Meredith Kercher murdered-Amanda Knox appeals conviction #16

[otto]

@ OTTO:No matter how I seach pics of Sollecito, I see nothing in his face post-conviction, which gives away that he was rightfully convicted. Nor Amanda's.

The fact of the matter with Knox and Sollecito: They may not be your type, your cup of tea, and you may find them selfish or callous or lacking in some way - but legally, jurisprudence-wise, we need to make sure the evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that they were involved in Kercher's murder. All else must be outside the vision of Justice.

Where does the decision of the jury factor into this? The jury heard all the evidence and had no problem arriving at the unanimous verdict of guilt. I hope that "reasonable doubt" doesn't mean the same thing it meant to the Anthony jury.

 

[Malkmus]

Quite right. A camisole and panties is two pieces of underwear, but when it comes to panties, was Knox really spending $82 to replace the underwear that was locked in a crime scene?

Probably not ... esp., if she only bought one pair.

We don't know that she didn't buy more underwear elsewhere. It's true that her clothes were in lock-down at the cottage, so I would bet she bought more than just the one pair. However, we don't have record of everyone of her actions that day, so it's rather moot. And pointless, anyhow, as buying underwear is rather irrelevant to anything.

 

[Malkmus]

So should we discredit eye witness testimony because the receipt was not found on the floor of the car? Facts are that she was not replacing the confiscated underwear the day after she was released from questioning ... instead she was playining in the shops with Sollecito. So Sollecito and Knox were out of words when asked what they did after Meredith's murder ... other than buy sexy lingerie and flirt in the shop.

If this was a woman whose husband had been murdered and the next day she was spotted buying underwear with another man, I could see this being relevant. However, it's not. This was a girl with her boyfriend buying underwear and flirting with him.

 

[SMK]

Where does the decision of the jury factor into this? The jury heard all the evidence and had no problem arriving at the unanimous verdict of guilt. I hope that "reasonable doubt" doesn't mean the same thing it meant to the Anthony jury.

Well, what if Judge Hellman and the new jury now find reasonable doubt? Will that be acceptable to you, then? :waitasec:

 

[Nova]

So should we discredit eye witness testimony because the receipt was not found on the floor of the car? Facts are that she was not replacing the confiscated underwear the day after she was released from questioning ... instead she was playining in the shops with Sollecito. So Sollecito and Knox were out of words when asked what they did after Meredith's murder ... other than buy sexy lingerie and flirt in the shop.

"...Sollecito and Knox were out of words...." Cite, please?

Perhaps AK was buying something comfortable in which to sleep. I don't know and I still don't know why it matters.

And I still wonder why we haven't heard anything about the underwear-buying of AK's surviving roommates.

For the moment, let's assume worst-case scenario re the underwear. Let's assume AK and RS were actually turned on in response to the murder and couldn't wait to hop into bed together. THERE IS NO PROOF OF THIS, but let's assume it.

THAT STILL WOULDN'T PROVE THEM GUILTY OF THE MURDER! People have used sex as an escape from fears of death for thousands of years, as countless examples attest from world literature. Sex is life-affirming and therefore comforting to many people when they are confronted with the opposite of life. Freud wrote volumes on this subject.

This doesn't mean that anyone but a tiny percentage of psychopaths actually kill anyone for a sexual thrill.

And as SMK and Sonata have pointed out, if Knox and Sollecito had actually killed MK, they would have been concerned about the suspicions of others and would have been more circumspect in their post-murder behavior.

On the contrary, nearly everything you and the tabloids trumpet as proof of guilt is actually concrete proof that it never occurred to AK and RS that they would be suspected. If it never occurred to them, then they didn't commit the crime.

 

[SMK]

If this was a woman whose husband had been murdered and the next day she was spotted buying underwear with another man, I could see this being relevant. However, it's not. This was a girl with her boyfriend buying underwear and flirting with him.

I was going to say something similar. I was going to say that if Amanda's own mother or sister had been murdered while visiting her in Perugia, it would have been very strange to see her planning a romantic evening with Sollecito. As it was, it was a roommate who had distanced herself from Knox. She likely wanted to put it all behind her.

 

[Nova]

Quite right. A camisole and panties is two pieces of underwear, but when it comes to panties, was Knox really spending $82 to replace the underwear that was locked in a crime scene?

Probably not ... esp., if she only bought one pair.

I'm sure you're not lying, otto, but if you insist on endless repetitions of a figure as specific as $82, then I think you owe us a citation. Yes, even after four years.

 

[Nova]

Acutally, on the first night after the murder, everyone was detained without breaks ... but Knox had her legs straddled over Sollecito and proclaimed that the victim "fukcing bled to death" even though the coroner had not yet determined cause of death.

