The Massei/Mignini Conspiracy Theory

[Chris_Halkides]

For Norfolk

Oh, so you are a psychologist? Enlighten me. Feel free to put up some links.

My (admittedly limited) knowledge of the subject entails an article that summarized the research in this area as indicating that subjects susceptible to the phenomenon tended to be either very young children; mentally retarded, or extremely introverted.

Knox fits none of those categories.

Derek Tice was a Navy man with an IQ of 148+. I have seen no evidence that he was extremely introverted. Been there, done that. Search on the term Norfolk Four here or elsewhere, but I suspect you knew that already.

 

[Branded]

Derek Tice was a Navy man with an IQ of 148+. I have seen no evidence that he was extremely introverted. Been there, done that. Search on the term Norfolk Four here or elsewhere, but I suspect you knew that already.

Ah, yes, but what was poor Mr. Dick's I.Q.? Where was he on the Introversion/Extroversion Scale?

IIRC, Mr. Dick was not only learning disabled but very meek, shy and socially awkward.

Mr. Dick's false confession was arguably the 'lynch pin' in that case - Without it, the rogue cop may well have hit a wall with the others.

Indeed, isn't it the case that Mr. Dick was the ONLY one of the men to truly "internalize" his false confession?

What evidence did Knox's lawyers lead of a rogue cop and an internalized false confession?

Two school teacher-like 'cuffs' to the head from a female cop over the course of 1 hour and 45 minutes (replete with tea and cakes) doesn't cut it, especially when one considers Knox's extroversion and the fact she was a reasonably intelligent 3rd year university student.

Knox and Dick are polar opposites: Only one fits the profile for an internalized false confession, and its not Knox.


ETA: As for Mr. Tice, didn't he strike you as a rather shy, sensitive man? He was no extrovert. The Knox that took the stand in 2009 could eat Tice for breakfast.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

enquiring minds

One rather obvious explanation for Knox's incriminating statements is that she's guilty.

Branded,

If she were guilty, why would she name Lumumba, whom she would suspect of having an alibi? If she were guilty, why would she not name Guede, and so get the lightest sentence?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

cheerios

Ah, yes, but what was poor Mr. Dick's I.Q.? Where was he on the Introversion/Extroversion Scale?

IIRC, Mr. Dick was not only learning disabled but very meek, shy and socially awkward.

Mr. Dick's false confession was arguably the 'lynch pin' in that case - Without it, the rogue cop may well have hit a wall with the others.

Indeed, isn't it the case that Mr. Dick was the ONLY one of the men to truly "internalize" his false confession?

What evidence did Knox's lawyers lead of a rogue cop and an internalized false confession?

Two school teacher-like 'cuffs' to the head from a female cop over the course of 1 hour and 45 minutes (replete with tea and cakes) doesn't cut it, especially when one considers Knox's extroversion and the fact she was a reasonably intelligent 3rd year university student.

Knox and Dick are polar opposites: Only one fits the profile for an internalized false confession, and its not Knox.


ETA: As for Mr. Tice, didn't he strike you as a rather shy, sensitive man? He was no extrovert. The Knox that took the stand in 2009 could eat Tice for breakfast.

Branded,

Danial Williams confessed first. If you are going to claim that Joseph Dick's confession is responsible for this, Platonov will be all over you about retrocausality. Of the four Mr. Dick internalized the confession for the longest time, which is a different question. Have you heard the tape of Ms. Knox in 2008? She does not sound as if she could eat a bowl of cheerios for breakfast.

post script
Do you believe that they had tea and cakes, or do you believe that Ms. Knox was cuffed, or do you believe both?

 

[quadraginta]

Quadraginta,

My answer covered both forensic and nonforensic information. And your reply ignored the central point of my comment. I don't want to take on any more cases than the ones I already have, thank you very much. If you feel moved to help Ms. Anthony, I promise not to stand in your way or make derisive comments.

Derek Tice was a Navy man with an IQ of 148+. I have seen no evidence that he was extremely introverted. Been there, done that. Search on the term Norfolk Four here or elsewhere, but I suspect you knew that already.

Is there a special formula you use to determine which other cases are appropriate to bring up in this discussion?

Is it secret, or can you share it with the rest of us?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

more power to them

Is there a special formula you use to determine which other cases are appropriate to bring up in this discussion?

