Headsup: Unsurprisingly, Knox chickens out of presenting her "proof" on 10 April of being forced to frame Patrick for Meredith's murder when actually under no stress. She's not a good liar. She could face Patrick's tiger of a lawyer and many officers she has slimed. Trial is closed to the press, like the most damning parts of the 2009 trial; a pity that. And see links here for Knox's false framing #2: Rudy Guede as sole killer.
Category: Defendants in court

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

A Shaky Castle Of Cards At Best: The Long-Term Fight For Legitimacy #2

Posted by Our Main Posters



RS and AK in New York a while back, the last time that they actually met


Gloom and doom have been dissipating for over a month now in Italy among those most invested in a just outcome, for the reasons given in this immediate-post-verdict post.

Note that the defense camps really want and need that legitimacy. They know the perverse judgment is not the end of the road. They have clamped down hard on what RS and AK can say.

In the Italian legal community the Fifth Chambers are getting some scathing commentary for their strange law and dismissiveness of the facts of the case which Cardiol in the post below this one once again underlined.

The Fifth Chambers’ sentencing report should be red meat, very tough for the hapless judges to write and a target from Day One and, under a new law in Italy which already overturned several Cassation verdicts, a very likely candidate for a legal suit.

The two book trials should slowly strip the emperors bare (remember those books are still very unread, even by many who read this site, and neither are in Italian yet), and could cost Knox more time inside and both of them fines and civil suits.

The psychologist SeekingUnderstanding has posted several times on how untreated troubled psychology rarely simply gets better with time. RS’s startling new crack at AK shows he has no inner calm, Knox’s delay in wedding plans and her incessant anger and vagueness maybe too.

Neither seem to have the big bucks they will need for their legal teams going forward, or the promise of successful careers. Sollecito still hasnt worked a day in his life and his preferred software area never sees successful entrants at his age. Knox’s only known area of interest - paid writing - is a fast-shrinking field.

Several tough books are already in the works. And the media loves conspiracy theories and hoaxes, and as all the real conspiracies and hoaxes have been on the defenses’ side, trends will also be against RS and AK there.

The only safe bets are that there will be various surprise happenings in the next six months - and that we’d rather be in our camp than in theirs.


Thursday, April 30, 2015

Those Pesky Certainties Cassation’s Fifth Chamber May Or May Not Convincingly Contend With #2

Posted by Cardiol MD



The Italian Supreme Court is in the background

1. This Series’ Ominous Context

On Friday, 27th March, 2015 a Panel of five Court of Cassation judges of the Fifth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court in Rome, found Amanda Knox, and Raffaelle Sollecito, Not Guilty of the Murder of Meredith Kercher.

The President Judge of the Fifth Criminal Chamber of this Supreme Court Panel is Gennaro Marasca, The Prosecutor General is Mario Pinelli, and the Reporting Judge for the Meredith Panel is Antonio Paolo Bruno.

Near the start of the above SCC hearings Judge Bruno was quoted as having said that the trials had “not many certainties beyond the girl’s death and one definitely convicted.”

We consider that to be flat-out wrong. Absurd in fact, as the hapless Hellmann & Zanetti could testify. So do numerous professionals well-briefed on the case in Italy. We expect soon articles in Italian similar to this one.

In fact if the forthcoming Marasca Sentencing Report attempts to brush the numerous real factual certainties under the table there is a near-certainty that the perverse verdict can be overturned by way of a lawsuit or a petition to the President of the Italian Republic. 

Post #1 of 10 April described some 26 of the factual headaches facing the SCC under the strict Italian Legal Requirements for classification of Evidence as Circumstantial-Evidence.

The fact that the trials actually had very many certainties was demonstrated in Post #1, and continues in this Post.

2. Note On Circumstantial Evidence

Defendants typically trivialize Circumstantial-Evidence as “Only Circumstantial-Evidence”.

Actually, Circumstantial-Evidence is often the most potent evidence leading Finders-of-Fact to their Verdict. This is even more true in Italian Law because its Circumstantial-Evidence classification-requirement provides that an evidentiary circumstance or fact must be true to the level of being a Certainty. Therefore, for example, the unverifiable RS/AK broken water-pipe story can not be classified as Circumstantial Evidence and cannot legally be admitted as Evidence at all.

Continuing the review of the Massei Motivazione, the Nencini Motivazione, and the several past SCC rulings, demonstrating the large number of Certainties:

3. Certainties 27 To 30

27. THE SIMULATED BURGLARY

:

This Subject has already been commented-upon in Pesky #1, under the Heading “13. Crimescene Meddling?”:
“Having accomplished the Phone-Dump, Meredith’s killers next re-model the crime-scene, minimising the evidences of their identities, cleaning-up the evidences that it was “˜an inside job’, and simulating the appearances that it was “˜an outside job’.”

According to the Massei Summary, Part 3:

“8. The staged break-in

The Massei Report examined the evidence surrounding the broken window and disarray in Filomena Romanelli’s bedroom in order to determine whether a real break-in had occurred or the appearance of one had been staged….....

The court concluded that the disorder in Romanelli’s room and the breaking of the window pane constituted an artificial representation created in order to misdirect the investigations towards a person who, not having the key to the front door, was supposed to have entered through the previously broken window and then effected the violent acts on Meredith which caused her death.”

So Massei, having carefully analysed all the Evidence, and the Arguments on both sides Concluded that there was No Burglary at all, and that Meredith’s killers had deliberately created the appearance of a Burglary, in order to misdirect the Investigators of Meredith’s death.

According to the Hellmann-Annulling SCC Panel wrt the Simulated Burglary:

Page 56:

“The compartmentalisation of the single pieces of evidence thus weakened their value and their depth, since a piecemeal evaluation of their relationship and of the required synthesis inevitably followed, ignoring the increase in value that the pieces of the mosaic of circumstantial evidence assume when synergistically evaluated.”

The Panel begins its justification for Annulling Hellmann/Zanetti.

The Hellmann-Annulling SCC Panel Page 66:

“.....the simulation of the burglary should have been evaluated in light of the investigative data collected immediately after the event,  such as Rudy’s shoeprints (along the path of his flight)  and the traces of the victim’s blood detected in many spots in the bathroom used by Ms Knox and [49] Ms Kercher, surely carried there by third parties present in the house after the murder.”

The Panel takes-for-granted that the “Burglary” was Simulated by the Perps, and focuses on its improper evaluation by H/Z.

The Hellmann-Annulling SCC Panel Page 82-83:

“The Hellmann Court of Appeal preferred ““ in full agreement with the defence pleadings ““  to favour the information the unreliable Rudy Guede had conveyed in his chat with his friend Benedetti, i.e., that he was in via della Pergola around 9.00/9.30 PM on the first of November 2007;  this information was correlated with the victim’s telephone records which registered:

a)  an unanswered call at 8.56 PM
b)  the dialling of the number 901, corresponding to an answering service at 9.58 PM, immediately after which the call was blocked
c)  at 10.00 PM the dialling of the first number in the list of phone numbers for the Abbey bank, without however the dialling of the required dialling code
d) at 10.13 PM a GRPS connection of the length of nine seconds, most probably linkedto a multimedia message, without the necessity of human interaction.

On the basis of these facts, the Hellmann Court reached the conclusion that Miss Kercher had not called her family again in the period of time between 8.56 and 11.00 PM,  since shortly after the first attempt an unexpected event may have occurred, such as for example the attack,  and the dialling of the number at 10.00 PM could have been done [61]  by another person, who was not familiar with that mobile phone, while attempting to silence it, a fact which would place the time of death at before 10.13 PM.

The reconstructive path is permeated with factual deductions deriving from a series of conjectures and baseless suppositions, without any reliable, demonstrative basis,  in spite of [other]  findings of significant value which conflict with those [deductions] and have a greater probative value,  which were reduced in their importance on the basis of an unsatisfactory reasoning,  which stands out because multiple passages contradict other passages of the statement of reasons, and because of manifest illogicality which must be rightfully censured in this venue. “

The Panel implicitly includes H/Z’s failure to recognize the “Burglary"as simulated, as part of its “unsatisfactory” and improperly “baseless” reasoning.

NENCINI Page 175:

“In the cottage at 7 Via Della Pergola, on the day of 2 November 2007, in the early hours of the day and up until approximately 12.00 pm, nobody had a shower, just as no burglar had gottenin through the window of Filomena Romanelli’s room; more simply the totality of the circumstantial evidence examined to this point gives us a plain picture of how the defendants put into action a clean-up of the traces of the murder committed and activity to “derail” the investigations that involved a series of actions, a number of which are still to be described.”

So, having stated at length “the totality of the circumstantial evidence examined” Nencini concludes, that the defendants (Knox and Sollecito) had faked the “Burglary” and,

Nencini Page 335:

“...we exclude, for the reasons already expressed, that the murder was committed by a burglar caught in the act of entering the flat after breaking Filomena Romanelli’s window…”

The Nencini Appellate Court Judges, presumably recognise that their conclusion Knox and Sollecito had faked a burglary didnot implicitly exclude the co-existence of a real burglar.

So now they explicitly “exclude” the conclusion that the murder was committed by any burglar.

What will the Marasca Panel make of that?

28: THE SCREAM

Amanda Knox is herself the very first person to refer to the Scream, in her voluntarily insistent Written-Note of November 6th, 2007.

This allegation is generally accepted to be so factually Certain that its factual existence has never been plausibly disputed.

Massei Pages 98-99:

“.....it can thus be held that, in fact, towards 23:30 pm on November 1, 2007 there was a loud, long scream from a woman which came from [91] the house at 7 Via della Pergola.
After this scream, Nara Capezzali heard running on the metal stairs located below her residence in the S. Antonio car park towards the section used as the exit for the cars, and straight afterwards she heard running on the path situated in front of the house in Via della Pergola.

The harrowing scream heard a little before must have caused a strong agitation in Mrs. Capezzali, who was rendered particularly sensitive and attentive to what might happen and who knows the area; therefore, it is to be held that she referred to noises on the metal steps and on the path because there actually were such noises and she was able to hear them.

Furthermore, the deposition of the witness Dramis, who referred to “šrunning steps”› heard about 23:30 pm on that same November 1st in Via del Melo, which is very close, almost a continuation of the path of the houseIp in Via della Pergola, could constitute some confirmation of this.

The running on the path in front of the house at 7 Via della Pergola shortly after the heart-rending scream leads this Court to hold that the heart-rending scream came from the house at 7 Via della Pergola; likewise, whoever’s running steps were heard on the metal steps and whoever’s running steps were heard a little later on the gravel path and leaves in front of the house at 7 Via della Pergola lead the Court to hold that more than one person came out of that house.”

So Massei “held” as a specific “fact” that the scream, came from the 7 Via Della Pergola cottage, rented by Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox, among others, at about 23:30 pm on November 1st, 2007.

