Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kauffer]

There seems to be this ongoing theme that if the Italian supreme courts says the conviction is "final," then gosh darn it, it's immutable. Is the thought that they would insist on calling a judgment "final" in the face of an ECHR decision saying that the decision is illegal? Like, they would put their fingers in their ears and say "nah, nah, nah, I can't hear you?" There would seem to be some level of emotional immaturity in such an action. Who would even care about how "final" they think their judgment is after the ECHR rules the whole proceeding to be illegal?

As you said before, an Article 6 violation trumps their best hand. Nevertheless, I am sure Ms Knox would want the conviction off the books. She will want no criminal record, however hollow. When the Council of Europe tells Italy to wipe out the record of conviction in this case, or alternatively, when Italy's agent at the ECHR concedes it without a fight, the humiliation of the judiciary will be another pay off we can all enjoy.

 

[platonov]

Well, probably doesn't matter anyway, because jail house snitches don't work in Italy as we know.

It doesn’t matter in Italy certainly .........The effect in the US might be interesting

 

[carbonjam72]

There seems to be this ongoing theme that if the Italian supreme courts says the conviction is "final," then gosh darn it, it's immutable. Is the thought that they would insist on calling a judgment "final" in the face of an ECHR decision saying that the decision is illegal? Like, they would put their fingers in their ears and say "nah, nah, nah, I can't hear you?" There would seem to be some level of emotional immaturity in such an action. Who would even care about how "final" they think their judgment is after the ECHR rules the whole proceeding to be illegal?

Unfortunately, possibly Raffaele, his family, friends and supporters. But I don't think it will come to that.

 

[MichaelB]

I hope the documents referenced in your prior post didn't come from the fake wiki because that would then render them suspect.

The fake wiki has posted the original PDF's which is the way it should be. They're the exact same documents the lawyers and judges use with the same page numbers referred to in the motivation reports and appeals.

What was suspect is why they originally only cut and pasted the testimony from the PDF''s onto pages and used search and replace for the Q&A.

The search and replace screwed up a few of the witnesses (probably most of them) so instead of Witness X giving an answer it'll show as him asking a question.

I think on the Edda Mellas page it happened 9 times. But then the fake wiki counts of people not reading any of the stuff so who cares if it's accurate or not.

There's no reason I can think of not to present the originals so there's no chance of any shenanigans like altering text hoping no one will notice.

 

[Diocletus]

It doesn’t matter in Italy certainly .........The effect in the US might be interesting

I doubt it. Raf's book is in English and most judges can read.

 

[MichaelB]

The fake wiki without the testimony pages has hardly any content so that's why they might have printed all the witnesses onto pages back they wanted to be found by google. I dunno. But it's a pretty strange way of presenting trial documents compared to just posting the original PDF's and letting people download and save them.

And the PDF's are much easier to search if you looking for specific words and wanting to find something quickly. If it's printed onto pages you have to spend time sifting through walls of text to find what you're looking for.

 

[carbonjam72]

The fake wiki has posted the original PDF's which is the way it should be. They're the exact same documents the lawyers and judges use with the same page numbers referred to in the motivation reports and appeals.

What was suspect is why they originally only cut and pasted the testimony from the PDF''s onto pages and used search and replace for the Q&A.

The search and replace screwed up a few of the witnesses (probably most of them) so instead of Witness X giving an answer it'll show as him asking a question.

I think on the Edda Mellas page it happened 9 times. But then the fake wiki counts of people not reading any of the stuff so who cares if it's accurate or not.

There's no reason I can think of not to present the originals so there's no chance of any shenanigans like altering text hoping no one will notice.

Thanks, these are great.

I did notice some holes, or missing docs, of course.

Can members of the public access the actual court case file, and make copies? Or simply request copies from the clerk of the court, as is normal procedure in the US at least? There are fees associated with copying, but at least the tedious labor of copying would be performed by the clerk of the court. (I'm assuming courts still function by hand processing paper for the most part, and universal digitization is not yet upon us).

Also, in the past, some docs in PDF and Italian, can't be copy pasted into google translate, as tedious as that would be.

Is it necessary to convert the docs to OCR (?) format, and then google translate? Is that how one might unlock the mysteries of the Italian docs, without speaking Italian?

 

[platonov]

The ‘people of the book’

I doubt it. Raf's book is in English and most judges can read.

Oh so we still have great faith in ‘the book’ it seems.
One over each ear should block out any upsetting news from TV interviews, Cassation submissions and squeals from the cell. & Widespread use of this tactic should do wonders for sales.

Will Federal judges and media types adopt this new headdress?
Time will tell

 

[MichaelB]

Thanks, these are great.

I did notice some holes, or missing docs, of course.