Is it secret, or can you share it with the rest of us?

Quadraginta,

The Norfolk Four case is a good counterexample to the notion that only a few groups of people (mentally challenged, for example) will give false confessions. The first Ada, OK case (Karl Fontenot) is a good example that it does not always take long to produce a false confession. Maybe you can expand on the similarities and differences between the present case and the Casey Anthony case a little bit more. I don't think I have understood your point yet. I am fine with anyone bringing up any case that they feel is relevant.

By "take on" I mean become personally involved in. Just to clarify, if others want to blog/comment about other cases of injustice, based upon their evaluation of what works or does not work in previous cases, I say more bandwidth to them.

post script
In rereading your comments and Stilicho's, I realized that I might have misinterpreted your intent. Stilicho mentioned classroom teaching, not you. And my reluctance to study the Anthony case more thoroughly stems mostly from my failure (so far) to see the connection to this one. So far, I have only ever brought up the Patricia Stallings case in my class, and that is only when we study chromatography. If I include more about DNA profiling in the future, I would be inclined to use the Leiterman case with respect to Jane Mixer as an example.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Interesting link....

http://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kassin/files/Kassin_07_internalized confessions ch.pdf

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Kassin article

Interesting link....

http://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kassin/files/Kassin_07_internalized confessions ch.pdf

PhantomWolf,

Good find. The author wrote, "Indeed, Gudjonsson and MacKeith (1982) suggested that this type of confession was the product of 'memory distrust syndrome,' a form of source amnesia in which people develop a profound distrust of their memory, rendering them vulnerable to influence from external cues and suggestions."

 

[Fuji]

PhantomWolf,

Good find. The author wrote, "Indeed, Gudjonsson and MacKeith (1982) suggested that this type of confession was the product of 'memory distrust syndrome,' a form of source amnesia in which people develop a profound distrust of their memory, rendering them vulnerable to influence from external cues and suggestions."

Nowhere in that article does the author give any statistics at all as to the occurence rate of internalized false confessions in regards to police interrogations. If its introduction to this discussion is to be taken as a point of evidence in favor of the proposition that Knox's statement in which she accuses Lumumba of Kercher's murder is in fact a genuine internalized false confession, it fails on this logical basis.

However, even taking the piece as is, the type of "false confession" of which Knox is most commonly presented by her supporters as having made on the night of 5/6 November 2007, appears to belong to the rarest sub-type:

"In the original computer crash study described earlier, Kassin and Kiechel (1996) found that more subjects signed a false confession (compliance) than believed they were guilty of hitting the prohibited ALT key (internalization) - and only a subset of those who believed they were guilty also generated false memories of how they did it (confabulation)."

 

[babycondor]

"In the original computer crash study described earlier, Kassin and Kiechel (1996) found that more subjects signed a false confession (compliance) than believed they were guilty of hitting the prohibited ALT key (internalization) - and only a subset of those who believed they were guilty also generated false memories of how they did it (confabulation)."

Are you using the results of one study to support your point? By your own logic, that would fail.

The conditions subjects in the computer crash study were placed under are hardly comparable to sitting in a police department for hours, being interrogated by 12 cops, threatened, lied to, cuffed on the head, etc. If the study had replicated those conditions I guarantee you they would have gotten different results. (Of course, such a study would never be approved, on ethical grounds.)

When I read the article, I was struck by how many aspects of Amanda's false confession matched the details mentioned by the author.

 

[Fuji]

Are you using the results of one study to support your point? By your own logic, that would fail.

No, you are incorrect. My main point was that merely introducing a citation which describes a typology of false confessions without any corroborating data as to their general likelihood of occurence as a means of demonstrating that a specific interrogation meets cited criteria is a pointless exercise. I did not at all refer to the cited 1996 study in doing so.

Rather, I quoted the selected portion of the citation because - even amongst the set of false confessions that do exist - the subset of those which include Knox's 5/6 November 2007 statement as it is commonly conceived by her supporters (i.e. a genuine internalized false confession, with confabulation) is small, in the author's own estimation.

The conditions subjects in the computer crash study were placed under are hardly comparable to sitting in a police department for hours, being interrogated by 12 cops, threatened, lied to, cuffed on the head, etc. If the study had replicated those conditions I guarantee you they would have gotten different results. (Of course, such a study would never be approved, on ethical grounds.)