However, Hellmann/Zanettii, and the miscellaneous FOA systematically trivialized the Scream, e.g.: the Police made AK invent it; the Police suggested it to AK; the Police tricked AK into writing it down; there are so many Screams-in-the-Perugia-Night that the scream the Witnesses testified to having heard was not Meredith’s Scream; the scream the Witnesses testified to having heard was at some other time; and Meredith’s Scream was at yet another time. So-many imagined doubts were marshaled that Hellmann/Zanettii argued that there was too much Reasonable Doubt.

The Hellmann-Annulling SCC Panel Page 86:

“Before concordant pieces of data convergent towards a time necessarily later than the one established by the court, back to which the heart”rending scream of the unfortunate Meredith needs to be tracked, the appeals court preferred to draw the threads from Guede’s presentation of facts, [which he] delivered in a context outside the court, and anyway absolutely false (given that the accused declared himself to be uninvolved in the murder).

The conclusions drawn appear even more jarring if one only considers that the heart”rending scream was mentioned even by Amanda herself in her handwritten letter when the fact was not yet in the public domain. Not only this, but the reconstruction made by the Hellmann Court of Appeal is not even in line with the relevant post-mortem findings, which indicated a time of death range from 6.50 PM to 4.50 AM on 2 November, thus at a time around 11.00 to 11.30 PM according to the calculated average, so as the First Instance Court had argued, with greater adherence to the available evidence.

Thus, the statement of reasons suffers from a grave lack of logic and from inconsistency with other available evidence also on this point, openly showing an obvious explanatory inadequacy to which the judge of remand will have to bring remedy.”

So this SCC Panel Excoriates Hellmann/Zanetti’s biased and illogical reasoning wrt the scream,  constructively ordering the judge of remand “to bring remedy”.

NENCINI stated on pages 117-118:

“.....from her very first statements, Amanda Marie Knox provides the picture that, at some point during the attack, Meredith was screaming. Indeed, it was only because of the poor girl’s scream [102] that the defendant imagined “what might have happened”. This scream, so excruciating that it caused her to move her hands to her ears to block it out, is introduced in the written statement on the same morning at the offices of the Perugia police. Significantly, this is the scream that was clearly heard by the witnesses Nara Capezzali and Antonella Monacchia. It was so “excruciating” that Nara Capezzali was beside herself, something that she told the First Instance Court hearing on 27 March 2009, having previously only spoken about it to the police, about a year after that night of November 2007.”

Thus does “the judge of remand” bring remedy, expressing no doubt that the scream Knox claims to have imagined “might have happened”, Certainly Did-Happen.

It will be interesting to see Bruno’s take if his SCC Panel submits its Motivazione.

29. THE KNIFE COLLECTED IN SOLLECITO’‘S FLAT

This Knife was mentioned in Post #1, in which the use of at least 2 knives in Meredith’s murder was established.

Massei Page 194:

“Seven samples were taken from the exhibit [reperto] acquired by the Flying Squad of Perugia (i.e, Exhibit [reperto] 36) and consisting of a large knife, 31 centimetres long; on the handle, from the trace indicated as “štrace A”›, the genetic profile of Amanda Knox was found and in a point on the blade, the genetic profile of the victim was found. All of the other samples gave negative results. “

Here, calling this knife Exhibit 36, Massei reports that Meredith’s DNA was found on this knife (In spite of the fact, corroborated by Knox herself, that Meredith had never been in Sollecito’s flat), as well as Knox’s DNA.

Massei Page 264:

“EXHIBIT 36 (THE DOUBLE-DNA KNIFE)

[282] On November 6, 2007, during the search carried out in the apartment in Perugia where Raffaele Sollecito lived, the 31cm-long knife was found.”

Here, Massei refers-back to when and where this knife was found.

Massei Pages 373-375:

“Of Raffaele Sollecito’s habit of carrying a pocket knife, Corrado De Candia also made reference, recalling that the blade of Raffaele Sollecito’s pocket knife had a length around 6-7cm and a width of 1cm or less.

In relation to the preceding (Raffaele Sollecito actively present at the scene of the murder, finding himself behind Meredith, pulling on the bra with violence, finally deciding to cut it), it must be affirmed that Raffaele Sollecito not only found himself at the scene of the murder and pursuing, with violence, the same objective as RudyGuede, but he is there with a well-sharpened knife (dangerous and thus capable of cutting a resistant material, such as that of a bra, [401] especially in the part that was cut, which may be seen in photos 117 and 119 in the second volume of photographic evidence) and having a blade probably around 4cm long, as De Martino and Binetti have referred to (the length of this, 4cm, appears more consonant with the type of pocket knife described, and Raffaele Sollecito’s habit of always carrying a pocket knife attached with a clip to his trousers, and therefore to be considered rather short and manageable, with respect to a blade of 6 or 7 cm, as indicated by Candia).

Elements which lead one to consider that the 4cm in depth wound was inflicted by Raffaele Sollecito with the pocket knife that he was always carrying around with him, and was inflicted immediately after having cut the bra, while Rudy penetrated the unfortunate victim ““ who had been almost completely stripped naked ““ probably with his fingers because the biological trace on the vaginal swab did not present anything of a spermatic nature.

That the knife used by Raffaele Sollecito on that occasion, according to what has been said, has not been found, is an irrelevant circumstance when it is a case of blade weapons [arma bianca] of easy availability and easy enough to conceal (cf. on this specific point, Cassation 30 June 2004, no 48349).

This progression of violence, from advances to gripping, from which derive the numerous bruises, to ultimately injuring the girl with a knife, finds a possible explanation in the fact that Meredith, it must be held, continued to put up the resistance that she could (there are in fact no signs of yielding, of any acquiescence occurring and, as a matter of fact, the scream that Nara Capezzali and Maria Ilaria

Dramis have declared to having heard confirm this behaviour of the young lady), and, to the end of completely subduing her, even to her will as well, probably, as an angry and almost punitive reaction against a girl continuing in this behaviour, there was the blow inflicted upon the neck producing the 4cm deep wound (corresponding to about the length of the blade described by Binetti and De Martino), a blow that, as observed above, is to be held to have been inflicted with the same pocket knife used to cut off the bra and therefore by the [402] same person who had sliced the bra itself and who had the use of this pocket knife, and this is Raffaele Sollecito.

The very loud scream (as described by Maria Ilaria Dramis) of pain and, at this point, also of terror, made by Meredith and of which it was said, not causing any repentance among the attackers, but the final definitive progression of violence, and while her already-cut bra was being removed (the bra that, coming into contact with the part of the body that had begun to be covered in blood from the wound in the neck, itself became partially stained with blood), the hand of one of the attackers sealed Meredith’s mouth, so that she could not scream again, and another of her attackers struck her again on the neck, but on the left side because, probably, they were on the other side with respect to the person who had inflicted the 4cm deep wound, causing [in their turn] a lesion 8cm deep. Meredith tried to withdraw the part of her body that was once again and more deeply attainted but, held by the hand of whoever was holding her mouth shut and countered by the presence of the one who had caused the 4cm-deep wound, she ended up being driven back towards the knife that still remained in the wound itself, and occasioned a second incision on the epiglottis, as has been seen, almost as if it were [a case of] a second blow being inflicted upon her.

This dynamic requires the presence of a second attacker, of a second knife. This Court holds that the second attacker is Amanda Knox and the second knife is Exhibit 36. The outcome of the genetic investigation with a quantity of DNA indicated as “štoo low”› was placed under censure and doubts about reliability. Equally, the incompatibility of this knife with the wounds suffered by Meredith was affirmed.

On these matters, the considerations already made must be recalled, which led this Court to evaluate the outcome of the genetic investigation as reliable, and this knife as absolutely compatible with the most serious wound. The inquiry elements allow, still, further observations.

This knife, which attracted the attention of Inspector Finzi during the search in Raffaele Sollecito’s house such that it was taken, unlike the other knives that were in the same drawer, must have presented itself as different from the others, with [403] its own individuality with respect to the other knives present in the Corso Garibaldi house. The owner of this house, were this knife not to be found in the Corso Garibaldi house, would have been able to remember its presence and note the absence of this utensil, and this circumstance would have been able to constitute a trace, an investigative hypothesis upon which Raffaele Sollecito may have been called in to supply an explanation for. In relation to this, it is to be held that Amanda and Raffaele would have evaluated as opportune to carry the knife back to the house from which it had been removed, considering also that its cleaning (it was in fact found extremely clean, as has been noted) would have ensured the non-traceability of the wounds suffered by Meredith to it itself.”

Massei here explains the sequence of events at the murder-scene, the knives used, who used them, the wounds inflicted, the scream, why there must have been at least one more attacker additional to Guede, and why it is Certain that 2 knives were used, one of which was Exhibit 36, and why the Court concludes the second attacker to be Amanda Knox and the killing-knife to be Exhibit 36.

Massei also discusses the transport, cleaning and return of Exhibit 36 to Sollecito’s rented flat.

The Hellmann-Annulling SCC Panel Pages 88-90:8

“In the course of their investigation,  the appointed experts found a third trace on the blade of the knife taken from Sollecito’s flat (Exhibit 36), apart from the one attributed without objection to Knox and the one attributed with strong objections to the victim, right near the trace from which the DNA attributed to the victim was extracted. This [third]  trace was not submitted for genetic analysis due to a decision made unilaterally by one of the experts, Prof. Vecchiotti, without written authorisation from the Court, which had in fact precisely charged her with the task of attributing the DNA found on the knife and bra clasp,  because the previous traces] were deemed to be of insufficient quantity to yield a reliable result, being low copy number. Her decision was later approved by the [Hellmann Court of Appeal] on the assumption that the [new]  quantity was [also]  too small to permit the two amplifications needed to ensure reliability of the result (page 84 of the [appeal] judgment).

Therefore,  [65]  when the Prosecutor General and the Counsel for the Civil Partiessubmitted a request to complete the analysis on the basis of the scientific explanation provided by Prof. Novelli,  a geneticist of undisputed repute recognized by the [appeal] court itself (page 79 statement of reasons),  regarding the availability of instrumentscapable of reliably analysing quantities even smaller than ten picograms in diagnostic fields (such as embryology) in which the need for certainty is no less important than in thecourts,  the Hellmann Court of Appeal refused on the assumption that the methods mentioned by Prof.  Novelli were “in an experimental phase”  (page 84),  thereby freely interpreting and misrepresenting the testimony of the professor,  who on the contrary mentioned the use of such techniques in diagnostic domains in which the certainty of the Presult is essential.

All in all,  the modus operandi of the Hellmann Court of Appeal which,  unacceptably delegating its own function,  entrusted to the unquestioned evaluation of the expert the decision of whether or not to submit the new trace for analysis, is open to understandable and justified censure, considering that the test requested by the Court should have been done, lying as it did within the scope of the expert’s mission, subject to a discussion of the results if they were not deemed reliable.  In any case,  a member of the panel of experts could not assume responsibility for unilaterally narrowing the scope of the mission, which was to be carried out without hesitation or reservation, in full intellectual honesty, giving a complete account of the possible insufficiency of the material or unreliability of the result.

