance burglary.

Well, it started out as a burglary until Meredith came home and surprised him. If you wish to accuse him of calculated sadism, then so be it, though I'm not sure there's evidence to support your claim

Phones switched off for the duration.

One switched off for the evening for various reasons, none of which had to do with Guede murdering Meredith.

Committed by persons with a thrill-seeking need for domination and lesson teaching.

Committed by A person, and while he's never explained his motivation, I suspect it was a crime of opportunity by someone motivated by a sexual urge.

 

[Stacyhs]

That was the nature of RS' thrill kill fantasy. Wanted 'extreme experiences'.

You know what else are "extreme experiences"? Sky diving, hang gliding, bungee jumping, race car driving, mountain climbing, etc. Yet your mind goes to it being "RS's thrill kill fantasy". What does that tell us?

Objectifying the victim means they can do it without seeing her as a person.

So, they saw her as a vampire? Then why didn't they force her to dress up in her vampire costume and really objectify her? Utter rubbish.

Knox had a history of hazing her colleagues. Staged burglaries for a laugh.

And there's a two-fer: both hyperbole and mischaracterization.

Hazing: "Any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades, or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate."

What group was her roommate joining? How was the prank humiliating, degrading, or risking her emotional and/or physical harm? A momentary fright after which she was informed it was just a prank is hardly "emotional harm".

ONE college prank pulled by her and and some other roommates is hardly a "history of hazing".

Confronted frightened housemate wearing a sinister ski mask.

"Sinister ski mask"? I'm asking for a quote and citation...not that you'll provide it. This is what Knox says happened:

Terrified neighbours with an out of control party.

Sigh. You've been reading the DM tabloid nonsense again. THIS is Off. Bender's report. I see no evidence of "terrified neigbors" or an "out of control party". I see pissed off neighbors.

Wrote short stories in which 'chicks' were raped.

LOL. This may work on those who have never read "Baby Brother" but not on those who have read it. It's a story about the disgust a brother feels for his younger brother who he learns drugged and likely raped a girl at a party.
And it was one story, not plural.

This constant blatant exaggeration and mischaracterizing is more than annoying. It's revealing.

 

[Stacyhs]

i agree. this was obviously a common practice to evade the law requiring counsel. We were just interviewing as a witness so we didn't have to record the interrogation, or have legal counsel present. I suspect it was not the first time Mignini had used the 'I'm just hear to record your statement' lie as a way to avoid the presence of a defence lawyer.

It was particularly invidious given the long coercive interrogation throughout the night, carried out in a foreign language, of a foreign national without notifying the embassy.

It's amazing how they were only 'witnesses' on Nov. 5 so weren't recorded, yet they were recorded in the questura waiting room on Nov. 4.

Mignini' excuses included
1. They weren't suspects, just witnesses informed of the facts.
2. They had to rush out and arrest Lumumba (AFTER the interrogation).
3. They didn't have the money due to budget restrictions.

 

[Stacyhs]

What ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊. Amanda was never involved in a hazing. Amanda, along with a couple of roommates, played a prank on another roommate. Playing pranks on one another in college is about as common as smoking pot, and I would remind you, pranks are intended to make people laugh. She co-hosted a party that got too loud. She wrote ONE short story, and rape was hardly mentioned. The focus of the story was one brother holding the other accountable because he had raped someone. It was a positive moral story.

Rather than writing this crap that serves no purpose,
why don't you answer some of the questions you've been avoiding, such as;

• How did Filomena know Meredith never locked her door?
• Explain how you can claim "they were technically not 'exonerated'"
• What is your evidence that Amelie was downloaded in the end of October?

That's a rhetorical question, innit?

 

[Numbers]

Profiling is mostly mythology to begin with. The expert "profiler," usually FBI, who shows up at the police station, looks through the reports, and intuits, based on the angle of the stab wounds and the phase of the moon and the use of the phrase "strange lotions" in the taunting note sent to the newspaper, that the serial killer must be 29 years old, single, used to play a trumpet in a high school orchestra, and collects vintage Happy Meal toys—and turns out to be exactly right in every detail—is as much a figment of TV show runners' imaginations as DNA test results that come back in ten minutes. Most real profiling is based on statistics, for instance most bank robbers or kidnappers are within a certain age range.

And more important, profiling only works to the limited extent it does, if you have the facts and the statistical relationships correct. Someone who interprets a single noise complaint as "antisocial" or a Halloween costume photo as indicating "transgressive personality" isn't profiling, they're making up excuses. That's the potential fraud, the pretense of profiling without actually doing anything resembling that. (Note that I conditioned all that on whether Mignini himself ever claimed to actually be profiling in the manner Vixen claims he did.) Like claiming a car can self-drive on public streets when it actually can't.

I'm not sure whether either of those example is actual fraud in any legal or dictionary sense. As I've been telling Vixen, most of the discussion in this thread (your own contributions excepted) is now about history. With the exception of a few remaining issues related to the ECHR that no one would care the slightest bit about if it weren't for the murder case, "current events" have gone by the board. Narratives of history don't run on nuanced details, but on broad sweeps. Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? Almost certainly not. Who cares? The same way Nencini didn't care about the actual evidence or truth about AK and RS, history won't care exactly why he's the villain.

I agree with your position that most of what is called "profiling" (fake profiling) is nonsense. For the Knox - Sollecito case, the "profiling" by the PGP and their allies is absurd.

In my post, I left out the issue of profiling, because I thought that the alleged or fake "profiling" in this case has been more of an effort to justify the "conclusion" or "suspicion" of the guilt of Knox and Sollecito that had been formed before any attempt at even fake "profiling" began. I am not sure that Mignini and the police engaged in profiling or fake profiling to any extent before they recognized how simple the "solution" of the case became if the rape/murder could be attributed to an "insider" - a resident of the cottage present in Perugia at the relevant time. Mignini's intuitive evidence-free hunches coupled with his interest in Satanic ritual murders and Giobbi's and Napoleoni's negative impressions of Knox and Sollecito were additional motivations. Once Mignini and the police decided that insiders Knox and Sollecito were "good", "convenient," and "vulnerable" suspects, the task was to "find" evidence incriminating them to the extent that an arrest could be justified at an arrest hearing. This was accomplished during the 5 - 6 November 2007 coercive interrogations. The character assassination or fake "profiling" began after the arrest.

 

[Vixen]

This post highlights the numerous falsehoods Vixen has told in her post. If Amanda and Raffaele were so depraved and evil that they would commit a brutal murder, why is it necessary to resort to lying to support this argument? If the case against Amanda and Raffaele was such a slam dunk, why is it necessary to resort to arguments such Raffaele being influenced by a manga comic in an unopened wrapper? Why repeat the same lies over and over again? Why has vixen constantly refused to answer why is it necessary to resort to lying if the case against Amanda and Raffaele was so solid?