Can members of the public access the actual court case file, and make copies? Or simply request copies from the clerk of the court, as is normal procedure in the US at least? There are fees associated with copying, but at least the tedious labor of copying would be performed by the clerk of the court. (I'm assuming courts still function by hand processing paper for the most part, and universal digitization is not yet upon us).

Also, in the past, some docs in PDF and Italian, can't be copy pasted into google translate, as tedious as that would be.

Is it necessary to convert the docs to OCR (?) format, and then google translate? Is that how one might unlock the mysteries of the Italian docs, without speaking Italian?

I dunno how it works in Italy. I did come across one website that'll sell you any Supreme Court motivation report for around 10 euros but that's all they offered as far as court docs goes.

But all of the unreadable witness transcripts have been OCR'd on the IIP site. Just pop them into google translate and they'll work.
http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/amanda-knox-transcripts/

 

[Diocletus]

Oh so we still have great faith in ‘the book’ it seems.
One over each ear should block out any upsetting news from TV interviews, Cassation submissions and squeals from the cell. & Widespread use of this tactic should do wonders for sales.

Will Federal judges and media types adopt this new headdress?
Time will tell

As long as they can hear Maria Cantwell, it doesn't matter.

Any word on whether a us citizen has ever been extradited in spite of the express and repeated objections of the relevant us senator?

 

[Bill Williams]

I hope the documents referenced in your prior post didn't come from the fake wiki because that would then render them suspect.

The fake wiki has posted the original PDF's which is the way it should be. They're the exact same documents the lawyers and judges use with the same page numbers referred to in the motivation reports and appeals.
What was suspect is why they originally only cut and pasted the testimony from the PDF''s onto pages and used search and replace for the Q&A.

The search and replace screwed up a few of the witnesses (probably most of them) so instead of Witness X giving an answer it'll show as him asking a question.

I think on the Edda Mellas page it happened 9 times. But then the fake wiki counts of people not reading any of the stuff so who cares if it's accurate or not.

There's no reason I can think of not to present the originals so there's no chance of any shenanigans like altering text hoping no one will notice.

I believe the reason why Dan O. referred to them both as "fake", is that Wiki's are supposed to be user-editable.

As for me, I gave up reading the McCall- (now the Ergon-) Wiki because of what MichaelB refers to. Time after time, the McCall/Ergon-Wiki would present what they regard as some damning summary they say is gleaned from a long, long document, and once that document was read it pointed to no such thing.

In the IIP-sponsored wiki, there is a detailed listing of these things, and no one has shown why it is not accurate.

My hope is that decision makers in both Italy and the US are pouring through both and drawing their own conclusions.

 

[Kauffer]

The Constitutional Court cannot write laws, only cancel them. This was also on the Dorigo case. And the Dorigo sentence, by the way, was not annulled.
I stated that a final decision cannot be annulled, and I stand exactly by what I said. Obviously you would need to understand it.

Oh dear! It is an "additive" decision. Groundbreaking. The combined effect of the Constitutional Court and Cassation on the Dorigo case changed the law without Parliament. But Parliament can step back in if it wishes. Obviously you would need to understand this. I did not, however, correctly reference Cassation's involvement and that it was its decision 2800 and not the Constitutional Court's that established the mechanism. My apologies for that.

"..the Court of Cassation stated that judges may reopen proceedings when the Strasbourg Court finds a violation of the right to a fair trial, even if the legislator has not introduced specific means to reopen the trial. In the opinion of the Court of Cassation, the lack of a legal provision for the reopening of proceedings could be considered as violating Article 46 of the Convention. Such a bold declaration is a signal of the willingness of the judges to counterbalance Parliament's inertia, if this is necessary to comply with obligations deriving from the Convention."

"The European Court of Human Rights: Implementing Strasbourg's Judgments on Domestic Policy" By Dia Anagnostou 2013

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...EwAjgK#v=onepage&q=paolo dorigo italy&f=false

So as you can see, we immediately have a very convenient and simple device for chucking out old calunnia. The case is reopened and the judge says, "Unfortunately, all of the evidence in this case is inadmissible and in any case, we are out of time! Innocenti! Caso chiuso! Let's all have some prosecco!"

Then, after the prosecco, Ms Knox no longer has a criminal record.

 

[Dan O.]

I hope the documents referenced in your prior post didn't come from the fake wiki because that would then render them suspect.

But they are telling us what we already know to be true.


Of course, there is the bit about the "secret code" Raffaele and his father are trying to arrange.

 

[Dan O.]

The lab had requested and was awaiting confirmation/documentation of the certification. In fact, it was the first public lab to request said certaification.

It has been (I think) a member of the ENFSI since the mid-90s.

When I was searching the labs accreditation early on, I was going through pages of accredited labs just in Rome. If "public lab" means state run then it possibly could be true but I would want to see verification befor trusting the prosecution.

