Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Two More Shockers The Pro-Knox Trashers Of Italian Justice Prefer That You Don’t Know

Posted by Peter Quennell

[New on-the-mark YouTube replaces image of women prisoners]

Shocker One: Too Many Women

Worldwide, female inmates have increased 600% in thirty years. Who leads that growth? The United States.

As for Italy there’s hardly been any growth at all (even despite this) and the total of female inmates is only HALF the US female rate.

Under pressure, now that the facts are out, the US government is scrapping plans to build even more female prisons. Nevertheless

Although men comprise over 90% of inmates, and commit about 80% of violent crime, the United States has a much higher percentage of incarcerated women in jail than other developed countries.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines jail as follows:

“A place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody; specifically :such a place under the jurisdiction of a local government (such as a county) for the confinement of persons awaiting trial or those convicted of minor crimes.”

There are far too many women in jail (not convicted of any crime) waiting for trial””because they cannot afford bail. Studies have indicated that women in jail had an approximate annual median income of $11,000. Minority women had an even lower annual median income.

With such a low income, how could a woman afford even a $10,000 bail bond. Although a bail bondsman would accept 5-10% of the ordered $10,000 bail, most low income women do not have $500””$1,000. The majority of the jailed women are the only parent contributing the only financial support for their children.

Because many of the jailed women are the primary caretakers of their children, they are not usually considered flight risks.

The painful conclusion”“incarcerated women (not convicted) are held in jail waiting for their court date, because they are poor. This shameful condition can be easily cured by judges acting humanely, when imposing bail.

The plight of poor women in jail, waiting for trial, is another example of our broken system of justice.

Shocker Two: Too Many Men

Justice systems of other countries take Italy’s humane pioneering very seriously.

Not least because the rate of released Italian inmates rearrested, known as recidivism, is among the world’s very least.

In part because of treatment for mental health issues and the serious in-demand skills training in Italian prisons for when they emerge.

At the opposite end of the scale? Yes, again. The United States.

Though you never ever hear this from the American trashers of Italian justice, the US is now at the very opposite end of this scale.

Overall, 68 percent of released state prisoners were arrested within three years, 79 percent within six years and 83 percent within nine years.  The 401,288 released state prisoners were arrested an estimated 2 million times during the nine years after their release, an average of five arrests per released prisoner.

On an annual basis, 44 percent of prisoners were arrested during the first year after release, 34 percent were arrested during the third year and 24 percent were arrested during the ninth year.  Five percent of prisoners were arrested during the first year after release and were not arrested again during the 9-year follow-up period.

All the proposed solutions would in effect move the US closer to Italy.

One is to simply stop putting so many people in prison in the first place. We have noted a few times that over 200,000 are wrongly there through forced plea-bargains right now.

Not much action on that. The money-grubbing Innocence Project turns a blind eye to that.

The one large initiative in the country is to decriminalize drugs. Proposition 64, which was endorsed by 56 percent of California voters 20 months ago, made marijuana legal.

And drug-related arrests are through the floor. There has been a slight uptick in some crimes but no sign the overall mood is hardening.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/24/18 at 10:30 PM in

Comments

If you think the US is just one country, you have not been paying CLOSE attention!

Here are three charts showing how just some parts of the US represent the extreme opposite of Italy while the best of the US and the worst of Italy are pretty similar.

Two of the main causes of the US polarity are (1) local politics, and (2) private-sector for-profit prisons - putting a ton of money into political lobbying.

Click for larger

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Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/25/18 at 04:15 PM | #

There is also (3) a correlation between the polarity and the places where “the economy” generally works for people and where it doesn’t.

This is quite curable, and almost nobody fights it, but the country especially at the national level is riddled with daffy growth know-how.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/25/18 at 04:29 PM | #

I still think Knox’s maniacal rage was a result of drugs, ditto for Sollecito. That’s why his father said “I curse the day” Raffaele met Knox. The good doctor tried for years to stop his son’s drug use. Knox’s influence reversed all his efforts.

Raffaele said (iirc) that he would never use drugs again. This was after his incarceration.

Was he horrified at how he had procured stuff for Knox to use, harder stuff than spliffs, and saw the damage it produced on the November night of madness?

Is Raffaele still drug-free?

Knox was sleep deprived, pre-menstrual, worried about money and her job and fearing parental disapproval. She was probably already tired of Sollecito wanting to break up and play the field with other Italian guys. She was gasoline needing only a flame to explode. Drugs and alcohol lit the match and her manga pal went along for the ride.

