Heads-up. Next court session in RS & Gumbel book trial this Thursday. Then Cardiol MD on more hard facts for Cassation. Post on first Italian law article critical of Marasca outcome coming up. Catnip finishing English Micheli Report. Much soon on myriad false claims of Interrogation and other Hoaxes. Master Evidence List in update soon. Biggest cliffhanger: which lawyers will handle Knox calunnia #2 and how. Note Ghirga and Dalla Vedova lost on Knox calunnia #1 in 6 pretrial hearings and 5 courts, including Hellmann, and Cassation twice. This time evidence is huge.

Heads-up: In the Florence courts the Sollecito & Gumbel trial for myriad false claims in Honor Bound resumes April 30. The Knox calunnia trial #2 starts 9 June for myriad false claims at trial 2009, in Waiting To Be Heard, in email to Judge Nencini, in Oggi, and on US TV.  Lawyers and supporters seem to be making themselves scarce, maybe fearing they will be made to testify or be charged.  Sollecito and Knox could insist they testify still, as they invented or compounded many false claims.  Said to be likely to complicate framing of pending Fifth Chambers judgement report.

Heads-up: Sollecito is due back in court in Florence on false claims in his book on 30 April. Knox’s calunnia trial is due to resume again shortly in Florence with expanded charges targeting false claims in her book. The Oggi trial for quoting false claims in Knox’s book has a testimony session 16 June.

Legal buzz from Italy.  Cassation Fifth Section seem to have painted themselves into a corner, and there seems more on “connections” sure to come out. The pair were found “not guilty” not “innocent” and Cassation should maybe not even have done that, they are meant to review only the law, and if theres a substance problem, it goes back to the Florence Court. RS and AK are still on trial for multiple lies in their books, a law allows Cassation to be sued to explain and maybe overturn, and the President as head of the justice system with power to reverse Cassation could be drawn in.

Breaking news: Convictions overturned. Now Cassation has to explain in writing in a way that does not smell of a deal. Knox has served three years for calunnia and that felony record stands for life. Also Knox and Sollecito face trials already in motion for their books and for what Knox claimed on the stand in 2009. That their claims were wrong (example here) look not too difficult to prove. An OJ Simpson outcome, Italy style, perhaps?

Heads-up: New York Times’s Elisabetta Povoledo provides a good overview of today’s context. See also our own scenario.

Breaking news. In a misleading Newsweek cover article which leaves a massive amount out the PR shill Nina Burleigh propagates several huge lies to an American audience once again. Guede had actually done zero proven breakins and Knox was not “interrogated” all night. In fact, she was not interrogated at all. She merely worked on a list of names of other possible perps, who in effect she tried to frame. More detailed rebuttal follows soon.

Headsup: unless things change, the Sollecito and Gumbel defenses should be back in the Florence court Thursday once again being given an opportunity to explain or fully withdraw. Neither have yet dared to move an inch. A public trial should be the next move. Sollecito and Gumbel have credited Steve Moore, Bruce Fischer and Frank Sforza with major input and may try to shift the blame. More posts soon on the arc of Gumbel’s aggressive campaign.

Breaking news. Andrea Vogt just tweeted as follows “More trouble for #amandaknox as Florence courts set March 20 prelim hearing on continuous aggravated calumny charges re: cop abuse claims.” Her lawyer Dalla Vedova engineered move of this trial to Florence seemingly thinking Florence courts would be pussycats. Charges relate to Knox trying to sustain her interrogation hoax at 2009 trial despite overwhelming evidence that she fingered Lumumba spontaneously. She is not yet on trial for similar claims in her book but Oggi is on trial for publishing excerpts. Her ECHR appeal is believed based on this hoax, as was her counterproductive email to Judge Nencini.

Heads-up. A series will be posted starting in a day or two on Sollecito & Gumbel defense meltdown over claims in Honor Bound in Florence court thursday 22 Jan. Both Sollecito and Knox elements scathing at Gumbel. Sollecito elements see a predatory Gumbel as having hijacked the book and hurt both RS’s and AK’s best interests.

Breaking news: Damning implications of translated Nencini Report have been incisively commented upon by Selene Nelson and Chelsea Hoffman with many others in US and UK media now absorbing. Interest will peak late March when Italian Supreme Court rules on the RS/AK appeal against the Florence appeal court findings

Failure of the Sollecito/Knox Florence appeal. Available now is a revised version of the report by Judge Nencini correcting and clarifying a few things. The Italian Supreme Court will rule on this next March. The translators were Ald, Jools, Kristeva, Olleosnep, Maundy, Catnip, Tiziano, Katsgalore (our ZiaK), Thoughtful, Sallyoo, The 411, Tom, and Popper, and the proofreaders were Tom, Thoughtful, Popper and Skeptical Bystander.

(1) More bad news for Amanda Knox. Already Sollecito prior to Cassation ruling faces trial starting 22 January for his defamatory book. Now the Oggi trial will start 6 March for publishing excerpts from Knox’s defamatory book. Read our translation here and our rebuttal here of Knox’s claims. Legal view: mistake to keep Knox & Sollecito books in circulation. (2) Available here is the report by Judge Nencini translated by PMF dot Org team, now indexed.

Failure of the Sollecito/Knox Florence appeal. Available here is the report by Judge Nencini now in English which explains why, which the Italian Supreme Court will be ruling upon next March. The translators were Ald, Jools, Kristeva, Olleosnep, Maundy, Catnip, Tiziano, Katsgalore (our ZiaK), Thoughtful, Sallyoo, The 411, Tom, and Popper, and the proofreaders were Tom, Thoughtful, Popper and Skeptical Bystander.

Breaking news: On the Freelance Desk website Andrea Vogt is reporting under the header UPDATE October 8, 2014 that Florence Judge Limongi has set 22 January 2015 for the start of the trial of Sollecito and Andrew Gumbel for certain of the untrue claims in the book Honor Bound. Tough timing for Sollecito. Late in 2012 Sollecito’s father conceded that a key smear throughout the book about the prosecution wanting RS to roll over on Knox was untrue. This post gives a good summary of the background. More to follow.

Breaking news: (1) Italian news service ANSA reports: The date of 25 March 2015 is fixed for the Supreme Court hearing on the appeal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Dealing with the proceedings will be the Supreme Court’s Fifth Section with Judge Paolo Antonio Bruno as the reviewer. (2) Skeptical Bystander of PMF dot Org reports this: “Since we now have a date for the Cassation hearing, I am pleased to announce that the very final touches are being put on the Nencini report (nearly 350 pages!) and it should be published by the end of this week.”

The even-handed, in-depth documentary on the case by Andrea Vogt and Paul Russell, first aired by the BBC will be broadcast as “Amanda Knox: Colpevole o Innocente?” on Tueday night on Discovery Italia’s crime channel, “Giallo,” on Channel 38 and Sky Channel144. More information at The Freelance Desk.

Breaking News. Read “Was Amanda Knox Innocent, or Did She Just Have Good PR?” in the Huffington Post by Selene Nelson, who was previously published there and also on the site of CNN.

We are being asked for help. In any tweets to the media please consider using real names like some do on TJMK. Anonymous tweets are leaving some reporters underwhelmed, not something we need when there’s growing warmth for pro-justice views.

Breaking news. Possibly for fraught legal & financial reasons, Knox legal advisor Ted Simon reportedly jumps ship. And for fraught legal and financial reasons the IIP websites & forums may also be no more. Seems the coverup may be at an end.

Cool well-argued CNN IReport article by Selene Nelson on why angry bigots with personal issues refuse to address the real case…  Added: A very foolish attempt at a rebuttal by one angry bigot, which several of our commenters are reducing to shreds.

Cool well-argued CNN IReport article Cool well-argued CNN IReport article by Selene Nelson on why angry bigots with personal issues refuse to address the real case, and why they seem too cowardly and incompetent to tackle police and prosecutors closer to home on real injustices, preferring the defaming of foreign civil servants and a foreign victim’s family who have no easy way to answer back.

Breaking news. Ground Report puts back online Ted Thomson’s report confirming it checked out. Moles within Knox Enterprises are indeed credible. Bigger story though is Ground Report’s u-turn on posting the story, which confirms other reports that Knox Enterprises is becoming politically radioactive.

Breaking news. Lisa Marie Basile’s malicious and ill-researched piece on the Huffington Post (1) repeats false claims about TJMK which were long ago rebutted here (see part 3); her false claim which she now KNOWS is false becomes a libel under US, UK and Italian law if it remains up; and (2) approvingly quotes Andrew Gumbel, who is in fact being charged for numerous malicious claims himself, such as those rebutted here.

Breaking news. We are observing with an open mind this new report claiming “our sources close to the Knox family, close to the Gogerty-Marriott PR firm and close to Amanda Knox’s lawyers, [say] the Knox camp has decided that they had no other choice but to accuse Raffaele of the murder of Meredith Kercher.” This same unknown-to-us writer twice posted above-average demos of how strongly evidence points to both. Knox and inner circle very quiet in recent days.

Breaking news: Media digging accelerating into whether Knox was a serial cocaine-user. Prosecution suggested it at trial. Defenses didnt seek breaks though. Many cops said to presume it from Knox’s telltale body odor the day after. New information concerns her astounding cash-burn, and identity of a dealer she is said to have been calling. See reports in Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.

Breaking news: Muddled remarks today by Sollecito leave Italians sarcastic. He asserts the points in our U-Turn post as overlooked proof he didnt do it. Says he doesnt know what Knox’s role was. Far more problematic for Knox than this is the unraveling of the Interrogation Hoax and the Knox parents now ordered to stand trial in hard-line Florence for their role in it. Knox herself is listed as a witness. She will be under oath if she chooses to support her parents.

Breaking news: In another stance Sollecito seemingly claims Knox was the killer and he wasn’t there with her. This contradicts numerous Knox stances, much hard evidence including knife wounds to Meredith from both sides with two knives, one of them his; defense’s arguments at 2009 trial, several appeal submissions, and his 2012 book ironically titled called Honor Bound. Fits with claims of his aunt though. Cassation very unlikely to even read this, let alone refer case back down to Judge Nencini. Maybe lucky; his defense seemed determined to insult and trap Nencini, and sentence-increase still possible.

Breaking news. (1) Defenses appeal filed with Cassation. See the June 18 Update by Andrea Vogt.  Our own analysis soon. (2) US charges for Amanda Knox? Her website is in clear violation of numerous Son-of-Sam laws with her incontrovertible false-accusation felony denied, use of an image of Meredith, and button for payments to her with highly misleading pitch. See here and here. Is Ted Simon asleep at the wheel, as many suppose?

Breaking news. Sollecito and Andrew Gumbel can add “facing felony charges” to their resumes. A Florence judge found no excuse for the myriad felony lies in Sollecito’s book. Read some lie rebuttals here. Legal buzz is Gumbel should roll over pronto on Bruce Fischer, main inventor and disseminator of felony lies, who could be painted as more deserving of prison. Saul Kassin and others burned by Fischer may endorse that.

Breaking news. On Huffington Post the bigoted Knox sycophant Lisa Marie Basile posts very serious false charges against Italian officials. This is the same felony crime Knox served three years for. Huffington Post editors should be willing to remove the nasty error-ridden report. Please ask them.

The next five posts in the interrogation-hoax series will follow after we give space to other important posts. Please note there’s a new shortcut link to the reader comments area above the image at the top of each post.

Breaking news. CNN’s Nancy Grace returns to the case. In October 2011 Nancy Grace’s take that Knox was guilty and Knox’s release by Judge Hellmann a miscarriage of justice went viral. Tonight she will be interviewing the objective and highly-informed reporter Andrea Vogt on developments.

In light of serious disinformation by Ted Simon, Amanda Knox and others to poison American public opinion, the PMF translation team would like to get the Nencini Report into English quite soon. A summary will be done by next week. Fresh translators with good Italian and good English and some experience would really help. Please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Breaking news. Error-prone Andrew Gumbel who co-wrote Sollecito’s hapless book now facing charges may have legally encumbered the Guardian without warning them. See the report below. Please draw this to the attention of the Guardian’s editors.

Breaking news. The Nencini Appeal Court sentencing report is released. It explains why the Knox & Sollecito appeal against the 2009 Massei trial verdict is rejected. It ascribes the fatal blow to Amanda Knox and concludes Knox initiated the cruel attack, enraged by criticisms of hard-to-take behavior and theft of rent money. The report is highly critical of multiple obstructions of justice, of which Amanda Knox’s defamatory website seems to be one. This seems another; a full rebuttal follows here soon.

Breaking news. The 330-page Nencini Appeal Court sentencing report is released. It explains why the Knox & Sollecito appeal against the 2009 Massei trial verdict is a failure. It also complains of .

The sentencing report by Judge Nencini is expected no later than wednesday. It goes straight to Cassation and again the clock starts ticking. Defense teams in Italy are reported as despondent. Presumably they anticipate the report will be out of their league to contend with. There is some amazement at two moves by Giulia Bongiorno which seemed to border on malpractice: politically engineering an attempted censure of Judge Nencini, and a manic attempt to put police and prosecutors in the dock. Yet again, framing bites defenses in tail. Maybe why another lawyer is defending Sollecito’s book.

