Continuation Part 12: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Machiavelli]

None of what you claim applies to Knox. As early as the third memorandum she was "withdrawing from a confession".

We've been around this block 100s of times.

The third memorandum! What you may call "withdrawing from a confession" (1st and 2nd written memorial), the law calls it repeating a false accusation (and I associate myself to this reading).

Perhaps you can answer this: If "Sollecito had withdrawn her alibi", why was she not considered a suspect at that point?

A suspect of which crime, exactly? It's not that easy to decide within minutes (and it's not the police task).

 

[Desert Fox]

As you pass by there, have a look also at things that Kassin has written before; like the fact that ionterrogation lenght is an absolute key factor, and "nobody confesses falsely in an hour" (hardly Kassin found one of those suspects having had an interrogation shorter than 14 hours).
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200304/the-false-confession
Knox "confessed" after 2.5 hours; not in the way Kassin describes it (but in the way Donnino describes the event); and just after she was told Sollecito had withdrawn her alibi.
But in fact, she did not confess: she accused an innocent black man, also of sexual violence (which she did not know about), while she attempted to cut for herself an innocent role.
We could also point out many other things Kassin previously said, for example that a claim of internalized false confession is very tempting for a guilty subject, since it's typically seen as a possiblity of an easy way out for a defendant seeking to withdraw from a confession.

The reality is quite a bit different than you wrote here. . . .
In fact, she had been interrogated over the course of many hours over multiple days. Far more than just 3.5 hours but in fact more likely over twenty-four hours of interrogation total.

Second, you have it entirely wrong in arguing that Amanda blamed Patrick. You have entirely the wrong individuals here. The Italian police blamed Patrick and forced her to agree.

This is no different than getting Michael Crowe to implicate his friends for example.

 

[Samson]

I’m not sure what that means. Help me out here.

This Oates character – did he declare that a lowlife who stabbed a young woman in the neck while she was restrained was ‘one tough nut to crack’’ and then disappear when his argument/admiration was exposed to scrutiny.

Is that it?

I was thinking of this

Scott wrote that Oates' last words were "I am just going outside and may be some time

Remember old Supercalifragilistic?

 

[platonov]

Only kidding ??

Makes a little salad mix: the "Fascist/Nazi" burning book copies in Italy (actually the fascists never made stakes of book copies in Italy, but it's a detail).

Actually I hold you partly responsible for this stuff.
You take this gibberish seriously and they regard it as validation.

It’s possible I’m wrong (but it hasn’t happened yet on this thread)

 

[RWVBWL]

Machiavelli,

Your point 4 sits uneasily beside the fact that the police brought suit based upon Follain's article in a British newspaper. Your position amounts to a double standard. Your point is weakened further by the fact that the Kercher family (all of whom are British to the best of my knowledge) became part of the legal actions against Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito, and it is difficult to believe that they were unaware of it. Given the worldwide availability of the image once published at the , the whole argument is specious. In Perugia's Prime Suspect" Judy Bachrach damningly wrote, "She had found the bathroom she shared with Meredith smeared with so much blood it looked as though a butcher had attempted washing up and then given up the task. Amanda was puzzled." I doubt that the good people of Perugia are so unconnected with the rest of the world that not one of them was aware of an article whose title included the name of the city in which he or she lived.

Your point 3 is irrelevant. It is the release of the photo itself that is at issue.

The cop who took the photo (let's call him Moroni, as LondonJohn suggested), was on company time, yet he was apparently acting at least partially out of a desire to enrich himself. Could one of Moroni's fellow officers have stopped him? Could one of Moroni's superiors have initiated an investigation as to what happened? It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Moroni knew that his actions were at least tacitly approved of by his colleagues and superiors, given that he was pretty brazen in taking photos without attempting to conceal his actions.

Let's return to the reason why I raised this issue. My point is that ILE has lied, has misrepresented, and has acted unethically (I might have also said unprofessionally); therefore, I trust their accounts of the interrogation less than I trust Ms. Knox's or Mr. Sollecito's. Even if an action falls into the zone of unethical (unprofessional) but not illegal, that point still stands. Therefore, your point 9 is both meretricious and is a deflection of the issue I had raised.

Hi Professor Halkides,
Is this the photograph you write of?


It's sad to read the excuses of an Italian pro-guliter
defending the release of this image in 2008 to the English tabloids,
well before the Massei Trial even started.

Compare the photo's.
What a difference from what the bathroom really looked like:

that morning Amanda Knox came home to quickly shower,
wash her hair and dress herself in a long white skirt for a date with her new boyfriend Raffaele on a drive thru the countryside to Gubbio. Weird how her white skirt didn't have any blood on it, right?