Again, look at Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald who went into a rage and knifed, beat and used an ice pick on his expectant wife and 2 small children one exhausted night after a double shift at hospital. He was severely sleep deprived. He was also taking diet pills to push himself and to bring his weight down for a boxing team. Pressured, he felt he was competing with top notch Green Berets at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Investigators think maybe he was set off to violence when his wife hit him in the forehead with a hairbrush on the fateful night. Their small child had wet the bed, the motive was never clear. They tested him for drugs but not amphetamines when he was hospitalized after the crime.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/29/18 at 01:52 AM | #

I agree with your summation Hopeful. I think there is little doubt that drugs and alcohol (and the other factors you mention) were at play on that fateful night.

Underpinning all of it too was Knox’s extreme jealousy of Meredith. Meredith was popular with males and females simply because of who she was. A very pretty girl with intelligence, personality and a plan for where she wanted to go in life. From everything we’ve gleaned about this young lady, she was going places and wasn’t afraid to put in the hard graft to get there. She was everything Knox wanted to be but could never be.

Knox sees her main validation in male attention and the only thing she can use to obtain that is to give herself to anyone who shows any interest in her. I’d be surprised if it hasn’t caused considerable self loathing afterwards in her case. Females instinctively dislike her because it is obvious that she could never be trusted when there are men around. I doubt whether she ever asked any of her conquests whether they were married or involved before she gave them what they were after.

Tragically for Meredith, Knox was able to easily ensure that two weak excuses for men would aid and abet her when it came to administering the coup de grace. In Sollecito’s case, he was already in thrall to this succubus having partaken of her charms. Guede, I’ve long contended, was hopeful that he could add himself to Knox’s list of conquests.

I believe this at least partially explains their lesser roles in the murder itself. Guede acting as restrainer and Sollecito as tormentor. It needed Knox herself to plunge the big knife in so deep that Meredith had no chance of living. Neither of her two accomplices would have had the stomach or desire for that.

I still struggle to believe that the murder was actually premeditated and I believe that if either of the two males had had an ounce of decency or integrity, they would have stopped it before it went too far. The fact that they actually facilitated it makes them almost as bad as Knox herself in my view. Almost.

The way that Knox has since revelled in her notoriety in getting away with murder and the way that she gleefully tortures Meredith’s family at every turn makes her a bona fide psychopath in my view. From her tortured rendition of “Zombie” in a New York karaoke bar to her numerous interviews where she grins maniacally or chuckles at dreadfully insensitive moments, she has shown us exactly who she is; utter trash, undeserving of the life she’s been given.

Posted by davidmulhern on 07/29/18 at 02:09 PM | #

@ davidmulhern:  Re “I still struggle to believe that the murder was actually premeditated”

We know that murder is a premeditated, unlawful killing (of a person).

IMO the fact that the murder-knife-36 was transported from Sollecito’s place into the girls’ place is Certain proof that its use to commit a felony-sexual-assault using means which were foreseeably lethal, and actually were lethal, was premeditated.

It is so foreseeable that using the at least 2 knives that were used could lead to death that I believe that this death should be legally regarded as a murder.

If a foresight of death standard subjective to AK & RS, were applied to a found-guilty AK & RS, they could plead that they just didn’t foresee that pricking Meredith’s neck with those knives could kill her; it was just a prank. For example “we were only hazing her; anyway, we were either mentally-ill or drugged or just plain dumb.”

Why did Amanda Knox plunge knife-36 into Meredith Kercher’s neck when Meredith screamed?

Was it not subjectively foreseeable to Amanda Knox that this could kill Meredith?

(IIRC, when AK/RS were originally convicted, the prosecution argued that in the moments between the Scream and the Stab, the Stab and it’s lethal result became premeditated, and that the court agreed?)

Posted by Cardiol MD on 07/30/18 at 12:43 AM | #

Hi @Cardiol

Fair points, well made.

I accept that there was premeditation in the transportation of the murder knife from Sollecito’s (the smaller knife he carried with him as a matter of course) but if the original intention was just some kind of hazing, then it would explain the need to have something large and threatening to wave in Meredith’s face, rather than wafting a pen knife around.

Somebody may choose to rob a bank using a gun but have no intention of actually killing someone in the process, albeit they are well aware that using a gun against a human being is foreseeably lethal. They are then undeniably guilty of premeditated robbery but may simply panic and fire when confronted by a member of the public or bank security.