All the more so as the repeat of the genetic tests was requested in 2011, four years after the initial tests; a lapse of time during which significant progress had been made in the instruments and techniques of analysis, as Prof. Novelli, a consultant to the Prosecutor General, stressed. Precisely on receiving the information from this consultant, who spoke of cutting”edge techniques while under oath ““  the Court fell into another gross misinterpretation, in a significant argument concerning the reliability of the results of the analyses made, by assuming the impossibility of repeating the tests even on traces found at a later time, thereby affecting the logic of the statement of reasons (Section I, 25.6.2007, n. 24667).

The Hellmann Court of Appeal also completely ignored the authoritative points offered by Professor Torricelli,  who shed serious doubt on the fact that a very small quantity was found; she quantified the useful material in the new trace as 120 picograms (hearing of 6 September 2011, page 91 of transcript), which is sufficient to execute a double amplification,  and she opposed the methodology by which Prof. Vecchiotti reached the decision not to proceed, in a report obviously not endorsed by the Prosecutor General and the Civil Parties. The authoritative nature of the observations of the two consultants of the parties [66] would have required that the Court deal with their points, which irremediably conflicted with the assumptions of Prof. Vecchiotti,  whose points could indeed be accepted by the Court,  but only after evaluation of the opposing points, which were of equal scientific value.

It must be concluded that when it rejected the request of the Prosecutor General and of the Counsel to the Civil Parties to complete the expert investigations by analysing the new traces found on the blade of the knife collected in Sollecito’s flat, as initially mandated to the experts “” a request that was supported by more than adequate scientific knowledge “” the Court made a flawed decision, by reason of its failure to comply with the relevant laws which mandate the safeguarding of all parties in their access to evidence (article 190 of the Criminal Procedure Code), especially in an area in which the expert report (as a means of seeking evidence)  was requested by the Defence,  and was arranged,  but was not completed regarding the new trace, even though it demanded a response more than any other.”

The Panel Excoriates both Hellmann, and it’s appointed expert, Prof. Vecchiotti. The latter for not examining Exhibit 36 as ordered-to by Hellmann, and Hellmann for letting Vechiotti get away with her dis-obedience.

Finally the Panel Criticised Hellman for “failure to comply with the relevant laws”.(Referring specifically to “laws which mandate the safeguarding of all parties in their access to evidence”)

Nencini Pages 337-338 :

“The Court believes that the other blade, the one that caused the wound on the left side of the neck from which most of the blood came out and that caused the death of Meredith Kercher was held by Amanda Marie Knox. It is the knife that was seized from the flat of Raffaele Sollecito by the State Police and labeled as Exhibit 36, on which it is now appropriate to make some considerations.The knife with the blade of 31cm was seized by the State Police from Raffaele Sollecito’s flatduring the first search performed there. [321]The State Police officer who physically took it from the cutlery drawer declared in testimonygiven during the First Instance trial that his attention was caught by this knife, and not others in the drawer, as it was much cleaner than the rest of the cutlery, so as to imagine that it had beencarefully and recently washed. This circumstance, which might appear to be an irrelevantpersonal perception, brought important conclusions to the trial. The Scientific Police analyzedBthe knife and found, on the blade, inside a series of streaks almost invisible to the naked eye, themixed DNA of two contributors: Meredith Kercher and Raffaele Sollecito [sic].[see Footnote 28 below]

This evidence, strongly contested by the Defense, was analyzed by this Court in the section related to the genetic analyses and there is no reason to repeat those arguments. Surely it is an attribution that cannot be considered definite evidence, for the reasons reported above related to the failed repetition of the analysis of the trace, but it remains a strong piece of circumstantial evidence of the fact that this weapon is the second one used in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

On the knife there was a second different trace with sufficient DNA for an analysis, carried out by Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, who attributed this trace to the DNA of Amanda Marie Knox. This attribution was not challenged by the Defense and can be taken as conclusive evidence.

Furthermore, after having ordered in this remand trial an analysis of the trace (I) extracted during the course of the expert analysis performed at the behest of the Judges of the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Perugia, the Carabinieri of R.I.S. [Reparto Investigazioni Scientifiche, Scientific Investigative Unit] of Rome highlighted DNA that could be analyzed and alsoattributed it to Amanda Marie Knox, without any particular challenge.

[Footnote 28:This is certainly an oversight of the Court, as everywhere else in the report they mention the DNA of Meredith Kercher on the streaks, as is widely known. The DNA of Raffaele Sollecito on the knife is never mentioned anywhere else and is not part of the case documentationScientific Investigative Unit of Rome highlighted DNA that could be analyzed and also attributed it to Amanda Marie Knox, without any particular challenge.]

Both traces attributed to Amanda Marie Knox were extracted from the handle of the knife, from the part closer to the blade.

The evaluation of all the elements extracted from the seized knife leads this Court to believe that it is one of the two weapons used in the murder and that it was held by Amanda Marie Knox, who therefore struck Meredith Kercher on the left side of the neck, thus causing the only mortal wound. “

Nencini rebuts the Defence arguments and concludes that Knox stabbed Meredith on the Left side of Meredith’s neck, using Knife Exhibit 36, causing Meredith’s death.

Nencini Page 339:

“...Whoever struck Meredith Kercher on the left side of the neck with a stab that penetrated 8cm (the entire length of the cut) caused violent and abundant bleeding, as shown by the quantity of blood that came out and the splashes of blood on the furniture, so as to hide completely the surface of entry of the blade, thus making [323] impossible the reintroduction of the weapon in the same cut where it was introduced with the first blow.

It must be stated therefore that whoever struck Meredith Kercher on the left side of her neck did so only once, causing a devastating wound from which, pushed by arterial pressure, a great gush of blood came out, as shown by the splashes of blood on the furniture near the spot where the young woman was struck.

Thus, it must be concluded that the weapon seized is not incompatible with the wound on the left side of Meredith Kercher’s neck, certainly a mortal wound, and that the finding of Meredith Kercher’s DNA on the blade of the knife is evidence fully compatible both with the nature of the weapon and with its use.”

Nencini summarizes-finally its conclusions, rejecting Defence arguments that the Knife, Exhibit 36, is “incompatible” with the wound on the left side of Meredith Kercher’s neck, but is certainly “fully compatible both with the nature of the weapon and with its use.”

Here is the Wiki Site opinion:

“Conclusion

Given there is no doubt that the profile discovered on the knife is Meredith Kercher’s profile and that both contamination and secondary transfer have been excluded the only possible conclusion is that the DNA got on the knife because it was used in the murder of Meredith. That Sollecito would so quickly fabricate a lie to explain why Meredith’s DNA would have been expected on the knife rather than protest that it is impossible just adds support to a position that needs no support. Sollecito’s knife was used to kill Meredith.”

30. THE ANALYSIS OF FOOTPRINTS AND OTHER TRACES

[Note the difference between Footprints/Soleprints and Shoeprints; this difference is crucial]

Micheli post-trial interview 2008, according to the Guardian:

“while footprints there might not definitely belong to Knox and Sollecito, they did indicate more than one attacker.”

Excellent example of how Facts may not indicate “Who?”, but Do indicate, with Certainty, “How Many” (“more than one”)°

Massei Pages 352-353 :

“Professor Vinci stressed the value of some particularly individualising details of the right foot of Raffaele Sollecito, revealed by the said examination, consisting of: the fact that his second toe does not touch the ground (the so-called “hammer” position of the distal phalange) connected to a slight case of valgus on the right big toe, and the fact that the distal phalange of the big toe also does not touch the ground, (meaning that there is a distinct separation between the print of the ball of the foot and the print of the big toe in the footprint of the accused). Given these two features which make Sollecito’s foot morphologically distinctive, Professor Vinci’s study basically arrives at the assertion that, while the second toe of Raffaele Sollecito’s right foot is entirely absent from the footprints known to be made by him, on the contrary the footprint on the bathmat does contain the imprint of the second toe. [378] Professor Vinci reached these conclusions based on a close examination of the weave of the bathmat, and also by varying the colours of the footprint, as shown in the photograph album of the Scientific Police, so that via the use of different filtres it could be viewed in black and white or in a more intense red colour which emphasised the traces of blood.

A morphological examination of the footprint alone led the professor to consider it as irreconcilable, due to its general shape and size, with the footprint taken directly from Sollecito’s right foot. Indeed, the consultant hypothesised that the measurement calculated by the Scientific Police of the width of the big toe of the bathmat footprint was to be reconsidered: he rejected the measurement of about 30mm in favour of a much smaller measurement of 24.8mm, which he obtained by detaching a mark of haematic substance which he did not consider to be a mark from the surface of the big toe, but from a separate body, namely the imprint of the second toe, which is totally absent from the print taken from Sollecito’s right foot.”

In standard English-Language medical terminology, Sollecito’s Right Foot has a distinctive “Hammer Toe”.

It is certain that None of the other suspects have this abnormality.

This Fact is key to the Certainty that Sollecito was barefoot-at-the-crime-scene!


Note missing 2nd toe-print on Sollecito’s Right Footprint:

The Hellmann-Annulling SCC Panel Page 96-98:

“13 ““ Analysis of footprints and other traces

The criticisms expressed on the subject of the obvious lack of logic of the reasoning Oconcerning the evaluation of the genetic evidence are well”founded.

The [appeal]  court evaluated two technical consultancies on the footprint in the victim’s blood left by a bare foot on the bathmat of the small bathroom of the flat where the crime was committed, with [identification] capacity limited to negative comparisons. As a matter of evaluation,  this in itself is not subject to censure, however the court of second degree has again fallen into [the error of making] a statement in open contradiction with the available evidence, ending by attributing the contested footprint to Guede, by making an assumption contrary to all the evidence that “after having left a print on the pillow”, he slipped out of his right shoe “in the course of the violent aggressive manoeuvres to which he subjected Ms Kercher” and stained his foot with blood, which he supposedly then washed in the small bathroom, since if it had not happened this way, his right shoe would have also left some bloody traces in the corridor (compare page 100 of the statement of reasons).

Not only is this assumption deeply implausible, considering that the print left by Guede on the pillow was made by his hand, which is easily explained by the dynamics of the event, but it is much harder to explain how he might have lost his Adidas sneaker, given a situation in which Guede, jointly with others, as stated in the verdict that convicted him, overpowered the young Englishwoman so as to immobilise her. Not only that, but the above assumption also clashes with the available evidence regarding the bloody shoe prints which indicate that he left the room where the crime was committed to proceed directly to the exit door of the flat.The fact that only the left shoe was stained does not that his right foot was unshod, since at most it proves that only his right (sic) shoe signify stepped in the pool of blood which formed due to the numerous wounds inflicted on the unfortunate victim, very probably with two knives.

