Meredith Kercher murdered-Amanda Knox appeals conviction #20

[SunD]

The trio were convicted. That is not a presumption.

Being found guilty and being guilty are two different things. If she's presuming guilt, than she's editorializing and not simply reporting the facts (and when she reports the facts, i.e., mixed blood, she's clearly wrong).

With respect to your other question, I've stated some of my reasons for knowing she's a bad a reporter. But she's even worse when editorializing.

 

[otto]

Being found guilty and being guilty are two different things. If she's presuming guilt, than she's editorializing and not simply reporting the facts (and when she reports the facts, i.e., mixed blood, she's clearly wrong).

With respect to your other question, I've stated some of my reasons for knowing she's a bad a reporter. But she's even worse when editorializing.

Personally, I found the Fox news reporting to be the most astoundingly inaccurate and bizarre. I rather enjoy Andrea's columns as she's fluent in Italian, she followed the case from the beginning and she reports the facts. She doesn't cater to the "innocent until proven guilty but still not guilty" crowd, so it looks more like a "shoot the messenger" situation than bad reporting.

 

[SunD]

Personally, I found the Fox news reporting to be the most astoundingly inaccurate and bizarre. I rather enjoy Andrea's columns as she's fluent in Italian, she followed the case from the beginning and she reports the facts. She doesn't cater to the "innocent until proven guilty but still not guilty" crowd, so it looks more like a "shoot the messenger" situation than bad reporting.

Well I don't watch Fox News, but you clearly aren't reading other people's posts regarding Andrea's reporting. If she just reports the facts, why does she still mention mixed bloods? If she just reports the facts, why does she perpetuate the myth that mixed DNA of two people who lived in the same house is incriminating? If she's just reporting the facts, why does she presume that the break in was staged, rather than state the fact that this is only the prosecutions's theory? On and on it goes. Oh, and how can I forget the "I was there" debacle. Good grief!

 

[Monzoo]

The trio were convicted. That is not a presumption.

It is true that they were convicted. AK and RS have only been convicted in the trial of first instance, however. Within the Italian legal system they still are presumed innocent until the second appeal has been heard, if the State has maintain the conviction.

Within the Italian system, you could say that RG is guilty. Not so for AK and RS. They are still legally innocent.

 

[emyr]

I thought the article made an interesting comparison between Knox and other people from the US that should have been tried for crimes in Italy but who got away with murder.

Aren't both you and Vogt now presuming guilt of murder? (In the case of Sgrena, you are accusing a U.S. National Guard of murder because he fired on her car and killed Calipari after the car attempted to run a roadblock.)

 

[Malkmus]

I thought the article made an interesting comparison between Knox and other people from the US that should have been tried for crimes in Italy but who got away with murder.

I found them to be odd comparisons. The 4 or so examples all related to parties either never brought to trial or where the trial process was aborted. How does that compare?

They also seemed to be cases where there was direct evidence for their guilt.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I thought the article made an interesting comparison between Knox and other people from the US that should have been tried for crimes in Italy but who got away with murder.

I assume Ms. Vogt disapproved of the destruction of the video tape in the cable car incident. The best evidence against either Knox or Sollecito was the bra clasp, and the police stored it improperly, allowing it to rot and to rust. Now it cannot be retested, and yet Ms; Vogt said nothing. Ms. Vogt similarly failed to indicate that the police and prosecution withheld DNA forensic files, the release of which is a “near universal” norm, according to one profiling expert, Dan Krane. They tried to do the same with respect to the two court-appointed experts, but the judge saw through their shenanigans. The police also damaged multiple hard drives and destroyed meta-data (such as the time at which the file “Stardust” was accessed) on Sollecito’s computer.

And the serious problems in this case go well beyond the lack of transparency. The prosecution’s star witness was exposed as a heroin-addicted, small time drug dealer and serial witness. The prosecution’s time of death made a mockery of human digestive physiology. None of these problems with the prosecution’s case made it into her article, just facile comparisons to incidents unrelated to the present one.