It would be a stretch, in my opinion, to say that premeditated murder (I.e. the planned and thought out destruction of another human being) was a part of their crime. Murder yes, premeditated no. Doesn’t mean I think they shouldn’t be in prison for the rest of their lives or even lose their life, in certain circumstances, merely that I would struggle to be convinced that killing someone was their intention all along.

This would be particularly true in the case of a young or inexperienced perpetrator with no previous history of such crimes. As hateful as the three idiots are, and allowing for the disturbing things that Knox and Sollecito had done/thought previously, they were still new to this kind of thing. The knives may merely have been there as a threat to help them achieve whatever the warped plan originally was.

My own opinion regarding the plunging of the knife by Knox into Meredith’s neck is sheer panic when she let out her scream. Had Meredith shut down and been passive, a very different outcome may well have transpired. Then again, if you’re correct (and you may well be!), it wouldn’t have mattered and Meredith was doomed from the moment that the kitchen knife was transported and Dumb and Dumber were recruited in the commission of the crime.

I would still honestly struggle if I was on a jury to accept a premeditation argument based on the time frame between the scream and the fatal stab. At a bare minimum, of course, I would listen to the direction the judge gave in law, however we have many precedents for second degree murder and manslaughter where crimes of passion happen in the heat of the moment and proper premeditation cannot be established.

I’ve got a feeling of dread that even typing these words is making me seem like some kind of apologist for Knox and her band of killers. It is certainly not intended that way and I would hope people on here are well aware of the contempt I have for them all. Indeed I have been candid in the past in saying that I believe that Knox and Sollecito both deserve to lose their lives for what they did. I’d have made Guede serve more time in prison, 20 years minimum.

Posted by davidmulhern on 07/30/18 at 09:31 AM | #

@davidmulhern

Your reasoning is impeccable.

Legal reasoning is often not so.

In most (but not all) U.S. States there is a rule called “Felony Murder”.

This is a legal doctrine that broadens the crime of murder: “when an offender kills (regardless of intent to kill) in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime (called a felony in some jurisdictions), the offender, and also the offender’s accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.”

In those States the perps here would definitely be found Guilty of Murder.

The UK used to have the same doctrine, but has abandoned it (for the reasons you give). Italy does not have it.

(The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that a conviction for murder requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a subjective foresight of death.)

Posted by Cardiol MD on 07/30/18 at 02:19 PM | #

Hi David,

You’ve downplayed the sadistic nature and brutality of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s actions. You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that Meredith was sexually assaulted, tortured with knives and murdered by accident after Knox panicked. In fact, you seem to have completely forgotten that Meredith was sexually assaulted because you’ve made no reference to it.

Meredith had knife wounds to both hands, so she was clearly trying to fend off knife blows before she was restrained. She was subjected to a prolonged and exceptionally brutal attack - there were over 40 wounds to her body.

Meredith was also strangled. Her hyoid bone was broken and there was heavy bruising on her neck. In the autopsy photographs, you can see the finger marks on her neck. Both Meredith’s arms were restrained, so Knox and Sollecito could stab and her slash her. There were three knife wounds on Meredith’s neck. The fatal blow left a huge gaping hole in Meredith’s neck.

Judge Claudia Matteini made the following comments about Amanda Knox:

“Meredith was a girl full of life and enthusiasm, who for the sole purpose of having some pleasure and sensation during a boring day spent smoking joints, was subjected to acts of brutality and cruelty that are disgusting to any normal person. In such a situation the danger of repetition of the crime is certainly very high and can’t be considered to have diminished due to the mere passage of time, during which as a reminder you have never shown any sign of remorse or reconsideration of your life.”

“Even the behaviors you mention in your motion requesting release, which are presented as being in your favor, could be read differently in the opinion of this judge.”

“Your conduct after the murder is symptomatic of a personality which, considering your young age, provokes no small measure of dismay and apprehension, considering how extremely easy it was for you to control your states of mind.”

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito displayed glee in the days following Meredith’s murder. They were laughing and joking at the police station whilst Meredith’s traumatised friends were crying. Amanda Knox was caught laughing by a CCTV camera in the boutique. That image is particularly jarring because she looks so happy as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.

If you want to understand someone’s motives, just look at the consequences of their actions. Meredith wasn’t sexually assaulted and murdered by accident.