 

[platonov]

I give up

I was thinking of this

Scott wrote that Oates' last words were "I am just going outside and may be some time

Remember old Supercalifragilistic?

Really?

'Whoooooosh' doesn't quite do this justice.

 

[Machiavelli]

The reality is quite a bit different than you wrote here. . . .
In fact, she had been interrogated over the course of many hours over multiple days. Far more than just 3.5 hours but in fact more likely over twenty-four hours of interrogation total.

Second, you have it entirely wrong in arguing that Amanda blamed Patrick. You have entirely the wrong individuals here. The Italian police blamed Patrick and forced her to agree.

This is no different than getting Michael Crowe to implicate his friends for example.

I'm afraid evidence is against your scenario. She didn't say so in her court testimony (she admitted to giving the name first), Anna Donnino doesn't tell that story neither. Actually, Knox didn't even tell about being forced, not at all. Then she declared her memoriales were willfully written on her initiative. Meanwhile she refused to clarify anything before Matteini, to take some time. And on Dec. 17. she said the reason was that she thought it could be true, and refused to answer questions about the false accusation.

 

[MichaelB]

As you pass by there, have a look also at things that Kassin has written before; like the fact that ionterrogation lenght is an absolute key factor, and "nobody confesses falsely in an hour" (hardly Kassin found one of those suspects having had an interrogation shorter than 14 hours).
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200304/the-false-confession
Knox "confessed" after 2.5 hours; not in the way Kassin describes it (but in the way Donnino describes the event); and just after she was told Sollecito had withdrawn her alibi.But in fact, she did not confess: she accused an innocent black man, also of sexual violence (which she did not know about), while she attempted to cut for herself an innocent role.
We could also point out many other things Kassin previously said, for example that a claim of internalized false confession is very tempting for a guilty subject, since it's typically seen as a possiblity of an easy way out for a defendant seeking to withdraw from a confession.

Are you sure? Is she lying?

Witness: ‘mediator’ Anna Donnino

Ghirga: Do you remember if anyone originating from the room where Sollecito’s interview was in progress came into your room, where Amanda’s interview was in progress, and said, saying that Sollecito in some way, quote-unquote, had dropped Amanda’s alibi or some wording of the sort?
Anna Donnino: Let’s say that I saw it, I remember that Inspector Ficcara exited…
Ghirga: No I’m asking if anyone…
Anna Donnino: If anyone had come in then, no, no.
Judge Massei: So you remember Inspector Ficcara had left…
Anna Donnino: I remember Inspector Ficcara had left.
Judge Massei: But no-one who came in nor in particular if coming in said this?
Anna Donnino: Absolutely not.

 

[Machiavelli]

Hi Professor Halkides,
Is this the photograph you write of?
[qimg]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/280x200q90/708/7ouy.jpg[/qimg]

It's sad to read the excuses of an Italian pro-guliter
defending the release of this image in 2008 to the English tabloids,
well before the Massei Trial even started.

(...)

I am not just defending the release of this or that photo (which nobody proved was from "the police" or from any individual, and was not to a British tabloid, and no one was able to draw any possible scenario about police having to so with orchestrating its publication, that makes any sense).
Nobody has rebutted my 10 points (Halkides' observations are ludicrous, not rebuttals; but one may be a chance to open to a wider concept), and someone noted the rationality of them.
No, I am nit just defending the publication of things, what I am doing is mainly accusing the pro-Knox crowd of lying.

 

[Paninaro]

Makes a little salad mix: the "Fascist/Nazi" burning book copies in Italy (actually the fascists never made stakes of book copies in Italy, but it's a detail).

Not that it matters much, but I googled that and came up with a quote from The Holocaust and the Book - on Google books - that says that they actually did so in Turin in Piazza Carlina in 1938. But of course you could be right.

 

[Desert Fox]

I'm afraid evidence is against your scenario. She didn't say so in her court testimony (she admitted to giving the name first), Anna Donnino doesn't tell that story neither. Actually, Knox didn't even tell about being forced, not at all. Then she declared her memoriales were willfully written on her initiative. Meanwhile she refused to clarify anything before Matteini, to take some time. And on Dec. 17. she said the reason was that she thought it could be true, and refused to answer questions about the false accusation.

Has Ms Knox studied multiple cases of false confessions? I have looked at quite a number of cases involving false confessions and those confessions involving blaming others. As a result, I have a huge advantage over her at the time (I don't know what she might have studied since)

It is also like you just completely ignore the literature involved with false confessions which many of us have presented. Then again, you also ignore the science on multiple other fields as well.

Did you know that Peter Reilly actually asked the detective if he might stay with him after falsely confessing to his mother's murder.