In my collected notes I have:

http://www.nacbo.net/criminalpol.htm - polizia di stato
The Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) of the Scientific Police Service is included in the Central Direction of the Criminal Police Department of Public Security. The National Laboratory is located in Rome and 14 regional laboratories and 89 provincial laboratories depend upon it for service provision. In addition, three other forensic science DNA profiling laboratories are being formed in Italy. These are in Milan serving the North, Naples serving the South and Palermo (Sicily) serving the Islands
In 2002 the LMB carried out some 5,000 forensic DNA tests and was selected as a ‘test-size’ laboratory for sensitivity and reproducibility experiments in the validation of commercial kits from Applera and the Promega Corp.
The laboratory uses the SQL*LIMS TM and GT TM systems and since 1988 the FBI has supplied the laboratory with the C.O.D.I.S. system to manage its populations and casework database. In addition the laboratory is a member of the DNA Working Group of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI) and is cooperating with European national Police Forces and Interpol. The LMB is staffed by sixteen biologists, twenty technicians, ten bio-informatics technicians supported by specialised staff. The current responsibility of the laboratory of molecular biology includes: STR DNA profiling, Mt DNA (HV1 and HV2) DNA profiling, statistics calculation (C.O.D.I.S.), quality control and quality assurance and research and development.
Partner website - www.poliziadistato.it​

Is this Steff's lab or the RIS?

 

[MichaelB]

The fake wiki is dangerous in that sucks in newcomers to the case by twisting and misrepresenting the evidence and what witnesses really said. I don't see a problem if they genuinely presented the prosecution's case based on what happened at the trials and it was all accurate. They're entitled to do that.

But the content (like the whole moving and undressing the body theory) and all the fake images they've made are a fantasy version they cooked up in their heads. There's even something on there about a second mop was used in the clean up and Amanda must have gotten rid of it.

If they wanted to present the prosecution's case then you'd think the starting point would be translating Crini's closing arguments and detailing it. Next would be using excerpts to show exactly what the witnesses said and supplying the page number so anyone can easily check for themselves.

Every page is filled with even the most basic of errors like what time Nara claimed to hear the scream. They've got 3 different times on 3 different pages. The luminol page says “On December 18, 2007 Deputy Commissioner Maurizio Arnone and Chief Inspector Claudio Ippolito went to the cottage to spray luminol on certain areas".

Arnone and Ippolito didn't spray any luminol. They were the video and camera guy who filmed and photographed the incompetence.

The stuff about the DNA is appalling. I dunno who the complete and utter moron is who wrote that but they get the knife samples mixed up and say Amanda's DNA on the handle was LCN and Sollecito's DNA on the clasp "wasn't even LCN" and the ‘inability to repeat the test is not a valid issue.’

They completely mix up the argument made about luminol and TMB and even the witness who made it. They say Steffi said blood is negative with TMB half the time (implying it's totally useless) when it was Sarah Gino who said luminol tests negative for blood with TMB half the time based on her own experience. In other words it gives a lot of false positives.

It's been nearly 2 years and they still haven't posted the actual killers March 2008 or May 2008 depositions or his Skype chat (not call) with Beneditti where he says "Amanda wasn't involved because he fought with a male and she wasn't there"

If those sort of errors were on the IIP site it'd be embarrassing. People would want them fixed. But the fake wiki is proud of it all. I think they believe it's all accurate but couldn't care less if it isn't.

It's all designed to muddy the waters. Then they've got the "massive evidence list" which isn't cited with page numbers. It's all just his own interpretation. The guy who wrote it thinks Kokomani is credible. I remember watching him try and put together a timeline.

I guess the only good thing is if anyone actually reads the primary sources they'll quickly see what's on the site is completely at odds with what's in the documents.

 

[Dan O.]

Also, in the past, some docs in PDF and Italian, can't be copy pasted into google translate, as tedious as that would be.

Is it necessary to convert the docs to OCR (?) format, and then google translate? Is that how one might unlock the mysteries of the Italian docs, without speaking Italian?

That is exactly how we did it in the past. Except Matteini was such a bad copy I had to transcribe it by hand before it could be translated.

Google now has OCR as part of Google Docs if you have an account. That may speed things up a bit.

 

[platonov]

USA USA USA.

As long as they can hear Maria Cantwell, it doesn't matter.

Any word on whether a us citizen has ever been extradited in spite of the express and repeated objections of the relevant us senator?

So it’s got nothing to do with the law or ‘the book’ – it’s a case of ‘She’s an American goddamit’. Actually that’s not news to me – when the noise is subtracted from most groupie arguments that’s all that ever remained.

I don’t know [Is that how you think it works - if you are correct there is no problem for Manders]
Who have you asked

 

[Desert Fox]

So it’s got nothing to do with the law or ‘the book’ – it’s a case of ‘She’s an American goddamit’. Actually that’s not news to me – when the noise is subtracted from most groupie arguments that’s all that ever remained.

