Monday, May 30, 2022

A Sound Lawyer’s Take On Final State Of Play, And A Satire Of Amber Heard’s Non-Answers

Posted by Peter Quennell

Added: This newly uploaded video above explains why Harvard lawyer Ms Lee has come down for Team Depp. Bruce Rivers’ commentary is down below now.

Overview

Up to the present, most main-media commentary remains deeply superficial.

Reporting has been skipping over numerous hard facts in favor of extensive waffles about #MeToo, social media, and who is waiting to enter the courtroom.

Main media did give some belated attention last week to Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez, who they have actually noticed is a woman.

On Facebook and YouTube threads it is rather obvious that half or more of the scathing comments also are from women. Many of them are DV survivors, explaining why they are quite sure Amber Heard is faking it.

This fact-influenced changing center of gravity in the huge audience is still not being noticed mainstream. 

Above and below: two lawyers’ commentaries. Further below: a sardonic take on Amber Heard’s cross-examination, with real reactions from her own team increasingly dumbfounded.

After the jury met briefly last Friday, a rumor was floated that they were “divided”. At a guess, this was Heard PR hard at work. There was little time to do other than take a straw vote. Such straw votes are notorious for differing from final outcomes.

 

 

Friday, May 27, 2022

Out-Of-Nowhere Depp Lawyer Camille Vasquez Delivers Implacable Closing Argument

Posted by Peter Quennell

Context

Camille Vasquez is one of eight lawyers on Johnny Depp’s team.

For most of the trial she was held back and to many remained invisible. But when she was finally unleashed it sure was worth the wait.

Loaded for bear in witness examinations, including of Heard, and from her first few words really searing in her final argument, she ended powerfully with the names of all who testified why the Washington Post article and a post-separation restraining order against Depp were both hoaxes.

Looks like this closing argument might be one for the law schools. And for TV interviews: she would not be interviewed during the trial.

Total viewership today already exceeds 25 million. Surely one for the Guinness Book of Records?

Monday, May 23, 2022

Good Lawyer’s Take On Tipping Points Depp-Heard Jury Might Soon Face

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Context

There are TWENTY live feeds of the trial running on YouTube as of Monday AM. Wow. 

And maybe several million watching live on cable TV. Why so?

Well, as explained in previous posts, the number of American defamation trials in any one year fell off a cliff several decades ago.

Law-changes in many states made them much more difficult to win - though one plus is that a media outfit that has no malicious intent in its reporting does not risk being totally wiped out.

This does mean that defamation law is somewhat of a financially risky area for lawyers to specialize in, and so proportionally there are not that many defamation lawyers all-told.

Johnny Depp has hired what are clearly some of the best defamation lawyers in the US, and you can see them keeping their cool, building the case against the Op-Ed in the Washington Post brick by brick, and having an enormous effect on the crowd (such as us).

In sharp contrast, it seems that not even one of Amber Heard’s team specializes in defamation, and several aparently don’t even normally appear in any court. They have taken the jury on various irrelevant trips, which noticeably bored the jury and did nothing for Heard.

This video above is another by Bruce Rivers, who really does know his defamation law, and there is a lot of respect for him in Comments.

It is really good to see how focused on the law and hard facts - and against dishonest Amanda-Knox-type tirades - a large majority is right now. Very promising for us in our end-run.

Friday, May 13, 2022

Abuser “Triangulation” Seems Blatant In Amber Heard, Jada Smith,  Amanda Knox Cases

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Context

The two video analyses are of Will Smith, of Oscars notoriety, and his wife Jada.

They seem highly relevant also to our own case, and to the Heard-Depp case, with the repeated new airings of a 2019 Smith-Smith video talked about here.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s Resurfaced IG Live With Will Smith

Video Shows Tension Between Will Smith and Wife Jada

See Will Smith pleads with wife Jada

Details about Will and Jada Smith relationship revealed

The video is being suggested as a classic instance of triangulation. This is where the abuser (think Heard and Knox too) incessantly builds third-party support (from “flying monkeys” to use the technical term!) for their pattern of abuse.