Just as deficient is the logic adopted in a further step of the statement of reasons, relating to the discovery of the presence of traces revealed by luminol (not visible to the naked eye), which yielded Knox’s profile and the mixed profiles of Knox and Kercher, found in Romanelliʹs room, in Knoxʹs room and in the corridor. These traces could not be attributedto footprints left on other occasions, as the appeal court implausibly accepted [them to be], since luminol reveals traces of blood and it is not really conceivable that Knoxʹs feet might have been stained with Kercherʹs blood on some other occasion.

As pointed out by the party submitting the appeal,  no justification is given for the coincidence of the presence of Knoxʹs DNA in every trace mixed with the blood of the victim, whereas [71] the hypothesis formulated by the judgment of first degree is much more plausible: it emphasized the mixed nature of the traces (including those found in the small bathroom) which, via adequate inductive logic, led to the conclusion that with feet washed of the victimʹs blood but still bearing some residue, Knox went into her own room and Romanelliʹs room passing through the corridor during the staging operation as assumed in the initial reconstruction, which is based on the objective fact that only after midnight did the victim’s telephones stop connecting to the cell tower of via della Pergola and connect instead with the one on via Sperandio, where they were eventually found; this meant that only after midnight were they removed by unknown hands from the flat in via della Pergola.

While according to the prosecution’s hypothesis, the mixed traces found in the small bathroom suggested a cleaning activity by Knox, who transferred the victim’s blood from the crime room to various points in the small bathroom (on the sink faucet, on the cotton swabs box, the toilet seat, the bidet, the light switch, the bathroom door) where the traces were collected, the Hellmann Court of Appeal entrenched itself behind a position of absolute certainty, without acknowledging what the First Instance Court had observed in disagreement with the defence arguments espoused by the Hellmann Court of Appeal, which decided, in essence, that if the two defendants had remained in the flat of via della Pergola to clean themselves up from the victim’s blood traces, thus functioning as vehicles carrying blood to the small bathroom,  then some trace of Sollecito would have been found, whereas in response to this objection the First Instance Court plausibly noted that Sollecito could have washed himself in the shower stall with an abundance of water, so as to eliminate traces, perhaps without even any rubbing, leaving to Knox the task of cleaning the sink and bidet with the traces of the victim’s blood.

The alternative explanation offered in the first instance judgment to the Defence’s objections was not taken into consideration, and thus the Hellmann Court of Appeal fell into another error of reasoning, having neglected various circumstances which,  in the course of their analysis, they should have examined and if necessary refuted with more weighty arguments. As pointed out by the party submitting the appeal, no justification is given for the coincidence of the presence of Knoxʹs DNA in every trace mixed with the blood of the victim, whereas [71] the hypothesis formulated by the judgment of first degree is much more plausible:

It emphasized the mixed nature of the traces (including those found in the small bathroom) which, via adequate inductive logic, led to the conclusion that with feet washed of the victimʹs blood but still bearing some residue, Knox went into her own room and Romanelliʹs room passing through the corridor during the staging operation as assumed in the initial reconstruction, which is based on the objective fact that only after midnight did the victim’s telephones stop connecting to the cell tower of via della Pergola and connect instead with the one on via Sperandio, where they were eventually found; this meant that only after midnight were they removed by unknown hands from the flat in via della Pergola.

While according to the prosecution’s hypothesis, the mixed traces found in the small bathroom suggested a cleaning activity by Knox, who transferred the victim’s blood from the crime room to various points in the small bathroom (on the sink faucet, on the cotton swabs box, the toilet seat, the bidet, the light switch, the bathroom door) where the traces were collected, the Hellmann Court of Appeal entrenched itself behind a position of absolute certainty, without acknowledging what the First Instance Court had observed in disagreement with the defence arguments espoused by the Hellmann Court of Appeal, which decided, in essence, that if the two defendants had remained in the flat of via della Pergola to clean themselves up from the victim’s blood traces, thus functioning as vehicles carrying blood to the small bathroom, then some trace of Sollecito would have been found,

Whereas in response to this objection the First Instance Court plausibly noted that Sollecito could have washed himself in the shower stall with an abundance of water, so as to eliminate traces, perhaps without even any rubbing, leaving to Knox the task of cleaning the sink and bidet with the in the moments immediately after the murdertraces of the victim’s blood.The alternative explanation offered in the first instance judgment to the Defence’s objections was not taken into consideration, and thus the Hellmann Court of Appeal fell into another error of reasoning, having neglected various circumstances which, in the course of their analysis, they should have examined and if necessary refuted with more weighty arguments.”

Hellmann’s Annulment is here not only fully justified, but is essential to avoid a gross miscarriage of justice.

Nencini Pages 328-329 :

“We know with certainty that, on the evening of 1 November 2007, Rudy Hermann Guede was present inside the Via della Pergola cottage, not only because he said so and it is reported in thefinal verdict that convicted him, but also on the basis of investigations and analyses carried out by the State Police inside the cottage contained in the case file. We also know with certainty that Rudy Hermann Guede could remain inside [312] the flat with absolute ease… [for] considerable time, as he left his “traces” in the large bathroom [of the flat].

We know with certainty, as this is shown by the evidence, that immediately after the homicide inside the Via della Pergola cottage three people were present, surely two men and a woman. This can be observed from the genetic investigations and the results of the traces highlighted using luminol. We can also say that one of the men who walked over Meredith’s blood left a very visible trace of his foot on a blue bathmat found inside the small bathroom of the flat. This footprint was attributed by investigators to the right bare foot of Raffaele Sollecito, with an analysis this Court finds correct on the basis of the considerations already made. One of the footprints detected using luminol was then attributed to a woman’s foot compatible, in size, to that of Amanda Marie Knox; in addition, mixed DNA traces found in the small bathroom of the flat (washbasin, bidet and cotton-swab box) were attributed to Amanda Marie Knox.

We have, in substance, pieces of circumstantial evidence of certain reliability, multiple and concordant, that place Rudy Hermann Guede, Amanda Marie Knox, and Raffaele Sollecito inside the Via della Pergola flat on the evening of the murder of Meredith Kercher, in the moments immediately after the murder, when the three left traces of their passage by depositing [marks in] the victim’s blood, abundantly released from wounds.”

Emphasizing the Certainty of its knowledge regarding “traces”, blood, luminol, genetic investigations, DNA, and footprints, Nencini rules Guede, Knox, and Sollecito to have been at the crime-scene “in the moments immediately after the murder” of Meredith Kercher.

4. Other Worries For Judge Marasca

However far-fetched the Motivazione of this SCC Panel turns-out to be, it can hardly have-been unaware of the facts that Sollecito is scheduled to be back in a Lower-Court in Florence on 30th April, 2015, facing his first-set of charges in the Sollecito & Gumbel trial for diffamazione and vilipendio (slander of officials and of the system), nor that Knox is scheduled to be back in a Lower-Court in Florence on 9th June, 2015, facing her new, expanded-set of Calunnia charges.


This series continues here.


Thursday, April 23, 2015

Knox Interrogation Hoax #18: Final Pre-Trial Opportunities Which Knox Flunked

Posted by Our Main Posters



Image of Judge Micheli who presided over the hearings that remanded Knox to trial.

1. Overview Of The Interrogation Hoax Series

In Post #1 there’s a long summary of what various courts concluded in sentencing Knox for calunnia to three years. 

All 17 posts prior to this one are linked-to there. The first twelve posts cover the key parts of the trial testimony and evidence from investigators for the events at Perugia’s central police station on 5-6 November 2007.

The next six including this show how Knox failed to convince numerous magistrates at many hearings that she was ever interrogated or abused or made to lie. For the most part in fact she did not even try. 

2. The Six Pre-Trial Opportunities Which Knox Flunked

The previous five posts and this one cover the six hearings from late 2007 to late 2008, any one of which was a big opportunity for Knox. She could have been released if the evidence was weaker and the arguments of herself and her legal team stronger.

Knox blew all six opportunities. The judges were Claudia Matteini, Massimo Ricciarelli and two others, Torquato Gemelli and four others, and Paolo Micheli (this post). A total of 10 judges, and Dr Mignini. After the first two, one of Knox’s lawyers walked off the job.

Those ignorant of the reports of these hearings (all but one newly translated for this series with the Micheli to come) often demonize the prosecutor, Dr Mignini, as somehow taking a harder line than all those judges.

Really?

Read all of the reports and in fact every one of those judges took a harder line than Dr Mignini who worked very hard to be fair. His early version of the attack on Meredith was of an almost accidental death with sexual humiliation in the course of a hazing.

This went out the window, and all of the judges without exception adopted a harder position - that Knox’s anger had spiraled over Meredith’s difficulties with her, and a barbaric 15-minute torture-attack resulted in Meredith’s death which may have been premeditated in a timespan between minutes and days.

Judge Matteini, Judge Ricciarelli, and Judge Micheli (see below) all flat-out warned that they considered RS and AK to be dangerous to others and that they needed to be kept locked up pending trial.  Judge Gemmelli and other Supreme Court judges endorsed this.

Typically Knox was constrained by her lawyers to say little or nothing.

They were already wrestling to try to wind back the three problematic statements she demanded to make on 5-6 November - mainly by changing the subject and aggressively attacking Guede. 

She was allowed to be questioned by Judge Ricciarelli and she herself volunteered to be questioned by Dr Mignini three times, but her performances were shaky and erratic and once she seemed to break down in tears.

There was little or no hint of the inflammatory claims which cost her three years which Knox came up with when she had to take the stand mid-2009 to try to defend her framing of Lumumba.

3. Micheli Hearings September and October 2008

This Sky News report describes how prior to the Micheli hearings Knox’s lawyers seemed pretty desperate to change the subject.

Valter Biscotti and Nicodemo Gentile said they wanted Guede’s trial to be separate from that of Knox and Sollecito because they feared a pact against their client. Mr Biscotti added: “We feel the urgent need to have our trial heard independently of the other two suspects.

In recent weeks a lot of poison has been spread by the defence teams and we feel the necessity to find some form of serenity in a separate hearing.  That’s why we have asked for a fast-track hearing just for our client and we want that hearing as quickly as possible.  At this hearing we will prove that our client has absolutely nothing to do with the tragic death of Meredith Kercher.”

On 16 Sept 2008 Judge Micheli accepted the Guede team’s request for a fast-track trial and as the rules require moved all of the hearings behind closed doors.

A fast-track proceeding is closed to the public, unlike a full trial. It will be held before the same judge, who is expected to issue the verdict at the time he decides whether to indict Knox and Sollecito. The rulings are expected next month.

Judge Micheli had mountains of investigative reports and physical evidence to plow through. He heard witnesses in four hearings (with Meredith’s family present at several) on the DNA collection, on the character of Rudy Guede, and also on the three defendants acting menacing outside their house, which he heavily discounted.

Late on 28 October Judge Micheli issued a 17-page ruling which includes almost no mention of Knox implicating Patrick. He convicted Guede of murder and sexual assault, and sentenced him to 30 years. He also ordered Knox and Sollecito to stand trial on charges of murder and sexual assault.