Unopened, claim you.

.

 

[Vixen]

The above has zero to do with Myriad's post which you completely mischaracterized.



Yet you bring it up anyway.

This knowledge comes from your years of living in Italy's old towns and overhearing Italians whispering about it?
All these mafia and masonic "whispers" aren't coming so much from Italy as from you and TJMK.

If Mignini claimed Knox drank Meredith's blood and sacrificed a goat to Satan, you'd back him up.

You mean the scene in one of the comics in the UNOPENED 1960's manga collector's set given to him as a gift by his friend, Gianluigi Ceraso?

I've seen worse on TV in the recent Interview with the Vampire series.




I see this claim a lot by the PGP. Like most of your claims, it's not based on anything but your own need to believe it.

Of course it was. The police who retrieved RS's manga collection were shocked by their content.

Your making light of the murder is absolutely par for the course.



.





.

 

[Stacyhs]

Profiling is sometimes correct and sometimes not. Anything subjective is never going to be accurate all the time.
AFAIK, the only professional profiler involved in the case is John Douglass who formed and lead the FBI profiling (Behavioral Science) unit. His opinion is that neither Knox nor Sollecito fit the profile of killers but Guede does.

 

[Vixen]

Profiling is mostly mythology to begin with. The expert "profiler," usually FBI, who shows up at the police station, looks through the reports, and intuits, based on the angle of the stab wounds and the phase of the moon and the use of the phrase "strange lotions" in the taunting note sent to the newspaper, that the serial killer must be 29 years old, single, used to play a trumpet in a high school orchestra, and collects vintage Happy Meal toys—and turns out to be exactly right in every detail—is as much a figment of TV show runners' imaginations as DNA test results that come back in ten minutes. Most real profiling is based on statistics, for instance most bank robbers or kidnappers are within a certain age range.

And more important, profiling only works to the limited extent it does, if you have the facts and the statistical relationships correct. Someone who interprets a single noise complaint as "antisocial" or a Halloween costume photo as indicating "transgressive personality" isn't profiling, they're making up excuses. That's the potential fraud, the pretense of profiling without actually doing anything resembling that. (Note that I conditioned all that on whether Mignini himself ever claimed to actually be profiling in the manner Vixen claims he did.) Like claiming a car can self-drive on public streets when it actually can't.

I'm not sure whether either of those example is actual fraud in any legal or dictionary sense. As I've been telling Vixen, most of the discussion in this thread (your own contributions excepted) is now about history. With the exception of a few remaining issues related to the ECHR that no one would care the slightest bit about if it weren't for the murder case, "current events" have gone by the board. Narratives of history don't run on nuanced details, but on broad sweeps. Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? Almost certainly not. Who cares? The same way Nencini didn't care about the actual evidence or truth about AK and RS, history won't care exactly why he's the villain.

I see. So Bryan Kohberger's history of interest in serial killers and studying criminology is completely irrelevant according to your theory.

I find it weird that anyone would believe a policeman or a prosecutor, or even a judge, according to some criminals, are responsible for the perp being found guilty after a lengthy and fair trial. Ten different judges reviewed the case before it reached Massei. The six lay jurors are chosen randomly for each case. Mignini was joined by Commodi, another prosecutor a few months in, yet somehow you have a weird belief he single handedly managed to prove the case to two merits courts, even though it was Crini who took over for the second one.


Amazing!



.

 

[Vixen]

The above has zero to do with Myriad's post which you completely mischaracterized.



Yet you bring it up anyway.

This knowledge comes from your years of living in Italy's old towns and overhearing Italians whispering about it?
All these mafia and masonic "whispers" aren't coming so much from Italy as from you and TJMK.

If Mignini claimed Knox drank Meredith's blood and sacrificed a goat to Satan, you'd back him up.

You mean the scene in one of the comics in the UNOPENED 1960's manga collector's set given to him as a gift by his friend, Gianluigi Ceraso?

I've seen worse on TV in the recent Interview with the Vampire series.




I see this claim a lot by the PGP. Like most of your claims, it's not based on anything but your own need to believe it.

Another one of your made up claims?


.

 

[Vixen]

Profiling is sometimes correct and sometimes not. Anything subjective is never going to be accurate all the time.
AFAIK, the only professional profiler involved in the case is John Douglass who formed and lead the FBI profiling (Behavioral Science) unit. His opinion is that neither Knox nor Sollecito fit the profile of killers but Guede does.

Luckily we have criminal courts of law who decide the issue and not bigots.



.

 

[Myriad]

I see. So Bryan Kohberger's history of interest in serial killers and studying criminology is completely irrelevant according to your theory.

I find it weird that anyone would believe a policeman or a prosecutor, or even a judge, according to some criminals, are responsible for the perp being found guilty after a lengthy and fair trial. Ten different judges reviewed the case before it reached Massei. The six lay jurors are chosen randomly for each case. Mignini was joined by Commodi, another prosecutor a few months in, yet somehow you have a weird belief he single handedly managed to prove the case to two merits courts, even though it was Crini who took over for the second one.

Amazing!

Yeah, it is amazing how half the Italian criminal justice system was willing to bend procedure, propriety, and logic into shapes that not even M.C. Escher could draw, just to help Giuliano "Filet" Mignini cover his filet. Fortunately they were checked by a higher court that actually cared about inconvenient details like cause and effect.

Poor deluded Filet. No witches to torture in his dungeons any more. Satan got away from him again. Vampires party in Perugia.

 

[Stacyhs]

Unopened, claim you.

.

No. Claimed Marco Chiacchiera in court:

LAWYER - There were four, two of which were open and two of which you opened?
WITNESS - I don't remember, maybe.
LAWYER - They were wrapped in cellophane and you opened them?
WITNESS - Maybe, it's absolutely possible. Maybe I opened them even though they were wrapped in cellophane.

 

[Stacyhs]

Of course it was. The police who retrieved RS's manga collection were shocked by their content.

Only by the sealed ones Chiacchiera opened and that RS had not read. But maybe Chiacchiera is also bent or paid off? Maybe the mafia. Masons, or Trump got to him! Immediately following the quote and cited testimony of Chiacchiera above was this:

PRESIDENT - the defense attorney's question was perhaps also aimed at this. You said earlier: "some comics caught my attention" for the characteristics that you highlighted earlier. You quantified these comics as three or four, I think I understood. Were these the only comics that caught your attention?

WITNESS - yes.

LAWYER - and were there others of another type?

PRESIDENT - that's it. I think that was the question he was aiming at.

WITNESS - It's written in the minutes.

So the only ones that "horrified" hims were the ones that HE OPENED and that RS had not read.

Your making light of the murder is absolutely par for the course.

And your making false claims and mischaracterizing what is said is absolutely par for the course.

 

[Stacyhs]

Another one of your made up claims?

Which one are you specifically claiming is "made up"?