In the 2019 video, Jada keeps filming Will, and taunting him, very obviously against his wish.

Jada keeps referring to an Esther Perel, a Belgian shrink and avid open-marriage promoter, who Jada intends to bring back in to “analyze” their marriage in front of the whole world.

And there is this indicting Amber Heard.

 

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

How Amber Heard Testimony Matched Point By Point Depp Psychologist’s Checklist

Posted by Peter Quennell

Another Sharp Video Take

Dr Shannon Curry testified first, of course, waving red flags that the whole world would expect a target of a $50 million lawsuit to adjust her language and demeanor to.

But, but, but… as this video explains, that is very far from what happened in the last week.

And yet another Knox affinity. Knox shows the same train-on-rails obtuseness. Remember Chris Mellas’s nickname for her?

Saturday, May 07, 2022

Timely Contrasting Of The Amber Heard & Johnny Depp Psychologists

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Context

Defamation trials are rare in the United States. Ones on “telly” and streaming video with 10-20 million viewership are even rarer.

Some here feel that this is a real pity, that it has become so incredibly tough and expensive to get a reputation back, not least because it has led to an explosion of toxic PR-emanated hit-jobs - just as in both this case and our own main interest.

This invidious sub-optimal system has allowed, not least, Amanda Knox to demonize dozens in Italian law enforcement highly dishonestly for huge bucks for a full decade now.

Particularly unusual is to see warring psychologists sharing diagnoses with the jury of the other party. But this actually could prove to be a very good thing; in a first for any media, hundreds of domestic violence survivors have posted valuable insights from what they lived through.

We came in with Dr Shannon Curry offering a razor-sharp diagnosis of Amber Heard over the past decade (borderline and histrionic personality disorders) startling similar to what Amanda Knox has long been demonstrating.

All professional psychologists who have posted for us have inclined in this direction, and discounted that Knox is simply psychopathic or sociopathic, even if she tests high on those scales. They have noted how much she believes in her illusions, and how she could be moving further and further way from hopes of recovery.

In this new video, Australian court analyst Katherine Elizabeth does the first comparison online between the takes of the two psychologists - impressive, as she does it without a script, and apparently into a cellphone!

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

A Clinical Psychologist Gets Widespread Praise Today For Shapeshifting Expert Testimony

Posted by Peter Quennell

Actor Johnny Depp’s Defamation Suit

This is the second week in a courtroom just outside Washington DC for actor Johnny Depp and his ex wife Amber Heard.

Johnny Depp (net worth $150 million) is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard (net worth $8 million) for defamation, for having implied in a Washington Post article in 2018 that he had frequently been violent with her.

Court proceedings are being shown live on several TV channels and various streaming YouTube channels. The national audience may have jumped by several million today while forensic psychologist Dr Shannon Curry testified for Depp’s team.

There were strong shades of Amanda Knox’s apparent syndromes in this testimony. As The Guardian reported:

An expert in intimate partner violence called to give evidence in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard has testified that her evaluation of the actor revealed two psychiatric diagnoses – borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.

Depp’s witness, Shannon Curry, said that the diagnosis came from examination of Heard’s previous psychological assessments, coupled with direct examination on two occasions, and participation in a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test, a court in Alexandria, Virginia, heard on Tuesday.

Curry said that Heard, 36, displayed a “reactive”, “overly dramatic presentation” and used words like “magical” and “wonderful” to describe events. Heard, she said, flitted between “princess and victim”.

As sophisticated, “cute and girlish” as such people may present, Curry said, they “may in reality be very destructive”, “dramatic, erratic and unpredictable” and possessed of an “underlying drive to not be abandoned but also to be center of attention”.