Posted by The Machine on 07/30/18 at 05:20 PM | #

By mid-year in the 2009 trial the judges panel had heard extensively (in closed court) about the autopsy & forensics and the crime scene recreation, and so it had the ruthless scenario Cardiol and the Machine depict.

It was this and Knox’s stint on the stand that by mid July had “cooked her goose” in terms of guilt. The despondent defenses all saw this full-well and from then on could have phoned it in. (Then they set about messing with the courts.)

And yet!

The outcome and reasoning of the Massei court seems to more reflect the less ruthless scenario David Mulhearn sets out toward which at least in the early days Mignini strongly inclined.

For Massei the events were pretty impromptu, Guede becomes the initiating beast, and “mitigating factors” wound the RS and AK prison sentences down, by half a dozen years.

How come?

I think key is what Hopeful says about drugs and irresponsibility - we see here Italy’s Bambino Factor cutting in for one or several or all jurors.

This is the notion that human brains continue forming to the age of 25. They were 4-5 years short of that, and newbies on drugs, so cut them some slack, as Italian courts almost always do.

Late in the trial, Sollecito lawyer Maori sardonically said what the whole RS family and team believed: Knox was a cokehead and had dragged RS back in and down.

But that and the vague memories of RS and AK because of a claimed few whiffs were about all on the drugs that the judges panel ever got to receive.

And yet!

All Italy knew why Knox was there in Perugia with no academic management framework and no work permit and enough money for just a very few months.

They knew that she had lined up a dealer even before she set foot in Perugia and caused his arrest (no wonder she was too freaked to reappear in Italy for the Nencini appeal).

They knew Knox stank of cat-pee on the fateful day. They know about skunk cannabis and skunk cocaine and the psychotic murders (and numerous deaths of users) those laboratory drugs have caused.

Crini (Nencini’s prosecutor) “minced” fewer words.

At least toward Knox, I’d say a majority in Italy favor the harder line. The public still cuts her no slack. And note Italy still doesnt know of prior happenings at the Seattle end.

After Knox left high-school, she was only too quick to take off from the Mother from Hell and Father from Hell in West Seattle and set up her supply chain near UW.

Among students there, Perugia had a reputation as the cheapest and easiest drug city in Italy and so - surprise surprise - in the blink of an eye she was there. With little funding and zero real academic intent.

The responsible UW moved to stop any fake “exchange student” ever again putting them at legal risk.

Meanwhile the irresponsible Mother from Hell and Father from Hell helped Knox wail to the whole world of a supposed hard line taken that never was.

Because of Italian misogyny, blah blah blah.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/30/18 at 06:34 PM | #

Hi TM

It certainly wasn’t my intention to downplay the sadistic nature of what happened nor am I labouring under any misapprehensions that murder became the eventual desired result of Knox and Sollecito. I was honestly only making the point that I didn’t think that we could establish that the murder itself was premeditated many hours before the event. That’s all. I agree with everything that you and indeed Cardiol MD wrote on the substantive facts.

The actions of Knox and Sollecito since the murder, particularly those of the former, are particularly heinous, cold and uncaring. I believe Knox displays many of the classic traits of a psychopath. I offer no mitigation for either of them and truly wish them all that they deserve for what they have done.

At this moment in time, nothing would please me more than to hear that Knox or Sollecito had suffered a similar, preferably worse, denouement than poor Meredith.

Posted by davidmulhern on 07/30/18 at 07:10 PM | #

Hi David,

I used to think Meredith’s murder was premeditated because Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito turned off their mobile phones at approximately the same time, they armed themselves with knives, went to the cottage and slashed and stabbed Meredith. I then oscillated between thinking it was premeditated and thinking it wasn’t. However, I don’t think it was premeditated anymore.

I instinctively felt SomeAlibi got very close to what happened that night with his scenario:

“She had been out with Raffaele from lunchtime, then shopping in the late afternoon and round to his smoking a lot of dope from late afternoon. I think she left shortly after 8pm to go back to the cottage to change out of her day clothes and into something for her job handing out fliers to entice people into a bar and probably also to get some stuff together for her trip to Gubbio the next day.

“Answering some other stuff: we know that she’s in the vicinity of Piazza Grimana at the same time Rudy Guede is there because of the cell tower data (even though it’s incorrectly referenced in part in Massei, the evidence was admitted in court). (The 40 minute pause in Amelie is corroborative of her time out of Raffaele’s flat). She receives Patrick’s message at 20.18 but doesn’t reply until 20.35. My theory is she is talking to Rudy in the intervening minutes trying to get him to help her score. He doesn’t have anything on him but says he can try and help and they arrange to meet up again in an hours time at 9.30. She wanders back to Raffaele’s to give him the good news, texting Patrick back, turning her phone off and being at Raffaele’s to answer the intercom at 20.40 to Popovic.