Agreed (with your statement as is, not any implication that Knox's interrogation actually met these criteria). But it's not my study - you'd have to take that up with the author.

When I read the article, I was struck by how many aspects of Amanda's false confession matched the details mentioned by the author.

When I read the article, I was struck by how poorly the actual scientific study of false confessions is currently proceeding.

 

[RoseMontague]

When I read the article, I was struck by how poorly the actual scientific study of false confessions is currently proceeding.

I like this one because it gives you a lot of information from which to draw your own conclusions, including transcripts and testimony.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/librarysite/garrett_falseconfess.htm

I think the big error in looking at Amanda's confession and comparing it to other false confessions, is that the first step is missing. That would be looking at her confession and comparing it to other confessions, period. To me, it is obvious that what is missing is a lot of detail about the crime which normal confessions contain. I don't think Amanda's confession should have been considered believable to began with and should be compared to other confessions that cops immediately discounted as not true. If somebody has an example or two of this type, I would love to see them.

 

[bri1]

Nowhere in that article does the author give any statistics at all as to the occurence rate of internalized false confessions in regards to police interrogations. If its introduction to this discussion is to be taken as a point of evidence in favor of the proposition that Knox's statement in which she accuses Lumumba of Kercher's murder is in fact a genuine internalized false confession, it fails on this logical basis.

However, even taking the piece as is, the type of "false confession" of which Knox is most commonly presented by her supporters as having made on the night of 5/6 November 2007, appears to belong to the rarest sub-type:

"In the original computer crash study described earlier, Kassin and Kiechel (1996) found that more subjects signed a false confession (compliance) than believed they were guilty of hitting the prohibited ALT key (internalization) - and only a subset of those who believed they were guilty also generated false memories of how they did it (confabulation)."

Hmmm. So guilters can convict on the basis of fairly weak evidence in a case where the rarity of this kind of crime (female led female on female sexual violence) is immense (the lists guilters post of around 5 - 15 vaguely similar crimes are laughable. Do they have any concept of how many cases male-on-female sexual violence there are?). But they don't apply the same standards to the rarity of internalised false confession. Interesting double standard.

Interesting abstract: "This article describes the case of a 25-year-old man (Mr J) who confessed during police interviewing to having set a series of fires whilst he worked as a voluntary fireman. His confession to the police had the hallmarks of a 'coerced-internalized' false confession. The case illustrates the process whereby such confessions can, in certain circumstances, occur quite easily with psychologically vulnerable individuals. Mr J's salient vulnerabilities were: his eagerness to please the investigating officers; firm trust in the police and great respect for them; lack of confidence in his memory of events; and high suggestibility. The author argues that special problems may arise in cases where the individual's role changes from that of a witness in an informal interview to that of a suspect. "

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a789208315

Very interesting list of salient vulnerabilities! And very interesting argument alluded to at the end. I will be looking more closely at this case study soon...

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Nowhere in that article does the author give any statistics at all as to the occurence rate of internalized false confessions in regards to police interrogations. If its introduction to this discussion is to be taken as a point of evidence in favor of the proposition that Knox's statement in which she accuses Lumumba of Kercher's murder is in fact a genuine internalized false confession, it fails on this logical basis.

However, even taking the piece as is, the type of "false confession" of which Knox is most commonly presented by her supporters as having made on the night of 5/6 November 2007, appears to belong to the rarest sub-type:

"In the original computer crash study described earlier, Kassin and Kiechel (1996) found that more subjects signed a false confession (compliance) than believed they were guilty of hitting the prohibited ALT key (internalization) - and only a subset of those who believed they were guilty also generated false memories of how they did it (confabulation)."

An analogy here.

There are three types of parrot on Guilter Island. The common Red Parrot, the less common Orange Parrot and the very rare Blue Parrot.

One of the guilters who lives on Guilter Island finds a dead Blue Parrot on the beach.

This guilter says to themselves "Well, this certainly looks exactly like a Blue Parrot. It's clearly blue and in all other respects matches the scientific description of a Blue Parrot. But Blue Parrots are very rare! Really really rare! I mean, are you seriously trying to tell me that this blue parrot is a Blue Parrot? The argument fails on this logical basis. This is clearly not a parrot at all, it's a Wimblethrax, a bird I just made up that looks exactly like a Blue Parrot but isn't one and which I have no scientific evidence even exists".