Curry said borderline personality disorder represented an unstable personality, alert to rejection, with little access to self-regulation and marked by “a lot of anger, cruelty toward people less powerful, concerned with image, attention seeking and prone to externalizing blame, a lot of suppressed anger that may explode outwards”.

Anyone attempting an intimate relationship with such a personality, Curry said, would likely go from “idolized to dumpster”. It was typical of borderline personalities, she added, to be “assaultive as partners. They’ll make threats using the legal system, threaten to file for a restraining order, claim abuse.”

There are several full-day versions of today’s testimony on YouTube. Amber Heard did not seem to be enjoying it. YouTube comments are worth reading (scroll down). One comment:

A movie or show could never equate to this woman as a witness. Hands down best witness I’ve ever seen in all the court cases I’ve ever seen.

Saturday, March 19, 2022

Der Spiegel, Mafia Tool?! Yet More Fake News Inflames Millions Against Italian Justice

Posted by Peter Quennell

Editor-in-Chief Clemens Höges oversaw this fake news

1. Spiegel’s Fake-News Past

It now appears that Der Spiegel has grossly mangled the facts of the case TWICE!

The first instance consisted of Der Spiegel mindlessly channeling Knox’s greatest fraud. We posted on that the other day.

Now the second consists of Der Spiegel mindlessly channeling Sollecito’s greatest fraud. The low points are summarized below.

Clemens Höges, Der Spiegel Editor in Chief (image above) is greatly respected in German publishing. He was brought in specifically to stamp out fake news after a damaging incident hit Der Spiegel in 2018.

“Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me!” One instance of fake news can perhaps be blamed only on the reporter. But two instances?! Especially at Der Spiegel, they are a sure sign of editorial mismanagement, or of grandstanding intent at top-manager level. Herr Höges??

2. Spiegel’s Fake News #2

For a current Sollecito baseline, you might do well to read this first. It is along the lines of what Der Spiegel should have reported.

Better than the weird nonsense about “I’m the real victim” Sollecito below. More about the one that all Italians know only too well in the next post.

You destroyed our life” Raffaele Sollecito was falsely charged [untrue] ... [He says] hardly anyone knows his name [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox and Sollecito were finally acquitted [untrue] ... Spiegel: Quickly, the officials take in two suspects [untrue] ...  an unprecedented media hype develops [untrue] ... Sollecito features in the reports only on the edge [untrue] ... Sollecito [says] my fate was completely overlooked, no-one was interested in me, not even the police [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox and Sollecito were falsely arrested and accused of murder [untrue] ... The police had thought up this screenplay that Amanda and I would have allegedly killed Meredith [untrue] ... I was only a minor figure [untrue]: even the prosecutor was especially interested in Amanda [untrue] ... Sollecito [was] described by friends as restrained and thoughtful [untrue] ... Sollecito: The night of November 1st, Amanda and I spent together in my apartment [untrue]. We looked at a movie, heard music and slept [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox’s parents advise her to leave Italy, but Knox remains in good faith to help the police [untrue] ...  What we do not know is ... they already suspect us of the murder of Kercher [untrue]...

Knox had been afraid since the murder to stay alone in his apartment, and [for that reason] accompanies him [untrue]... The officials decide to interview her as well [untrue]...  Spiegel: You and Knox both posted confessions that night [untrue]... Sollecito: We immediately withdrew the confessions next day [untrue]... The police manipulated us and played us against each other [untrue]... After hours of interrogation [untrue] they presented to me a prefabricated document [untrue], Amanda similarly [untrue]... When I asked them to change it because I did not agree, they said, I should not worry, it’s all accurate [untrue]... Spiegel: Knox says these days the police had put them under great pressure [untrue] ... Both - Knox and Sollecito - are arrested, although DNA analysis from the scene later prove that they had not been in Kercher’s room [untrue]...  Sollecito: The investigators know [untrue] that there are traces of a police informant [untrue] named Rudy Guede ... He had a criminal prehistory for burglaries [untrue], his traces were everywhere on the crime location [untrue] - it was clear that he was the killer [untrue]...  The investigators constructed the absurd theory that Amanda, I and Guede had killed Meredith together [untrue]... In the first months in court I had to laugh, it was almost as if the police invented their evidence [untrue]... A bra clasp of Meredith, allegedly with my DNA, lay around 46 days [forgotten] at the scene [untrue] ... But the police and the prosecutors were so in love with their murder theory that they did not want to give it up [untrue]...