Breaking news from Yummi. Please see the box in the top post. New charges for multiple malicious claims against justice officials and the Italian justice system by Raffaele Sollecito and his Honor Bound book-team will be made public in three weeks. Meanwhile, Sollecito has the opportunity to try to explain or renounce his claims, and a final realistic chance to separate himself from Knox - who will have her own serious book problems.  Penalties likely to include forfeiting all their blood money.

Breaking news. New charges for multiple malicious claims by Raffaele Sollecito and his Honor Bound book-team are forewarned by the office of the Florence chief prosecutor. In October 2012 Sollecito’s team ignored a strong previous warning. Sollecito’s father confirmed on national TV that the book’s key claim (that prosecutors needed RS to sell out AK) was a lie. Prosecutors stated this claim was a felony. That was widely reported. A wise team would have withdrawn the book right then. Instead they now face the prospect of charges.

Deadline for Florence appeal judge Nencini’s sentencing report endorsing the Massei trial outcome is just weeks away. No word recently from the writers of this exceptionally foolish book. Guede as lone killer is thoroughly discounted. Read dozens of reasons why here and the final ruling of the Supreme Court.

Welcome, new arrivals to TJMK. These four posts might be your best first reads. One: By a lawyer, how to zero in on the truth. Two: By a media expert, what most media has missed. Three: By a lawyer, a Powerpoint of the extensive evidence in the house. Four: Summary of Massei trial outcome just endorsed by Nencini appeal court.  See also Five: All original documents here.

Breaking news. The BBC has often been less than even-handed or accurate or fair about Italy and Italian justice and the hard facts of the case. Finally, when much of the media is moving to neutral and is iffy about the perps, the BBC may do the same. Tweets to @bbcthree and @IfIWasZai_BBC3 could ensure that the objective fact-filled report “Is Amanda Knox Guilty?” is aired on BBC 3 this week. One key post for the BBC’s attention: Guide For Smart Media: Note Extensive Hard Evidence

Breaking news. Guardian readers say they have had enough of vicious attacks on Italian justice. Are The Guardian’s Rusbridger, Hattenstone, Kington, and Katz (now with the BBC) more mafia fellow travelers?!! Or in bed with corrupt politicians or David Marriott? Post follows.

Big welcome to new readers. Posts here are almost exclusively by professionals.  Please do read our hard-hitting case overview and follow the links there.

We may not be able to resume full-speed posting bvefore Sat or Sun as tech support work is ensuring we can meet any load. Both AK and RS are confirmed guilty. The evidence was overwhelming. In the US and UK it is probable no appeal would even have been allowed. Please read our case overview here which highlights the defense’s many dirty tricks. After five years in a bubble not entirely of her own making, Knox is seemingly realizing that hers is the campaign from hell, just as the wheels are coming off.

Breaking news. Both are confirmed guilty. The 2009 Massei verdict is upheld. The sentences are 25 years for Raffaele Sollecito and 28.6 years for Amanda Knox including calunnia. (Both may face further charges for false accusations of crimes in their books.) The evidence here was in fact overwhelming. In the US and UK it is probable no appeal would even have been allowed, as the appeal grounds were so flimsy. Please read our case overview here which mentions several of the defense’s illegal tricks, including the corrupting of the 2011 appeal.

Verdict expected on Thursday. Hopefully, little media bias. By far the most biased, influential and misleading reporter is Colleen Barry of the Associated Press who is reporting to one thousand American media sites straight out of the FOA playbook. Again and again attempts have been made to explain to her that this is not a second or third trial (which makes Italy look vindictive) but a FIRST APPEAL filed by Knox and Sollecito who since their very fair trial in 2009 have remained provisionally guilty. Her reporting could constitute imprisonable obstruction of justice if seen as poisoning public opinion.

Verdict expected on Thursday. Hopefully, little media bias. By far the most biased, influential and misleading reporter is Colleen Barry of the Associated Press who is reporting to one thousand American media sites straight out of the FOA playbook. Again and again attempts have been made to explain to her that this is not a second or third trial (which makes Italy look vindictive) but a FIRST APPEAL filed by Knox and Sollecito who since 2009 have been provisionally guilty. Her reporting could constitute imprisonable obstruction of justice if it is attempting to poison public opinion.

Breaking news. Andrea Vogt has posted an incisive take on Amanda Knox’s dimming prospects toward which Amanda Knox has herself done such damage with her book, blog, email to Judge Nencini, spurious appeal to Strasbourg, and so on.

Breaking news. UK media quote Amanda Knox as saying she may go on the lam if guilt is confirmed. (Remember this is HER appeal. She opened this can of worms.) However the US/Italy extradition treaty and official US paper trail give her zero reason for comfort, and an extradition request would immediately put her in a US jail to stop her going on the lam. An Interpol Red Notice would make her unemployable and subject to worldwide arrest. AK again says she wants to meet the victim’s family to “convince” them. However, a perp with a serious drug history and a proven record of several hundred lies avoiding several hundred hard questions would convince no victim’s family, anywhere in the world. Get real.

Appeal session #8. We will be carrying reports Thursday from the courtroom including (eventually) much or most of the summation of Giulia Bongiorno, who so far in this appeal has been left even less than empty handed. Sollecito is expected to be there in court. Also we have myriad reports on the disgust that Knox’s book, media and online campaigns are causing. Unlike Sollecito, who wins points for being there, Knox is being seen as a coward who is scared of appearing because of her campaign of serial lying and defamation while hiding in Seattle. Even Knox’s own lawyers are said to be ashamed of Knox, not least because she has still not compensated Patrick as the Supreme Court ordered.

Quoting informed legal staff, reporter Andrea Vogt has posted new court dates. If Judge Nencini confirms them, they will be January 9, 16 and 20th. Court business remaining in this appeal by RS and AK against the Massei verdict includes the summation by the Sollecito team, the rebuttals by the prosecution, possible further requests by any of the parties, and deliberation over confirming of the Massei verdict. Andrea Vogt also draws attention to a complete lack of a State Department paper trail critical of the Italian process, which won’t help Knox fight extradition. In other reporting, Sollecito is now back in Italy.

Breaking news. The Strasbourg Court of Human Rights confirms it was Knox lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova who filed a human rights violation claim for Knox. See here and here and here and here.  Also the Journal of Umbria has just reported that Rudy Guede could be found eligible for work release in January or February. We hope he talks.

Our analysis of Knox’s emailed claims, many of which we have repeatedly rebutted (see here for the hard truth on the interrogation; another major post on this is next) and of the anticipated negative legal consequences for Knox, will follow in a few days. See also our many other unanswered questions.

Reporters and readers in Italy, please note Knox’s strong echoes of OJ Simpson today. First she emails a condescending dismissal of the Nencini court, which is immediately excluded from the official record. Next Knox places this on her arrogant, dishonest, widely-despised blog. “The Kercher family’s civil attorney, Francesco Maresca, in his closing arguments yesterday, claimed I have been collecting unspecified funds in the name of Meredith and her family. He left the impression that I was deceiving the public and collecting those funds for myself. Please visit the Meredith Kercher Murder page and scroll down to the Donation section to discover that I have simply added a link to the Kercher family’s own website where they solicit donations for their ongoing struggle through this heartbreaking legal process. I have been solicited by Mr. Maresca to remove from my site anything I have done to honor her memory or show support to her family. My response was that no one but the Kercher family has any right to make such a request. As I await direct contact from the family of my murdered friend, I will continue to honor her and show support.”

Breaking news. Sollecito is in Bayahibe which is more or less owned and run by the mafia. The FBI is said to be watching it closely, so those sending him money may want to think twice. Sollecito failed to arrive in Verona for his exam. ANSA quotes him as saying he will do his exam on the internet and “my future is here on this tropical island where I will come to live and work”  after he closes his accounts with justice in January. He claims he will be present in court.

Please note (1) the several main-poster assessments added below, (2) Yummi’s advice in Comments on the the reasoning behind the aggravated calunnia sentence recommended for Knox, (3) a round-up of points by Andrea Vogt, Barbie Nadeau and other good reporters in our next post, (4) there will be no more court this week; Maresca speaks on 16 December. 

Reports here from the Florence appeal court on Monday and Tuesday on final summations which are scheduled to continue on 16 and 17 December. The prosecution will argue for life sentences. Given the unique callous arrogance of Knox and Sollecito and the dishonesties of their law-breaking campaigns, books and websites, mitigation of the sentences for humane qualities does seem ruled out. 

Breaking news. See The Secret US Forensic Defense Of Amanda Knox. An important new report by Andrea Vogt on Boise State University and Greg Hampikian and the attempt to not explain his role or list university resources used. In Italy the Hellmann consultants Conti & Vecchiotti who Hampikian may have influenced are also under the microscope, for possible obstruction of justice. Our next post will focus on these worsening situations for all involved.

Breaking news: Initial hearing in Frank Sforza’s contempt of court case was postponed Wednesday because of his request for fast-track trial in hopes sentence, if guilty which he essentially concedes, will be less. Bizarrely Sforza has just posted more on a Chris Mellas/Bruce Fischer website. Sforza trial will be in Florence December 6th.

Appeal Session #3 Wednesday: Machiavelli’s tweets are here.  Mason2’s tweets are here.  Andrea Vogt’s tweets are here.  Barbie Nadeau’s tweets are here. 

Amanda Knox sycophant Steve Moore sent out this wrong tweet:  “”@Gman_Moore Great day for Amanda & Raff. DNA results finally remove knife as murder weapon. Bleach myth dead. Absent corruption, case effectively over.”  Flat wrong. Dr Stefanoni’s finding of Meredith’s DNA in a removed sample emerges stronger, because the Carabinieri lab used the same LCN technique. And Moore’s endemic “corruption” smear is quite baseless. Get a grip.

Breaking news on DNA testing. Andrea Vogt: “Cautionary note: full details of RIS DNA report [to be in court] Nov 6, so news leaks now could be incomplete.” Sollecito defense earlier leaked third trace of Knox is confirmed on the knife, they were claiming no new trace of Meredith, no DNA of Sollecito or Guede. Guede to speak on Italian TV prog “Quarto Grado” Friday.

Tweets and emails to member of Congress on Monday’s and Wednesday’s posts would help a lot. Members of the Italian-American Congressional Delegation have been asking to be kept in the loop, as Congressional hearings may be held into this bigoted assault on Italian justice which attempts to have Senator Cantwell lead their parade.

DNA testing: Resumes monday. State of play remains as Andrea Vogt reported late Friday, an apparent mixed trace on the knife. It seems the sleazy PR shill Candace Dempsey would be advised not to channel illegal and inaccurate defense-counsel leaks or risk an obstruction of justice trial.

Breaking news. La Nazione reports that DNA has been found on the knife and tests to identify it will continue today Friday. Their report and the report of ANSA News Service say it is human DNA. An earlier report by Diggita said it was not yet established whether it is plant, animal or human DNA.

Breaking news from Rome: the Italian national communications police are entering the case because of the massive media and internet campaign of disinformation and defamation right out of the mafia playbook; a request for FBI assistance is expected.

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

2015 Index Of Our Series Of 2015 Cassation Critiques DRAFT

Posted by Admin

1. Machiavelli’s Verdict Announcement March 2015

Click for post: Dispositivo issued by Judge Marasca March 30 2015

2. Cardiol’s Critiques April 2015

Click for post: Those Pesky Certainties Cassation May Or May Not Convincingly Contend With #1
Click for post: Those Pesky Certainties Cassation May Or May Not Convincingly Contend With #2
Click for post: Those Pesky Certainties Cassation May Or May Not Convincingly Contend With #3
Click for post: Those Pesky Certainties Cassation May Or May Not Convincingly Contend With #4

3. Perugia & Florence Prosecution’s Critique May 2015

Click for post: Fifth Chambers Encroached Illegally On First Chambers & Florence Court Powers

4. TJMK/Wiki Translation Of The Report September 2015

Click for post: Translation of the Report #1 The Four Opening Summaries
Click for post: Translation of the Report #2 Summaries Five And Six
Click for post: Translation of the Report #3 Dismissal Of Appeal Claims, Nencini Scope
Click for post: Translation of the Report #4 Continuing Dismissal Of Various Claims
Click for post: Translation of the Report #5 Some “Incongruencies” By Previous Courts
Click for post: Translation of the Report #6 Why The DNA Evidence Was All Useless
Click for post: Translation of the Report #7 Attempt At Why Court Blinked At Guilt

5. Machiavelli’s Critique September 2015

Click for post: Supreme Court Confirms All Three Were There And Lied

6. Catnip’s Critiques October 2015

Click for post: The Strange “Dogmatic Assertions” Approach
Click for post: The Strange Two Unrelated Tracks Approach
Click for post: Their Profound Evidence Muddle
Click for post: Their Findings - Ambivalent In Spades

7. James Raper’s Critiques November 2015

Click for post: A Critique Of The Fifth Chambers Motivation Report #1
Click for post: A Critique Of The Fifth Chambers Motivation Report #2
Click for post: A Critique Of The Fifth Chambers Motivation Report #3
Click for post: A Critique Of The Fifth Chambers Motivation Report #4
Click for post: A Critique Of The Fifth Chambers Motivation Report #5

Thursday, November 11, 2021

REVISIT sequins post 2020 by Before The Dawn

Posted by Peter Quennell

Sequins; the subject of this post’s Parts 3, 4 and 5. 