Not the interpreter story again ... I guess we only need look as far as the Knox testimony to see that she stated that she had an interpreter.

Not seeing any tunnel vision in the evidence that excludes everyone but Guede, Sollecito and Knox ... if only they hadn't been stoned out of their heads the night that Meredith was murdered ... maybe they'd remember what they did ... none of those "imaginery" memories.

Really? No tunnel vision?

Then why don't we know how the roommates handled the underwear shortage? Why don't we know what they did with their boyfriends that week?

Why don't we know what they ate in between interrogations?

RF was the one who disturbed the crime scene in her room. (Not really her fault, IMO, but it was she nonetheless.) Why wasn't she investigated more fully? Her alibi is essentially the same as AK's. They were both with their boyfriends on the night of the murder. Why wasn't RF tag-teamed and slapped upside the head?

IIRC, DNA samples weren't even taken from the Italian roommates for purposes of exclusion! Nor from the boys downstairs!

Given Sonata's cite above where the ILE official talks about how Knox must have corrupted Sollecito the sexual innocent, I'm beginning to think anti-Americanism had more to do with this case than I thought.

But there's no question that, just as they told the press, ILE took one look at AK and her mysterious hip swivel and decided she was guilty. Just like ILE took one look at RF's room and decided the break in was staged WITHOUT actually bringing in a forensic expert to process the room.

 

[Nova]

OK, let us suppose this is true. Worst case scenario: MK has been brutally murdered, and what Amanda is interested in is buying sexy lingerie, and telling Raffaele about the great sex they will have that night. Maybe she wanted to distance herself from trauma. Maybe as she was not really close to MK, she simply did not care all that much and was moving on. Callous maybe. Against the law, no. If the 2 knew they were involved, they would likely have agreed to be seen about town, weeping over MK, putting on a show. As they knew they were not involved, they threw caution to the winds and let it be known that they were thinking of their joy, and not her tragedy. How does this connect them to a murder?

Sorry, SMK. I hadn't read your post when I posted the same thing this afternoon.

I believe you say it better, so I'm quoting you here.

 

[Nova]

Right, Knox felt it was absurd to be Pollyanna-ish and say Kercher had not suffered. "She ****ing bled to death." Stop the white washing. I would have said similar, as I hate whitewashing. She knew it was no crime to say this, and as she knew she was not involved, she did not believe she needed to put on an act. Girls straddle boys when they sit on their laps all the time. If the murder left her unmoved, then one must accept it. How does that reveal her as the killer? Killers put on acts to deflect suspicion.

And people say wildly inappropriate things in response to violence and grief. We could have a separate thread just for the outrageous things my own mother has said when people (including her younger son) have died or were terminally ill.

 

[SMK]

Sorry, SMK. I hadn't read your post when I posted the same thing this afternoon.

I believe you say it better, so I'm quoting you here.

Aww, thanks, Nova.

 

[Nova]

@ OTTO:No matter how I seach pics of Sollecito, I see nothing in his face post-conviction, which gives away that he was rightfully convicted. Nor Amanda's.

The fact of the matter with Knox and Sollecito: They may not be your type, your cup of tea, and you may find them selfish or callous or lacking in some way - but legally, jurisprudence-wise, we need to make sure the evidence proves beyond reasonable doubt that they were involved in Kercher's murder. All else must be outside the vision of Justice.

Sometimes in this thread I feel like I've wandered into a production of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, and I'm arguing with the jury at the Salem witch trials. So much of the supposed evidence against AK and RS is of the same nature.

 

[Nova]

The attack on the victim was sexually staged ... of course the culprit was housed with the other sexual offenders. Knox too. Wouldn't you expect that they were in good company?

That may well be the reason why AK and RS were placed as they were, but given what we now know about Stefanoni's incompetence and corruption, I don't know if we can trust her finding of RG's skin cells inside MK.

The prosecution needed evidence for its "sex games gone bad" theory and Stefanoni was nothing if not helpful whenever the prosecution had a hole in the chain of its evidence.

 

[SkewedView]

And people say wildly inappropriate things in response to violence and grief. We could have a separate thread just for the outrageous things my own mother has said when people (including her younger son) have died or were terminally ill.

Reminds me of when Beatles fans incorrectly vilified Paul McCartney when he was informed by a reporter that John Lennon had been shot to death, and in his shock all he could think to say was 'that's a real bummer, man'.