 

[Bill Williams]

It's time to catalog the lies Machiavelli continues to promote about Amanda Knox. The telling thing is that what he alleges is mostly in neither the Massei nor the Nencini convictions motivations reports (Italics mine):

- Amanda Knox is also physically connected to the murder scene, since her DNA is on the murder weapon, and the weapon was placed in her boyfriend's apartment​

Placed? Mach fails to deal with the transport and reutrn of the knife. Massei claims Amanda carried it for protection, Nencini said it simply went between the two abodes for cooking purposes. But it is a strange use of a word: "placed". Makes it sound like AK and RS purposely put it there!

- her DNA is on the only part of the murder room - the murder weapon - that she would need to actually touch.​

This is where they cannot get their stories straight, since the guilter-lobby says that Meredith must have been restrained. How did Knox participate in this murder and now as even Machiavelli concedes, leave one pieve od DNA in the whole murder room, and conversely had NO forensics on her person or her clothes? (This is how guilters continually change their stories.)

- and the evidence of her massive lying, starting from before her interrogation, her story being a mass of inconsistencies.​

The only verifiable lie Knox told was about the marijuana use in the cottage, which Ficarra confronted her with at 11:30 pm Nov 5 in the Questura. The ONLY inconsistency is when Knox was forced to change her story ("I was at Raffaele's") during interrogation ("She buckled and told us what we already knew"), quickly changed back once free of PLE and in the presence of her own lawyer, and has not changed from that for 7 years.

- The most massive evidence is the evidence of cleanup​

There is NO evidence of a clean-up. The only reference Massei makes about one, is that one must have been done, or else he could not explain why there were no bloodied foottracks between Meredith's room and the bathroom bathmat. Massei said that not because he had evidence, but because he was at a loss to explain.

- To summarize, because all the evidence is against her and proves she is involved.​

This is simply rubbish and Machiavelli knows it. Was it Amanda's DNA found inside the victim? Did Amanda flee, as do the vast majority of real perpetrators?

It's stunning that Machivaelli thinks he can get away with saying these things. Once again, he's back to his tried and true method - allegations with no proof.

He thinks that because he can claim it, it must be true. (Sort of like Mignini!)

 

[Bill Williams]

Are you sure? Is she lying?

Witness: ‘mediator’ Anna Donnino

Ghirga: Do you remember if anyone originating from the room where Sollecito’s interview was in progress came into your room, where Amanda’s interview was in progress, and said, saying that Sollecito in some way, quote-unquote, had dropped Amanda’s alibi or some wording of the sort?
Anna Donnino: Let’s say that I saw it, I remember that Inspector Ficcara exited…
Ghirga: No I’m asking if anyone…
Anna Donnino: If anyone had come in then, no, no.
Judge Massei: So you remember Inspector Ficcara had left…
Anna Donnino: I remember Inspector Ficcara had left.
Judge Massei: But no-one who came in nor in particular if coming in said this?
Anna Donnino: Absolutely not.

So at trial, Anna Donnino testifies that she did not personally witness someone coming in and telling Knox that Raffaele was "now not supporting her alibi"?

¡Ay, caramba! So will someone tell me what Machiavelli is basing his lies on?

 

[Bill Williams]

A suspect of which crime, exactly? It's not that easy to decide within minutes (and it's not the police task).

It's not the police task to take a suspect they think committed a crime, and interrogation them?

¡Ay, caramba!

 

[Chris_Halkides]

More from Dr. Kassin

As you pass by there [Kassin's article]

Machiavelli,

I was reminded of Karl Fontenot, who confessed in two hours. When I reread Dr. Kassin's article I was struck by this passage on the process of internalization. "(1) There is a suspect who is rendered highly vulnerable to manipulation as a function of dispositional characteristics (e.g., young, naïve, mentally retarded, suggestible, or otherwise impaired) and there are more transient factors associated with the crime, custody, and interrogation (e.g., extreme stress, feelings of isolation, sleep deprivation, the influence of drugs). (2) Knowingly or unknowingly, the police confront the suspect with false but allegedly objective and incontrovertible evidence of his or her involvement—evidence in the form of a failed polygraph, an eyewitness, a fingerprint, a shoeprint, or a DNA sample. (3) Often with guidance from police, the suspect reconciles his or her lack of memory with the alleged evidence by presuming that he or she had blacked out, dissociated, repressed, or otherwise failed to recollect the event."
AND
"...Ofshe (1989) identified a number of common interrogation tactics, such as exhibiting strong and unwavering certainty about suspect’s guilt, isolating the suspect from all familiar social contacts and outside sources of information, conducting sessions that are lengthy and emotionally intense, presenting false but allegedly incontrovertible proof of the suspect’s guilt, offering the suspect a ready physical or psychological explanation for why he or she does not remember the crime, and applying implicit and explicit pressure on the suspect, in the form of promises and threats, to comply with the demand for a confession." (highlighting mine)

Amazing how Amanda was able to recreate this by manipulating Donnino into coming up with the injury story. The little vixen. The cunning little vixen.