 

[Stacyhs]

Luckily we have criminal courts of law who decide the issue and not bigots.

Yes, we do. Which has absolutely nothing to do with my comment.

"bigots"? Are you really claiming that Douglas stating they don't fit the profile of killers is because he's a bigot? Was Guede confirmed guilty because the courts were bigoted?
Is anyone who believes Guede alone killed Kercher a bigot?
Are you a bigot for believing Guede was involved in the murder?

You've made some really gobsmacking claims, but this one is right up there in the desperation department.

 

[Numbers]

1. I completely agree.


2. This raises an interesting question. Were these officials properly trained and then just ignored their training, was their training so utterly deficient that such a gross miscarriage of justice as occurred in this case was bound to happen eventually, or was it something in between these two extremes. I strongly suspect that it was in between, with the police likely tending toward poor training, and the judiciary [ETA: likely] tending toward failing to follow what they'd been trained the law was.


3. That's what I was getting at, although I probably should have tried to make my point clearer. You asked what the implications of police officers' being able to assert incompetence as a defense to their illegal activities; what I was attempting to illustrate is that, often, there would be few additional implications, as there is no criminal penalty for the illegal activity.


4. Your example actually isn't on point, and, in hindsight, mine may not be, either. You're talking about a situation where a person doesn't know he or she is trespassing, rather than a situation where he or she doesn't know trespassing is illegal.

I was thinking of a situation in which a local ordinance is passed setting an unreasonably low speed limit along a certain stretch of road, and said speed limit is then either not posted or very poorly posted (e.g., sign mostly concealed behind heavy underbrush). So, yes, technically, the speeder would be ignorant of the law (the speed limit in that area). However, anyone with a valid drivers license is presumed to know that the speed limit has to be obeyed. So, again in hindsight, I'd say this would be more a case of knowing the law but being unaware one was breaking it, rather than not knowing the law.

Cases where ignorance of the law is allowed as a defense for ordinary people, in certain circumstances, include:

• Advice of counsel (your attorney gave you the wrong information)
• Advice from the government (an agency gave you the wrong information)
• The government gave everyone the wrong information (e.g., official hunting regulations list an incorrect bag limit)

In other words, if you can show that you either made a good-faith attempt to learn and comply with the law, or you couldn't reasonably have been expected to have known the law, then you should be okay.

There was a case I remember quite a while ago (about 40 years, I think), where a man in Ohio was criminally charged in the death of his son in a car accident, because the boy wasn't in a car seat, which was required by a recently passed state law. The man's defense was that he didn't know about the law because he was illiterate and didn't own a TV. He was acquitted, but IDK whether that's because the jury actually bought his argument, or they just felt sorry for him.


5. IANAL, but I think even a zealous prosecutor would have had trouble making any criminal charges stick, even if one of the police officers or the interpreter had suddenly gotten a guilty conscience and corroborated Amanda's account of what happened.


6. I wouldn't say she was known to be innocent; I believe that ought to refer to factual innocence. If mere legal innocence opened one up to a potential charge of calunnia, very few people would make accusations, even upon very strong evidence, for fear of being charged if the accused were to be acquitted. I will certainly say that they had no reasonable basis upon which to accuse her.

I am, however, actually willing to give the police and Mignini the benefit of the doubt and say that they are probably not to be to be blamed for the fact that Amanda's failure to show grief in the way that they, as Italians, expected that she ought to have, aroused their suspicions.

Of course, that in no way excuses Mignini's idiotic theories ("Only a woman would cover the body"), the incompetent investigation, and the abusive and criminal interrogations of Amanda and Raffaele.

1. We need to be careful and define the meaning of "malicious" in this context. One US legal definition is:

A malicious act is an intentional, wrongful act performed against another without legal justification or excuse.

Source: https://definitions.uslegal.com/m/malicious/
If police and/or a prosecutor engage in coercing or psychologically manipulating an incriminating statement from a person who must, under law, be presumed innocent, I believe that qualifies as a malicous act. Italian procedural law (CPP Article 188) states specifically that "methods that may influence the freedom of self-determination or alter the capacity to recall and evaluate facts shall not be used" to gather evidence. Obviously the coercion and psychological manipulation as conducted in Knox's 5 - 6 November 2007 interrogation falls under this prohibition. Another Italian procedural law, CPP Article 191, states that "evidence gathered in violation of the prohibitions set by law shall not be used". So I firmly believe that the actions of the police and prosecutor during Knox's interrogation were malicious. There is no valid argument against that belief. That is why I firmly believe that the police and prosecutor were "framing" Knox and Sollecito.

2. I disagree with your statements regarding the level of training of the police and prosecutor. Under Italian law, the questions and answers exchanged in any questioning by police or prosecutor of a witness, a suspect, or an accused are to be documented in writing (CPP Articles 357 and 373); electronic recording is allowed but does not eliminate the requirement of written documentation. The same police officers who carefully documented in writing all the witness statements before the 5 - 6 November interrogation failed to do so for the 5 - 6 November interrogation.

3. I was not clear enough in my statements. For some procedural violations, there is no criminal penalty; instead, there is a remedy such as the exclusion of unlawfully obtained evidence from the trial. However, the method used by the police or prosecutor in carrying out the procedural law violation sometimes involves an alleged criminal activity - an alleged violation of criminal law. This must be the case for some of the actions of police and prosecutor during Knox's 5 - 6 November interrogation, if one accepts her version of the events as true. Otherwise, Mignini and another Italian prosecutor (from Florence) would not have been able to charge Knox with calunnia against the police and Mignini based on her testimony in the Massei trial.

Furthermore, the superior officers of the police or the High Council of the Judiciary could hold individual police or prosecutors (respectively) responsible for misconduct; the consequence might be only a delay in promotion or a censure. The High Council of the Judiciary censured Mignini for a violation of procedural law: the denial of a lawyer for Sollecito during and following the 5 - 6 November interrogation.
4. I think we are dealing in this part with distinctions with little or no difference.

5. If one or more of the police had stated that one of the officers had hit Knox, then there would certainly be a criminal case brought against that named officer, if Italian procedural law were followed. It is important to recognize that the ECHR found in its final judgment Knox v. Italy a violation of Convention Article 3 (procedural limb) against Italy for not conducting an impartial, independent, and effective investigation of her allegations of mistreatment by the police during the 5 - 6 November interrogation.

6. There's a misunderstanding. Knox and Sollecito were, as are all witnesses, suspects, and accused, to be presumed to be innocent in accordance with the Italian Constitution and Italian procedural law. That means they were entitled to certain defense rights; those rights were violated during the 5 - 6 November interrogations. Fabrication of evidence against them is covered by the crime of calunnia.

I believe you are correct that if a person A accuses another person B of a crime, even by implication, before the police, a prosecutor, or a judge - even during a trial, and person B is finally acquitted or the case against person B is otherwise dismissed, then person A possibly could be charged with calunnia (CP Article 368). There would also be a possible civil action for calunnia by B against A seeking a monetary award.