 

[Amazer]

An analogy here.

There are three types of parrot on Guilter Island. The common Red Parrot, the less common Orange Parrot and the very rare Blue Parrot.

One of the guilters who lives on Guilter Island finds a dead Blue Parrot on the beach.

This guilter says to themselves "Well, this certainly looks exactly like a Blue Parrot. It's clearly blue and in all other respects matches the scientific description of a Blue Parrot. But Blue Parrots are very rare! Really really rare! I mean, are you seriously trying to tell me that this blue parrot is a Blue Parrot? The argument fails on this logical basis. This is clearly not a parrot at all, it's a Wimblethrax, a bird I just made up that looks exactly like a Blue Parrot but isn't one and which I have no scientific evidence even exists".

Lol Kevin... you've forgotten that the rather common Blue Jay (as do a number of other bird species that have blue feathers) also lives on Guilter Island. Just because you have found a dead blue bird doesn't mean that it has to be the rare Blue parrot.

 

[platonov]

For the Birds Part II ?

An analogy here.

There are three types of parrot on Guilter Island. The common Red Parrot, the less common Orange Parrot and the very rare Blue Parrot.

One of the guilters who lives on Guilter Island finds a dead Blue Parrot on the beach.

This guilter says to themselves "Well, this certainly looks exactly like a Blue Parrot. It's clearly blue and in all other respects matches the scientific description of a Blue Parrot. But Blue Parrots are very rare! Really really rare! I mean, are you seriously trying to tell me that this blue parrot is a Blue Parrot? The argument fails on this logical basis. This is clearly not a parrot at all, it's a Wimblethrax, a bird I just made up that looks exactly like a Blue Parrot but isn't one and which I have no scientific evidence even exists".

I see we have moved from the very rare albino pigeon to the very rare Blue Parrot.
Ornithologically speaking I'm afraid these arguments are still 'Norwegian Blue'

Branded,

Danial Williams confessed first. If you are going to claim that Joseph Dick's confession is responsible for this, P platonov will be all over you about retrocausality.
<snip>

halides1

I thought it had been agreed to drop references to retrocausality and time travel. If the Norwegian blue turns out to be a cat don't lay it on me, man

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Monty Python's flying circus

halides1

I thought it had been agreed to drop references to retrocausality and time travel. If the Norwegian blue turns out to be a cat don't lay it on me, man

platonov,

This being the conspiracy theories section, perhaps retrocausality and time travel fit in just fine. Dead parrots remind me of Monty Python.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Lol Kevin... you've forgotten that the rather common Blue Jay (as do a number of other bird species that have blue feathers) also lives on Guilter Island. Just because you have found a dead blue bird doesn't mean that it has to be the rare Blue parrot.

Then you will of course have no trouble citing evidence that normal criminal confessions regurgitate the existing police theory adding nothing new, make no sense, are disjointed both in space and time, are remembered as dream-like at best, aren't actually a confession of anything at all except being present when a crime occurred and are retracted as soon as the criminal has time to get their head together.

If such things are rather common, you will have no trouble.

On the other hand if it turns out most criminal confessions don't look anything like an internalised false confession, you won't be able to back up the implied claim at all and you'll have to try to reverse the burden of proof, move the goalposts or just stop posting for a while.

 

[PhantomWolf]

platonov,

This being the conspiracy theories section, perhaps retrocausality and time travel fit in just fine. Dead parrots remind me of Monty Python.

'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

 

[Amazer]

Then you will of course have no trouble citing evidence that normal criminal confessions regurgitate the existing police theory adding nothing new, make no sense, are disjointed both in space and time, are remembered as dream-like at best, aren't actually a confession of anything at all except being present when a crime occurred and are retracted as soon as the criminal has time to get their head together.

If such things are rather common, you will have no trouble.

On the other hand if it turns out most criminal confessions don't look anything like an internalised false confession, you won't be able to back up the implied claim at all and you'll have to try to reverse the burden of proof, move the goalposts or just stop posting for a while.

Nice try Kevin... but (sticking with the analogy) the burden to prove that the blue feathered bird you found is actually a rare blue parrot falls squarely on your shoulders.