“Some people don’t like the idea of the drugs link but we know they all use and I think it is impossible to turn down the corroborated fact that both Amanda and Rudy are out and about at the same time in this tiny area around 20.30 and for that not to be linked to them hooking up again for a reason later. Their original meeting is random. They definitely met up again later. Why? I don’t believe Amanda spontaneously planned a haze on seeing Rudy around 20.20. I believe the meet up and asking Rudy for help scoring is simply way more plausible.

“She and Raffaele left his flat around 21.25 to do the five minute walk to Grimana to meet Rudy as arranged. If the starting of the torrent download at around 20.24 is proven, then for me that is absolutely consistent with going out. Torrenting uses up all bandwidth unless you’ve specifically set it not to and it is a very common practice for torrenting to be done when a user is going out or when going to bed. Kicking off a torrent as you go out is absolutely consistent.

“I then say that Rudy had managed to score, presumably a little further afield than Grimana, either at the bottom of Garibaldi or in the Cathedral area at the top of Rossi. I have personally seen dealers in both and been offered drugs at the bottom of Garibaldi in broad daylight. The three then went to the cottage to take whatever they had and had a party in the kitchen per the story of Marie Pace.

“I personally believe that Meredith had told Amanda at lunchtime that she had taken the cash out to pay the rent and had asked Amanda for hers, which she did not have. When Amanda met Rudy in the square the first time at around 20.20, I believe that Amanda went to the cottage and “borrowed” Meredith’s cash to give to Rudy to help them all score. I personally believe that Rudy’s story of Meredith being upset at the cash going missing and calling her a “whore of a doper”, while yes a weak alibi for Rudy on the missing cash, is probably true. It may be that the call to Abbey bank at 22.00 was in fact Meredith’s half-thinking reaction to finding the money gone since she’s holding the phone at the time having just called her voicemail. It’s the sort of thing we might all do for a few seconds before of course terminating it because she thinks “what am I doing? That’s not the point - someone has taken the physical cash - who?”. She then goes out to ask Amanda if she knows anything about it.

“By this point the other three were off their faces on drugs and probably alcohol (remembering Raffaele and Amanda had now been taking drugs since late afternoon on their own admission) and were some 4+ hours into their bender. Amanda’s reaction in that kind of state was probably to laugh at Meredith. This provoked the comment from Meredith and gives Amanda reason to explode at Meredith whom she knows disapproves of her messiness and the types of people she mixes with (said by Meredith to Sophie Purton). Amanda reacts badly and escalates it into a fight and the assault as the other two joined in. The assault escalated to a point where they felt they “had” to kill Meredith because otherwise she was going to tell the police. It was probably a unilateral decision by Amanda in my opinion as she realised this is where they’d got to.

“Rudy leaves the cottage, running straight from the bedroom to the front door as shown by the footprints. Amanda and Raffaele are there long enough for Raffaele to wash off blood in the shower or in the bidet, leaving his footprint on the bathmat and Amanda to wash in the sink at the same time and they have a hurried clean-up in general, although Amanda will come back the next morning. When they leave from the drive, snaking up into the carpark and running along the metal stairs and then round into via Melo, multiple running footfalls on gravel, on the metal steps and on the pavement are heard by multiple witnesses around 23.30. FOA don’t like anyone to remind them that it was not only Ms Capezzalli who heard the running on the driveway from a flat that is absolutely directly opposite the gravel driveway but also by Maria Dramis who was in a bedroom on the *other* side of that appartment block and who heard them running along via del Melo, having cut through on the metal steps and then run along to the steps running down the side of the basketball court. Via Melo, which is completely pedestrian and really in effect a back alley brings you out half-way down the steps directly behind one of the basketball hoops and about 15 yards from the vantage point at the edge of the court where you can observe down onto the gates which is in itself 15 yards from Curatolo’s bench.

“Here’s the exit route. Plotting of the witnesses is approximate. The reason that they went like this is because the area in the yellow box is a busy intersection and they could easily be caught in headlights as the three roads intersect. Instead they sprinted across the road from the cottage gate to the ramp up to the carpark and then up the metal steps before cutting into Via Del Melo which is little more than a back alley.”