Of further interest, there is also an Italian crime of autocalunnia (CP Article 369). If A makes a false confession but is acquitted or otherwise dismissed, then a prosecutor can charge A with autocalunnia.

The elements of the crime of calunnia are: 1. A knows that B is innocent (the calunnia law wording does not distinguish legal innocence from factual innocence), 2. A accuses B of a crime before the police, a prosecutor, or a judge, or 3. A creates false evidence ("simulates the traces") of a crime implicating B.

Here's a Google translation of the text of CP Article 368, Calunnia:

Art. 368.
Calumny. [Malicious false accusation of a crime to the authorities]

Anyone who, by means of a report, complaint, request or petition, even if anonymous or under a false name, addressed to the judicial authority or to another authority that has the obligation to report it to that authority or to the International Criminal Court, accuses someone of a crime whom he knows to be innocent, or simulates the traces of a crime against him, is punished with imprisonment from two to six years (1).
The penalty is increased if someone is accused of a crime for which the law establishes a maximum penalty of imprisonment of more than ten years, or another more serious penalty.
The imprisonment is from four to twelve years, if the act results in a sentence of imprisonment of more than five years; it is from six to twenty years, if the act results in a sentence of life imprisonment; and the penalty of life imprisonment is applied, if the act results in a sentence of death (2).

Notes: (1) The International Criminal Court was added to the text in 2012. (2) Italy abolished the death penalty in 1944 [the Fascist regime collapsed 25 July 1943, following the Allied invasion; the Fascist era CP was changed to eliminate the death penalty by the new government of the Kingdom of Italy; Italy became a republic in 1946; the Republican Constitution was adopted in 1948].

Sources:

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Italy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Welshman]

Unopened, claim you.

.

Other posters have shown the wrappers were unopened. Can Vixen explain why is it necessary to resort to lying if the case against Amanda and Raffaele was such a slam dunk.

 

[Vixen]

Yeah, it is amazing how half the Italian criminal justice system was willing to bend procedure, propriety, and logic into shapes that not even M.C. Escher could draw, just to help Giuliano "Filet" Mignini cover his filet. Fortunately they were checked by a higher court that actually cared about inconvenient details like cause and effect.

Poor deluded Filet. No witches to torture in his dungeons any more. Satan got away from him again. Vampires party in Perugia.

This brings to mind the jury of the OJ Simpson case. It so firmly 'believed' in its prejudiced minds that OJ was the victim of a witch hunt, it refused to look at the objective evidence, circumstantial, direct & indirect, forensic, witness testimony, as it had been instructed and as was its duty. I was watching the Netflix doc about this and a person who had been on the jury explained this mindset. It entrenched itself into an irrational and unreasonable view of a witch hunt somewhere out there; in other words, it was prejudiced and bigoted. OJ Simpson's supporters threatened to riot if he was found guilty. OK, fair enough, members of public can hold whatever belief they want. Unlike members of a jury it has no civil or statutory duty to look at the facts presented during the hearing and only those facts, putting aside ideologies and politics. It could be argued it was swayed - understandably - by history and the still-living memory of the Rodney King police beating and subsequent LA rioting and looting, but that doesn't absolve it of the duty to be impartial, reasonable and fair. It was not fair to OJ's victims, Nicole and Ron, who died a horrible savage and cruel death.

Likewise, in the AK/RS case the jury found the pair guilty based on the evidence presented and nothing more. The idea it was a witch hunt - as AK supporters claim - is nothing more than rationalising an unreasonable belief the pair were witch hunted by the evil Dr. Mignini, waiting in the shadows like a predator sniffing out likely prey. "Witch hunt" is the only explanation they can come up with as evidence is not on their side.

Whilst OJ's supporters rejoiced when Schenk got him off on a technicality, it doesn't change the truth of the matter. He did it. In the AK/RS case, getting off the prison sentence hasn't changed the facts and truth of the matter. In fact, the Motivational Report states clearly their presence at the cottage during the murder. Even if, as Bill Williams likes to claim, they were there but not involved, what kind of a person fails to fetch help for her 'friend' who, by her own words, "Of course she ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ suffered, she had her throat slit!" and then tries to get an innocent man to take the blame? What kind of a person is it you are championing?




.

.
.

 

[Vixen]

No. Claimed Marco Chiacchiera in court:

LAWYER - There were four, two of which were open and two of which you opened?
WITNESS - I don't remember, maybe.
LAWYER - They were wrapped in cellophane and you opened them?
WITNESS - Maybe, it's absolutely possible. Maybe I opened them even though they were wrapped in cellophane.

You fail to mention that earlier he testified that he found the pile of comics in RS' bedroom which he found strange as they were all horror and porn. If they were shrink-wrapped - ha ha, so suggests Bongiorno! - how would he have ascertained its horror/pornographic nature?

In any case, having a liking for such material is hardly evidence of anything, but provides an insight into RS' character and possible motivation into his stated desire for 'extreme experiences'.



.

 

[Vixen]

Only by the sealed ones Chiacchiera opened and that RS had not read. But maybe Chiacchiera is also bent or paid off? Maybe the mafia. Masons, or Trump got to him! Immediately following the quote and cited testimony of Chiacchiera above was this:

So the only ones that "horrified" hims were the ones that HE OPENED and that RS had not read.

And your making false claims and mischaracterizing what is said is absolutely par for the course.

You are the one who has brought in the false premise that they had to be proven to have been read and opened. Fact is, the murder matched a graphic scene from one of these porno-horror mags. The fact is not substantiative of proof but shows an insight into the character who was found guilty at trial.





.





.

 

[Vixen]

Which one are you specifically claiming is "made up"?

The hair found gripped in Mez' hand and across her bag being that of one of Guedé's friends. The ladies shoe size 37 being Guedé's. There was no blood in the hall way. The luminol did not highlight blood. When AK rang Mez, she was thwarted by an instant ansaphone message. All the rejected defence claims breathed back into life as though its a re-trial.



.


.

 

[Vixen]

Other posters have shown the wrappers were unopened. Can Vixen explain why is it necessary to resort to lying if the case against Amanda and Raffaele was such a slam dunk.

That is untrue. Read the testimony properly.




.

 

[Vixen]

Yes, we do. Which has absolutely nothing to do with my comment.

"bigots"? Are you really claiming that Douglas stating they don't fit the profile of killers is because he's a bigot? Was Guede confirmed guilty because the courts were bigoted?
Is anyone who believes Guede alone killed Kercher a bigot?
Are you a bigot for believing Guede was involved in the murder?

You've made some really gobsmacking claims, but this one is right up there in the desperation department.

