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Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

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treehorn said:
Knox got away with murder (no pun intended) when she took the stand.

Anyone trained in the common law would have found it excruciating to watch the way that Knox was allowed to avoid providing direct answers to the questions put.

In this regard, the Italian civil law tradition is a mystery to me.

Knox rarely, if ever, gives a straightforward answer or explanation on the tough questions.

Just look at the way she answers a question clearly aimed at establishing the fact that she smoke dope during one of Rudy's visits to the cottage:

After establishing that she'd been at the cottage 'party' with Rudy in October, Knox is asked about the details of that party:

CP: On the occasion of this party, Miss, was hashish smoked?

AK: There was a spinello that was smoked, yes.

CP: At that time, in October 2007, did you use drugs?

AK: Every once in a while with friends.

[emphasis added]

From Perugia Murder File

http://perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16


"Every once in a while with friends" is affirmative while, at one and the same time, she's allowed to remain equivocal on the crux of the issue: "Did she smoke drugs at that party with Rudy?"

She'd never get away with that in a US courtroom. Ever.

That line of questions would have only been the tip o' the proverbial iceberg. I assure you.

I'm amazed that the pro-Knox supporters can behold evasive and incomplete answers of this kind only to turn around an conclude that Knox is not being deliberately deceptive.


PS Given that Knox was only in Perugia for 6 weeks, who were her 'friends' in mid-October if not the 3 girls and 4 boys living in the cottage, and in attendance at the small gathering (where dope was smoked, and where Rudy was in attendance)?
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I agree with this--and is is not even the most egregious example. She would have been pinned down in the US, and eviscerated in the UK. But she wasn't under oath. She had the presumption of innocence, but I doubt there is a presumption of truthfulness. At the trial Massei interceded in an attempt at more aggressive cross-x with a comment to the effect, "we must accept" what she says. That's not the same as saying "we must believe."

She truly did herself no favors with her testimony in this very different setting. Her evasions to simple questions are more understandable, more forgivable in our adversarial system than they are in the Italian system where honesty about conduct is met with leniency and lying to the court is punished.

Her demeanor, praised by her father for her confidence, was arrogant, and disrespectful of the place where she was.

There are some on this board who think that human factors, such as demeanor, should play no role in trials, that it should all be science. Well, no legal system in the world complies with that standard. Nor does most of our species.
 
TomM43 said:
I agree with this--and is is not even the most egregious example. She would have been pinned down in the US, and eviscerated in the UK. But she wasn't under oath. She had the presumption of innocence, but I doubt there is a presumption of truthfulness. At the trial Massei interceded in an attempt at more aggressive cross-x with a comment to the effect, "we must accept" what she says. That's not the same as saying "we must believe."

She truly did herself no favors with her testimony in this very different setting. Her evasions to simple questions are more understandable, more forgivable in our adversarial system than they are in the Italian system where honesty about conduct is met with leniency and lying to the court is punished.

Her demeanor, praised by her father for her confidence, was arrogant, and disrespectful of the place where she was.

There are some on this board who think that human factors, such as demeanor, should play no role in trials, that it should all be science. Well, no legal system in the world complies with that standard. Nor does most of our species.
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I agree with you on this last point, Tom. Observing the defendant through one's cultural filter is inescapable.

About treehorn's comment: "Every once in a while with friends" is affirmative while, at one and the same time, she's allowed to remain equivocal on the crux of the issue: "Did she smoke drugs at that party with Rudy?"

If Carlo wanted to know if Amanda smoked drugs at that party with Rudy, why didn't he just ask her? It's not the defendant's job to read the lawyer's mind.

I think many of us have wished Amanda had been tried in the US or the UK and, like treehorn, we have imagined the kinds of questions that might have been asked. That is why we believe the case would not have gotten as far as the courtroom if it had happened elsewhere.
 
TomM43 said:
I agree with this--and is is not even the most egregious example. She would have been pinned down in the US, and eviscerated in the UK.
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I think that to believe this, you have to believe (as Treehorn did before I explained the realities of how courts actually work to him) that the lawyer in question was idiotic enough not to realise that he hadn't actually asked whether or not Amanda smoked marijuana at that party. I think that unlikely.

It is far more likely, seeing as this is how cross-examination normally proceeds, that the lawyer was asking carefully-phrased questions to elicit exactly the answers he wanted. He didn't ask whether Amanda smoked marijuana at that party because he already knew, from reading the statements of Amanda, the boys downstairs, Rudy's friends and so forth, that she did not.

Lawyers and rationalists try to track exactly what was asked and exactly what was said. The untrained human mind is all too apt to fill in the blanks with whatever it thinks should go in there, which is in fact exactly the flaw in human cognition that questioning like this seeks to exploit.

There are some on this board who think that human factors, such as demeanor, should play no role in trials, that it should all be science. Well, no legal system in the world complies with that standard. Nor does most of our species.
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Oh dear. SomeAlibi went down this dark path as well.

It does you and your cause no favours to post "Who cares if facts and logic show she is innocent? She's going to rot in jail because juries are stupid and courts are irrational! Ha ha!".
 
TomM43 said:
I agree with this--and is is not even the most egregious example. She would have been pinned down in the US, and eviscerated in the UK. But she wasn't under oath. She had the presumption of innocence, but I doubt there is a presumption of truthfulness. At the trial Massei interceded in an attempt at more aggressive cross-x with a comment to the effect, "we must accept" what she says. That's not the same as saying "we must believe."

She truly did herself no favors with her testimony in this very different setting. Her evasions to simple questions are more understandable, more forgivable in our adversarial system than they are in the Italian system where honesty about conduct is met with leniency and lying to the court is punished.