My main criticism of SomeAlibi’s scenario is that he ignores the sexual assault. I believe Amanda Knox gave Guede the impression that Meredith might be interested in him - perhaps to persuade or motivate him get hold off some drugs for her and Sollecito. As noted by a number of judges, Amanda Knox knew Meredith had been sexually assaulted before the results of the autopsy were known. She claimed in her witness statement that Diya Lumumba was “infatuated’ with Meredith. She is clearly referring to Guede and I think Knox revealed the reason why they all went back to her cottage rather than Sollecito’s or Guede’s apartment i.e. to give Guede an opportunity to make a move on Meredith.

I agree with Judge Massei that Amanda Knox armed herself with Sollecito’s knife for protection. She was going to be hanging round Piazza Grimana late at night and there might be some dodgy characters. I think there was a physical confrontation between Meredith and Knox after Meredith rebuffed Guede’s advances. The Scientific Police and DNA expert Luciano Garofano both claim Amanda Knox was bleeding that night and her blood mixed with Meredith’s blood in different parts of the cottage. I think Meredith hit Knox hard on the nose and that’s was the reason why she was bleeding profusely. The knives were used to subjugate Meredith, so Guede could sexually assault her.

Posted by The Machine on 07/31/18 at 12:34 AM | #

@Cardiol

Actually, the Canadian Charter does not mention murder in it at all.  Sections 7-14 cover criminal justice in a general sense.  In fact the only crime that is specified is under Section 13 (perjury and contradictory testimony).

The actual laws would be found under the Canadian Criminal Code, but as for the actual burden:

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-52.html

cc 230 gives a list of charges ‘‘murder in the commission of offences’’ aka felony murder in the USA.

cc 231(4) gives a classification of 1st degree murder—intent not needed—for certain victims, such as police and prison officals,

cc 231(5) gives a classification of 1st degree murder—intent not needed—for sexual assault deaths, forcible confinement deaths, and terrorism deaths.

Under cc 231(5) all of them AK/RS/RG would have been found guilty of 1st degree since there was both sexual assault, and forcible confinement.

So, it is not entirely true to say that proof of intent is needed.  The US states do have some similar laws

Posted by Chimera on 07/31/18 at 07:40 AM | #

@Chimera

According to my, usually reliable, source the Supreme Court of Canada held section 230 of the Criminal Code to be unconstitutional. Section 230 was modifed last year but in what way is not clear to me.

I reply because of your direct contradiction but do not wish to descend into a public debate on TMJK regarding a secondary technical issue. I suggest our debate be continued in private e-mails.

As well as being a retired Physician, I am also a retired Lawyer who testified on causes of death in Canadian Jurisdiction.
Here is my usually reliable source:

“As Canadian criminal law aims to maintain proportionality between the stigma and punishment attached to a conviction and the moral blameworthiness of an offender, in R v Martineau the Supreme Court of Canada held that it is a principle of fundamental justice under sections 7 and 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that a conviction for murder requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a subjective foresight of death. In so doing, the court declared sections 230 and 229(c) of the Criminal Code to be unconstitutional….”

Posted by Cardiol MD on 07/31/18 at 04:59 PM | #

Pesky Canadian law! Actually Chimera’s series has shown it to be impressively positioned between uber-humane Italian law and sharp-elbows US & UK common law.

Series started here:  http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/probable_legal_scenario_if_the_crime_against_meredith_had_taken_place/

It needs an overview post like so many of our areas, this place is a bit like the Brazilian jungle at times.

And Cardiol has really gone to work on the forensics and on Italian law, you know, the one Marasca & Bruno ignored, for example see here:

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C934/

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/01/18 at 04:38 PM | #

Hi, everyone, sections 229 and 230 of the Canadian Criminal code were amended 2017-12-12
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-229.html
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-230.html

The rewording makes Knox, Sollecito, and Guede even more culpable imo 😊

Posted by Ergon on 08/01/18 at 09:11 PM | #

Thanks Ergon, I think they would make them culpsble in Canada too.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 08/01/18 at 09:37 PM | #

@davidmulhern@CardiolMD The debate about spontaneity of the attack versus pre-planning, has been stirring in my head since reading the above comments. Thank you for forcing me to sharpen my foggy theory of the crime.