RG, AK and RS were rightly tried by a properly convened criminal court of law. There was nothing unfair or improper about any of those trials. Of course, the prosecution is not going to get every detail right, given only the defendants were present at the crime scene. However, it presented evidence that was tested and proven and subjected to cross-examination that the properly convened jury and panel of judges that found a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt of 'Guilty', as charged The cases went to Appeal and then the Supreme Court. In the case of AK and RS, it went to Hellmann Appeal Court, the prosecution appealed it via Chieffi Supreme Court, who upheld the Appeal and directed the issue of DNA return back down, to be tried again, via Nencini's second-tier Appeal Court, on just those issues; of the rejected Conti & Vecchiotti submissions. Nenccini upheld the guilty verdict. The case went to Supreme Court Marasca-Bruno, who mysteriously delayed the MR for three months and reintroduced Conti & Vecchiotti. It annulled the sentences citing a loophole that was NEVER used except for Berlusconi and Andreotti (who was represented by fixer Bongiorno).


Whilst Knox fans are joyous she was released and is now writing books claiming to be a victim of Mignini's, the facts found at trial haven't changed because M-B had no legal mechanism to do so without yet another 'Guilty' verdict being proven.


Bigoted is thinking you can try a case just by looking at someone and having a 'gut feeling' or of being in some kind of granfalloon* with the defendant, as also being from Seattle, the US, being a fan of OJ's football team, a hater of police, etcetera, etcetera,


*A Kurt Vonnegut logical fallacy.

.

 

[Numbers]

Calunnia (CP Article 368) revisited.

The Italian criminal law CPP Article 368, calunnia contains the following text: simula a carico di lui le tracce di un reato.
How should this text be understood in English?

The Reverso translation gives: simulates the traces of a crime against him. Note that the "him" is person B, who person A is falsely accusing of a crime, knowing that B is or should be considered innocent under law.

What does "traces of a crime" mean in English? The key word that may need definition is "traces", which has several meanings in English. The most relevant definitions of "trace" are:

a sign or evidence of some past thing

Evidence or an indication of the former presence or existence of something; a vestige.

In other words, the crime of calunnia includes (but is not limited to*) any act where A fabricates some false evidence "suggesting" or "proving" that B committed a crime, and alerts the authorities to that "evidence" although A knows (or should know?) that B is innocent (whether factually or legally is not specified in the wording). Since the wording describes A as "anyone", person A could be a police officer or prosecutor who notifies another police officer or prosecutor, or a judge of his or her allegation that was fabricated with false evidence. If the preceding sentences were not true, how was Knox lawfully accused of calunnia against the police and prosecutor Mignini for her statements in court? Her statements indicated that the police and/or prosecutor had fabricated evidence against her - coercing her to make false statements - through their alleged misconduct and violations of procedural laws.

* Calunnia also includes the case where A makes only a false accusation against B to an authority, knowing that B is innocent (whether factually or legally innocent is not indicated in the text of the law).

Sources:

Page Expired

Definition of TRACE

a minute and often barely detectable amount or indication; an amount of a chemical constituent not always quantitatively determinable because of minuteness; a mark or line left by something that has passed; also : footprint… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

trace — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

 

[SpitfireIX]

I see. So Bryan Kohberger's history of interest in serial killers and studying criminology is completely irrelevant according to your theory.

More of your usual reading comprehension and logic. First, profiling, to the extent that it actually works, is used to attempt to catch criminals who are currently at large. So how could anyone possibly have known, based on the information that's currently publicly available, that either of these applied to the perpetrator? (I will grant that some of the evidence is currently sealed, but it's exceedingly unlikely that, for example, the perpetrator left a note at the crime scene detailing his extensive study of serial killers.)

Second, the relevance of Kohberger's interests and studies is far less than you're insinuating; most of those who pursue criminology degrees intend to go into law enforcement or related fields, such as corrections. As for his interest in serial killers, as you may be aware, books and movies about them tend to be extremely popular, so the correlation between interest and acting out is likely to be extremely low. Of course, that doesn't mean there's zero correlation, obviously. Say, Vixen, come to think of it, you seem to have quite an interest in, and some might even say an obsession with, two people who you're unshakably convinced are murders. Maybe the police ought to be keeping an eye on you.

I find it weird that anyone would believe a policeman or a prosecutor, or even a judge, according to some criminals, are responsible for the perp being found guilty after a lengthy and fair trial.

The ECHR ruled that the trial was not fair, as has been explained to you ad nauseam. And please don't start with the "they weren't suspects under Italian law," and "she wasn't coerced" BS again. First, as noted, Amanda was required to have a lawyer even as a "witness" when she started accusing Patrick. Second, they obviously were de facto suspects; for reasons that, again, have been discussed ad nauseam. Finally, and crucially, as Numbers has so ably demonstrated, the Convention language and ECHR caselaw on this point are deliberately intended to close such loopholes in signatories' laws governing police interrogations.

Ten different judges reviewed the case before it reached Massei.

And several of the rulings against Amanda and Raffaele were transparently defective, in particular in their use of her coerced statement that was ruled inadmissible by both the Court of Cassation (except for the calunnia charge) and the ECHR (for all charges).

The six lay jurors are chosen randomly for each case.

And they weren't sequestered, so they were exposed to all the highly prejudicial lies and sensational stories in the media, some of which were deliberately leaked by the police.

Mignini was joined by Commodi, another prosecutor a few months in, yet somehow you have a weird belief he single handedly managed to prove the case to two merits courts, even though it was Crini who took over for the second one.


Amazing!.

And we're back to the straw man argument that Mignini was solely responsible for the miscarriage of justice. I suppose that's at least an improvement over your other favored straw man on this point, which is that we're alleging it was a vast conspiracy by the Perugia police and the Italian judicial system to frame two people who were known to be innocent.

 

[Vixen]

More of your usual reading comprehension and logic. First, profiling, to the extent that it actually works, is used to attempt to catch criminals who are currently at large. So how could anyone possibly have known, based on the information that's currently publicly available, that either of these applied to the perpetrator? (I will grant that some of the evidence is currently sealed, but it's exceedingly unlikely that, for example, the perpetrator left a note at the crime scene detailing his extensive study of serial killers.)

Second, the relevance of Kohberger's interests and studies is far less than you're insinuating; most of those who pursue criminology degrees intend to go into law enforcement or related fields, such as corrections. As for his interest in serial killers, as you may be aware, books and movies about them tend to be extremely popular, so the correlation between interest and acting out is likely to be extremely low. Of course, that doesn't mean there's zero correlation, obviously. Say, Vixen, come to think of it, you seem to have quite an interest in, and some might even say an obsession with, two people who you're unshakably convinced are murders. Maybe the police ought to be keeping an eye on you.