1. The Particular Context

The peak of the Knox PR misinformation campaign fell between 2010 and 2015.

Think of the misleading Knox and Sollecito books of 2012-14 which we have extensively taken apart here.

Think of the shrill and frenetic inventions of Michael Heavey, Steve Moore, Bruce Fischer, Greg Hampikian, and the numerous other hoaxers who are linked to in our right column.

None of this had any effect in Italy.

Italians could watch many of the procedings in real time, and no informed Italian saw any miscarriage of Justice.

Nor did the US Embassy in Rome, which cabled State repeatedly after observing in court and meeting with Knox in Capanne, that all was above board.

After 2015 and the corrupted final Supreme Court decision, the PR forces ran dry of material, and their energies largely dissipated.

Some like the xenophobic David Marriott and the defamatory Bruce Fischer claimed victory. But the real victory should be credited to Sollecito’s unsavory relatives.

Meanwhile…

Meanwhile the populating of our Wiki and our documentation translations continued unabated, and both are now seriously formidable.

This evidence masterlist and this critique of Knox’s book and this list of smoking guns were posted.

To NONE OF WHICH has there ever since been any serious pushback.

Our 30-post series on the Netflix Hoax was actually all about the myriad OMISSIONS of the three Knox PR trolls who actually made that so-called documentary.

They brought nothing new to the table - Knox was encouraged to lie her head off, but those tired and dishonest mantras had all been aired before. Netflix omissions were, to say the least, pretty copious.

Likewise with our eleven posts (and counting) on Malcolm Gladwell’s bizarre Knox-hoax chapter which highlighted Gladwell’s numerous omissions.

And likewise with our five-part series on the Innocence Project and the sordid roles of John Douglas, Michael Heavey, Steve Moore, and Greg Hampikian.

Our final end-run with the media, which will follow right after we post a brief overview of each of the 35 hoaxes in our right column, will concentrate as much as anything on those pesky omissions.

2. The Many Opportunities For Further Digging

We still get tips from followers of the case, which our main posters have appreciated and used in many of their posts.

Increasingly some readers themselves are digging deeper, with promising consequences as in Part 3 and 4 below.

If you spend serious time on the new-form Wiki - which could be a great resource for every law-school on the planet - chances are good that you too could find further clues to guilt.

These were all known to the investigators - in a real sense they and numerous judges actually wrote the Wiki - and to the prosecutors.

But with one main exception discovered by our main poster James Raper - Knox’s lamp locked in Meredith’s bedroom - they confined their testimony to the strongest points (and achieved a unanimous verdict).

It’s the documents that are very much worth further mining. Here is one fine example. 

3. New Evidence Observation By A Reader

Our reader Before-The-Dawn has been looking at the case with fresh eyes to see if he can spot any new angles not explored yet.

This below is his first email and we have chatted back and forth to firm this up and to take note of further insights which he is intending to post in Comments. 

I was recently looking again at the crime scene photos of Meredith Kercher’s room on the Wiki and noticed what appear to be three sequins.

They are about 4mm in diameter, appear to be clean, and are lying on top of the blood-stained floor near the wardrobe.  (Re the 4mm: I enlarged the photo to make the nearby cotton bud life-size - then measured the sequins).

I have circled the sequins in green - but you’ll need to enlarge the photo for a proper view [done; click on images below].

They were not present in earlier photos, and so must have dropped off something when this later photo was taken.

I think they may have been present on a small blue rug which was picked up by the forensic investigators (I also attach this photo). However, I cannot be sure if those are sequins on the rug or not (one or two of them could just be bits of paper).

Incidentally, I noticed that one of the ends of the cotton bud is a bit dirty/dark, and that the bud was originally not quite touching the wall.  It’s moved slightly away in the second photo (perhaps due to the area in front of the wardrobe being cleared).

I believe that Guede claimed to be wearing a silver dollar sign T-shirt the evening of November 1’st (and that this was examined by the Police).

I don’t know if the dollar sign was made up with sequins, or just printed on.  The latter is known as a distressed pattern.  I could only find one photo of RG posing in this shirt p[see below] but enlarging it did not give me the detail needed to examine the dollar sign’s composition.  This could be crucial to the whole question raised by this new find. 

I saw in another photo that there is a brown sequinned scarf lying on AK’s bed [see below].  Enlarging that photo does show what appears to be a number of small and maybe larger sequins.  I do not imply or claim that this is necessarily the source.  They could have come from another garment; and would logically need to be about 4mm. in size (to match the size of those in the floor photos). 

I have seen T-shirts with other types of designs made up of sequins.  So I think the three sequins in the photo could have come from any one of a number of sources.

It could be that these sequins came off in a struggle - but without any corresponding fibres or DNA it’s difficult to do more than speculate.  The sequins are obviously clean, and so were most likely deposited onto the blue rug or a piece of clothing (subsequently moved by Scientific Police) before the deadly knife attack. 

I think that Meredith had already been somewhat subdued by the time her assailant entered her bedroom.  It is obvious that she was struck several times, and with force.  I suggest that such an attacker would probably be familiar and confident with knives.  The neck wounds do not look to me like those produced by overly pressing the blade on poor Meredith’s neck.

Also, I think that someone was obsessed with the idea of injuring her neck: as some sort of insanely over-the-top revenge, and maybe directly linked to Meredith’s Vampire appearance from the evening before.  Horribly, it may be that the assailant/s played some sort of teasing/bullying sick game of pricking her prior to the fatal attack. 

Finally, I can only surmise that the perpetrator of Meredith’s worst wounds was someone with a very sick mind.  Someone probably turned on, sexually and emotionally, by extreme violence.

One can say in RG’s favour that he had no history of violence towards women, and that he would be unlikely to want to threaten either of the two non-Italian students, both of whom he seemed to know slightly.  He enjoyed the student scene, was a long-term resident of Perugia, and friend to the young men in the flat below.  Whatever he was doing there - why would he have carried a knife to the house?

4. Images Submitted By Reader Before-The-Dawn

Click each image for a larger version - these are not all high-resolution, and if there are better we would like to know about them.

5. Finally, Follow-up Advice From The Wiki Manager

In the Nov 2nd crime scene film, the police found a sequin on Meredith’s back when they turn her over.

It’s in the section of the video that is censored, but the sound is intact. It’s at 44:08. So yes, sequins were on the floor. Dr. Stefanoni bagged the sequin, but it’s not mentioned in her DNA report.

http://www.themurderofmeredithkercher.net/docupl/filelibrary/videos/crimescene/2007-11-02-03-cottage.mp4

I’m not sure of the source however. One would need to check ALL the crime scene photos and the movies to see if it’s possible to spot clothing with sequins.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.net/S-evidence-crime-scene.html

Sequins are called lustrini in Italian. One would need to search the court testimony documents to see if anything comes up, especially testimony where police were interviewed.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.net/T-testimony.html

I don’t believe the sequin is mentioned in any reports. It’s not mentioned in the UACV report, or in the crime scene survey:

http://www.themurderofmeredithkercher.net/docupl/filelibrary/docs/surveys/2007-11-02-Survey-Scientific-Police-desc-cottage-apartment-upper-and-exterior.pdf

So. Well done, Before-The-Dawn, and further digging would be welcome.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

New York Times Example

Posted by Peter Quennell

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Sed vulputate mi lorem, sed dignissim nunc tincidunt varius. Etiam consequat dui id turpis luctus, in semper orci semper. Pellentesque at iaculis ligula. Sed nec turpis a enim tristique tincidunt. Sed sit amet arcu at urna maximus pulvinar. Donec suscipit consequat nibh sed faucibus. Ut tincidunt lacinia efficitur. Maecenas eu ante efficitur, volutpat quam ac, elementum lacus. Nunc commodo lectus id ligula lobortis facilisis. Donec ultrices dui nec nisi vulputate sagittis. Pellentesque lobortis malesuada est, in facilisis neque egestas varius. Donec nec ipsum metus.

Cras sollicitudin enim non velit tincidunt commodo. Morbi sit amet nunc quis metus finibus consectetur et eu justo. Curabitur dignissim tincidunt nisl, eu luctus massa placerat condimentum. Aliquam id metus tellus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam mattis leo eget nibh rutrum, non interdum lectus hendrerit. Nunc vehicula dolor ipsum, quis sollicitudin ipsum molestie tempus. Integer mattis felis id lacus venenatis sollicitudin. Sed vestibulum dui non sapien vulputate, sit amet iaculis mauris varius. Duis in elit in ante varius congue. Phasellus vitae feugiat enim. Morbi urna velit, mollis ut nisl sit amet, rutrum luctus ante. Suspendisse vestibulum fringilla tortor, a tincidunt nibh. Sed sit amet egestas dolor, in rhoncus nunc.

Thursday, September 30, 2021

2013 Judge Nencini DNA Andrea Vogt DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

This was a pivotal week in the ongoing saga of the Meredith Kercher murder case and subsequent trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. The fallout continues in the wake of the reasoning report issued by Florence appeals judge Alessandro Nencini explaining why he convicted Knox and Sollecito.
IN PRINT AND TV . . .

In the U.S., Knox made an exclusive appearance on CNN proclaiming her innocence and vowing to fight on in her final appeal to Italy’s Court of Cassation. In the UK, the victims family gave this lengthy interview in the Daily Mail, a must-read reminder of the agony they’ve endured (heartbreaking that Stephanie is preparing to wed without her sister as bridesmaid).

In Italy, nighttime talk shows this week were abuzz over this CCTV footage from a parking garage just above Via della Pergola scene of Meredith Kercher’s murder. The footage shows a woman Italian media speculated could be Amanda Knox near the crime scene the night of the murder, bringing into question her alibi. But is it her? I vaguely recall investigators reviewing all the CCTV footage and determining the others caught on camera were not identifiable as Knox. So is this a legitimate new clue or should the emergence of this “re-leaked” footage and its timing be suspect? I lean toward the latter. Perugia authorities should clarify.

THE “REPREHENSIBLE CONDUCT” OF THE EXPERTS

However those who may have the most explaining to do are Rome Professors Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti, the two court-appointed independent experts whose scathing report of the forensic evidence in Knox’s first appeal (later annulled) led to her acquittal and release in 2011.

In his report released earlier this week, Judge Nencini does not mince words, alternatively describing their work reviewing the forensics “clearly in error,” “misleading” and even “reprehensible.”  It is not the first time. She was also cited for clamorous errors in a previous murder case (Olgiata) in which forensic samples were mixed up. Nencini’s report is bound to amplify concerns already circulating within the Italian forensic community, and could possibly even trigger an investigation.

Over the course of approximately 50 pages of his 337 reasoning report, Nencini does a thorough analysis of all the court evidence, lab data and depositions by all the forensic consultants, and essentially debunks Vecchiotti and Conti’s report. He reveals that the two experts overlooked available data, altered the meaning of forensic police statements to fit their thesis, erred in their interpretation methods and falsely claimed the technology didn’t exist to test a small trace of DNA that was later successfully tested. If you are not interested in forensic minutiae,  you can stop reading now.

From left: C. Vecchiotti (indep expert), S. Gino (Knox def), S. Conti (indep expert), A. Tagliabracci (Sollecito def), L. Maori (Sollecito atty)

The harsh Vecchiotti-Conti review begins on page 195 of Nencini’s report. The possibility of contamination so hotly debated by consultants and made credible to the point of being included in the independent experts’ written report actually “has no significance” in the criminal trial, he wrote, and was “misleading.”

He categorically rules out contamination.  Even in the case of the bra clasp catalogued by police but only collected 46 days later, had Sollecito’s DNA been fruit of contamination it would have been found elsewhere and on other objects taken from the scene that day, such as on Meredith’s blue sweatshirt where Guede’s DNA was found, he wrote, not just on the tiny hook of the bra clasp. He notes records show there were no other items containing Sollecito’s DNA handled that day, ruling out making laboratory contamination. Nencini accepts there may have been professional lapses on part of the forensic police, but determines that none of those oversights were so grave as to have negatively impacted the forensic analysis with regard to the case. The absence of contamination is also proven by the records of negative and positive controls performed by much-maligned forensic biologist Patrizia Stefanoni. Those controls were done and had been referred to in court, but Vecchiotti and Conti overlooked this, claiming there was no record of them.

It was the responsibility of the experts to look at all the data available, Nencini said, but Vecchiotti and Conti did not. Their report cites no proof of negative and positive controls for contamination, yet Nencini found a deposition from one of the preliminary hearings in October 2008, where Stefanoni clearly said they had been done, and, in fact, examples of such were deposited that day. He notes that one of prosecution consultants requested and obtained that data and used it to rule out contamination. The fact that the two independent experts completely overlooked this data showed a “scarce attention was being given to the case documents deposited with the court.”