I don’t doubt that we all find the murder vile and reprehensible to the max, whether it was done on the spur of the moment in passion and anger fueled by drugs, or diabolically planned in advance. Or some quick succession of the two mental states. They had perhaps thought about doing something bad and daring in the days before November 1, 2007, but the drugs removed their fear and escalated desire into willful determination or did they just snap?.

I agree so much with davidmulhern’s description of the underpinnings of the crime being Knox’s envy of Meredith. This burst out into full fury perhaps provoked by Meredith’s righteous indignation over her stolen money and a verbal insult to Knox’s careless lifestyle. I don’t think Knox’s anger would have ratcheted up to such a dangerous level so quickly had she not been stimulated by drugs or alcohol and had two yes-men with her.

I agree with The Machine that Knox put the big knife in her bag to carry around for street protection. Raffaele’s example of always being armed with his flick knife may have given Knox the idea. I think they were both secretly intent on causing some type of drama to frighten people, in the Halloween spirit. Remember the crazy way they sat in the street like garbage bags and threatened Hekuran Kokomani? Knox waved the knife around and acted brash with him, he threw olives at them and rushed away? They were practicing for some type of scary gag or fantasy role play. Knox and Raffaele both liked the idea of scaring somebody, as Knox’s not so funny joke on her UW roommate revealed when she frightened the poor girl and “stole” her items. Knox was acting out her aggressions under the mask of a joke, a spoof, but the desire to frighten a person and appear powerful and dangerously violent was the foundational dream.

Knox tore out the pages of her October 2007 diary. It might have contained some actual plans for a hazing of Meredith; it might have contained plans to scare other people in Perugia, or to do something seriously illegal. Knox tore the pages out of her personal journal for a reason. They would have been proof of terrible guilt about something. She was planning to do something drastic but she needed Sollecito to bolster her resolve. We know she was into drugs long before Perugia. I agree 100% with Peter Quennell on her drug dealer on speed dial, and her choice of Perugia for easy access to drugs. So it follows that drugs were a part of the holiday free time that Knox celebrated when her boss gave her time off work and no school in session. Even Knox and Sollecito admitted to some hashish? marijuana use on the day of the crime. You can bet she was minimizing the reality of their drug intake that day.

So Knox had the foundational psychology of envying Meredith, wanting to upset her, at both a conscious and unconscious level, but drugs intensified Knox’s outburst and as someone said, after they had strangled Meredith, bruised her, and allowed Guede to assault her sexually they lost all restraint and panicked into killing her to remove the witness to their preposterous haste and hatred.

I was encouraged by a comment elsewhere online today who quoted Deuteronomy 32:35, “It is mine to avenge, I will repay. In due time their foot will slip. Their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” How apt for Knox and Raffaele who exult in their immunity.

Posted by Hopeful on 08/02/18 at 02:12 AM | #

Hi Hopeful.

Very neat riff on all comments previously. You have always had Knox 1.0 nailed. I might add in only this too:

(1) Knox’s financial insecurity and job insecurity (and lack of work permit, she was working illegally) worsened by the advent of Meredith; Knox’s parents acted grossly irresponsibly in not insisting she set herself up better and actually enrolled at the university;

(2) Judge Massei making Guede the prime mover, maybe to appease one or several on his panel of judges, which opened the way to the reduction in sentences. (Judges Micheli and Nencini were more, uh, old-testament!)

(3) RS cold-shouldering Knox for years (2007-12 and intermittently since then) the point of which registered strongly with watching Italians.

But the 2009 trial and its outcome were extremely clearcut. That the RS & AK teams knew they had failed at law and had two definitively guilty clients led directly to the nefarious judge-shopping.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/02/18 at 04:12 PM | #

Sources in Italy say Sollecito is unemployed, cut off from family funds, and leeching off a series of maladjusted individuals like himself. His family still rues the day he met Knox.

Posted by Ergon on 08/04/18 at 05:04 PM | #

Interesting to note Ergon, thanks for the update.

I can definitely see Sollecito meeting his demise at his own hands. Depression and increasing substance abuse often go hand in hand with unemployment, especially if you have a reputation like Sollecito’s and the vast majority of decent, ethical, employers wouldn’t touch you with the proverbial barge pole.

I’d imagine if Sollecito follows Knox’s career in any way at all, he must be absolutely seething at her relative success and happy life, in juxtaposition to his own, desperate sounding, situation.

I’d like to think that if he decides to take his own life at some point (as opposed to an accidental overdose), that he would leave behind a written, or recorded, summary of exactly what happened in the cottage on that fateful night. It would not only finally give Meredith’s family some closure but would be the perfect way to finally prick Knox’s bubble.