The ECHR ruled that the trial was not fair, as has been explained to you ad nauseam. And please don't start with the "they weren't suspects under Italian law," and "she wasn't coerced" BS again. First, as noted, Amanda was required to have a lawyer even as a "witness" when she started accusing Patrick. Second, they obviously were de facto suspects; for reasons that, again, have been discussed ad nauseam. Finally, and crucially, as Numbers has so ably demonstrated, the Convention language and ECHR caselaw on this point are deliberately intended to close such loopholes in signatories' laws governing police interrogations.


And several of the rulings against Amanda and Raffaele were transparently defective, in particular in their use of her coerced statement that was ruled inadmissible by both the Court of Cassation (except for the calunnia charge) and the ECHR (for all charges).


And they weren't sequestered, so they were exposed to all the highly prejudicial lies and sensational stories in the media, some of which were deliberately leaked by the police.


And we're back to the straw man argument that Mignini was solely responsible for the miscarriage of justice. I suppose that's at least an improvement over your other favored straw man on this point, which is that we're alleging it was a vast conspiracy by the Perugia police and the Italian judicial system to frame two people who were known to be innocent.

You seem unable to comprehend that on discovery of the murder there were literally hundreds of potential suspects, each of whom needed to be interviewed. Of course AK and RS needed to be interviewed as they were at the scene of the crime when police arrived. You seem to think the police had some kind of crystal ball that told them to hone in on AK in particular because the cops couldn't be bothered to find 'the real killer', for whom all they know, might still be skulking around out there ready to kill again. The idea that AK and RS should have been exempt from suspicion is astonishing. Can you justify why you believe this should have been the case? Telling cops you don't want a lawyer doesn't exempt you from being interviewed as a witness. It is your right to waive having a lawyer. Once AK incriminated PL the interview was halted, as per protocol.


Only the gullible believe the fairy tale of the wicked Prosecutor and the 'vulnerable little kid who spoke no Italian'.



.

 

[Numbers]

Calunnia (CP Article 368) revisited.
....

There's more to be learned from Knox having been charged with calunnia against the police and Mignini.

We should recall (it's been posted here previously) that Knox was charged with continuing aggravated calunnia against the police and Mignini, not "merely" calunnia.

What does the phrase continuing aggravated calunnia mean generally and in this case?

1. Knox had complained - contrary to the repetitive falsehoods of guilters - to the authorities, officially complaining of mistreatment and procedural violations by the police, interpreter, and prosecutor during her 5 - 6 interrogation. She had done this most prominently, in a way that led Mignini to take legal criminal action - possibly because the complaint was made in public and the complaint would be in the public court transcript - during her testimony before the Massei court. Mignini's first legal criminal action was to file a charge against Knox of aggravated calunnia against the police.

The term "aggravated" here refers to one of several "aggravating factors" that can be applied to some crimes under Italian criminal law. In this case, the aggravating factor was the allegation by the prosecutor that the intent of Knox's (alleged) calunnia against the police was to cover up her own alleged crime of aggravated calunnia against Lumumba. For the latter allegation, the prosecutor had alleged that not had Knox knowingly falsely accused Lumumba during the interrogation, but that she had done that to cover up her (alleged) knowledge that Guede had committed the crime of the murder/rape of Kercher, which the prosecutor further alleged that she and Sollecito had participated in.

2. Because there was a realization on the part of the Italian judiciary (as called to their attention by the defense) that Mignini's charging of Knox with calunnia against the police involved a conflict of interest - Mignini was proposing to conduct a case against Knox involving claims against police that he had supervised in his role as prosecutor of the Kercher murder/rape case - the case was transferred from the Perugia judicial district to the Florence judicial district. With that transfer, a Florence judicial district prosecutor took over the case, and the case was expanded to be aggravated calunnia and the police and Mignini.

3. Knox and Sollecito were provisionally convicted on the murder/rape charges and Knox was provisionally convicted of the aggravated calunnia against Lumumba charge by the Massei court. Knox and Sollecito appealed on the murder/rape charges, and Knox appealed on the aggravated calunnia against Lumumba charge. In Knox's appeals, she repeated her allegations against the conduct of the police, interpeter, and Mignini during the 5 - 6 November interrogations.

4. Because Knox (with the help of her lawyers) had repeated her allegations against the police, the interpeter, and Mignini in her appeal documents, the Florence prosecutor incremented the charge against Knox to continuing aggravated calunnia against the police and Mignini. Each subsequent appeal by Knox which included her allegation of mistreatment or misconduct by the police, interpreter, and Mignini led to another incremental incident charge of the "continuing" aggravating factor, until she was finally acquitted of the calunnia against the police and Mignini charges by the Boninsegna court.

5. The Boninsegna court acquitted Knox of continuing aggravated calunnia against the police and Mignini. The acquittal, under CPP Article 530 paragraph 2, was because there was no information in the record, nor in any independent credible testimony before the court, that could refute Knox's claims of mistreatment and misconduct by the police. The circumstances of the interrogation, the court found, could have led Knox to sincerely believe that her rights were being violated; thus, she could not be said to have "known" that the police were innocent of mistreatment or misconduct. For Mignini, the court stated that any responsibility could not be assigned to him merely because he was the supervisor of the police. Thus, the elements of the crime of calunnia were not present in the case. Neither Knox nor the Florence prosecutor (nor the civil parties, including the Perugia police and Mignini) appealed the Boninsegna court acquittal, and thus it became a final acquittal.

 

[Stacyhs]

Stacyhs said:
No. Claimed Marco Chiacchiera in court:

LAWYER - There were four, two of which were open and two of which you opened?
WITNESS - I don't remember, maybe.
LAWYER - They were wrapped in cellophane and you opened them?
WITNESS - Maybe, it's absolutely possible. Maybe I opened them even though they were wrapped in cellophane.

You fail to mention that earlier he testified that he found the pile of comics in RS' bedroom which he found strange as they were all horror and porn.

Do you notice how I quoted and cited my evidence whereas you repeatedly make claims that someone said or did something but fail to quote or cite it? Then when asked to do so, you ignore it. Could it possibly be because you can't? As for the claim above, once again it's false. Chiacchiera never claimed to have found "a pile of comics" that were "all horror and porn." This is what he said:

LAWYER - So the comic Trigum (phonetic) is a pornographic comic?
WITNESS - I don't know.
LAWYER - MP Psycho (phonetic), is it pornographic?
WITNESS - No, I'll... I'll tell you right away. So, certain comics have been... or in any case a lot of documentary material, many books or comics have then been somehow taken in abundance, there's no problem, I can say that calmly. Some comics, now I honestly have trouble identifying them, are comics within which they struck me for a simple reason... should I stop?
LAWYER - No. I understand. I wanted to ask you, how many were therein total compared to these pornographic ones, that's all.
WITNESS - How many were there in total compared to the pornographic ones?The pornographic ones were four, five, if I remember correctly.
LAWYER - There were four, of which two were opened and did you open two?
WITNESS - I don't remember, maybe.
LAWYER - were they wrapped in cellophane and did you open them?
WITNESS - but it could be, but it absolutely could be. It could be that I opened them even if they were wrapped in cellophane.