 

[SkewedView]

Okay, this is not directly on topic, but I feel it is relevant given that it demonstrates quite effectively that the Italian system pretty much lets prosecutors do whatever they want, no matter how rediculous their assertions may be:

http://www.livescience.com/16132-it...ter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=LS_09212011

Six Italian scientists and one government official are set to go to trial today in Italy (Sept. 20) on charges of manslaughter for not warning the public aggressively enough of an impending earthquake that killed more than 300 people in 2009.

While such a trial is unlikely on U.S. soil, experts say, American geologists and seismologists are watching closely, surprised at a legal system that would attempt to criminalize something as uncertain as earthquake prediction.

"Our ability to predict earthquake hazards is, frankly, lousy," said Seth Stein, a professor of Earth sciences at Northwestern University in Illinois. "Criminalizing something would only make sense if we really knew how to do this and someone did it wrong."

BBM

 

[RoseMontague]

I found them to be odd comparisons. The 4 or so examples all related to parties either never brought to trial or where the trial process was aborted. How does that compare?

They also seemed to be cases where there was direct evidence for their guilt.

The best comparison I have seen on the Italian side is the case of the Sarah Scazzi murder. No system is perfect but some cases reek.

 

[ohiogirl]

Okay, this is not directly on topic, but I feel it is relevant given that it demonstrates quite effectively that the Italian system pretty much lets prosecutors do whatever they want, no matter how rediculous their assertions may be:

http://www.livescience.com/16132-it...ter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=LS_09212011



BBM

Just WOW!

 

[otto]

I assume Ms. Vogt disapproved of the destruction of the video tape in the cable car incident. The best evidence against either Knox or Sollecito was the bra clasp, and the police stored it improperly, allowing it to rot and to rust. Now it cannot be retested, and yet Ms; Vogt said nothing. Ms. Vogt similarly failed to indicate that the police and prosecution withheld DNA forensic files, the release of which is a “near universal” norm, according to one profiling expert, Dan Krane. They tried to do the same with respect to the two court-appointed experts, but the judge saw through their shenanigans. The police also damaged multiple hard drives and destroyed meta-data (such as the time at which the file “Stardust” was accessed) on Sollecito’s computer.

And the serious problems in this case go well beyond the lack of transparency. The prosecution’s star witness was exposed as a heroin-addicted, small time drug dealer and serial witness. The prosecution’s time of death made a mockery of human digestive physiology. None of these problems with the prosecution’s case made it into her article, just facile comparisons to incidents unrelated to the present one.

I can't say I liked the defense's star witnesses any better: a mafia turncoat and a baby killer? I think I would prefer the heroine addict as, at the very least, he hurts himself and not others.

 

[otto]

I found them to be odd comparisons. The 4 or so examples all related to parties either never brought to trial or where the trial process was aborted. How does that compare?

They also seemed to be cases where there was direct evidence for their guilt.

I thought the inference was that they were all US citizens protected by the US after committing crimes elsewhere.

 

[js202]

I can't say I liked the defense's star witnesses any better: a mafia turncoat and a baby killer? I think I would prefer the heroine addict as, at the very least, he hurts himself and not others.

I myself am a heroine addict. Catwoman? Supergirl? Wonder Woman? I dig all of the above, so I resemble that remark!

But, with regard to witnesses in a criminal trial, the interesting thing is that: 1) the prosecution has a burden of bringing in witnesses of suitable character to buttress a case of guilt provable beyond a reasonable doubt; 2) given that Rudy Guede is a criminal who has been ostracized by friends and his adoptive family, it is an unfortunate necessity that testimony to his words would come from fellow criminals; and, finally 3) unlike the prosecution, it is not the burden of the defense to provide ironclad proof of innocence, but to demonstrate enough flaws in the case against Knox and Sollecito to prove reasonable doubt.

Given that the prosecution's case always hung from the thinnest of threads, and now that C&V have cut that thread, the prison witnesses who testified are a sideshow.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I can't say I liked the defense's star witnesses any better: a mafia turncoat and a baby killer? I think I would prefer the heroine addict as, at the very least, he hurts himself and not others.

The defense's star witnesses were Sgt. Pasquali, Carlo Torre, etc. Too bad the the judges in the trial of the first instance did not take heed of their testimony.