I can but dream…..

Posted by davidmulhern on 08/05/18 at 12:35 PM | #

Hi Ergon and davidmulhern

“I can definitely see Sollecito meeting his demise at his own hands.”

Our psychologists have long said that is in the cards for either or both of the two.

Both have had egos way out of control. They had far to fall.

How Sollecito burned through money amazed me - like a drunken sailor, right?!

Neither has ever been in line for an income above the norm.

If Meredith had taken a Brussels job she would have outearned both of the pair.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/05/18 at 03:40 PM | #

It sure is a pity that RS’s bid for a nefarious job in the Dominican Republic in 2013 fell through…. Even his unsavory relatives saw no use for him! That must have hurt.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/being_reported_Significant_Developments/

Had they found him a spot in their drug-running team he would surely have skipped the Nencini appeal and found no need to corrupt the Fifth Chambers of the Supreme Court.

Instead he’d be on everyone’s most wanted list, and Knox with no ado would already have been sent back.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/05/18 at 07:11 PM | #

@davidmulhern:

“I can definitely see Sollecito meeting his demise at his own hands”

From Pete’s 03/28/09 Post:

“Maori later told reporters that Sollecito had agreed to have his mother’s death discussed in court, so, as he said, “we can clarify once and for all that she died from natural causes.” There had been repeated reports in the press that it was a suicide and that this had traumatized Sollecito.”

Might this trauma promote Sollecito meeting his demise at his own hands?

Posted by Cardiol MD on 08/05/18 at 11:44 PM | #

Hi Cardiol and davidmulhern:

Good catch above Cardiol. I incline now though to think RS’s trauma was already there prior to his mother’s death.

The context of that quote was that at the 2009 trial Sollecito was doing a mad scramble toward “normality” (just when Knox was scrambling her hardest the other way).

Sollecito was chosing to play down the fact of being at THAT school dormitory in Perugia (for troubled kids of medical doctors) PLUS the knife fetish PLUS the manga fetish PLUS the porn fetish PLUS the drug use at Bari PLUS the drug use in Perugia PLUS still being a virgin and no Italian girl seeming to like the vibes he had given off.

He was close to his mother, and both seem to have taken her divorce and the impending remarriage of Papa Doc hard.

When she died, when he was 19, he may possibly have invented the suicide claim himself to get sympathy from his college chums and to hit back at his dad.

I tilt toward the suicide being real though, and at minimum we can see one very muddled boy.  Recall that the great tension with his dad became known to half of Italy when transcripts of his dad and sister talking about him leaked out.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/sollecito_family_trial_on_the_component_about_their_alleged_attempt/

In his book John Follain wrote this:

Raffaele’s mother died in 2005, when he was twenty-one and still living in college. The doctor attributed the death to a heart attack and no autopsy was carried out. The college’s administrators were told however that she had apparently committed suicide, upset by her ex-husband’s relationship with the woman who became Raffaele’s stepmother that September; they also heard that Raffaele’s mother had a weak personality and was excessively protective of her son, so much so that she was reluctant even to allow him out of the house. Raffaele later denied that she had committed suicide.

And after the trial Barbie Nadeau in her book wrote this.

The priority for the Sollecitos is getting Raffaele off suicide watch. Since the verdict, he has been increasingly withdrawn. He is in the sex offenders’ ward at Capanne, and like most of the inmates there, he is on heavy antidepressants. He has given up his studies, and his family says he has also given up hope. He has stopped writing letters to his daily newspaper, and he barely responds when his family comes to visit him. He knows enough about the Italian justice system to understand that his chances of getting off on the first round of appeal are slim. The thought of spending four or five years until the second level of appeal is too much for him to bear. His family is petitioning to have him moved closer to them in Puglia, but the prisons in the south are much rougher.

Your thoughts on this?

Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/12/18 at 08:27 PM | #

The Follain quote: “The doctor attributed the death to a heart attack and no autopsy was carried out. The college’s administrators were told however that she had apparently committed suicide, upset by her ex-husband’s relationship with the woman who became Raffaele’s stepmother that September…”

A diagnosis of “heart attack“ for the mother with no autopsy or diagnostic history of specific heart disease is BS. (Heart disease is my speciality.) Combined with Barbie Nadeau’s corroborative comments, it is most plausible that Sollecito is at risk of “demise at his own hands”.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 08/12/18 at 11:15 PM | #

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