But there is more, Nencini writes.

The decision not to test Trace “I” of DNA that was later revealed to be a trace of Amanda Knox’s DNA on the kitchen knife where the blade meets the handle was an autonomous decision of the two experts that was communicated verbally to the consultants, but was not a joint decision of all the forensic consultants, as the experts suggested. Court records show the Kercher family and prosecution’s forensic consultants all maintained in September 2011 that the technology existed to trace the small trace and requested that it be done.  That Professor Vecchiotti convicingly and repeatedly said it could not be tested was “clearly in error.”

The Nencini court went ahead with the testing, and the RIS in Rome were able to get a reliable result, following all double amplification requirements and international protocols. Nencini notes that RIS officials as well as other consultants testified that the kit for identifying such a small trace of DNA was available on the Italian market back in 2011, but they were ignored. The trace should have been tested, Nencini wrote, and by reporting that it was impossible to do so, the experts contributed to an error of judgement by the presiding magistrate, whose ruling was eventually tossed.  Nencini considers several pages of statistical and genetic analysis made by various consultants in both the first and second appeals. On page 221, he writes that “the behavior of Vecchiotti was “censurable” because before providing an imprecise report in a trial, she should have requested the controls documentation from the forensic police and only in the case of that data not being provided, come to the conclusions that she did.

So now what? Will Italian authorities investigate further or simply let the case march quietly toward a high court ruling at the end of the year? Will Knox and Sollecito bring in more consultants to appeal Nencini’s findings? The defense teams have 45 days from May 2 to deposit their cassation appeals, which means by mid-June the case files will be back on their way to Rome for review.

Thursday, July 01, 2021

2019 Vulture loss of legal thriller books DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/the-client-at-25-the-death-of-the-middlebrow-legal-thriller.html

Tuesday, June 01, 2021

2019 June Knox’s Modena Catastrophe #3: How Knox Lied About Media - EDIT

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. Knox On Media In Modena

Click for Post:  Amanda Knox blasts media coverage of trial

Click for Post:  Knox accuses media of depicting her falsely as ‘man-eating murderer’

Click for Post:  Amanda Knox accuses media of portraying her as guilty over 2007 death

Click for Post:  Amanda Knox blasts the media for “Guilty until proven innocent” trial coverage

Click for Post:  Knox accuses media of having built false story around her

2. Knox On Media In Her Book

3. Realities Knox Hides

Click for Post:  “Million Dollar Campaign” To Try To Influence The Jury Is Being Widely Reported To A Startled Italy

Click for Post:  Seeds Of Betrayal: Multiple Examples Of How RS And AK Have Stabbed Each Other In The Back

Click for Post:  Amazingly, Wrong Facts And Defamations Of Italian Officialdom Show NO Sign Of Being Reigned In

Click for Post:  Demonizations By Knox: OGGI Charged For Article Conveying False Claims To Italy #1

Click for Post:  Epidemic Of Anti-Italy Fake News She Generates Bites Knox In The Tail

Click for Post:  Prominent Political Commentator Takes Strong Exception To American Reporting

Click for Post:  Most Important Italian Paper Balks At The Attempts In US At Intimidation

************
to be replaced

The pro Knox faction was very large.  There was zero anti-Knox faction

It is true that much of the UK and US media became massively dishonest about the case - more media dishonest on a larger scale than any in the history of crime - but that is because Curt Knox’s and David Marriott’s brutally incendiary PR rewarded them if they helped Knox and punished them if not.

Maybe 100% of Italians who followed the case got their news mainly LIVE ON TV.

The cameras were in court most of the time and even when they were excluded by the judge, there was a feed to the reporters’ room.

If you have seen the videos of Kox live on the stand for two days trying to explain why she fingered Patrick, that was from the reporters’ feed.

There were numerous other TV reports as well and fine objective reporting by Italian journalists and experts

4. Our Generic Bad-Media Posts

Click for Post:  How The Media Should Approach The Case If Justice Is To Be Done And SEEN To Be Done

Click for Post:  How The Strongarm Public Relations Resulted in Most Of The Media Getting It Wrong

Click for Post:  Why UK Media Deniers Like The Independent’s Amy Jenkins Come Across As Bigoted And Nasty

Click for Post:  Why The Media Are Wrong To Rely On Amanda Knox’s Family For Impartial and Accurate Information

Click for Post:  The Toxic Pro-Knox PR Campaign And Media Circus That John Kercher So Rightly Complained About

Click for Post:  Why Much Of US Main Media Is Disbelieved And Ignored Now

Click for Post:  Now France Is Ticked At The American Main Media For Mindless Assumptions About Another Case

Click for Post:  Million Dollar Campaign And American Media Come Under Intense Ridicule By An Influential Italian

Click for Post:  US And UK Media: Make RS & AK Answer The HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS Of Open Questions

Click for Post:  Tip For The Media: Getting Up To Speed With The Hard Facts Of This Complex Case

Click for Post:  Admired Feminist On Knox As Ice-Cold And Media’s Hit & Miss Performance On The Case

Click for Post:  Why Did The Mainstream Media Enable A Takeover By The Conspiracy Nuts?

4. Some Of The Worst Of The Worst

Associated Press

But: Trisha Thomas 2009 good

Click for Post:  Slanted Associated Press Paroting Of Knox PR Campaign Release Achieves Over 800 Google Hits

Click for Post:  Perhaps Associated Press Should Try Reporting The Odds?!

Click for Post:  Inaccurate Report By The Associated Press Carried By Over 2,000 Media Sites

Click for Post:  Dear CEO Gary Pruitt: Could The Associated Press Please Report Much More Accurately?

Click for Post:  Another Highly Misleading Associated Press Report By Colleen Barry Shows Up On 700 Media Websites

Click for Post: 

CBS News/48 Hours

Click for Post:  Why CBS Should Report Better - Way Better - On This Case

Click for Post:  Rumors In Manhattan About Ludicrously Bad CBS Report

Click for Post:  CBS Reporter’s Bizarre Claims About Prosecutor And Reporters

Click for Post:  CBS Report Sets New Record For Trashing Of Meredith, Xenophobia, Multi-Inaccuracies, Libels

Click for Post:  Producer Of CBS Reports On The Case “Crazy, Desperate, Stupid, And/Or Unscrupulous” ?

CNN News

Paul Callan, Nancy Grace, Wendy Murphy, Andrew Cuomo, Lisa Bloom, Hada Messia. But Ann Bremner, Joey Jackson, DREW GRIFFEN

Click for Post:  Now CNN Gets It All Wrong - What Will They Make of THIS In Italy?

Click for Post:  The Summations: Perenially Fact-Challenged CNN Reports Correctly For Once

Click for Post:  Drew Griffin Report This Sunday At 8:00 Intent On Sustaining CNN’s Extreme Bias

Click for Post:  Explaining Why CNN Is So Desperate For A Hit And Quaint Niceties Like “Truth” Be Damned

Click for Post:  Questions For Knox: 15 Questions That Drew Griffin On CNN Tonight SHOULD Have Asked

Click for Post:  Open Letter To CNN Head Ken Jautz: Reports As Terrible As Drew Griffin’s Risks All CNN’s Credibility

Click for Post:  Knox-Mellases And Candace Dempsey Display Extreme Contempt Of Court On CNN

Daily Express

Click for Post:  Report By Bob Graham In The Daily Express Close To Breaking New Record For Inaccuracy

Fox News

Click for Post:  Fox News Analyst Lis Wiehl Seems to Think Meredith’s Murder Is One Terrific Great Joke

Click for Post:  Respected Journalist Carl Bernstein Criticizes “Murdochism” For Debasing News Reporting

The Guardian

Tom Kington could be okay but…  Simon Hattenstone???

Click for Post:  Did The State Department Offer Assurances To Knox She Never Would Be Extradited?

Click for Post:  Knox accuses media of depicting her falsely as ‘maneating murderer’

Click for Post:  Did The Bungling Guardian Check Sollecito Enabler Andrew Gumbel’s Myriad False Claims?

Click for Post:  Obstruction Of Justice? How The Guardian Poisons Public Opinion Against The Italian Courts

Click for Post:  The Guardian Publishes A Negative Take On Italian Justice Rather Poorly Researched

Huffpost

Click for Post:  Explaining Why Smart Feminists Have Rightly Been Extremely Wary Of Amanda Knox

Click for Post:  Why Smart Feminists Much Prefer To Keep Amanda Knox At Arms Length

The Independent

Click for Post:  Peter Popham Of The UK “Independent” Sure Has Drunk The Knox PR Kool-Aid

Click for Post:  Why UK Media Deniers Like The Independent’s Amy Jenkins Come Across As Bigoted And Nasty

Marie Claire

Click for Post:  Jan Goodwin In MarieClaire Magazine Shows Extraordinary Bias

NBC/Dateline

Click for Post:  Legal Analysts Abrams & Kelly Who Reported Badly On Meredith’s Case Turn “Expertise” To Peru

National Enquirer

Click for Post:  False Claims By Amanda Knox & The Book Team May End Up Costing Them Millions

New York Times

Click for Post:  The New York Times FINALLY Awakes To The Case

Click for Post:  How The New York Times Caused Unneccesary And Unhelpful Anger In Italy

Click for Post:  The Second Very Misleading New York Times Commentary On The Case

Click for Post:  Today’s New York Times Headline: Why Much Of US Main Media Is Disbelieved And Ignored Now

Rolling Stone

Click for Post:  a_deeply_ugly_inaccurate_and_callous_piece_of_junk_by_nathaniel_rich

Seattle PI

Andrea but…

Click for Post:  Hearst’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Is The Editor Banning Truthseekers From Website?

Click for Post:  Hearst’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Now On The Defensive?

Click for Post:  Looks Like Seattle Post Intelligencer Could Be On The Rocks

Click for Post:  Is Seattle Case Coverage STILL In Cloud-Cuckooland?

Monday, March 01, 2021

Correcting NY Times 23: Rebutting Jessica Bennett’s Smears Of Dr Mignini #2

Posted by Peter Quennell

Scientific Police Labs Rome; all evidence processing done here

Jessica Bennett omitted most of the enormous body of evidence so that she could belittle the Italian cops and get the back of her little darling, Knox. You can find her smears in this list and previous rebuttals in this list. Below, a resposting of our still-precise flagship Powerpoint by James Raper with Kermit, created more than 10 years ago, and now to be found on our new Powerpoints page.

2. Defamatory: The prosecution’s theory about a satanic sex game gone awry.
3. Defamatory: not wild theories from the prosecution
5. Defamatory: it is common for police and lawyers to leak information to the press.
6. Defamatory: prison authorities told her she had tested positive for H.I.V. (She had not.)
7. Defamatory: a lot of it leaked straight from the prosecution
8. Defamatory: principal Italian prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini…  during the trial portrayed Ms. Knox as a sex fiend looking to exact revenge on her roommate
6. False: [Prosecution leaking] help explain the leak of Ms. Knox’s jailhouse journal
15. False: [Prosecution] argued that she had to have been involved in the killing, because only a woman would cover a body with a bedsheet.
16. False: During her trip back to Italy, in 2019, she delivered a letter to him in Italian, asking if he might be willing to begin a dialogue. It took him a few months to respond, but they have been corresponding since then.
66. Misleading: Mr. Mignini, who has since retired and is publishing a book on the case next year, is open to the idea.

Monday, February 22, 2021

Correcting NY Times 24: How Jessica Bennett Dishonestly Erased Sollecito From Case

Posted by Peter Quennell

Friday, February 12, 2021

2019 PR on Knox Not A Monster EDIT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Talking to Strangers’ is a swing and a miss

Gladwell examines the case of Amanda Knox, the American exchange student who was convicted of the 2007 murder of her roommate and spent four years in an Italian prison before being exonerated. Gladwell calls Knox “the innocent person who acts guilty.” It was not forensic evidence but Knox’s demeanor – reacting inappropriately, appearing indifferent to her roommate’s death – that led to her wrongful conviction.

How Adolf Hitler, Bernie Madoff and Amanda Knox show us 4 very human mistakes that we all make when meeting people

Mismatch can work the other way, and Gladwell unpacks the story of college student Amanda Knox to show how. An American studying in Italy, Knox was roommates with Meredith Kercher. When Kercher was found dead in their apartment, Knox and two suspected accomplices were arrested. In interviews with the police and in court appearances, “Foxy Knoxy” didn’t conform to notions of how a blameless person should behave. She spoke loudly, laughed with her boyfriend, and swiveled her hips in front of detectives at the crime scene. The investigation was also badly bungled, and she was convicted of murder and sent to prison. Then, after legal appeals and credible evidence implicated the actual perpetrator, Knox was completely exonerated. Her real crime was “her weirdness,” according to Gladwell. “We have built a world that systematically discriminates against a class of people who, through no fault of their own, violate our ridiculous ideas about transparency,” he writes.

Malcolm Gladwell Changed My Opinion about the Value of Presidential Debates

Gladwell analyzes the Amanda Knox case. Knox, an American college student studying in Italy, was accused of helping to murder her roommate. Although insufficient evidence of her guilt was brought forth—including DNA evidence—Knox had one big thing going against her—she looked and acted guilty. Knox fit pre-conceived notions about what and how a guilty person looks and acts. And it cost her dearly.