 

[Malkmus]

I thought the inference was that they were all US citizens protected by the US after committing crimes elsewhere.

That hasn't happened in Amanda's case, so I find it premature of Vogt to say "If Amanda is acquitted, and if she goes straight home, and if the prosecutors successfully appeal at the SC level, that then she will be like these cases of war criminals not being prosecuted due to US intervening. It's a stretch. A big one.

Not to mention, if she is acquitted I highly doubt the prosecution will be able to present any instances where she was let go due to any violations of the law. Just a guess, but I'm assuming the SC rulings are in place more to ensure that the defendant's rights weren't violated, and doesn't cater so much to the other side. And we know that the SC doesn't evaluate the evidence.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I found them to be odd comparisons. The 4 or so examples all related to parties either never brought to trial or where the trial process was aborted. How does that compare?

They also seemed to be cases where there was direct evidence for their guilt.

Ms. Vogt wrote elsewhere, "This is also evident in the bitter power struggle playing out in the judicial arm of the Italian government, partly over the prosecution of its prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Sollecito's well-connected attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, is one of the closest allies of Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi's main political rival. Could her influence make a difference in the appeal?"

So if Amanda and Raffaele are acquitted, will it be because Bongiorno pulled strings, or because Amanda is American? The implication in the paragraph above is both insulting and nonsensical. What is missing in both of these articles is a fresh, honest, objective evaluation of the case as it stands today.

 

[Malkmus]

Ms. Vogt wrote elsewhere, "This is also evident in the bitter power struggle playing out in the judicial arm of the Italian government, partly over the prosecution of its prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Sollecito's well-connected attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, is one of the closest allies of Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi's main political rival. Could her influence make a difference in the appeal?"

So if Amanda and Raffaele are acquitted, will it be because Bongiorno pulled strings, or because Amanda is American? The implication in the paragraph above is both insulting and nonsensical. What is missing in both of these articles is a fresh, honest, objective evaluation of the case as it stands today.

It's strange, she seems to be going out of her way to say whichever way possible that if Amanda and Raf are acquitted that it will have nothing to do with the judge's evaluation of the evidence, no matter how many contradictions for her reasoning she can drum up.

 

[Monzoo]

With the prosecution's closing statement due to begin tomorrow, does anyone have any thoughts on what they will say?

I am most interested to see how they deal with the bra strap and knife, both of which were degraded as evidence by the court's independent expert. It will be interesting to see how the prosectution deals with them.

On one hand, both pieces were central to the prosecution during the first trial. It would be a blow to their arguments to lose them as evidence entirely.

On the other hand, if they ignore the independent experts' report and treat them as solid pieces of evidence, they run the risk of having the judges discount their closing because they would see it as being based on flawed or discredited evidence.

We'll see tomorrow, I suppose. I see risks in either approach.

 

[trillian]

Going back to stuff that was taken from the house...what is the theory of why AK and RS would take the cell phones, run down the street, and throw them into the trees?

I believe that the taking of her phones is evidence that Rudy was not sure if meredith was really dead. At some point as she is dying he covered her and took her phones to make sure no help could be called. Then gets out of there, fumbles in the dark and presses some buttons, perhaps trying to turn them off. He gets rid of them on his way home. No way would he keep those!!

So that makes perfect sense for Rudy. But I can't think of one that makes sense for AK and RS.

 

[RoseMontague]

With the prosecution's closing statement due to begin tomorrow, does anyone have any thoughts on what they will say?

I am most interested to see how they deal with the bra strap and knife, both of which were degraded as evidence by the court's independent expert. It will be interesting to see how the prosectution deals with them.

On one hand, both pieces were central to the prosecution during the first trial. It would be a blow to their arguments to lose them as evidence entirely.

On the other hand, if they ignore the independent experts' report and treat them as solid pieces of evidence, they run the risk of having the judges discount their closing because they would see it as being based on flawed or discredited evidence.

We'll see tomorrow, I suppose. I see risks in either approach.

My guess is a giant game of Let's Pretend. They will pretend that everything is perfect and beautiful with the prosecution case and that it all makes sense. All that bad stuff with the evil C&V and Curatolo's crazy twin just did not happen.