As the UK Guardian and many other media reported, Judge Micheli assessed Knox and Sollecito as being dangerous. 

The suspected killers of Meredith Kercher were refused transfer from jail to house arrest last night while awaiting trial for her murder, because of the danger that they might flee and kill again.

After 12 hours’ deliberation in Perugia, the judge, Paolo Micheli, said there was a “concrete possibility” that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito would run off if freed from prison.

In a written ruling to lawyers, he said he believed the murder of the British student was not premeditated, but the likely “absolute disregard” shown by Knox and Sollecito for the victim’s life meant they would be capable of murdering again….

Turning down their request for house arrest yesterday, Micheli agreed with prosecutors that more than one person took part in the sexual assault and murder, dismissing claims that the 47 bruises and knife wounds on Kercher’s body could have been made by a single attacker.

He upheld the testimony of a neighbour who heard more than one person fleeing Kercher’s house, adding that while footprints there might not definitely belong to Knox and Sollecito, they did indicate more than one attacker.

He stood by forensic evidence indicating Kercher’s and Knox’s DNA on a knife found at Sollecito’s house which investigators suspect is the murder weapon, and ruled Sollecito’s DNA on Kercher’s bra strap as reliable evidence.

On 30 October Judge Micheli was interviewed. No sign in this that any claim of unfairness to Knox was on his radar.

4. Apparent False Claim Of A Statement By Knox

Bearing in mind that these hearings were all behind closed doors, none of the Italian and English-language media reports including those of the New York Times make any mention at all of Knox testifying or answering questions. Nor do the books of Sollecito or John Follain.  We are still checking with Italy to make sure.

To jump the gun on the series a bit, a probable non-statement by Knox morphed in Knox’s 2013 book into this heated claim below, which we have already been told, based on court transcripts and Judge Micheli’s immediate 17 page report, was definitely not what was said, if anything, in court.

On October 28, the final day, I got to speak for myself. Since the judge understood English, I stood up without my interpreter and tried to explain what had happened during my interrogation. I told the judge that I hadn’t meant to name Patrick or to cause confusion but that the interrogation had been the most brutish, terrifying experience of my life. I’d been exhausted to begin with, and I had gotten so scared and confused that it was as though I went out of my mind. My interrogators told me that they had evidence I’d been at the villa, that Raffaele was no longer vouching for my whereabouts that night, that I had been through such a horrible trauma, I had amnesia. “I believed them! I’m innocent!” I cried.

Posts #1 to #12 have shown that Knox experienced no “brutish, terrifying experience”. Trauma was inflicted only by Sollecito and then by Knox on herself. With high confidence, we can conclude that as so often in her book Knox was simply making this up. So much for Linda Kulman’s fact checking.

5. The Micheli Sentencing Report Of January 2009

Finally three months later Judge Micheli issued a sentencing report of about 100 pages. While it has still not been fully translated we did summarise it in four posts here.

In the Italian original (which is equally firm to harsh on all three defendants) it is quite graphic about what the physical evidence says of the callous role of Knox and Sollecito in the torture-attack.

Judge Micheli does note how often Knox and Sollecito help to destroy one another’s stories which numerous witnesses confirmed helped to spark Knox’s conniption and framing of Patrick.

There is no mention at all of Knox taking exception to her “interrogation”.


Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Certainties And Open Questions In The Amanda Knox Trial Starting In Florence On 9 June

Posted by Our Main Posters



Dr Giuliano Giambartolomei prosecutes in both the Sollecito and Knox trials

1. A Bizarre Crime

What Knox will soon be on trial for is one of the most bizarre crimes conceivable.

If you followed all the links in the post directly below this (with more to come soon) you will see that the evidence is overwhelming that Knox maliciously and self-servingly invented the Interrogation Hoax of 5-6 November 2007 for very little likelihood of benefit and with massive damage done to good people and the proud image of Italy.

So what does Knox do? Learn anything? No. She serves three years for framing Patrick - and comes right out of prison to repeat more or less the self-same crime but this time on steroids. Passages in her book and claims in interviews were almost hysterically insistent, and the email she sent to Judge Nencini in December 2013 even more-so. In that email she actually ranted on about torture.

And dozens of others in the US picked up on the false claims and, as Steve Moore and John Douglas and Bruce Fischer did, heavily embellished them. What Knox was convicted for is still right there on a dozen YouTubes all “helpfully” uploaded by Bruce Fischer. 

Some few in Italy might have been undecided a month ago whether Sollecito was really there when Meredith was murdered. But nobody at all in Italy likes the dangerous and inflammatory campaign Knox has spearheaded.

This really could be Knox’s OJ Simpson moment. This time she could face as much as six years, and the US would seem to have zero grounds to resist extradition.

And as Knox was finally confirmed as sentenced for calunnia to the detriment of Lumumba by Cassation in 2013, left unaffacted by Cassation in 2015, Knox can no longer make any claim to have been induced to do so by the police and prosecution.

If she has a viable defense nobody, repeat nobody, right now seems able to imagine it. 

2. The Certainties

The trial will begin on 9 June in the Florence courthouse in front of Judge Anna Liguori.  The lead prosecutor will be Dr Giuliano Giambartolomei who is also the chief prosecutor in the Sollecito & Gumbel book trial which convenes next on 30 April.

While charges in the Sollecito & Gumbel trial are for diffamazione and vilipendio (slander of officials and of the system) the anticipated charges in the Knox case are for the more serious crime of calunnia (for accusing justice officials of crimes in court).

For a very good reason, diffamazione and vilipendio and especially calunnia are taken more seriously in Italy than equivalent contempts in some other systems.

This is because of a long-running (if declining) tendency for “connected” defendants to try to take the justice system down a peg in the hope of an unfair break in trials they or their unsavory buddies are in the midst of.

3. The Open Questions

The Knox book and email to Judge Nencini and TV claims cannot be a part of a calunnia case but certainly can be used as evidence of Knox’s disingenuousness and malice. To what extent this will happen is not clear yet, but signs are a lot of online evidence on these lines is being captured.

Nor is it clear yet who will represent Knox. Possibly Ghirga and Dalla Vedova, but they may not be the “best” team for her as they are credited in Knox’s book for its content and they handed over as a court document the inflammatory Knox email to Judge Nencini. (Remember, Sollecito is not being defended in his trial by Bongiorno or Maori.) 

Nor is it clear yet what line Knox’s defense may take. It is quite out of the question that she again simply repeats the claims that already cost her three years signed off on twice by Cassation. If Sollecito seems seriously stuck for a defense, Knox seems even more-so.

Nor is it clear yet if the defense team will make an immediate bid to Cassation for dismissal. The Fifth Chambers which overturned the murder conviction is already deeply entangled and under scrutiny, and judges there may already be wondering if they have committed career suicide to very little real benefit for anyone.

Also it is not clear yet how this will impact the pending trial of Curt Knox and Edda Mellas for diffamazione for repeating as gospel Knox’s false claims to a British reporter, and we dont know how this will impact Oggi’s trial for enthusiastically publishing some of Knox’s false claims.

It is not clear yet how the Knox PR (if it is still active) or the pro-Knox opportunists or the highly confused US media will handle this - but to repeat as gospel any of Knox’s claims could from now on be legally radioactive.

it is not clear yet how the Obama Administration will (if at all) react to this. Whether there will again be covert intervention, or whether they will finally concede that Italy did get it right and crimes should be paid for and not given a free pass. 

Finally, will Knox again be a no-show in Florence, as she was (against her lawyers best advice) at her own appeal? And if so, will she and her forces again falsely claim that she is being tried in absentia? That wouldnt win her points in Italy.

4. Further Background

Click here:   1. Could The Italian Authorities Be Starting A Wave Of Libel + Slander Investigations?

Click here:   2. Interrogation Hoax: Knox Hearing On Calunnia Charges, Then Trial To Resume June 16

Click here:   3. Calunnia Claims At The Core Of The Problem For Amanda Knox - And Her Parents

Click here:   4. Knox Calunnia Hearing: Amanda Knox Enters Court Via The Underground Entrance

Click here:   5. Another In Seeming Never-Ending Disasters For Hapless Knox Campaign

Click here:   6. A Perugian Media Report (Neutral As Usual) In Italian On Knox’s Calunnia Hearing

Click here:   7. Curt Knox And Edda Mellas Defamation Trial To Go Ahead On July 4

Click here:   8. Umbria’s Chief Prosecutor Will Proceed Against Knox And Sollecito And Also Aviello

Click here:   9. The Curt Knox And Edda Mellas Diffamazione Trial Will Resume In Perugia 30 March.

Click here:   10. False Allegations Against Italian Officialdom Sparking Increasingly Tough Legal Reaction

Click here:   11. An Overview From Italy #2: Current Perceptions In Italy, Sollecito Case, Mignini’s Full Vindication

Click here:   12. With Diffamazione Complaint Against False Claims In Oggi Knox’s Legal Prospects Continue To Slide

Click here:   13. Expected Calunnia And Diffamazione Trials Could Reverse Another Attempt To Take Justice Down A Peg

Click here:   14. Questions For Knox: Did You Undergo An Illegal Interrogation By Mignini Or Did You Try To Frame Him?

Click here:   15. Desperate Ghirga Urges Amanda Knox To Show At Florence Appeal, But She’s Created More Problems

Click here:   16. Pushback Against Mafia Playbook Gathers Speed With Denial Of False Accusation of “Satanic Theory

Click here:   17. Why It Will Be Republic Of Italy v Knox And Sollecito For The Myriad False Claims They Have Made

Click here:   18. False Claims By Amanda Knox & The Book Team May End Up Costing $10 Million


Wednesday, April 08, 2015

In Big Complication For Cassation Guede Demands New Trial To Prove He Was Not “Accomplice Of Myself”

Posted by Peter Quennell



Above: Rudy Guede’s smart lead lawyer Walter Biscotti on another high profile case


The Fifth Chambers of the Supreme Court was the one that allowed Knox and Sollecito to walk free.

Sooner or later they must explain. Initial statements of their reasons has many Italian justice officials in strong disbelief.

If there were evidence problems (and we know of next to none and hundreds of evidence points suggesting guilt) the Florence appeal court was the correct court to put them to bed.  Cassation has no legal mandate for that.

It gets worse. Somehow the Fifth Chambers has to explain why the First Chambers ruled the other way on some very key points in 2010 and 2013 and why it confirmed Knox’s sentence for the felony of calunnia with no further possibility of appeal.

It gets worse. The five judges would seem to have to come down for either the highly discredited Lone Wolf Theory or for two other “missing killers” (for which there is zero evidence) to have attacked Meredith. 

From 2007 to 2015 two defense teams tried very hard but without conviction or success to do both of those things - even though Guede and his defense had no way to answer back as they were not even in court.

Those same two teams tiptoed away from much of the pesky evidence against all three which they were simply powerless to explain.