 

[SkewedView]

Really, the public in all cases need to stop with the 'suspiciously inappropriate behavior' bit - more often than not such speculation serves no purpose than to attach suspicion and misery to innocent parties. There are even numerous threads on this very forum where we've shamed ourselves by accusing innocent people of murder because they didn't behave like we think we would in the same circumstances (anyone remember the vilification of Somer Thompson's poor mother? Boy, that turned out well, didn't it?)

Seriously, people react to things in infinitely diverse ways, and you can't profile guilt or innocence from behavior because of it. Sure, prosecutors and defense attorneys love to dig up crackpot psychoanalysts willing to do it, for a paycheck that is, but responsible profilers like those in the FBI constantly (and often fruitlessly) remind LE and the public that profiles are not meant to be applied to individuals.

 

[SkewedView]

Regarding the forensics (where the conversation was before we all got distracted by pretty boys and sexy undies):

Forensics is the use of science to find the truth in criminal matters. I can't stress that enough. Science. Not magic. Science. If it were magic, we'd only care if the results were convincing. The methods used to get to those results wouldn't matter. In science, however, the first thing you look at in an experiment/test is the methods used. If the methods are flawed, the results are invalid. Period. Doesn't matter how attractive those results may be. (See the various discredited 'Cold Fusion' experiments for a good reference)

In this case, the methodology of PLE and its lab people is hopelessly flawed, as proven by their own videos, still images and lab reports. Sorry, there's no getting around it, they are hoist by their own petard.

Pure and simple, if you are going to use science to take away someone's freedom, you'd better treat it like science, not like some magic show, and most certainly not like some legal argument, where eloquence and 'gotcha' moments dominate. If the courts and the public can't respect scientific method and the ethics that go with it, then we shouldn't use science in the courts at all. The independent experts showed how much respect Stephanoni and her cohorts have for those ethics - in their own words and pictures.

 

[SMK]

Regarding the forensics (where the conversation was before we all got distracted by pretty boys and sexy undies):

Forensics is the use of science to find the truth in criminal matters. I can't stress that enough. Science. Not magic. Science. If it were magic, we'd only care if the results were convincing. The methods used to get to those results wouldn't matter. In science, however, the first thing you look at in an experiment/test is the methods used. If the methods are flawed, the results are invalid. Period. Doesn't matter how attractive those results may be. (See the various discredited 'Cold Fusion' experiments for a good reference)

In this case, the methodology of PLE and its lab people is hopelessly flawed, as proven by their own videos, still images and lab reports. Sorry, there's no getting around it, they are hoist by their own petard.

Pure and simple, if you are going to use science to take away someone's freedom, you'd better treat it like science, not like some magic show, and most certainly not like some legal argument, where eloquence and 'gotcha' moments dominate. If the courts and the public can't respect scientific method and the ethics that go with it, then we shouldn't use science in the courts at all. The independent experts showed how much respect Stephanoni and her cohorts have for those ethics - in their own words and pictures.

:clap::clap::clap:

 

[Nova]

Reminds me of when Beatles fans incorrectly vilified Paul McCartney when he was informed by a reporter that John Lennon had been shot to death, and in his shock all he could think to say was 'that's a real bummer, man'.

My mother SCREAMED at me that we couldn't possibly have a funeral for my brother because his corpse would be so infected with AIDS that it had to be burned immediately at 2,000 degrees before the HIV could spread!

My brother was very much still alive and sitting next to her at the time. I've never seen anyone turn so pale.

But my mother didn't murder my brother. He was obviously her favorite and she cared for him for years before he died, sometimes moving into the hospital with him to care for him at night when the staffing was low.

She's just one of many people who deal very awkwardly with grief. Well, actually, she's nuts and an extreme example. But the point is, people say and do strange things around death.

 

[SMK]

My mother SCREAMED at me that we couldn't possibly have a funeral for my brother because his corpse would be so infected with AIDS that it had to be burned immediately at 2,000 degrees before the HIV could spread!

My brother was very much still alive and sitting next to her at the time. I've never seen anyone turn so pale.

But my mother didn't murder my brother. He was obviously her favorite and she cared for him for years before he died, sometimes moving into the hospital with him to care for him at night when the staffing was low.

She's just one of many people who deal very awkwardly with grief. Well, actually, she's nuts and an extreme example. But the point is, people say and do strange things around death.

Yes, I experienced this too, with myself and others when my husband was dying. Callous things said, from some sort of hysteria or denial. The nurses used to throw us out. But anguish and genuine sorrow were at the core. I feel sad that you lost your dear brother.

 

[Nova]

Yes, I experienced this too, with myself and others when my husband was dying. Callous things said, from some sort of hysteria or denial. The nurses used to throw us out. But anguish and genuine sorrow were at the core. I feel sad that you lost your dear brother.

I'm so sorry about your husband, my friend.