So, no. There were several comics and books that were NOT pornographic and only FOUR that were. Two of which Chiacchiera testified he could have opened . Sollecito says there were a collectors set from the 1960's given to him by his friend whom he names and that they were, indeed, sealed until Chiacchiera opened them. Collector comics are not opened from their sealed covers because it devalues them.

Additionally, this claim that the manga "murder" victim was in the same position as Meredith is often repeated by the PGP yet I've never once seen any evidence of this nor which comic specifically it was in. Unless you can quote and cite evidence of it, then I'll toss it into the garbage can along with the many other unsupported claims.

If they were shrink-wrapped - ha ha, so suggests Bongiorno! - how would he have ascertained its horror/pornographic nature?

Duh...because Chiacchiera opened them.

"- but it could be, but it absolutely could be. It could be that I opened them even if they were wrapped in cellophane."

In any case, having a liking for such material is hardly evidence of anything,

Exactly. Millions of these manga comics are sold around the world. Comics and many video games intended for adults/teenagers are often violent and have sexual content. That doesn't mean their readers are inclined to violent acts themselves and especially not murder.

but provides an insight into RS' character and possible motivation into his stated desire for 'extreme experiences'.

I think a better insight into RS's character is his history of non-violence (despite the discredited "scissors" lie you repeated), committing no crimes other than smoking weed and very brief narcotics experimentation when he was 17-18 years old, and friends who knew him. Nor has he committed any crimes since his release 14 years ago...unlike Rudy Guede.

That you keep trying to equate "extreme experiences" with murder is all you. 'Thrill seeking' is a common male trait. That's why teenagers and young men are known for doing dangerous and (often) stupid things.

 

[Stacyhs]

You are the one who has brought in the false premise that they had to be proven to have been read and opened.

False. Myriad and SpitfireIX both brought up the fact the comics were sealed before I did.

Myriad: "Can you explain how RS and AK knew the position of the body depicted in the manga that was shrink-wrapped and unopened? Are they clairvoyant?"

SpitfireIX: "I second Myriad's request that you explain how Raffaele and Amanda knew the vampire's position when the comic was unopened in the shrink wrap."

Me: "You mean the scene in one of the comics in the UNOPENED 1960's manga collector's set given to him as a gift by his friend, Gianluigi Ceraso?

Fact is, the murder matched a graphic scene from one of these porno-horror mags.

Citation needed. This is a claim I never never seen evidence for.

The fact is not substantiative of proof but shows an insight into the character who was found guilty at trial.

Nope. It's evidence of the need to spin and twist every single thing into 'evidence' of guilt. Just as your last sentence ignores the fact that he was definitively acquitted by the SC.

 

[Myriad]

Likewise, in the AK/RS case the jury found the pair guilty based on the evidence presented and nothing more.

They provisionally convicted based on false evidence, false "judicial facts," and false sensationalist slander leaked to the media. Until a sane judge threw out the garbage evidence and shut the witch hunt down.

The idea it was a witch hunt - as AK supporters claim - is nothing more than rationalising an unreasonable belief the pair were witch hunted by the evil Dr. Mignini, waiting in the shadows like a predator sniffing out likely prey. "Witch hunt" is the only explanation they can come up with as evidence is not on their side.

Filet literally believed AK and RS were witches and he and his underlings acted on those beliefs. Calling it a witch hunt is well-justified.

 

[Myriad]

Fact is, the murder matched a graphic scene from one of these porno-horror mags. The fact is not substantiative of proof but shows an insight into the character who was found guilty at trial.

By the way, speaking of witch hunts, why disguise your meaning with phrases like "porno-horror mags"? If you're going to indulge in pearl-clutching nerd libel over anime, why not just call it what you really think it is: "Satanic Bible" or maybe "Book of Shadows?" That's what a proper witch would possess, after all.

 

[AmyStrange]

You seem unable to comprehend that on discovery of the murder there were literally hundreds of potential suspects, each of whom needed to be interviewed. Of course AK and RS needed to be interviewed as they were at the scene of the crime when police arrived. You seem to think the police had some kind of crystal ball that told them to hone in on AK in particular because the cops couldn't be bothered to find 'the real killer', for whom all they know, might still be skulking around out there ready to kill again. The idea that AK and RS should have been exempt from suspicion is astonishing. Can you justify why you believe this should have been the case? Telling cops you don't want a lawyer doesn't exempt you from being interviewed as a witness. It is your right to waive having a lawyer. Once AK incriminated PL the interview was halted, as per protocol.


Only the gullible believe the fairy tale of the wicked Prosecutor and the 'vulnerable little kid who spoke no Italian'.

Come on, Vixen, why do you always have to borderline insult us?

I apologized to you when I did it, and I know this isn't just a one-sided thing either. Both sides are guilty, but it doesn't help anything, no matter who does it.

I mean, despite our differences here, there are probably a bunch of things we actually agree on. We all have hopes, dreams, family, friends, children and pets that we love. I know I'm just as guilty, but it still saddens me.

Sorry everyone for the long rant.


-

 

[Stacyhs]

I mentioned NONE of these in the post you replied to claiming "Another one of your made up claims?". But let's look at them anyway.

Stacyhs said:
Which one are you specifically claiming is "made up"?

The hair found gripped in Mez' hand and across her bag being that of one of Guedé's friends.

This is another classic mischaracterization from you. After you (yet again) implied the "long blonde hairs" belonged to Amanda:

Vixen said:
There were two long blond hairs. One clasped in rigor mortis by the victim's hand. Another long strand across Mez' bag.

I replied as a possible source for the blonde hair:

"Guede was seen dancing with a girl with "long, straight blonde hair" on Halloween night at Domus by his upstairs neighbors. (Follain, Kindle location 2894)"

Naturally, you also ignored this because it undermines your innuendo:

So tell me, were those blond hairs natural or died? As I've pointed out to you numerous times and which you ignore: Amanda dyed her hair blonde at the time and dyed hair is easily seen under a microscope.

The ladies shoe size 37 being Guedé's.

The print which even Massei agreed could belong to Guede:

The Court, on this point, takes notice of the opposing conclusions without expressing a specific opinion. It cannot in fact be excluded that Guede alone tread on the cushion lying on the floor, to the exclusion of Knox (the smaller dimensions of the right foot can be explained by the characteristics of the underlying surface, the pillow, having a non-rigid structure and where the material of the pillow-slip may have been not perfectly straightened out, but, on the contrary, soft and as such determining the curvature)

There was no blood in the hall way.

I never said there was "no blood in the hallway" as Guede's shoeprints were in blood. What I said is that NONE of the "luminol revealed footprints", including those in the hallways, were in blood.

The luminol did not highlight blood.