Spiegel: Media worldwide reported on the “angel with the ice eyes” [untrue] The Italian judiciary is being observed by the global public - and under enormous pressure [untrue]... “Giving that she had been wrong, was not an option [for the officials],” writes the journalist [untrue] Nina Burleigh ... Spiegel: It was suggested several times you testify against Knox, in return for a milder prison sentence. You rejected this [untrue]. Sollecito: Of course [untrue] ...  Spiegel: In 2011, an appeal court released Knox and Sollecito [finally] from the allegation of the murder [untrue] ... Two independent [untrue] experts certify the police previously made blatant mistakes in the evidence collection and analysis [untrue]... Today it is assumed that the footsteps and Knox and Sollecito traces came from impurities [untrue] ... Knox and Sollecito have spent four years wrongly imprisoned [untrue] ... A new court [untrue] sentenced him and Knox in 2013 to long prison sentences [untrue] ... Two years later, 2015, Italy’s ultimate court exonerates him and Knox [untrue] ... Sollecito sued the Italian state for damages - and lost. The argument of the judges: he was wrong to defend himself [untrue]...

Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Correcting Fake-News Fraud In Der Spiegel By Alexandra Rojkov

Posted by Peter Quennell

Clemens Höges Der Spiegel Editor in Chief

1. Rojkov’s Defamatory Claims

These claims below are all taken verbatim straight from Rojkov’s Der Spiegel report.

All are 100% false. The interrogation hoax is Amanda Knox’s key hoax. She typically shrieks and wails, amid false claims that she was made to “confess”.

But Knox did not confess. She was not made to do anything. The Q&A on 6 Nov was purely voluntary. In fact it was suggested she go home and sleep, but she refused. It lasted less than 90 minutes, mostly listing some names.

While doing continued considerable harm in Italy and elsewhere, such as now in Germany, that hoax has paid Knox an estimated million or two to this date. Rojkov swallowed and propagates the hoax whole, and even makes it more inflammatory.

Reporters report [prosecution claims] that the murder was a satanic ritual [untrue]... They call the woman “Luciferina,” the devil [untrue]... The prosecutor claimed that Knox had committed the crime out of sheer lust and seduced the men into helping her [untrue]... Sometimes he speculated about a sexual orgy, sometimes about a satanic ceremony [untrue]... Sollecito was summoned by the Perugia police as a witness [untrue]... The couple claimed to have spent the night together [untrue]... This answer was not enough for the officials [untrue]... [Many] hours of interrogation [untrue]... police claimed they had evidence that Knox was lying [untrue]... Her lack of memory is a consequence of the trauma [untrue]... For hours after, the officers repeatedly demanded that Knox “remember the truth” [untrue]... In the process, they became more and more angry [untrue]... twice someone hit her head [untrue]... [Knox was] 24 hours without sleep [untrue]... she suddenly saw pictures and heard screams [untrue]...

Knox finally signed a statement that would cost her four years of her life [untrue]. “Of all that happened, this interrogation was the worst experience” [untrue] says Knox, “I was as scared and confused as I have never been in my life [untrue]... many people still don’t understand how police could incriminate someone just like that” [untrue]... A recording or transcript of the interrogation does not exist [untrue] although all other conversations were recorded [on paper] with Knox… Sollecito signs a statement saying that Knox was staying in [untrue]... Knox also signed a confession [untrue]... Both withdraw their statements shortly afterwards [untrue]...  the prosecution’s theory quickly crumbled [untrue]... The forensic experts… found neither their fingerprints nor DNA [untrue]... Guede had already been noted several times: for burglary, theft, attempted assault [untrue]... the forensic investigation of the crime scene acquitted Knox and Sollecito [untrue] but the judiciary did not let them go… a two-year pre-trial detention began [untrue]... supposed evidence that later turned out to be the product of a sloppy investigation [untrue]...