Her demeanor, praised by her father for her confidence, was arrogant, and disrespectful of the place where she was.

There are some on this board who think that human factors, such as demeanor, should play no role in trials, that it should all be science. Well, no legal system in the world complies with that standard. Nor does most of our species.
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I am just going by the Treehorn post. CP: On the occasion of this party, Miss, was hashish smoked?AK: There was a spinello that was smoked, yes.CP: At that time, in October 2007, did you use drugs? AK: Every once in a while with friends.

How is Every once in a while with friends not a direct response to At that time, in October 2007, did you use drugs?

Are you saying there is a limitation in the Italian legal system such that the prosecutors have a tradition of not asking straightforward questions and, if the answer is evasive or not specific, tradition forbids asking the witness clarifying follow up questions?

Is this what you mean when you say She would have been pinned down in the US, and eviscerated in the UK. and Massei interceded in an attempt at more aggressive cross-x with a comment to the effect, "we must accept" what she says. That seems so unlikely to me, but is that what you are saying?

Why did not the prosecutor simply ask ‘did you converse with Rudy Guede at that party, or did you share a spinello, or smoke hashish together with Guede at that party? One obvious possibility is because the prosecutor did not want to hear the word ‘NO’.

But your saying instead it is due to a tradition? And could you list additional examples, or perhaps at least the most egregious one you refer to at the start of your post?
Thanks.
 
Matthew Best said:
She's lucky she didn't OD on the "street drugs" she was abusing, of course, silly. :rolleyes:
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You seemed to have missed my point:

Because she was using "street drugs", she had no idea what she was getting.

The risk is enormous.

God only knows what it may be laced with.

You might end up on a trip you never planned for. Next thing you know, you've pulled a Hallowe'en 'Rape Prank' on your roomie and the blood on your hands is real. Just sayin'
 
moodstream said:
How is Every once in a while with friends not a direct response to At that time, in October 2007, did you use drugs?
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It is. As I noted earlier, treehorn is taking advantage of an ambiguity in English that doesn't exist in Italian in order to suggest otherwise. Pacelli's choice of verb tense shows that he wasn't asking about that specific occasion (for all that he may have been trying to insinuate something about it indirectly).
 
treehorn said:
You seemed to have missed my point:

Because she was using "street drugs", she had no idea what she was getting.

The risk is enormous.

God only knows what it may be laced with.

You might end up on a trip you never planned for. Next thing you know, you've pulled a Hallowe'en 'Rape Prank' on your roomie and the blood on your hands is real. Just sayin'
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You might end up in..... THE TWILIGHT ZONE!!!!!
 
TomM43 said:
...Her demeanor, praised by her father for her confidence, was arrogant, and disrespectful of the place where she was....
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I have always thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss. When people say Amanda was arrogant or disrespectful in court, I always think she had a right to show she was mad, especially at the architect of her suffering (even though all she did was ask Mignini if she could finish, during one of the myriad times he or another lawyer interrupted her).

On the other hand, someone else might say the courtroom is always sacred, regardless of how wrong the judge or the accusations may be.
 
treehorn said:
How many people that actually went to law school are you going to insult today, Kevin?

Remind my learned friends and I where, and in what field, you've studied, Kevin.
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You are licensed to practice law in Italy?

PS: Going to law school doesn't make you a lawyer. Graduating from a law school doesn't make you a lawyer. Going to law school doesn't make you a good lawyer. I've seen plenty of young pup lawyers that passed the bar and didn't survive Pro Bono before deciding on a career change.
 
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Mary_H said:
One shared spinello?
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They also admitted to using alcohol (which stimulates aggression).

They are also proven liars.

Do you honestly believe every word that falls from the lips of the accused?!

If so, WHY?


PS They both swore up and down that they'd never touch drugs again. If all they did was share one joint, why would they feel that way?
 
treehorn said:
I've noticed that many of the Knox supporters here tend to have a lax attitude toward the use of street drugs in combination with alcohol.
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What was Knox's BaC that night? What now she was drunk and stoned when committing the crime? If knox drank enough alcohol to stimulate aggression, to go with the Pot she smoked, how on Earth was she able to even walk? Both her and sollecito would have had their butts kicked by Meredith.

I suppose I used to be the same. However, after reprenting clients in criminal court, I no longer share that attitude.

To see why, go to your local set date court on a Monday morning and behold the carnage that alcohol and drugs (including psychedelics) hath wrought.
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You should do that. Then come back and tell us how many couples are being charged with helping a stranger Rape and Murder someone after smoking pot.


You'll hear example after example in which an ordinarily decent citizen committed a depraved act over the weekend (a man who kicks his wife in the stomach 8 times, a 20 year old man that pushes a 90 year old lady down a flight of stairs to take $7 from her purse, etc.).
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yep and they usually have evidence. Seems there is a lack of evidence that Rudy, Knox, and Sollecito collaborated to kill Meredith.
 
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treehorn said:
They also admitted to using alcohol (which stimulates aggression).
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Cite?

They are also proven liars.
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Cite?

Do you honestly believe every word that falls from the lips of the accused?!

If so, WHY?
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They had neither a reason nor the tendency to lie.

PS They both swore up and down that they'd never touch drugs again. If all they did was share one joint, why would they feel that way?
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They were convinced at first that being high had prevented them from remembering things the way the police wanted them to remember them. There is no doubt they have recognized by now that their use of marijuana did not lead to their kidnapping and imprisonment.
 
treehorn said:
They also admitted to using alcohol (which stimulates aggression).
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BTW, alcohol may stimulate aggression in people with aggressive tendencies. It does not make a basically non-aggressive person aggressive.
 
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