Oh, good lord. Do I REALLY have to explain TMB negative to you AGAIN? And please, don't give me the crap about luminol being so much more sensitive than TMB so just ignore the negative TMB results because that's what forensic experts, including Stefanoni, do!

When AK rang Mez, she was thwarted by an instant ansaphone message.

WOT? How was she 'thwarted' by the answering machine message?

All the rejected defence claims breathed back into life as though its a re-trial.

If all the "defense" claims had been rejected by the courts then the pair would never have been acquitted. Oh, wait; the mafia, Trump, the Masons, and the US government, and a "loophole" were behind that!

 

[SpitfireIX]

You seem unable to comprehend that on discovery of the murder there were literally hundreds of potential suspects, each of whom needed to be interviewed. Of course AK and RS needed to be interviewed as they were at the scene of the crime when police arrived. You seem to think the police had some kind of crystal ball that told them to hone in on AK in particular because the cops couldn't be bothered to find 'the real killer', for whom all they know, might still be skulking around out there ready to kill again. The idea that AK and RS should have been exempt from suspicion is astonishing.

Are you being deliberately obtuse again? Neither I, nor anyone else, has said that that Amanda and Raffaele shouldn't have been questioned or otherwise investigated. Feel free to prove me wrong and quote someone saying that. But you won't, because you can't. The point, which you're continually dodging, is that their questioning on the night of November 5-6, without legal counsel, was both unfair and illegal.

Can you justify why you believe this should have been the case?

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Telling cops you don't want a lawyer doesn't exempt you from being interviewed as a witness.

First, neither of them ever said they didn't want a lawyer. We know Raffaele requested, and was denied, a lawyer, because, as has been mentioned recently, and undoubtedly in the past, Mignini was reprimanded over his failure to provide one. And Amanda said that she was told by Mignini, "If you get a lawyer, it will look like you don't want to cooperate with us," or words to that effect. And, Vixen, you do not get to claim that she's lying, first, for the reason that, as has been mentioned, the police failed either to record or to otherwise make a record of the interview, and, second, because we know he denied Raffaele a lawyer.

It is your right to waive having a lawyer.

Which Raffaele did not, and Amanda did not willingly and knowingly.

Once AK incriminated PL the interview was halted, as per protocol.

She should have had a lawyer way before then. Further, she should have had one when she signed the statement, which is why the Court of Cassation threw it out for the murder and rape charges (although, because of Italy's unfair dual civil and criminal trial system, it was allowed in anyway for the calunnia charge), and why the ECHR threw it out for the calunnia charge.

Only the gullible believe the fairy tale of the wicked Prosecutor and the 'vulnerable little kid who spoke no Italian'.

All that straw must really itch, Vixen.

 

[Stacyhs]

RG, AK and RS were rightly tried by a properly convened criminal court of law.

The court was a properly convened criminal court of law. I don't deny that. As for being "rightly tried", that's a point of debate.

There was nothing unfair or improper about any of those trials.

I agree. The trials themselves were proper. It's what happened BEFORE the trials, mainly the investigation and the interrogation of Nov. 5/6, that were NOT proper.

Of course, the prosecution is not going to get every detail right, given only the defendants were present at the crime scene. However, it presented evidence that was tested and proven and subjected to cross-examination that the properly convened jury and panel of judges that found a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt of 'Guilty', as charged The cases went to Appeal and then the Supreme Court. In the case of AK and RS, it went to Hellmann Appeal Court, the prosecution appealed it via Chieffi Supreme Court, who upheld the Appeal and directed the issue of DNA return back down, to be tried again, via Nencini's second-tier Appeal Court, on just those issues; of the rejected Conti & Vecchiotti submissions. Nenccini upheld the guilty verdict. The case went to Supreme Court Marasca-Bruno, who mysteriously delayed the MR for three months and reintroduced Conti & Vecchiotti.

We know the series of events. By the way, Marasca didn't "reintroduce C&V"; they reviewed Nencini's finding on the report and rejected it.

It annulled the sentences citing a loophole that was NEVER used except for Berlusconi and Andreotti (who was represented by fixer Bongiorno).

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you keep claiming. What "loophole" SPECIFICALLY are you claiming was used. Unless you can quote ad cite it, it's just another guilter claim. Finding someone not guilty under Art. 530 para. 2 is NOT a damn LOOPHOLE.

Whilst Knox fans are joyous she was released and is now writing books claiming to be a victim of Mignini's, the facts found at trial haven't changed because M-B had no legal mechanism to do so without yet another 'Guilty' verdict being proven.

Sigh.
CPP Art. 620 gives them the "legal mechanism":

Art. 620. Annulment without delay. 1. In addition to the cases specifically provided for by law, the court shall give a judgment of annulment without reference: ; l) in any other case where the court considers that the reference is superfluous or may itself determine the penalty or prescribe the necessary measures.

Marasca annulled without revision:

Following the considerations above, it is obvious that a remand [rinvio] would be useless, hence
the declaration of annulment without remand, based on art. 620 L) of the procedure code,

Bigoted is thinking you can try a case just by looking at someone and having a 'gut feeling' or of being in some kind of granfalloon* with the defendant, as also being from Seattle, the US, being a fan of OJ's football team, a hater of police, etcetera, etcetera,


*A Kurt Vonnegut logical fallacy.

But no one here has ever claimed any of those for believing Knox and Sollecito are innocent. Which is why, unlike you, we quote and cite the evidence. You might try it once in a while instead of just flinging out unsupported claims.

 

[junkshop]

...granfalloon*...

*A Kurt Vonnegut logical fallacy.

.

Not a logical fallacy, but rather tenet of Bokononism, a made up religion (within and without the novel).

 

[SpitfireIX]

Telling cops you don't want a lawyer doesn't exempt you from being interviewed as a witness.

Sorry, I just noticed that I neglected to make my second point.

Second, the issue here is that Amanda and Raffaele clearly weren't considered witnesses, as the Italian authorities, along with you and other guilters, falsely attempt to portray them. You have admitted that the police immediately believed (wrongly) that the burglary was staged, and that Mignini, with his imagined Holmesian powers of deduction, believed that only a woman would cover the body. So Amanda was an obvious suspect, as if the fact that her phone was tapped were not evidence enough of that. And Raffaele, at a minimum, would have been suspected of having been an accessory after the fact, for providing Amanda with a false alibi, which the police were attempting to break. That's again even apart from the fact that his phone was also tapped.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Filet literally believed AK and RS were witches and he and his underlings acted on those beliefs. Calling it a witch hunt is well-justified.

Does Mignini actually believe in witchcraft, or does he just believe that people who believe in (or pretend to believe in) witchcraft and Satanism periodically commit brutal, ritualistic murders? If the latter, that does happen occasionally, but far less frequently than someone who mainly gets information from tabloids, movies, and social media might imagine.