Sometimes it seemed as if the authorities were bullying [untrue]... Independent experts will later explain that the DNA may come from impurities [untrue]... After an appeal Guede’s sentence changes to 16 years [untrue]... Independent experts investigating the bra clasp again after some years conclude that it has probably been contaminated [untrue]... numerous errors were found by the investigators in the tracing and analysis [untrue]... March 27, 2015: Italy’s Supreme Court finally acquits [untrue] Knox and Sollecito of the charges of murdering Kercher.. [Knox] was an invention of the Italian authorities and the media who reported on the case [untrue]. Robinson had never heard of Knox’s case [untrue]... Knox grew up in sheltered conditions, nothing bad had ever happened to her [untrue]... What she experienced in prison and in court shook Knox [untrue].

All of the above is incorrect. For starters read our interrogation hoax series here, and some or all of these posts.

True to the Knox PR’s barbaric rules, Rojkov makes Meredith a non-person: Rojkov barely mentions her, and calls her only “Kercher” then. True to the Knox PR’s barbaric rules, Rojkov makes Knox the REAL victim here. 

There was zero interrogation on 6-7 Nov, merely a session of just over an hour listing names of visitors to the house; Knox’s notes and diagrams exist. Her status was “person with possible useful information”. She was not even a witness at that point. Same with RS.

Knox never confessed anything. She framed an innocent man, when under no pressure, and rightly served three years (Rojkov does not bother to mention that).

Knox confirmed at trial she was treated well. Sollecito absolutely did not ever back up Knox’s (third) alibi. Neither ever recanted what they had said. Knox herself insisted (twice) on writing her claims down. She signed every page of the typed records for every Q&A with the police.

Guede was not known for burglary. Evidence the three attacked Meredith is overwhelming - as even defenses agreed. There was zero evidence of anyone else. Knox and RS didn’t make bail in 2007-08 because evidence was so strong - even the Supreme Court ruled that.

In prison Knox survived just fine and there are shots of her enjoying herself. The untruthful husband Robinson is actually the son of the West Seattle Herald’s owner; in which from 2007 he published the nastiest and most defamatory of all US reports.

2. Rojkov’s Numerous Omissions

Example: The illegalities of the enormous and brutal PR in bending three courts ls totally left out; also the known mafia role.

Example: Knox was not an exchange student with the normal funding and supervision; she was (very unusually) freelance, with her foolish and irresponsible parents in the know.

Example: Knox spent more time in Perugia doing drugs and chasing guys (mostly unsuccessfully; she was not much liked as her manner and hygiene were repellant) than anything else.

Example: The investigation was overseen by a magistrate (Matteini) and decision to go to trial (at which there were TWO prosecutors, one a woman) was made by a judge (Micheli).

Example: The evidence gathering took a full eight months, and its presentation at trial (much behind closed doors) left the pair and their defenses distraught.

Example: Most of the trial was shown on live TV. Media did not bend what Italians could see with their own eyes. Knox was an unmitigated disaster on the stand.

Example: Knox rightly served three years, and is a convicted felon for life. Because of that, dangerous trashing of Italy has been her only day-job for a decade. 

3. Tough Reaction From Dr Mignini

Rojkov’s article was published only in German (of course). Compared to suing reporters for libel in the US, suing in Germany is a walk in the park. Libel laws are tough, and newspapers are required to print the truth, not target justice officials in a country Germany is very friendly with. For starters Dr Mignini has published this for his team.