So Guede’s demand for a new trial reported today could not be timed worse from the Fifth Chambers judges’ point of view.

Chances are that this request will be ruled on by another Chambers of Cassation. It might take some time but they might have no compunction (especially if they are the First Chambers) about hanging the increasingly embattled Fifth Chambers out to dry.

No way Guede’s conviction ever gets reversed. He knows that. We all know that. The evidence is way too strong. But Guede could really rub it in that he was not the initiator of the 15-minute attack and could certainly not have done it alone. That he had no motive at all. That he was not a drug dealer or a burglar - no evidence for either exists.

That he was not the one who had a reason to clean up the house as his own trial ruled. And that he did not wield the final blow.

*****

Added to the top post on Thursday, and amended Friday.

It looked briefly like his lawyers contradicted Guede. But legally Guede is the one with much at stake and gets to call the final shots.

And Biscotti merely added that while he didn’t know exactly what Rudy said, his words should not be considered as a public statement, he did not intend for them to go public.

Of course, Biscotti would want to keep their powder dry, and keep Guede out of harms way, and keep all possible options open in Cassation.

Smart legal, safety and financial tactics.


Thursday, April 02, 2015

The Psychology Of The Human Race Puts Us On A Rising Curve Toward True Justice For All

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding



Above and below: more and more people worldwide are on the march to make justice for victims work

1. The “Just-World” Is Built

When we were children, we listened to fairy tales. Most cultures have a library of myths.

They frequently had ‘happy ever after’ endings, where everything worked out well, after many scares, struggles and deep sorrows. Rarely did the ‘bad people’ win, in the very end, although there were often sacrifices along the way required by those who were true to themselves, and cared for others and the world. The ruthless, selfish, greedy people often appeared in disguise - their ugly and scheming natures only revealed by chance at The End.

We often asked our fathers to read us these stories, before we were tucked up safely in bed. Usually we went to sleep reassured. This is because such tales reinforce a concept known as ‘the just-world’. In this just world, good thoughts and deeds are rewarded, eventually, and the bad and cruel actions will reap the punishment they deserve, even if patience is required until this comes about.

Our belief in this concept helps us, as we begin to go out in the world and face its stresses and dangers. It gives us hope and courage, in our tiny childhood bodies.

Our parents are our caretakers, there to guide us and protect us from harm. Good parents, who are teachers too, show us right from wrong, good from bad. We grow, and begin to form a sense of Self, a core self that finds meaning and values, experiences beauty and ugliness, joy and pain.

At least one of our caretakers will empathize with us, and give us what is known as validation. Gradually, we learn to be self-reliant and do this for ourselves, although we will always still turn towards the caretaker for this reassurance at certain times.

2. When Our Just-World is Broken

And then, suddenly, one day, something else happens. (Hopefully, this day doesn’t come when we are so very young - if it does, it is frequently disastrous).

Our belief in the Just World is fractured. It cracks, and comes crumbling down around us, terrifying us as it does. Life goes into slow motion, and we remember the colours, shapes, smells, words, for the rest of our lives. Someone who has done wrong is praised and rewarded, and the little person who is ‘me’, who was being as good as we knew how to be, is scolded, teased, taunted, hurt (perhaps physically), neglected, ignored, humiliated, punished. We suffer when we do not deserve to, sometimes when we least deserve to.

Most of all, our ‘caretaker’, whose function it is to protect us, now reprimands us, withdraws their love or approval and, worst of all, refuses to believe us. We are telling it as it is, telling the truth as we have been taught to do, and the very person we have entrusted with truth, rejects us, and believes the one who is lying. We feel despair,and we feel isolated. We panic inside, and experience fear as we have not known it.

Our adrenalin and other endocrine reactions are set in motion. Our heart thumps. We don’t know what to do, we feel numb, confused, it is hard to concentrate. We are unlikely to be able to say, at that point, - but what we are feeling is betrayal. All our inner security has temporarily dissolved.

Not only has the person insulted and harmed us with their wrong-doing, but they compounded this by sanctimoniously pretending that they were ‘put upon’, a victim no less, while simultaneously the true victim is blamed and derogated. It is outrageous, and moreover it is disempowering (at first).

It is our first experience of injustice.

3. The Experience of Acute Distress

If our psyche is healthy, we will recover, both physically and emotionally within a short period. Human beings have innate coping mechanisms, and we learn gradually to activate these. Different personalities develop different ways.

But the period of stress and distress does need to be of a short duration. This is important. If it is not, we now know that very real damage occurs. This is not something vague, but is actual, biological, involving the Hippocampus and other specific areas in the brain.

When we talk about ‘healing’, this is not just a fancy word for getting into a better mood : real healing and correction need to occur in the cell tissues. Stress really does damage your health, and if we need to take time out to recover from it, - this is a real need. The greater and more prolonged the distress, the longer the time needed to rebuild, to adapt and adjust. Music, and being in nature, often have an important role to play here. People find their own ways, in their own time.

The other thing of prime importance is contact and talking, sharing, with others to whom we feel bonded. It may seem like saying the obvious - but it has been shown that victims of trauma heal very much more quickly when their contact with their loved ones in the aftermath had been immediate.

What is needed is the opposite of isolation, which would simply increase the undermining of the sense of self and our own identity, which has been hurt, or sometimes splintered.

People are isolated in cases of torture - the perpetrators of it know this isolating alone is punishing, fragmenting, weakening and eroding to the self.

We need the validation of our true friends. Perhaps this is the origin of the saying, ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’.

To recap slightly : our first experience of having our illusion of a totally Just World challenged probably first occurs as we are growing up, perhaps at school or similarly.

I will not, here, address the very serious cases where child abuse happens in the home, where the damage may never be repairable (although a certain amount can be done, miraculously, with professional and skilled help). Neither is this the place to describe terrible trauma caused by murder and terrorism. Extreme experience of injustice, especially continuous, leads to severe trauma, which at the extreme end leads to PTSD.

Needless to say, those who survive need the utmost sensitivity and skill to help them deal with the sheer inhumanity of their situations.

4. The Caretaker in the Wider World

As we go out into the world, ‘the family’ and with it, the head of the family or the main caretaker extends onto a more macro scale. The head of an institution becomes the caretaker. The headmaster or headmistress has a duty of care and protection : they are ‘in loco parentis’.

And so on upwards - the head of a large company where we may work has to duty of care that his employees are kept safe; we have local heads of government, police commissioners etc., whose responsibility includes the safety and protection of the citizens - this is achieved through law and order. And so we finally go to the top, and have the governments of countries, and their judiciary and courts, and the Head of State.

Governments carry the ‘caretaker’ role for the people, the citizens. They are entrusted with our ultimate safety, security and defence - against violence, against terror, unreason, and the break-down of law and order into chaos and tyranny. We entrust them to save us from barbarism.

It is because they have this extension of the caretaker role (a leader will sometimes be called ‘The Father of the Nation’), that when something goes badly wrong, we can feel betrayed. Our own personal memories of betrayal, which may exist in layers of many chapters, can suddenly be triggered. It matters not that physically, personally, we may not be anything like in proximity or involved in what has just happened.

A feeling of insecurity, of being totally let down, indeed of being betrayed, is experienced in the collective, the caretaker of which is the top of government and judiciary.
The shockwaves in the collective trigger our personal memories of our own past trauma. Just as happens when someone we know is bereaved, and we then suddenly recall our own bereavements, as clear as day. Our own memories are re-experienced within the present, integrated into the collective event.

When a member of the Royal Family (in Britain) for whom there is much affection, dies, one can see an outpouring of collective sentiment. Some may disparage it (as in, ‘well, how could they possibly have known her!’ etc), but the phenonomen of collective sentiment is very real, and contains more than the sum of its parts. As all collective moods, it will operate as a wave - a wave that may sweep reason aside.





5. Injustice Is So Like Bereavement

Injustice affects us as bereavement does. When we are bereaved, and perhaps especially when we lose a parent (our original ‘caretaker’), we are affected physiologically as well as emotionally.

Our fear responses are heightened, (sometimes called heightened arousal), our heart rate changes, our concentration and memory are affected, as too our ability to regulate our emotions (be overwhelmed by them); our perception itself is affected, including our perception of who we are ourselves, our very core identity.

It is very common to feel we have lost a part of ourself with the loss of the one we loved, or, importantly, who loved us. Their love for us was part of what made us feel valid. How many feel, when bereaved, lost themselves, - rudderless, as it were? We have to re-learn, and validate ourselves.

Why, you may wonder, are we discussing bereavement here? Because the responses that we go through (and it happens involuntarily) are the same as when experiencing the distress of injustice, or injustice trauma where it is extreme.

The same shattering of world-view is involved, and the same loss of security, which affects us fundamentally.

We need ‘safe-holding’ - first our parents provide this, then gradually other people and other structures out in society provide this keeping of us safe and secure. Being able to dependably rely on the administrators of just law to do exactly that is a very important part of our security. We trust them. We trust our government to use their powers judiciously, to look after our best interests, or at least to try.

If suddenly justice itself appears from every logical perspective to be in fact injustice, it is a great threat to our psychological security, for reasons I’ve tried to explain.

If the collective has been subject to such stress, then the process of repair or healing is required to happen in the collective, exactly as it is when the injustice stress or trauma has occurred on a personal level. It is just as essential. As one of our commentators said, ‘Silence is not an option’.

But fortunately, humanity is resourceful. We can all think of ways and times when people of every diversity have come together in adversity, and pulled together, in generosity, kindness and strength. There is the dual instinct in most people (who are not dysfunctional, damaged or disturbed) which is for both justice and compassion - civilized, just action - .. and when we recover from the adrenalin state, where one feels temporarily stunned in disbelief, we slowly regain our ability to creatively engage in the present.

6. How The Healing Process Works

Many people come and seek out counselling when they are recovering from extended periods of stress and distress, caused by a wide variety of reasons, and within a wide spectrum of severity. There are a number of effective techniques to aid the self-therapy.

These include understanding one’s own fear responses and calming these; recognizing personal triggers, and having a method to deal with flashbacks when they occur; working on acceptance, and being ‘grounded’ or anchored; and learning to create a feeling of safety and security for yourself in the present, and recalling the stressful time but placing it carefully in the past.

7. Narrative Therapy For RS And AK

Sollecito admitted to lies, Knox served three years for lies, and both are still on trial in Florence for many more. Even their best friends know that.

In order to make progress in recovery, with counselling, some sort of ‘narrative therapy’ is needed, where what has been so distressing can be processed and talked about from the perspective of the present, looking back and making sense -  but not talking as if one is still there in the experience.

To be able to arrive at this narrative is an important healing step. But if instead, the story is made of fragmented flashbacks, and the talk slips back into the present tense, as if the person is there again at the scene…really this is not good news. (cf AK was doing this in one of her last interviews last year - the one where she talked about ‘the corpse’).

There is avoidance, where the person can’t bear to think about the stress, and there are intense flashbacks, re-lived, - which can re-traumatise.