*************

1. The Catastrophe Gathers Steam

The reverberations of Knox’s strident act in Modena seem set to continue playing out for years. 

Suddenly there is a real demand there for the Knox book and the Sollecito book in Italian so that all the demonization can be looked at and possibly rolled back.

This happened too late for the full blast to bother Sollecito during a goofy appearance on Porta-a-Porta, but he was not let off too lightly by several other guests  

At least some new tribulations for Knox are now in the pipeline, exactly the things that she had said terrified her before she ever stepped onto the plane in Seattle.

Expect more Italian talk shows, an Italian conference or two, an Italian-language Wiki with all the documents our Wiki carries (maybe a world record number for one crime), and more court appearances and legal losses.

Remember, unlike Sollecito, Knox did not even try to win a damages award from the State and she may never be paid the small award recommened by a foolish ECHR - who did not even mention the unpaid $100,000 the Supreme Court insisted must be paid to Patrick, having for no reason destroyed his life.

So what was the Knox entourage thinking? In particular Curt Knox, Edda Mellas, and those mafia poodles looking for blood-money via the US Innocence Project?

And what was Knox herself thinking? After all she delivered the shrill speech.

2. The Roles Of Knox 1.0, Knox 2.0 and Knox 3.0

The Knox, Sollecito and Guede public personas have all evolved - a lot.

Consider Rude Guede, who is again out now on work release. In 2007-09 Guede was very rarely seen - once publicly at his own 2008 trial (which was moved behind closed doors) and once at the 2009 Knox-Sollecito trial, where he refused to testify. Otherwise he was defined by the Sollecito and and Knox lawyers, who demonized him for some of 2008 and all of 2009. 

In the past couple of weeks Guede was again demonized, this time in several of the UK and US papers. But there was no equivalent of this in Italy. To quote a comment from the previous thread:

But he’s been out before, he’s the only one to show any sorrow to the Kerchers, he’s the only one that did not stalk them, he’s the only one setting himself up for a worthwhile career, he’s the only one with no lust for blood-money. And no Italians think that he or Sollecito wielded the knife that killed Meredith.

And Guede did a rather intelligent, thoughtful national TV interview, after doing a dozen years in a humane, reformative Italian prison leaving him seemingly pretty fit for society.

Italians who paid serious attention to the case from 2007 have indelibly imprinted in their minds two Knox versions which between them led quite remorselessly to a unanimous guilty verdict and prison.

The much revised Knox version wheeled out by Curt Knox and David Marriott from late 2010 was heard-from at the start and end of the 20l1 appeal, but otherwise was never intended for Italian consumption. Only Americans and Brits who might press back politically were ever meant to see that.

Guess who is the most likely of the three to shed their demons and age gracefully?

Neither Sollecito nor Knox were ever what you might consider average kids.

The very reason for Sollecito being in Perugia was that he was troubled and his highschoool there was for troubled children of doctors. We know of the cocaine use and absence of friends there. The records show that Sollecito was a continuing headache to his father, and it’s hard to see him marry or succeed at a career now.

Knox is much more complicated. Even Sollecito said she was not strongly tethered to reality. Few would rule out this brutal parenting as a prime cause of that.

From early days to what Italy just witnessed in Modena three Knox versions stand out strongly. We start with Knox 2.0 deliberately.

Knox 2.0 is the boisterous, naive, tin-eared, trouble-prone Knox who intermittently seeks to be lovable but most times falls short. Her family openly edged her in this daffy direction. “Let Amanda be Amanda”.

Knox 3.0 is a solemn, humorless “I’m the victim” widows-weeds version, ostensibly who opened and closed the 2011 appeal and who comes out strongly in her 2013 book. A talented, diligent, caring, regular-American success-story in the making who somehow ran afoul of archaic

It was this Knox that Italy mostly saw from 2007 through trial to 2010 and beyond the guilty verdict.   

Marriott 95% of case hidden. Flaming of media.

Knox 1.0 goes back many years. All or most of this is known, but it is spread around. Italians for the most part developed a cuynical view: yet another case of this.

It has been hard for her family and she herself to hide that she was a troubled child. We posted one very credible cause here. There is some evidence that her stepfather from early teens, Chris Mellas, was a needling prick.

Her tin ear was seemingly offputting both at her school and Washington University and cost her friends. The common excuse “Amanda will be Amanda” was substituted for a close look. 

Only a few in Seattle stepped forward to sing her praise after her arrest. A scholarship named for her at her school made some of the parents very annoyed.

Several hazings made her notorious, but it was the initiation of her drug-taking that maybe did most to set up for her Perugia fall.

Contrary to what the fake reporter Nina Burleigh and many others have claimed, Knox was NOT an exchange student, as 99% of all American students in Italy are. She was the very rare freelance entirely on her own.

She deliberately bypassed considerable financial support, possibly because some supervision in Perugia would be required. She took only her meager savings along - far short of what a foreign student is predicted to need in a year. She had no work permit for Italy which all Americans must have - and yet she HAD to work, or go home.

She did not even enroll at the main university at all and so her graduation would be set one year back. All signs are that Knox did not go there to do serious university work, as all around her could with sinking hearts see. Now she totally misrepresents how much she was on drugs but she shacked up with a dealer while on the train, had him in her bed at the house, and directly led to his arrest and a prison term.

So in Post #2 we offered a list of sleeping dogs that Knox would be really stupid to wake up - so of course, she did. Her grating presence in Modena and anti-Italy rant has had precisely that effect.

Modena: Knox I’m the victim here, not a monster, the real me, the real villains Italian justice and media

But

Real justice

Real media; TV mostly in court

Sollecito
In Post #1 we explained how Sollecito was treated identically to Knox in the days 2-6 Nov 2007. And yet Sollecito (1) did not blame the cops for abuse, (2) did not claim to be a persecuted woman, (3) did not claim to be a persecuted American, (4) did not frame an innocent man, (5) did not get a sentence of three years for reckless talk on the stand, (6) did not blame the media for his plight, and (7) did not transmit an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.  In fact, he only blamed KNOX! He did that at least twice right before and after his arrest.

Back in Seattle

Not exchange student

Little money

Drugs; drug dealer; cat pee

Probs with Patrick

Probs with flatmates

Weird before arrest

Weird at arrest

Framing Patrick

The PR surfaces

Rejected by Sollecito

Hard line by Matteini

Hard line Ricciarelli

Failed interview with GM

Failed Supreme Court

Micheli hard line

Daffy in court

Good prosecution

Massive evidence

Flailing defense

********************************************

Above: Shriek! Outrage! Must be Nick Pisa at work! Oh… before his time. Wrong city too.


Dr Mignini was not talking about morals or about all women.

He was being purely practical and was in fact explaining how Italian girls keep themselves out of trouble and Knox could have done so too, in which case Meredith would still be alive.

People who came to the case from 2010 onward have no idea how mixed up and dangerous Knox was. She didnt only allow rockthrowing at Seattle U, she was a proven serious dopehead as well.

Very very few spoke up for her in Seattle after her arrest. 

Netflix never mentioned that.

She headed for Perugia why? Because it had then the reputation for the easiest drugs of any university town in Italy? 

Netflix never mentioned that.

Solid surveys by American colleges worried about their exchange students abroad have studied foreign drug scenes and found

(1) drug intake and alcohol intake often jumps 50 percent;

(2) students on psychological medication as psychologists suspect Knox might have been often come off their meds and crazy situations result.

Every year a bunch of overseas students get charged with crimes.

Netflix never mentioned that.

That is why they DEMAND to fund and supervise official exchange students - which is probably why Knox was not. She was the 1 in 100 Amrican students totally freelance.

Walking a highwire without a net.  Netflix never mentioned that.

She was bad news to EVERYONE she met in Perugia. Do you know of any not? By arrest she had not one real friend left. Even Sollecito saw he was toast.

Netflix never mentioned that.

Loud, sharp-elbowed, often rude, often smelly, very lazy, all the other girls in the house saw her as a sex fiend and druggy and wished she’d go away. They had 40 hour weeks, she worked barely ten.

Netflix never mentioned that.

Patrick was feeling that way too; he took her on without a work permit and she was the Employee from Hell.

Netflix never mentioned that.

Mignini knew all this and more and yet he was STILL polite and considerate to her. On 17 December he gave her a terrific chance to get off. No other judge or prosecutor was as kind as that.

Netflix never mentioned that.

He wanted to bring up the dangerous drug-dealer she had in tow and her growing addiction, including to cocaine. Why? So she could maybe argue impairment and seek a manslaughter charge.

Netflix never mentioned that.

Her own lawyers wanted to go with that but Knox’s own parents didnt want it out, and and various judges especially Judge Micheli wanted a harder and no breaks for Knox.

And by end of 2007 Curt Knox’s PR was demonizing Dr Mignini!! 

Mignini and Meredith were the two most understanding friends: in Perugia Knox ever had. She killed one, and has shafted the other ever since.

Netflix never mentioned that.

***********************************************************************

1. The Context Of The Legal Process

Netflix doesnt make clear that the prosecution presented its full case just the once, in 2009.

The only ones to get the full blast were the jury and others in closed court. The prosecution was compelling and remorseless day after day in a meticulous reconstruction of the case.

The unanimous guilty verdict was predictable and understandable. If you havent yet done so you might want to read how powerful it was. In the US and UK there would have been zero grounds for appeal.

At the “automatic” 2011 Hellmann appeal there was a jury - but essentially no prosecution. How weird is that?! ! All the prosecution got to do was rebut several witnesses for the defense. The jury did not even read the case. Hellmann garbled the DNA (no contamination was proved but he acted as if it was) and so Knox and Guede were sprung.

At the 2013 Nencini re-do of appeal the judge and jury were told at length by the Supreme Court’s First Chambers how to get this task right. Although there was a new prosecutor (Crini) he was very good. The whole case was read by the jury, and the Carabinieri labs were brought in to do a test the “independent” DNA experts in 2011 said could not be done.

Sollecito took off like a rabbit before the verdict and Knox was too scared to appear.

Had the verdict gone to the First Chambers for review,as it should have, Knox and Sollecito would now be inside. Why it went to the Fifth Chambers in 2015 (which never handles murder cases normally) is murky and still under legal dispute.

By this stage the defenses had so many occasions to get things right (over seven years) it was like Groundhog Day. Bongiorno was allowed to rant on about “incompetent cops” for several hours over her legal limit. But the prosecution was not even there. 

2. The Daffy Amanda Knox

Do you know who hit Knox on the head at her so-called “interrogation” 5-6 Nov 2007? She did herself! Nobody else. Day after day straight reporting - not biased or made up, simply straight reporting - suggested that she was odd. Cops think she was maybe on a long bad trip.

Since her arrival in Perugia she had got the backs up of almost everyone she encountered. Many though she was there solely for the drugs and she never even enrolled at the University - merely a language school. She could easily have been funded by the University of Washington but she herself chose not. Maybe because monitoring would have been a part of the deal and drug use would have been out.

They seem clueless as to the power of the case. They never saw the daffy Knox (above) who was wheeled out in 2009-2008 when EVERYONE including her lawyers and seemingly her parents all presumed she had got in over her head.

************

By Hugo

Apropos of nothing, I was thinking about the famous hair test. Follain, p.143:—

‘Mignini suspected that on the night of the murder Amanda and Raffaele had taken drugs stronger than the marijuana they had admitted to: maybe cocaine, he thought. But no such traces were found in either Amanda or Raffaele’s hair.’

Unfortunately, as neither Mignini nor John Follain seems to have known, the result was meaningless in that context. When Dr Lalli, or the woman doctor assisting him, cut the sample strand of Knox’s hair on 6 November, the previous week’s growth was still below the skin of Knox’s scalp.

The hair test is normally only used to establish whether there is or is not a history of use of the specified drugs (generally cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamines, opiates, PCP and a few others) within the last few months. The various labs that perform the tests according to their own methods all like to claim that their results are ‘absolutely accurate’, but, if you think about it for a moment, there is no likely way they could know that, unless they tested control groups of people who (a) definitely had been using the scheduled illegal drugs and (b) definitely hadn’t. Bit tricky to arrange. In addition, each lab likes to claim that its own patent method is more reliable than those of other labs, so a certain margin of error seems to be a given.

And the drug metabolites are thought to attach to the melanin in hair, so a person with light-coloured hair, such as Knox, is more likely to produce a false negative.

But mainly, as we do not know exactly how close to the scalp Dr Lalli, or the female doctor assisting him, cut the sample strand of Knox’s hair, the result is quite useless for the investigation of Meredith’s murder. Not only did the hair test tell us nothing about the week of the murder, because the potential evidence was still below the skin of Knox’s scalp, but, if the scissors left even a 1cm stump—a month’s worth, as is a quite normal minimum—the test can tell us nothing about Knox’s drug use for the whole of the time she was in Perugia.