Kercher Case: Amanda Knox falsely attacks investigators again

First response from former deputy chief prosecutor Mignini: “Why keep lying so seriously?”

Amanda Knox again attacks the investigators and again presents herself as a victim of misjustice. An expression that produced this immediate reply from trial co-prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.

“I am forced, once again, to intervene on a trial I dealt with and which ended in 2015, with the second judgment of the Court of Cassation, opposing the judgment of the First Chamber of the same Court, 2013, on the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

I can understand different opinions about the evaluation of evidence, in a process, like the majority, circumstantial and linked to biological assessments. And I can understand, if not justify, that everyone feels empowered to deal with such complex matters, without a modicum of expertise in this regard.

What is not tolerable, however, is the total omission of facts which cannot be called into question and which have become irreversible; or the false interpretation of judgments wrongly stated to have been issued under Article 201 EC. 530, first paragraph, of the code, whereas they were actually issued under Article 530, second paragraph, of the same article. That is to say, in a “mitigated” and “doubtful” form [can be reversed in a further trial].

Also it is intolerable to ignore that there were two convictions handed down by two Courts of Assizes, of first instance of Perugia, and of second instance of Florence. In total, sixteen judges, highly competent and respected,  have condemned the two “Caucasian” defendants.

Instead, the De Spiegel article focuses on the police and the PM, which would be me, who merely asked for conviction [based on overwhelming fact].

It should be pointed out that the most detached expressions from reality did not come from Amanda Knox, but from the columnist Alexandra Rojkov, awarded by CNN, and by the American journalist Nina Burleigh who is notorious for a total, striking misunderstanding of the Italian legal system.

Why do they keep lying so seriously? Is it possible that they did not understand and did not even take a quick look at the judgment [2015] of the Fifth Chamber? Or the definitive and of opposite conclusion [2013] of the First Chamber? They may pretend to forget this, but it is also there and is definitive. Why do they continue to ignore the final sentence [of Knox] for calunnia [for which she served three years] ?

These are questions that neither Rojkov nor Burleigh will answer because they don’t know how.  We live in an age of decadence, not only because of wars but also and perhaps above all because of the contempt for the truth that characterizes this historical moment.

Giuliano Mignini, retired deputy prosecutor

4. Legal Assessment

The false claims made to very large and influential audiences are damaging and court-worthy in Germany and Italy. Bennett and Rojkov have put their reputations and careers on the line, soaking up defamatory talking points of the Knox PR, lying to their readers, harming their newspapers, and putting people in Italy they never even consulted at real risk.

Thursday, March 03, 2022

Russian Alexandra Rojkov Channels Anti-Italy Bigotry In Der Spiegel

Posted by Peter Quennell

Added: there are now text versions in German and English below in Comments. On Page 2 Knox hoodwinks Rojkov with her Interrogation Hoax (see link in our left column). Knox was not interrogated at all until 17 December, and on the night of 6 November she was merely building a list of visitors and spontaneously fingered Patrick, for which she rightly served three years. She did NOT confess. Rojkov is obviously ignorant of the fact that Knox is a convicted felon for life, and of many other aspects of the case. Appalling reporting for Der Spiegel.

Yet Another Amanda Knox Con-Job

Bizarre timing for a “Russian Jessica Bennett”...

This reporter, based in Berlin, flew to Seattle against the better advice of her colleagues (see the podcast summary below in Comments) for a gushy Knox interview, very obviously with zero due diligence.

German followers of the case know their facts and have generally tilted strongly on the side of caution. This pro-Knox fraud seems a first for Germany. However, despite it occupying four pages in Der Spiegel, it seems to have created zero buzz and spinoff, unlike the frequent misreporting in the New York Times

One of our German readers kindly sent us these page-images below. He could not offer good translation, but if anyone else with German might help us, we’d be grateful.

Main source appears to be the mafia tool Nina Burleigh, who we have warned about often. 


Below: click for larger images