The narrative that we seek, and that helps bring calm and the ability to move forward, is neither of these. But to reach the good narrative the person will have to go through the detail of the traumatic event, and face the pain it causes them. They will have to be truthful. The therapist helps them do this incrementally, within a very safe environment. It does work, but it takes time - the greater the trauma, the greater the time.

This knowledge is useful to anyone recovering from a major stressful life event, but the reason I mention it here is in thinking about our two ex-defendants. Stepping aside for the moment from the flip-flopping judgement delivered, - what concerns me is whether and how healing is possible - for everyone.

There are so very many deeply disturbing aspects to this dreadfully drawn-out case, - most have been noted. But one that disturbs me most is that the ex-defendants have wound themselves up to delivering false narratives to the media circuses - to the point where they can’t now recant them without getting their respective knickers in a complete twist, knots that can’t be unravelled, nor make any sense.

As it is, it seems we have two ghosts who held down Meredith, where Guede was the third man.

My serious point here being that, for their own sakes if no-one else’s, the ex-defendants will need to tell a truthful narrative, in order to find any kind of reasonable and balanced functioning in their lives.

Quite simply, healing will not be possible unless they arrive at telling a truthful narrative in the way I touched on above - even if this is in confidentiality, to a therapist, - it will need to be done. It cannot be done in fiction.

If they do not go through the necessary steps in the process as outlined - instability, gross insecurity, and states of fear and anxiety will persist, and the trauma can and will always re-emerge unpredictably, and haunt and shadow their lives with flashbacks.

This process is well-known, and well-documented.

This site is primarily to support the Kercher family, who are the genuine, innocent victims of the most appalling trauma - one that has been selfishly drawn out by ruthless external forces, thus putting their own recovery in jeopardy, and causing great suffering.

They should always have been put first, but now, at this point in time, it is more vital than ever.

They will need, as all victims in recovery, to be able to make their ‘good narrative’. But they cannot fully do so without the truth - even if it has to remain just a sketch of the truth. I wish with all my heart they can find the whole narrative that they need - I do not know how at this point, with so much obfuscation abounding.

But I do not give up hope : healing can always arrive, for those with good will, and good hearts…so however long it takes, I have faith that it can, and it will.


Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Cassation Appeal By RS And AK Against Nencini: Cassation Rules Not Enough Evidence NOT Innocence

Posted by Machiavelli

1. Dispositivo issued by Judge Marasca

This statement by Dr Marasca was dated 30 March 2015. An English translation and analysis is below the document image.








Dispositivo: VISTO L”˜ART. 620 LETT.(A) C.P.P.; ANNULLA LA SENTENZA IMPUGNATA IN ORDINE AL REATO DI CUI AL CAPO (B) DELLA RUBRICA PER ESSERE IL REATO ESTINTO PER PRESCRIZIONE; VISTI GLI ART. 620 LETT. (C) E 530, COMMA II C.P.P.; ESCLUSA L’AGGRAVANTE DI CUI ALL’ART. 61 N. 2 C.P. IN RELAZIONE AL DELITTO DI CALUNNIA, ANNULLA SENZA RINVIO LA SENTENZA IMPUGNATA IN ORDINE AL REATI DI CUI AI CAPI (D) ED (E) DELLA RUBRICA PER NON AVERE I RICORRENTI COMMESSO IL FATTO; RIDETERMINA LA PENA INFLITTA ALL RICORRENTE AMANDA MARIE KNOX PER IL DELITTO DI CALUNNIA IN ANNI TRE DI RECLUSIONE.


seen art. 620 lett. A) c.p.p.;

annuls the impugned verdict as for the charge in count B) of the indictment section because the time of limitation of the offence has expired;

seen articles 620 lett. L) and art. 530 second paragraph of c.p.p.;

excluding the aggravating circumstance under art. 61 n.2 c.p. in regard to the felony of calunnia, annuls the impugned verdict without remand as for the crimes charged in counts A), D) and E) of the indictment section due to the recurrents not having committed the crime; re-determines the penalty inflicted to recurrent Amanda Knox in three years imprisonment for the crime of calunnia.


2. Two Warnings

Warning 1

(1) The statement “because they did not commit the crime” does not imply a finding of innocence under Italian law; and when the art. 530.2 is mentioned there is no possibility of a finding of innocence;

(2) There are major legal blunders: the Cassazione is not allowed to make any finding of facts of any kind, it does not assess evidence directly, and it may not mention 530.2.

It could not have re-determined the penalty for calunnia if the penalty was already definitive. Here unusually the verdict was definitive but not the punishment, as Nencini increased the sentence from the 3 years imposed by Hellmann to 3 and 1/2 years, having been asked by the First Chambers to consider whether there was a teleological link with a murder conviction. Having annulled the conviction for murder the Fifth Chambers wiped out the extra 6 months.

Warning 2

At the end of the 2015 Afterword of Knox’s “If I did it” paperback edition, the Creative Writing student writes: 

Minutes later Carlo Dalla Vedova, one of two Italian lawyers, called.

“Does “˜acquitted’ mean not enough evidence to convict?” I asked him. Or did they find us innocent?”

“They find you innocent. Amanda!” he said. “It’s the best result possible!”

That is untrue. Readers may like to be warned that this is the latest lie. Either by Knox or Dalla Vedova. See Warning 1.

In fact Cassazione explicitly mentions 530 paragraph 2, which in Italian law means “not enough evidence” but not “finding of innocence”.

Such annulment is a legal blunder since Cassazione may not do any fact-finding in the merit.

However, as a court finding, 530.2 is finding of doubt, therefore the contrary of what Knox conveys to her readers.


Friday, March 27, 2015

Supreme Court Appeal By RS And AK Against Florence Court Rejection Of Their First Appeal #2

Posted by Our Main Posters



This was in 2009, Meredith’s family, not in court, may hear things came full circle today

Tweets from the court

New tweets from the court if any (we may have to wait for breaks) are being added under the various author’s names below. Numbering flows from Wednesday’s post.

Any breaking news

22. Reason for delay in the announcement is paperwork we believe, there were dozens of reasons for an overturn in the two written appeals, and they would have to be responded to one by one if appeal is denied. The Telegraph seems to be planning a live website feed though it may be from outside. .

21. Here is where Sollecito is headed if he makes it before any guilty verdict and the 2 police cars in his rear mirrors him stop him and take him in:  41°14’37.80"N 16°29’2.50"E Put that into Google Earth search and then descend to street view. Thats the gate for the compound, chez Sollecito is a couple of houses down on the left. Francesco Sollecito has addressed crowds of reporters there. 

20. Video here of RS and his sister Vanessa leaving by side entrance, possibly for Bari. As Florence prosecutors are in court, this may be his way of ensuring he is not photographed being frogmarched out of there.

19. Knox undercut her own defence by stiffing Florence court. Could in new Florence trial face more years for criminal defamation. Moore & Burleigh & Fischer & other PR shills may face citations too, as their excesses outnumber those of Gumbel and Sforza already in court. Tweeting stalkers too. Communication Police looking now.

18. Italian ANSA report is calling RS lawyer Giulia Bongiorno’s address to the court “Bye Bye Amanda” as she says only questionable DNA relates RS to scene of crime. [Oh? Several footprints? Opposing knife wounds? Multi alibis? Computer? Cellphone?]

17. Media, please get it right: Amanda Knox was not “tried in absentia” at Florence “trial”. IT WAS HER OWN APPEAL and Italian lawyers argued with her for a week that she really needed to be there. Having abused so many in Italy, and put drug dealer in jail, was her no-show really such a surprise?

16. Strong-arming unethical Gogerty-Marriott PR firm closes down in Seattle with a final dishonest thump of the chest. Said to be freaked by potential legal liability. Maybe Knox herself should sue as they made her plight much worse.

15. So NYC Sollecito advisor John Q Kelly shows his face again. He was wildly wrong on the hard facts late 2009 and promptly disappeared.

Tweets from journalist Andrea Vogt

17. Heavy media & police presence at Italy’s high court this a.m. for final hearing in #amandaknox case. Sollecito’s defense at 9.

18. Raffaele Sollecito’s Italian and American lawyers Giulia Bongiorno & John Q Kelly just greeted in hall outside Aula Magna

19. Giulia Bongiorno on the lack of DNA from #amandaknox and sollecito in murder room: only a dragonfly leaves no trace.

20. Bongiorno casting doubt on forensic police dna interpretation. “Maybe, in science, does not exist. Either it is Raffaele ‘s dna or not.”

21. High court judges in #amandaknox case are going into deliberations now. They will alert all one hour before they announce decision.

22. Court can: 1) call appeal [outcome] inadmissable 2) accept it 3) reject it 4) annul convictions & back to appellate 5) annul convictions.

23. Members of Florence prosecutor’s office are at Rome court today for decision on #amandaknox / Sollecito appeal of their convictions.

24. #amandaknox convictions have been completely overturned. She is a free woman.

25. Both raffaelle Sollecito and #amandaknox convictions have been fully overturned. Cries of joy in courtroom from sollecito’s family

Tweets from main poster Kristeva

15. Follow @andreavogt as she has better phone reception than me. I apologize

16. Much larger crowd today attending the final hearing for #amandaknox & #RaffaeleSollecito

17. The general feeling among reporters is that #RaffeleSollecito might get a second appeal. no chance 4 #amandaknox

18. Several reporters interested in http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com and will call me to have more info in the next days

19. I was asked how the #MeredithKercher support website started and I gave the whole history

20. Spoke to Maresca to thank him and in return he thanked our volunteer work for http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com 

21. Reporters were also interested in PR machine for #AmandaKnox and I referred them to http://truejustice.org

22. After Bongiorno, Maori will give his arguments and Judges with enter chambers to deliberate verdict

23. Timing of verdict for #amandaknox and #RaffeleSollecito unpredictable. May justice 4 #MeredithKercher prevail. My prayers for family

24. [6.15 am US east coast time] Maori finished. Judges have entered chambers to deliberate verdict.

25. No more appeals. Case over #amandaknox #RaffaeleSollecito acquitted for murder of #MeredithKercher #SHAME

26. I am shocked

Tweets from main poster Machiavelli

17. [no tweets yet]

Tweets from journalist Barbie Nadeau

4.  High court now deliberating fate of #amandaknox and #RaffaeleSollecito in #MeredithKercher murder case.


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Supreme Court Appeal By RS And AK Against Florence Court Rejection Of Their First Appeal

Posted by Our Main Posters



Above: stock image on another day of the Supreme Court’s Great Hall

Tweets from the court

New tweets from the court are all being added under the various author’s names below. This will continue Friday for sure.

Any breaking news

13. Court is over for the day and will resume on Friday.

12. La Nazione reports: “The judgment of the Supreme Court on the murder of Meredith Kercher will not arrive before Friday 27, the day when the judges will meet in closed session. This was announced by the President of the Fifth Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, Gennaro Marasca, during today’s hearing.”