This may make it more relevant that she hooked up with mature student and cocaine trafficker Federico Martini on that Milan-Florence train in August, and remained in regular phone contact with Lorenzo, a fellow member of Martini’s subsequently convicted coke syndicate, throughout the period of the murder—her phone records forming evidence in the syndicate’s convictions.

So why would she need the services of Rudy Guede, well known to students in Perugia as someone who wasn’t a dealer, but knew the dealers’ spots and could get you drugs?

Because the whole point of Rudy, and the way he kept in with the student crowd, was that he spared you having to do the run yourself. Even if you happened to know a big-time coke dealer, you didn’t necessarily want to speak to his lowlife street pushers, or even show your face to them. Many students are snobby, and Knox certainly is.

********

Quick reaction for starters. This looks like Knox 1.0 is back.

That was the 2007-2009 Knox who slipped the leash of her handlers, the one that often ignored both her lawyers and parents, the one who was CONVINCED that given time she could explain everything away and everybody would love her.

Well that did not end well for her at all.

She failed time and again from Mignini (especially on 17 Dec 2007) through Matteini, the Supreme Court, Micheli, and Massei. The one who failed so absolutely on the stand in June 2009 that she was handed a sentence that ended up being three years.

At the Hellman appeal Knox 1.0 was replaced by puppet Knox 2.0 in widow’s weeds.

Seem correct to you? If so this interview is the beginning of the end.

NYT KNOX PR CLIPS FOR PR POSTS DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

At a guess maybe half of the defense-campaign resources have gone into public relations. Money well spent? We rather doubt it. P-R and legal watchers of the case we consider impartial have noted three problems with the campaign:

  It seems to be addressed to the wrong country, and the only one, Italy, that really matters, now seems totally lost.

  It seems to have started with a very raw-knuckle message which was bound to polarize, and only got harder ever since.

  It doesn’t seem to be particularly competent with the evidence, taking potshots, but never really shaking the whole.

And this unprecedented campaign may have buoyed Amanda Knox herself into taking the stand, where neither her demeanor nor her claims seem to have done her any good (see here and here).

***************

Some further reading?

1. On the Cassation-annulled appeal verdict.

Click for Post: 

2. On the repeat appeal move to Florence

Click for Post: 

3. On the failing PR stirrer David Marriott

Click for Post: 
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/powerpoints_13_we_now_examine_the_compelling_evidence_for/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/newsweek_report_from_italy_on_damage_shrill_campaign_is_dong_to_knoxs_/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/knox_public_relations_manager_starts_premature_crowing/

4. On the bedraggled hair of Amanda knox

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/our_take_on_the_case_for_the_prosecution_4_amanda_knoxs_multiple_confl/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/how_the_media_should_approach_the_case_if_justice_is_to_be_done_and_se/

5. On Dr Mignini’s many recent vindications

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/migninis_and_giuttaris_florence_convictions_are_overturned_as_florence/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/an_overview_from_italy_2_current_perceptions_in_italy/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/giuliano_mignini_promotion_places_him_first_in_line_for_prosecutor/

6. On the voluntary Amanda Knox interrogation

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/disarray_and_decay_in_the_pro-knox_parade_1_bruce_fischers_epidemic_of/

7. On the on-the-run PR shill Frank Sforza

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/disarray_and_decay_in_the_pro-knox_parade_2_key_knox-mellas_flunkie_no/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/might_frank_sforza_already_de_facto_be_banned/

8. On the Committee to Protect Journalists

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/open_letter_to_cpjs_joel_simon_in_new_york_this_is_the_fact_finding/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/open_letter_to_cpjs_joel_simon_in_new_york_this_is_the_fact_finding_2/

9. On the large double-DNA knife

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_limited_dna_reviews_-_what_we_believe_are_the_hard_facts_on_the_do1/

10. On DNA consultants Conti and Vecchiotti

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C339/

11. On the Amanda Knox email to Seattle

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/our_take_on_the_case_for_the_prosecution_4_amanda_knoxs_multiple_confl/

12. On the Amanda Knox midnight call to Seattle

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/why_defendants_mostly_dont_testify_those_devils_that_lurk_in_the_detai/

13. On the felonious Sollecito book

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/raffaele_sollecito_now_under_formal_investigation_for_new_crimes_appar/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/simon_schuster_seem_to_be_seriously_rattled_over_lack_of_due_diligence/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmksollecitosbook

14. On the u-turn by HarperCollins UK

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/knox_book_put_on_hold_in_uk_as_legal_implications_of_blood_money_for_s/

15. On the Knox sex-approach allegation

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/andrea_vogt_obtains_new_rome_embassy_cables_from_state_still_showing_z/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/amanda_knoxs_supporters_incredible_shrinking_island_now_shrinks_some_m/
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/lifetime_movie_included_a_serious_wrong_charge/

16. On the PR shill Doug Preston

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C555/

***************

NYT PR POST Hate talk DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Skep:

This is why Candace Dempsey’s talk of “guilters” and “haters” rings hollow to anyone who has taken the time to see what the core members of AK’s support squad are up to and what they actively encourage online, beginning with Candace Dempsey herself. Her PI reader blog was the depository of choice for much of the hatred and harassment directed toward the Kerchers from very early on. Does anyone remember Kelly 13, who on Dempsey’s blog told the Kerchers they needed to set aside their grief and support Amanda Knox?* The comments section on Frank Sforza’s blog opened its hateful arms to Meredith Kercher bashers and online stalkers who turned out to be closely affiliated with Knox’s stepfather (according to him in his prison chats with AK, though he denied it elsewhere). Candace Dempsey is always quick to condemn anonymous “guilters” who, she says, have harassed her, but she has never once criticized the hatred her allies direct toward anyone who expresses a thought they disagree with. Bruce Fischer has used twitter to bully college students for making comments about Knox, and Michelle Moore has used twitter and other venues to harass and taunt the Kerchers, especially Meredith’s brother John, in the mistaken belief he is The Machine. Fischer and Moore are core members of Candace’s team and yet she never mentions their offenses. It is only fair that journalists who interview someone like Candace about harassment and intimidation either ask her about AK’s supporters and their hatred for Meredith Kercher, not to mention their efforts to intimidate her supporters, or, for the sake of balance, ask people on the other side about the harassment they have endured.

*Given Candace Dempsey’s leading role in the ongoing campaign against the Kercher family and their attorney, it is not at all surprising that the Kerchers will have nothing to do with her. Long-time observers of the case may remember Candace’s first trip to Italy for the first instance trial, where she and she alone - apparently out of ignorance - followed behind the Kerchers with her camera, trying to film them, and was caught on camera by another member of the press, who was documenting their arrival from an appropriate distance. Not one of Dempsey’s finer moments, to say the least.

**********

NYT How Bennet Lied About Diversity Of Italy-Based Reporting DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Any high-profile court case is as much a media battle as a legal one.

NYT & Hachette: Mistatements About “The Prosecutor”  DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Gladwell lies both by commission and omission. 

GM version unknown in Italy. Parrots the Preston & PR creation.

ADD THIS

2018
https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/netflix_24_which_took_the_harder_line_against_sollecito_and_knox/

2008
Knox book on being taught to hate Mignini

2009
jan
Click for Post:  Is The “Mignini Has Framed Them” Meme Now Fading?
jan
Click for Post:  Knox “Friends” Paul Ciolino & Co Smear Prosecutor Mignini As “An Out Of Control Maniac”
feb
Click for Post:  Why The Smears Of Prosecutor Mignini By Knox “Friends” Are Really Simply A Sideshow
feb
Click for Post:  BBC Interview: Mignini Comes Across As Fair, Decent, Funny, And Quite Sane
july
Click for Post:  Doug Preston’s Nasty Ant-Italy Anti-Mignini Campaign To Stir Bigotry Hits A Wall
july
Click for Post:  Prosecutor Mignini Describes What Actually Happened At The Session With Knox Ending 5:45 AM
sept
Click for Post:  The Vilification Of Prosecutor Mignini Clearly Continues To Misfire
dec
Click for Post:New Mignini Interview Makes Doug Preston Look Increasingly Incompetent And Vindictive   New Mignini Interview Makes Doug Preston Look Increasingly Incompetent And Vindictive

2010
jan
Click for Post:  Why The Florence Conviction Of Dr Mignini Doesnt Matter Very Much
july
Click for Post:  That Widely Watched LA7 TV Interview With Giuliano Mignini - Herewith A Full English Translation

2011
march
Click for Post:  Giuliano Mignini’s Seeingly Trumped-Up Conviction For Guessing Right In The MOF Case

NYT Knox ECHR & damages payment DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Any more legal wins seem unlikely, and they could well become losers. 

********
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/567139/Amanda-Knox-could-claim-millions-in-compensation-being-cleared-murder-Meredith-Kercher
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/raffaele-sollecito-knox-reparations_n_6971270.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/30/us-italy-knox-compensation-idUSKBN0MQ1ZG20150330
http://time.com/3764443/raffaele-sollecito-amanda-knox/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/30/raffaele-sollecito-defiant-that-he-is-not-a-and-will-defend-his-dignity
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/28/europe/amanda-knox-guilt-innocence/

***

Lawyer Bongiorno. “In the coming days we will evaluate request for compensation,” had announced Raffaele’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, after the acquittal of the young man for the murder of Meredith Kercher. “There are feelings of revenge in Sollecito’s soul,” added the lawyer today. “We will wait for the motivations. Not thrash / lambaste those who might have done [Sollecito] wrong. We’ll see if there were errors and what measures and initiatives could be undertaken. Civil liability - she concluded - is a serious institution that should not be exercised in the spirit of revenge.”
http://www.iltempo.it/cronache/2015/03/30/caso-meredith-sollecito-quot-mi-sento-tornato-in-liberta-quot-1.1397964

***

Nadeau
False imprisonment

Knox and Sollecito both spent four years in prison during their initial trial and first appeal. They applied to Italy’s high court to be put under house arrest but because Knox was a foreigner and deemed a flight risk, they were both denied.

Sollecito may now have cause to sue Italy for false imprisonment. Italy pays around €12 million every year for locking up people who are later cleared of charges, according to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who is introduced measures to reform the judicial system.

But, Canestrini says if Sollecito at any time lied to investigators before he was arrested, he may forfeit his right to reimbursement for being held. Sollecito changed his story more than once before finally settling on an alibi with Knox, so a legal battle could focus on whether anything he told investigators led directly to his arrest.

Canestrini also says that Knox could potentially sue Italy for one year of false imprisonment, but because she admittedly lied to investigators early on which led to her arrest, she would likely not have much of a case.

“Because she initially admitted to a role in the crime, she wouldn’t likely win. If a suspect lies to investigators before they are arrested, it is difficult to prove they were falsely imprisoned,” Canestrini says.

In one of her initial interrogations in 2007, she told investigators she was in the house when Kercher was killed at which time she accused Patrick Lumumba, her boss at a pub where she worked, of the murder.

She later recanted that statement, but Lumumba spent two weeks in prison because of her false claim.

In 2013, Italy’s high court ruled definitively on a slander charge against her for the false accusation and upheld a three-year prison term and ordered her to pay Lumumba $40,000 euro.

*************

NYT ECHR Italy Challenge Jan 2019 DRAFT

Posted by KrissyG

CORRIERE
Amanda Knox, Italy’s sentence is definitive: “The rights of the defense are violated”
by Angela Geraci
Corriere della Sera, June 26, 2019
The Strasbourg Court rejected the Italian government’s appeal. The Strasbourg Court rejected the Italian government’s request to rule again on the case of Amanda Knox. Italy, in January, was convicted of violating the right to defense of the American who was accused, convicted and then acquitted for the Perugia crime. In fact, the panel that evaluated the request refused to send the case to the Grande Chambre, a kind of Cassation of the Court. The sentence handed down against Italy therefore becomes final.
Compensation: 18,400 euros - Our country will therefore have to pay Amanda 10,400 euros for moral damages - she had instead requested 500 thousand euros - and 8 thousand euros for legal costs. The young woman had also asked for 30 thousand euros for the procedure before the Court and more than two million euros for the expenses incurred by her parents for the many trials in Italy: in all seven years of legal battles in which the verdicts were overturned several times. until final acquittal. Today Rudy Guede remains in prison for the crime of Meredith Kercher, sentenced to 16 years.
The incriminated interrogation - The sentence of the Strasbourg Court concerns the procedure with which the Italian justice sentenced Amanda Knox for slander: during the interrogation at the center of the appeal - that of November 6, 2007 - the American accused Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese citizen , of having killed Meredith but after a few days the man was acquitted and she was sentenced for slander to three years in prison. During that interrogation, however, neither lawyers nor interpreters were present who could help the girl, who had recently been in Italy. In all, Amanda spent four years in prison. As innocent. On June 15, she returned to our country for the first time, as a guest of the criminal justice festival in Modena. Now the 31-year-old’s main occupation is the fight against judicial errors through

http://www.ristretti.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=80859:amanda-knox-definitiva-la-condanna-dellitalia-qviolati-i-diritti-della-difesaq&catid=220:le-notizie-di-ristretti&Itemid=1