I don’t know [Is that how you think it works - if you are correct there is no problem for Manders]
Who have you asked

The world is run by humans. . . .Humans see certain people as part of their tribe. Not so hard.

Does it mean anything to your position that a number of prominent wrongful conviction lawyers argue for her innocence?

 

[Diocletus]

So it’s got nothing to do with the law or ‘the book’ – it’s a case of ‘She’s an American goddamit’. Actually that’s not news to me – when the noise is subtracted from most groupie arguments that’s all that ever remained.

I don’t know [Is that how you think it works - if you are correct there is no problem for Manders]
Who have you asked

I asked me. And me says that it's highly unlikely that this can happen. Google fails to refute me, but I'm open to new information.

Cantwell isn't doing this because she's american. It's because she thinks it's a wrongful conviction.

 

[Bill Williams]

The fake wiki is dangerous in that sucks in newcomers to the case by twisting and misrepresenting the evidence and what witnesses really said. I don't see a problem if they genuinely presented the prosecution's case based on what happened at the trials and it was all accurate. They're entitled to do that.

I see it a bit differently.

There are times when the McCall/Ergon-Wiki DOES represent ONLY the prosecution case, even points rejected by both convicting judges.

But the content (like the whole moving and undressing the body theory) and all the fake images they've made are a fantasy version they cooked up in their heads. There's even something on there about a second mop was used in the clean up and Amanda must have gotten rid of it.

I have not checked to see if the McCall/Ergon-wiki has it on it, but the laugher is the picture of the knife guilters shopped around which claims to show the striations which Stefanoni claimed were on the knife.

This, despite the fact that Stefanoni herself said the striation in which she "found" Meredith's non-blood DNA was itself resistant to photography. (This is Stefanoni's, "the dog ate my homework," response to why the striation was seen by no one else other than her.....) yet guilters continue to shop-around that kind of nonsense. Is it on the Wiki?

If they wanted to present the prosecution's case then you'd think the starting point would be translating Crini's closing arguments and detailing it. Next would be using excerpts to show exactly what the witnesses said and supplying the page number so anyone can easily check for themselves.

What is stunning for a Wiki which claims to be presenting the truth, is how much they omit. There are many posts on the guilter websites which openly say things like, "Nencini got the right decision for the wrong reasons," which is an admission that the Nencini judgement is flawed. That they do not even try to deal with Crini's nonsense tells me all I need to know about that Wiki's approach to things....

Every page is filled with even the most basic of errors like what time Nara claimed to hear the scream. They've got 3 different times on 3 different pages. The luminol page says “On December 18, 2007 Deputy Commissioner Maurizio Arnone and Chief Inspector Claudio Ippolito went to the cottage to spray luminol on certain areas".

Does the McCall/Ergon-wiki make the same mistake that Judge Chieffi made in the ISC-motivations report from March 2013? The one which quotes a witness saying she heard an unusual scream, when in fact the witness said she heard screams like that all the time?

Arnone and Ippolito didn't spray any luminol. They were the video and camera guy who filmed and photographed the incompetence.

The stuff about the DNA is appalling. I dunno who the complete and utter moron is who wrote that but they get the knife samples mixed up and say Amanda's DNA on the handle was LCN and Sollecito's DNA on the clasp "wasn't even LCN" and the ‘inability to repeat the test is not a valid issue.’

I hope they leave their reasons untouched on the site. Even though I really don't "get" DNA-forensics, there is yet to be an independent DNA-expert who sides with Stefanoni on the issues. Leaving it the way it is on the McCall/Ergon-wiki will be key in convincing the world of the unjust nature of the convictions - worth 100x anything which could be posted on the IIP-wiki.

It's been nearly 2 years and they still haven't posted the actual killers March 2008 or May 2008 depositions or his Skype chat (not call) with Beneditti where he says "Amanda wasn't involved because he fought with a male and she wasn't there"

If those sort of errors were on the IIP site it'd be embarrassing. People would want them fixed. But the fake wiki is proud of it all. I think they believe it's all accurate but couldn't care less if it isn't.

I wonder why they omit certain things? Lessee, could it be confirmation bias?

It's all designed to muddy the waters. Then they've got the "massive evidence list" which isn't cited with page numbers. It's all just his own interpretation. The guy who wrote it thinks Kokomani is credible. I remember watching him try and put together a timeline.

I guess the only good thing is if anyone actually reads the primary sources they'll quickly see what's on the site is completely at odds with what's in the documents.

This is where I disagree with you, MichaelB. They are not self-consciously trying to muddy the waters.

Most of them, certainly McCall and Ergon, truly believe their conclusion. They believe it with all their hearts.

And like Cops who have a hunch they've caught the perp, sometimes it doesn't matter to misstate evidence, or hide evidence, because the KNOW they are right, despite the evidence.