11. We dont know the local telephone network capacity there. But many cellphone transponders can handle only 24 calls at a time. Demand for “outside lines” could number in the hundreds from the entire court. Maybe there’s an open WAN but we doubt.

10. Regardless of outcome Knox legal problems could go on for years. Since 2009 she has faced calunnia charges for lying on the stand. Possible sentence six years. Now Florence court has added calunnia charges for lying in her book, in Oggi, on her website, and on American TV. Perception going back to Ricciarelli is she is dangerous and hurts people, even if final murder verdict is not in.

9. Popper says of Dr Pinelli: “In his late 50s (a young man ref Cassazione average), a career both in Abruzzo region (Avezzano where he was born in 1957) and L’ Aquila, and then Naples in the Procura Generale; then promoted to Cassazione. Very much acquainted with murders and organised crime.”

8. Popper says of Dr Marasca: “Section President of Cassation [one of the few] and member of Consiglio Direttivo, a sort of Executive Board of the Supreme Court ... one of the most experienced magistrates in Italy, born in 1944. Since 1970 a magistrate.”

7. News service ANSA: “The head judge is Gennaro Marasca. The lead prosecutor is Mario Pinelli. After the prosecutor has spoken it will be the turn of Maresca (for the Kerchers). Then they’ll hear from Bongiorno and Maori, Ghirga and Dalla Vedova”.

6. New report with today’s date from Barbie Nadeau on the CNN Website. Seems CNN like most US media no longer solidly in Knox camp.

5. The Court has placed a ban on live tweeting from inside the courtroom, where mobile phone reception is poor anyway. Reports will come during the breaks.

4. Best guess at timing of decision is late PM US East Coast time. In 2013 it came the next day.

3. As with previous court outcomes, expect long-form analyses of outcome by Machiavelli etc within the next few days.

2. New York Times’s Elisabetta Povoledo provides a good overview of today’s context.

1. See our own scenario for today and coming weeks in the event the Florence verdict and sentences is confirmed.

Tweets from journalist Andrea Vogt

1. Raffaele Sollecito is here in court, speaking with his lawyer Giulia Bongiorno. #amandaknox lawyers and Patrick Lumumba also present.

2. Cannot tell how the court is leaning. Reviewer made hurtful and helpful comments to both sides. Still could go either way. #amandaknox

3. Court pres Gennaro Marasca calls break until 2:30. PG Mauro Pinelli has another hour of arguments. Arguments & ruling could be Friday

[break for lunch]

4. There is a sense among some observers that the Court is differentiating between positions of amanda knox and raffaelle Sollecito.

5. Maresca: I am representing the Kercher family in court for the 8th time. I hope this will be the last arguments I give on their behalf.

6. Maresca: It is time for the Kercher family to finally be able to remove this poor victim from the law courts.

7. Ghirga: “its not that we want to blame the poor black guy, its that you cannot rule out a single aggressor.”

8. Lawyer Luciano Ghirga: The scientific evidence favors #amandaknox (no trace of her in the murder room).

9. Carlo dalla Vedova has launched a blistering attack on the state of Italian justice system and the problem of “the neverending trial.”

10. Dalla Vedova for #amandaknox: How can we tolerate in Italy that trials can go on forever?

11. Hearing over for the day. Raffaelle Sollecito’s defense will continue Friday, march 27.

12. Ghirga: “its not that we want to blame the poor black guy, its that you cannot rule out a single aggressor.”

13. Lawyer Luciano Ghirga: The scientific evidence favors #amandaknox (no trace of her in the murder room).

14. Carlo dalla Vedova has launched a blistering attack on the state of Italian justice system and the problem of “the neverending trial.”

15. Dalla Vedova for #amandaknox: How can we tolerate in Italy that trials can go on forever?

16. Hearing over for the day. Raffaelle Sollecito’s defense will continue Friday, march 27.

Tweets from main poster Kristeva

1. I have arrived outside Section V. Sollecito, father and Greta. Poor [cellphone] reception.

2. Spoke to Avv. Maori & asked him who general prosecutor is and he doesn’t know yet. there are 2.

3. Andrea Vogt has just arrived and speaking to Avv. Ghirga

4. American British Journalists are all talking to Avv Dalla Vedova now.

[court session starts]

5. Relator Judge P. A. Bruno laughs once and while getting names wrong such as Hallowo instead of Halloween.

6. Prosecutor finds Rudy’s climbing up wall 4 numerous times “crazy”

7. Paolo Antonio Bruno knows the case extremely well without ever looking at his notes.

[court breaks for lunch]

8. Prosecutor has ended. He asked without remand 28.3 yrs #amandaknox and 24.9 for #raffaelesollecito

9. Bongiorno has asked to speak on Friday so most likely verdict will be then.

10. Pacelli now on civil case for Patrick Lumumba

11. Maresca has now concluded. Confirms all points made by Nencini, the general prosecutor and Galati

12. Maresca was brief and concise and said that after 8 years he hopes this is the last time he has to make same arguments

13. Maresca says that everything asked by #amandaknox and #RaffaeleSollecito has already been asked at Perugia and Florence trial.

14. Maresca makes a big point about pages re Conti & Vecchiotti and calls them on their lie.

Tweets from main poster Machiavelli

1. Reporting Judge at SC for the Meredith case is Antonio Paolo Bruno.

2. The Prosecutor General is Mario Pinelli. President Judge is Gennaro Marasca.

3. PG said the Florence sentence “respects the indications set by the Cassazione”

4. PG: says courts, based on findings “correctly established that the theft was staged”.

5. PG: court “pointed out correctly” that there was a staging “in order to side-track investigation”

6. PG: “3 people attacked the victim” and “there was no fight” unless you mean “attempts to defend herself by restrained victim”

7. PG: Florence decision not to repeat computer analysis on Sollecito’s laptop is “not censurable”

8. Sollecito reported nervous when PG observes computer data defence objections are irrelevant to alibi.

9. PG: Florence refusal to order anthropometric investigation on CCTV images is “adequately motivated”

10. Pinelli: phones removed because by “ringing in the home” may have caused early discovery of the crime.

11. Judge Bruno (like Zanetti) had said the trials had “not many certainties” beyond the girl’s death and one definitely convicted.

12. PG Pinelli said some minor charges have expired, thus Florence should re-assess penalties with slight reduction due time limitation laws.

13. Antonio Paolo Bruno is the Supreme Judge who was accused of conspiracy with Mafia by prosecutor DeMagistris in 2006.

14. Pinelli asked 3 months cut from both penalties (weapon carrying). But this cut may technically require intervention by Florence court.

15. Maresca says that everything asked by #amandaknox and #RaffaeleSollecito has already been asked at Perugia and Florence trial. Enough.

16. Maresca makes a big point about pages re Conti & Vecchiotti and calls them on their lie.

Tweets from journalist Barbie Nadeau

1. Judge confirms verdict will be Friday in #MeredithKercher case.

2. Prosecutor in #AmandaKnox case asks to trim 3 months off Knox’s 28 year 6 month sentence.

3. Reason for shaving 3 months off sentence in #AmandaKnox case is statute of limitations in theft charge.



Monday, March 16, 2015

Probable Final Cassation Ruling In 10 Days: Likely Scenario For The Immediate Future

Posted by Our Main Posters



Italian Justice Minister Andrea Orlando with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi


We reported previously that Prime Minister Renzi, the former mayor of Florence, has great trust in the court system there.

Cassation is expected to rule on Knox’s and Sollecito’s separate appeals against the Florence outcome (in which they yet again not-too-subtly edge one another between themselves and the flames) on Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

We have something of a consensus here upon what happens then and thereafter, with main inputs here from Italian watchers Popper and Yummi.

1. Cassazione will probably merely announce that the affirmation of conviction by the Nencini appeal court is legitimate from the point of view of Italian law and there will be nothing significant said on the merits of the case.

2. In final appeals Supreme Court justices simply confirm a sentence or not based exclusively on law points. The Cassazione motivation reports due within three months are not too important as they cannot be appealed anyway. A report may not be needed for extradition, the Massei + Nencini sentencing reports could be explanatory and legally correct enough in this case.

3. The execution of this decision would then be over to the Florence courts. If the Nencini confirmation of verdict and sentence is affirmed it will probably then be over to Prosecutor Crini and Judge Nencini, and an arrest warrant for Sollecito would be immediate.

4. There is a slight chance, perhaps 5% to 10%, that Sollecito might try to escape, as he seemed set on doing when he made it to the border on the same day as Judge Nencini’s 2014 ruling. On Italian TV he has been sounding very aggrieved with Amanda while not really winding back the strong case against himself. He lacks his passport and probably the secret stash of money to stay on the run indefinitely.

5. An arrest warrant for Knox, the other defendant, would normally be issued as soon as possible. If she is still located in the US she could be rapidly arrested and put in a holding cell. Based on other examples it is possible that her physical return to Italy could take as long as nine months, though the treaty promotes a fast-track meaning not upward of three months.

6. There is normally 45 days for the extradition papers/request from Dr Andrea Orlando, the Italian Minister of Justice, to be handed over by the Italian Embassy in Washington DC to the State Department, though there is allowance for that request time to be extended.

7. The evidence of course really is overwhelming and no single proof of foul play has ever been proven. Italian justice officials have relevant information they could share privately, such as the corruption of the Hellmann appeal alleged by Judge Chiari, Prosecutor Comodi and others, and such as Knox’s unsavory drug record which is normally a big no-no for the State Department. 

8. Comments made by the host and a magistrate on Italy’s Porta a Porta show last week suggests vagueness on the part of the Italian media and public about the Italy/United States extradition treaty. This treaty, which has always been faithfully observed previously by both countries, with no exceptions, is stark and minimalist and focuses on the paperwork and whether the national law was followed, as explained by lawyers James Raper and TomM. 

9. Assuming their final conviction, Sollecito’s arrest and return to prison will drive Italian public opinion, dormant for years but stirring as the Porta a Porta show suggested, to demand a quick extradition of Knox, who was the flatmate of Meredith the victim and without whom no murder would have taken place.

10. Probably very unlikely, but if there is sustained political resistance despite American media finally getting the facts right, the powers demanding extradition will build up immense pressure, and it will be world-wide pressure from the point of view of the US, not just Italy. All countries will be watching to see how the US behaves, and if their treaties are reliable or not.

The US relies heavily on the Italian government, which is currently a very strong one, on many other matters, and it has other extradition cases worldwide in motion or anticipated (think Snowden in Moscow) so it will be almost certainly be faithful to legality and precedent.

Knox smeared prison authorities in her book and directly caused the imprisonment of a drug-dealer which might be reasons she fears going back. Conceivably a negotiated outcome could result in Knox serving the rest of her time in an American prison to get round this. American prison? This would be nice for her family, but probably a lot less nice for Knox herself.

Knox has long been the pawn of an ugly family and bunch of parasites. Dont totally rule out her simply hopping on a plane to pay her dues and get away from them.


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