************
Amanda Knox, definitiva la condanna dell’Italia: “Violati i diritti della difesa”
di Angela Geraci
Corriere della Sera, 26 giugno 2019
La Corte di Strasburgo ha rigettato il ricorso del governo italiano. La Corte di Strasburgo ha rigettato la richiesta del governo italiano di pronunciarsi di nuovo sul caso di Amanda Knox. L’Italia, a gennaio, è stata condannata per aver violato il diritto alla difesa dell’americana che fu accusata, condannata e poi assolta per il delitto di Perugia. Il panel che ha valutato la richiesta ha rifiutato infatti di inviare il caso alla Grande Chambre, una specie di Cassazione della Corte. La sentenza emessa contro l’Italia diventa quindi definitiva.
Il risarcimento: 18.400 euro - Il nostro Paese dovrà dunque versare ad Amanda 10.400 euro per danni morali - lei ne aveva chiesti invece 500mila - e 8mila euro per le spese legali. La giovane aveva anche chiesto 30mila euro per la procedura davanti alla Corte e più di due milioni di euro per le spese sostenute dai suoi genitori per i tanti processi in Italia: in tutto sette anni di battaglie legali in cui i verdetti sono stati ribaltati più volte fino all’assoluzione finale. Oggi per il delitto di Meredith Kercher resta in carcere Rudy Guede, condannato a 16 anni.
L’interrogatorio incriminato - La sentenza della Corte di Strasburgo riguarda la procedura con cui la giustizia italiana ha condannato Amanda Knox per calunnia: durante l’interrogatorio al centro del ricorso - quello del 6 novembre 2007 - l’americana accusò Patrick Lumumba, cittadino congolese, di avere ucciso Meredith ma dopo pochi giorni l’uomo fu assolto e lei condannata per calunnia a tre anni di reclusione. Durante quell’interrogatorio però non erano presenti né legali né interpreti che potessero aiutare la ragazza, da poco in Italia. In tutto Amanda ha trascorso in carcere quattro anni. Da innocente. Lo scorso 15 giugno è tornata per la prima volta nel nostro Paese, ospite del festival della giustizia penale di Modena. Adesso la principale occupazione della 31enne è la lotta agli errori giudiziari attraverso l’associazione “Innocent project” e, soprattutto, la sua testimonianza.

********************

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2019/06/25/news/la_corte_di_strasburgo_condanna_l_italia_a_risarcire_amanda_knox-229633625/

La Corte di Strasburgo condanna l’Italia a risarcire Amanda Knox

Il tribunale dei diritti dell’uomo ha respinto il ricorso. L’americana accusata dell’omicidio di Meredith Kercher nel 2007 “ha subito un danno morale perché è stato violato il suo diritto alla difesa durante le indagini”
25 Giugno 2019
1 minuti di lettura

L’Italia dovrà risarcire con circa 10 mila e 400 euro il danno morale subito da Amanda Knox, la giovane americana arrestata, condannata, scarcerata (dopo poco meno di quattro anni in cella) e quindi definitivamente assolta dall’accusa di avere partecipato all’omicidio di Meredith Kercher, compiuto a Perugia la sera del primo novembre del 2007. La Corte di Strasburgo ha infatti rigettato la richiesta del Governo di pronunciarsi di nuovo sul caso dopo che l’Italia era stata condannata per avere violato il diritto alla difesa della ormai ex imputata.

Le principali tappe dell’omicidio Kercher

Il panel che ha valutato la richiesta ha rifiutato di inviare il caso in Grande Camera. Diventa quindi definitiva la sentenza emessa contro l’Italia il 24 gennaio scorso. Con essa la Corte di Strasburgo aveva riconosciuto l’Italia colpevole della violazione del diritto alla difesa di Amanda Knox chiedendo allo Stato di risarcire la giovane giovane, tornata recentemente in Italia, per i danni morali subiti. Un indennizzo complessivo pari a 10 mila e 400 euro (a fronte dei 500 mila richiesti dalla parte in causa), oltre a circa 8 mila di spese legali.

Festival Giustizia Modena, Amanda Knox con la voce rotta: “Amavo l’Italia, oggi qui ho paura”

La Corte non aveva invece ritenuto che ci fossero prove dei maltrattamenti, alcuni “scappellotti”, che Knox aveva denunciato di avere subito durante l’interrogatorio in questura. L’avvocato Dalla Vedova ha ricordato che la violazione del diritto di difesa è stata riconosciuta perché la sua assistita non fu avvertita di essere indagata, non le venne fornito un avvocato e nemmeno un interprete. “Tutto questo - ha aggiunto - negli interrogatori che andarono avanti per circa 54 ore tra il 2 e il 5 e 6 novembre del 2007. Amanda venne sentita inizialmente come testimone ma la sua posizione divenne rapidamente di indagata”. Il legale ha sottolineato che Knox “non fu avvisata che era sospettata”. “Se lo avessero detto subito - ha aggiunto - e le avessero fornito un difensore e un interprete le cose sarebbero andate diversamente”.

Secondo il legale la decisione di Strasburgo “chiude il discorso”. “Siamo soddisfatti - ha aggiunto - ma non sorpresi. Questa è una sentenza giusta”. Amanda Knox è stata definitivamente assolta per il delitto per il quale resta in carcere Rudi Guede, condannato a 16 anni di reclusione. Di recente la donna è tornata in Italia per partecipare a un convegno sulla giustizia e spesso i suoi commenti sulla vicenda hanno scatenato polemiche.

Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Nigel Scott Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and the Untested Semen Stain 10/03/2013 DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers.  I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it.  The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.” ““ Isaac Asimov

In a murder inquiry that is carried out by competent investigators, anything suspicious that is found that can help to solve the crime, or provide irrefutable confirmation of the participation of a suspect, is collected, preserved and tested ““ except in Italy, apparently.

Meredith Kercher’s lifeless body was discovered in her locked bedroom at the apartment she shared with Amanda Knox in Perugia, Italy on November 2nd 2007.  Beneath her was a pillow with what appeared to be a semen stain.  It had been smudged by a shoe that matched the shoe print of others that were imprinted in her blood in the room where she died, so the sample probably belonged to her murderer.  As far as we know, it has never been tested, or if it has been tested, this fact and the results of the test have never been revealed.

Botched investigation ““ Guede’s involvement minimised

The absence of this test has been one of the continuing mysteries of a botched investigation and mishandled prosecution that has now continued for six years, blighting the lives of the victim’s family and of Meredith’s innocent friend Amanda Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

Someone who was present in the room where Meredith died, probably left that sperm on her pillow close to the time of her death.  Who was that person?  If it was Rudy Guede, the man who is currently in prison and whose guilt has been confirmed by the Italian Supreme Court, it would have been a powerful additional piece of evidence against him.  No competent investigator would have ignored it.  Guede claimed that Meredith was not murdered by him but by someone else who fled while he was in the bathroom.  He claimed that his sexual interaction with Meredith was consensual and that he fetched towels to try and staunch the blood that was flowing from her wounded body.  He did not call for help and he fled to Germany within days of her body being discovered.

No evidence against Sollecito

If the semen is identified as having belonged to Amanda Knox’s boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, that would place him in Meredith’s bedroom at the time of her death.  No evidence has done this so far.  The prosecution claims that Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp that was kicked around the floor of her room for 46 days before being collected, handled and dropped again by officers using dirty gloves.  There is no way that this evidence could ever meet international standards and it has been trashed by independent experts.  Evidence that the semen was his would have irrefutably proved his involvement.  Yet it was not tested and there is still no evidence against Sollecito.  This is Italian justice today.

If the semen has the DNA signature of an as yet unknown male, this would lend credibility to Guede’s claim that he was not the murderer, yet his defence did not press this point, which brings us back to the first supposition, which is that it is Guede’s semen, they knew this and kept quiet.  This omission does not explain the prosecution’s failure to test ““ unless they had already tested and knew the answer.

What does a pro-prosecution source say?

There is a pro-Knox/Sollecito guilt commentator on the internet, variously called Machiavelli or Yummi.  Unconfirmed rumours suggest that he is close to leading pro-guilt reporter Andrea Vogt.  His comments and predictions have showed that his thinking is uncannily similar to that of the prosecution, so close, in fact, that he may be briefed by them.  He was so prescient in what he penned ahead of this year’s Supreme Court decision to reopen the case that he could almost have written it.

What does he have to say about the semen stain?  He has written about it for a prominent pro-guilt website (I quote Machiavelli in italics and follow each quote with my own comments):

“I think that whose semen it is, it is actually irrelevant to the case against Sollecito and Knox.  Its irrelevance is actually a key point to the decision, in my opinion. If the stain is Guede’s, that would certainly not be exculpatory to the other two, as long as there is evidence against them.  If it’s Sollecito, that would just convict him; but he is already convicted; he is appealing, and the previous judge thought the evidence was sufficient, the prosecution must be sure about their case with no need of further searches, while from an exculpatory or defence point of view relevance must be discussed within in the existing evidence or within what discredits them.  And if the stain is a third person’s, that would be a useless complication. If it’s not semen, it’s a waste of time.”

He ties himself in knots, trying to justify not testing a key piece of evidence.  There is no credible evidence against Sollecito, yet Machiavelli states that if the semen is Sollecito’s this fact would not make any difference because he is guilty anyway!  This further sentence is absolutely breathtaking so I am printing it again: “If the stain is a third person’s, that would be a useless complication.”  This is Italian justice today.

“A search on the stain is basically useless to the case for whoever is looking for exculpatory evidence, if it’s Guede’s it’s irrelevant, if it’s Sollecito it’s unnecessary, or it should be tested only if judges or prosecutors feel not confident about the evidence.”

There is no evidence against Sollecito so why is the stain not being tested?  The prosecution must already know the answer.  Think about it for a moment.  Forty-six days after the murder they had nothing on Sollecito, so they had to go back to a compromised crime scene and retrieve a contaminated bra-clasp when Sollecito’s DNA was never found on the bra.  This bra-clasp evidence looks like more than mere contamination, but let’s pass over that.  If the semen was Sollecito’s they would have nailed him for sure, yet they did not even test it.  This is Italian justice today.

“Moreover, a secondary point: we also need to bear in mind that this is the Knox-Sollecito trial, not a trial against Rudy Guede, and must not become a trial of Rudy Guede; this means that you should not investigate something if you consider it just most likely to be evidence against Guede or if it would tend to turn the trial into a trial against Guede (the likely defence purpose).”

If the stain has not been tested, we do not know whether it is Guede’s or not.  What the investigators “˜consider’ (i.e. think they know by intuition) should come a long way behind actually testing a sample that is sitting right in front of them, when the results of that test could prove the guilt of a suspect or could even be used to identify a new and as yet unknown suspect.  This is Italian justice today.

The Kercher family wants answers

The Kercher family continue to say that they want answers so that they can understand exactly how Meredith died.  The Perugian investigating authorities remain determined to ensure that they do not get those answers.

Post script ““ 11th October

Since this article was published there has been much further discussion on the subject of the semen stain.  Two comments from the Injustice Anywhere site are worth repeating so I have copied them here.

Doug M:

“What is amazing is that testing or not testing something that was right under Meredith’s body is open for debate. It shows how, in Italy, they make the rules up as they go along. I am amazed that people around the internet are actually defending the idea that this should not be tested.”

London John:

“Defence forensics expert Prof Vinci apparently had the opportunity to examine the pillowcase using Crimescope lighting. It’s important to understand that Crimescope is not merely a simple UV light: instead, it can tune and filter light across the wide spectrum from IR through visible light through to UV, and this ability to tune the light source can isolate particular substances.

Apparently, Vinci’s Crimescope analysis indicated that the stains on the pillowcase were a) made in bodily fluid (probably either saliva or semen), and b) were liquid at the time around the crime, since there was smearing of the fluid by one of Guede’s bloody shoeprints also on the pillowcase. The smearing, in particular, is important, since it effectively time-stamps the fluid to coincide with the murder and its immediate aftermath.

If this is correct, then it’s clearly in the interests of justice to test the stains properly to establish definitively whether they are of probative value to the investigation. If they turned out to be Sollecito’s semen, then I personally would change my view to guilt for both Knox and Sollecito immediately. If they turned out to be Guede’s semen, then in my view this further demolishes Guede’s version of events, and tends to count in favour of Knox/Sollecito. If it’s Meredith’s saliva, then it’s of no real value to the investigation. If it’s a third party’s semen, well”¦”¦..

Personally, I think it’s either Guede’s semen or Meredith’s saliva. It would be nice to know for sure though. And I can’t understand why the appeal court would not feel the same way.”

Friday, February 05, 2021

PR post Vigilantes rule book DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes

Right. Modus operandi: Feverishly make stuff up. Ignore hundreds of hard facts. Dont go to Italy. Dont attend court. Dont interview police. Dont interview prosecution. Dont read court documents. Demonize police. Demonize prosecution. Believe every word Knox says though she served three years for criminal lying. Dont publish in Italian. Be even more shrill than the previous claimant. Thump your chest about how stupid and corrupt those Italians are, though you have no Italian, and no qualifications at all to investigate crimes. Keep Mariott’s and the Knox-Mellases’ fingerprints off it. Get naive experts and understaffed news media to lie to Americans and Brits, though not to Italians. Harass the victim’s family. Make money out of all of the above.