 

[Numbers]

Makes a little salad mix: the "Fascist/Nazi" burning book copies in Italy (actually the fascists never made stakes of book copies in Italy, but it's a detail).

In the book, Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy,
by Christopher Duggan (C) 2013, the following is written:

On the morning of 31 October [1922] ... fascists destroyed the Federazione Socialista in the Piazza Fontana dei Trevi, throwing books out of the first-floor window, and piling them up to make a bonfire.
______

Possibly such book burnings were less common in Fascist Italy than in Nazi Germany. Certainly the fascists imposed press censorship in Italy and restricted political freedom.

 

[JREF2010]

Chris,
Thats why the dishonest type police dont record any of the interrogations.

Its kind of like dishonest type forensic people showing the jurors and untrained judges rfu charts that are magnified making 20 RFU peaks look huge.

A lot of dishonesty in this case on the Prosecutions team.

Whats interesting about this case, in relate to the interrogation/ disputed story of Patrick, is Amanda sent the email the night/morning earlier than the interrogation and didnt use this "coerced" story, instead it was the same story she returned to once she was rested and safe from the persecution in the non-recorded interrogation. Not many interrogations have this "pre-interrogation" email sent. She made that email on the 3rd, I recall, into the morning of the 4th. But the Guilters aren't changing their stance, and the Defense will never accept any of the numerous Prosecutor theories.

I think in the end the two sides will never agree, and Rudy Guede will win in the end, because he fooled them all, manipulated them all. He makes the Italian system look more pathetic than I thought possible. If you stand back and look at all the judges and jurors and lawyers and how Rudy Guede made fools of them all its sickening in a Bernie Maddoff way.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

false memories and police interrogation

Kassin wrote, "As profound a form of influence as this seems, the construction of an internalized false confession may not be unique. Reviewing de Rivera’s (1997) analysis of people who recover false memories from childhood only later to retract these reports, Kassin (1997b) likened this process of police interrogation to that of the recovery of false memories of childhood abuse in psychotherapy patients."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Borsini said it was fanciful

I think in the end the two sides will never agree, and Rudy Guede will win in the end, because he fooled them all, manipulated them all. He makes the Italian system look more pathetic than I thought possible. If you stand back and look at all the judges and jurors and lawyers and how Rudy Guede made fools of them all its sickening in a Bernie Maddoff way.

JREF2010,

Obviously I agree with you about the lack of recording. Kassin wrote, "A second implication concerns the full videotaping of interrogations. For judges, juries, and other decision makers, evaluating a confession should involve a three-pronged analysis. The first prong is to consider the conditions under which the suspect confessed and the extent to which coercive social influence techniques were used."*

I also agree that Guede is the winner in this sorry spectacle. When I read the portion of the Borsini-Bellardi report that called Guede's version of the events of 1 November "fanciful," I was almost beside myself. Guede's version is a pathetic, self-serving lie.

*Perhaps Vibio will come along to remind everyone that not every state requires this. For some reason, I am reminded of the diplomat who refused to take "yes" for an answer.

 

[Kauffer]

The third memorandum! What you may call "withdrawing from a confession" (1st and 2nd written memorial), the law calls it repeating a false accusation (and I associate myself to this reading). A suspect of which crime, exactly? It's not that easy to decide within minutes (and it's not the police task).

One thing we can agree on is that whatever else is true about the interrogations of the 5th and 6th, nothing that Ms Knox said or was alleged to have said, or signed, helped her in any way, shape or form. What emerged from the interrogations was what got her arrested.

According to you (from earlier posts), as a non-co-operating witness, if Ms Knox had said nothing at all, she would have been arrestable.

So, in order to help herself to the greatest extent she could have helped herself, on the night of the 5th/6th November, what could Ms Knox have said or done? What options did she have that would have permitted her to leave the questura, freely, without being arrested or legally detained?

And, what if, during the course of her time, in this scenario, where she is standing her ground, not admitting anything, perhaps while Donnino is imploring her to remember, Ms Knox says, "I have given you an account of my whereabouts on the night of the murder, to the best of my ability; I have also given you an account of the text message exchange I had with Patrick, but you appear to have some difficulty with my account. In the circumstances, I am not comfortable continuing to answer your questions without the presence of a lawyer. Please, provide me with a lawyer or stop questioning me and let me go home", would the police have:

1) arrested her (as a non cooperating witness or for some other reason) or
2) let her go or
3) done something else?

What options, according to you, would the police have had, at that point?