Friday, January 01, 2021

Correcting NY Times XX: Trashing Italian Justice #2 DRAFT

Posted by Our Main Posters

Bigotry for fame and profit: Stephen Robert Morse, Rod Blackhurst, and Brian McGinn

Netflix’s Amanda Knox is an extreme example of misleading bias by cherrypicking. This post is another in our ongoing series, the mothership for material for this media-friendly page online soon.

1. Wrong “facts” and numerous omissions

As first explained previously in this series the very loaded Netflix report Amanda Knox included some seriously wrong “facts”.

Here is another of them.  The HIV Hoax. Italian doctors did NOT fool Knox about a possible HIV positive; they told her in confidence not to worry, they would retest (a common practice in HIV testing) and that test soon came back negative.

NOBODY in the justice system leaked about this. The leak to the media complete with Knox’s list of recent sex partners was blatantly and well-recordedly made by the Knox-Mellas defense team. Even several of us were leaked-to - this was months before we got a grip on the case.

We shall be deconstructing the various wrong “facts”.

But mainly though the film operated at the level of cut-and-paste innuendo. And it banked on the extreme ignorance of its audience.  Hundreds of inconvenient facts were omitted, any few of which would have disrupted its propaganda purpose.

We shall be adding in the numerous omissions.

2. The report’s macro-level takeaways

About 50 movie reviewers so far have mostly declared these to be their main takeways.

(1) A muddled or desperate or evil Dr Mignini framed Knox and fooled his co-prosecutor, numerous experts, 30-plus judges, and most of Italy.

(2) The justice system of Italy is a dangerous error-prone joke, but thankfully some much smarter Americans are here, to save silly Italy from itself.

(3) Somehow a few BRITISH tabloids influenced an ITALIAN jury to vote “guilty” and the damning prosecution case the hapless defenses did not once dent in 2009 was immaterial.

All three of them are untrue. We’ll take a first stab at correcting for them below, with much more to come.   

(1) The REAL Dr Mignini

He framed Knox? On this there is vast evidence to the contrary. Dr Mignini has already explained some and we have much more to come. Dr Mignini had no motive, early on he was pretty good to Knox, and the checks and balances against any such hoax are simply enormous.

Ask yourself, why would a prosecutor intent on framing Knox do this recorded interrogation?

In fact he did it as a favor to Knox, because she asked him for it. She asked also for the interrogation at trial. Those were the ONLY two interrogations of Knox. Both damning. There were no others, ever.

In both of them, Knox by her own tongue dropped herself in it, far more than any police or prosecutor ever did. The second had a major effect on the jury (and on Italy).

In that same post we pointed to two of the Netflix team’s numerous self-serving omissions.

(1) [The movie]  appears to accept that innocence was proved and that Knox and Sollecito had zero role. That was not what the Supreme Court said. [See Dr Mignini’s final paras.]

(2) Italian lawyers think the Fifth Chambers ruling may have been illegal as well as bent. The reasoning can be read here. That is headed to court soon.

(2) Italy’s REAL justice system

Pretty well the exact opposite of what you’d suppose if you read only Michael Heavey and Frank Sforza and Paul Ciolino and Bruce Fischer and John Douglas and Saul Kassin and Steve Moore and of course Doug Preston and the late Mario Spezi. Read only them, and one might be excused for thinking Italy’s is a huge, horrible system which the Italian population desperately needs THEM to save it from! Bigotry for fame and profit.

A total illusion, which Morse, Blackhurst, and McGinn now want you to swallow. Bigotry for fame and profit.

The main characteristics of the Italian system are (1) a large and visible national and local police presence with excellent forensics labs, (2) a low crime rate even by European standards, and even more-so by American standards, and (3) a very low rate of incarceration that is only 1/6 the rate of the US.

The system is immensely careful and with two AUTOMATIC rights of appeal for convictions for serious crimes the chances of a false conviction standing are zero. Compare this with thousands uncovered in the US. The vast wave of appeals has clogged the courts and right now Parliament is trying to reverse this. 

Appellants have a huge advantage which makes it easy for them to game this system: the prosecution presents their case ONLY at trial. Then seasoned defences can game bewildered prosecutors at higher levels.

Officially the US knows all of this. It has much to gain politically from Italian co-operation and works very hard on their functional relationships. The FBI and the Italian equivalent embed one another’s officers in Rome and Washington, aid one another’s labs, share huge amounts of information, mutually take down mafia, and organize dozens of extraditions annually.

Almost all prosecutors are highly-trained by career-path; the only three who were not in this case (Judges Hellmann, Marasca and Bruno) and sprung Knox and Sollecito are all believed to have been corrupted.

Finally, the mafias and fellow-travelers work hard to smear police and prosecutors (as well as assassinating them, over 100 now). In this respect the Knox PR has wittingly or unwittingly been functioning as an arm of the mafias. Bongiorno, substituted for the hapless Sollecito PR which cost Vanessa her Carabinieri post, became famous for mafia defenses.

The 20 posts we link to below go deeper. You might read at least the headlines and the quotes below. That Italy’s is a pretty good system should be compelling.


1. Click here for post: How Italian Justice REALLY Works

Comparing the US and UK common law system - a model founded on non-written laws and developed through judicial proceedings - with this system which arose from the Roman Law model - based on a written civil code - is really like comparing apples to oranges.

They were both conceived to protect individual’s rights at a maximum level, while seeking justice for the victims. But with entirely different processes.

One is not necessarily better or worse. But there are legal experts who think the Italian system is distinctly fairer - much more weighted toward the defendants. In the US and the UK the prosecutor usually has to make it through only one pre-trial hoop. In Italy the prosecutor has to make it through a whole row of pre-trial hoops…

2. Click here for post:  Why The Prosecutors In Italy Are Relatively Popular

Italy’s a tough country with, albeit dwindling now, a legacy of violent crime, and many brave prosecutors over the years have been assassinated.

And the Italian legal system is not particularly weighted in their direction, with a large number of hurdles they have to climb over before a case ever gets to trial.

And the Italian prison system is relatively lenient, heavily pro-prisoner-remediation and early release, and proportionally only 1/10 the size of the US’s.

So the endemic attempts to undermine Prosecutor Mignini have invariably won only MORE popular support for him and his case in Perugia and Italy in general.

3. Click here for post:  Why The Italian Judiciary’s Probably Less Prone to Pressure Than Any Other In The World

Italian magistrates enjoy an extraordinary level of autonomy from the other powers of government (executive and legislative) and the point of this post is to explain why. This autonomy is above all due to the Italian constitutional framework.

That framework is intended to guarantee such an exceptional level of independence so as to avoid the abuses that occurred during Mussolini’s fascist regime, when Italian magistrates were forced by the executive to prosecute (and persecute) political opponents to the fascist dictator…

4. Click here for post:  Explaining How The Italian Appeals Process Works And Why It Consumes So Much Time 

The extraordinary broad appeal rights awarded by the Italian system are all part of the 1989 reform, which intended to add even more guarantees to the right of the accused. This has resulted in an incredible increase in pending cases in the overburdened Italian justice system….

This situation is exacerbated by the broad appeal rights guaranteed also on the 2nd level of appeal, at the Supreme Court of Cassation. Like other supreme courts around the world, such court does not re-examine the entire body of evidence, but only “˜errores in iudicando’ and “˜errores in procedendo’ (errors in procedure or application of the law).

However, unlike its American or English counterparts, the Italian Supreme Court cannot refuse to review a case, and defendants have unlimited appeal rights to the Supreme Court of Cassation. They don’t even have to wait for the Appeal Court. You can in fact appeal to the Supreme Court directly after the first trial. ...

5. Click here for post:  Barbara Benedettelli: Campaigner For Victims And Families Says Italian System Denies Them Justice

There are proportionally very few perpetrators in Italians prison by global standards, and when there in prison they are given quite a nice time, trained to perform usefully when released, and very often get out of prison early.

Seemingly very humane. But this does carry very high costs. There are often almost unbearable pressures on victims’ families, as Meredith’s father John Kercher has several times described. On top of all this, there is the growing western fascination with perps, and in many cases their elevating to popular cult-worship status.

Barbara Benedettelli is a writer and columnist and the editor of the popular “Top Secret” program on Rete4 TV…  Her latest book (only in Italian) is called “Victims Forever”. She talks of various prominent perps and the enormous and unrequiting pressures on victims’ families. In polls a large majority of Italians detest this. They want much less stress on “fairness” and MUCH more compassion for victims families and, if still alive, for the victims.

6. Click here for post:  Harvard Political Review Writer Alex Koenig Reproaches The Sliming of Italy’s Justice System 

The fact of the matter is, those that immediately claim that Knox was wrongly accused and jailed by a corrupt justice system make two extremely arrogant assumptions that reveal perverse American exceptionalism.

1) It is assumed that, as an American ““ an American woman no less ““ Knox is incapable of murder. This case differs, of course, from the 1,176 domestic murders committed by women because, well, who knows?

2) It is assumed that not only is the Italian justice system incapable of fulfilling its legal duties, but that the intentions of the court were swayed by anti-Americanism.

This is not merely an abstract sentiment, but was actually articulated by Senator Maria Cantwell (D) of my home state of Washington.

7. Click here for post:  Interesting Tilts Of Marcia Clark And Alan Dershowitz Toward Educated, Informed Italian-type Juries 

“[American] jury instructions are so numerous and complex, it’s a wonder jurors ever wade through them. And so it should come as no surprise that they can sometimes get stuck along the way. The instruction on circumstantial evidence is confusing even to lawyers. And reasonable doubt? That’s the hardest, most elusive one of all. And I think it’s where even the most fair-minded jurors can get derailed.”

“Well, if you want justice, don’t look to the criminal law system. That’s not its job. Its job is not to produce a just result. Its job is to produce a legally correct result…”

“We’ve opted for a much more democratic system, and it means that in the end you’re going to be dissatisfied with a lot of verdicts. Just don’t expect too much from our legal system. Don’t expect truth. Don’t expect justice, because that’s not what it’s supposed to give you.”

8. Click here for post:  The Chief Enforcer Of The Constitution And The Rule Of Law is Wildly Popular Throughout Italy 

He is said to receive dozens of petitions a day and in certain cases he does act to get things done. Significantly, two that he chose to ignore recently concerned the ongoing Sollecito-Knox appeal process.

Of two pretty blatant attempts to bias the Perugia process, one came from Joel Simon of the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and one came from the junior Berlusconi-party MP Rocco Girlanda.

President Giorgio Napolitano simply ignored both of them.

9. Click here for post:  Compared To Italy, Say, Precisely How Wicked Is The United States? 

We have often remarked that Italy’s crime rate is low, the three mafia families (Sicily, Calabria and Naples) are on the rocks, and the justice system is one of the most cautious - conviction rates are infuriatingly low for the suffering families of victims, but in a forgiving Catholic nation rates of incarceration are unlikely to jump any time soon.

The American incarceration rate in sharp contrast has for a decade led the rest of the world, and it increased every year for nearly 30 straight years from the arrival of President Reagan to the departure of President GW Bush. Its prison rate is ahead of Russia’s, with its mafias and corruption and poverty, and ahead of China’s, with its large population of political prisoners.

10. Click here for post:  Involvement Of The Formidable Carabinieri Shows How Italian Justice Will Not Be Leaned Upon 

Judge Nencini may have invoked the help of the Carabinieri for reasons going beyond simply very good science.

Italy has among the world’s lowest crime-rates, murder-rates and incarceration-rates. Unusually low criminal and anti-social tendencies among native-born Italians, and strong family pride, explains a large part of this.

But another main reason is the high-profile and exceptionally smart police presence. Deliberately a cool presence rather than a hot and intimidating presence, and in fact a very popular one

11. Click here for post:  Italy’s Unpopular Politicians And Mafia Fellow Travelers Against Italy’s Popular Justice System 

For comparison, in 2011 the percentage of Italians who declared they trust the justice system “a lot” or “enough” was 53.3%. By comparison, the percentage of Italians who declared they trust the government “a lot” or “enough”  were 14.7%, and those who trust the parliament were only 15%.

In 2012, the percentage of Italians who trust the parliament is now only 9.5%, and those who trust the Mario Monti administration are only 21.1%.

Over the eight years from 2004 to 2012 the percentage of Italians who trust the justice system was always bigger than those who trust parliament or government by at least ten points, and in some years we can see a spread of 20, 30, even 39 percentage points achieved by the judiciary over the parliament and government.

12. Click here for post:  Italy’s Advanced, Effective, Humane Law & Order System Also Adopted By City Of New York

New York is now the safest big city in America. It is following a route that is not only almost identical to Italy’s - it is being watched and emulated elsewhere across the US….

Now that the United States has the world’s highest reported rate of incarceration, many criminologists are contemplating another strategy. What if America reverted to the penal policies of the 1980s? What if the prison population shrank drastically? What if money now spent guarding cellblocks was instead used for policing the streets?

13. Click here for post:  Italian Prime Minister Renzi Will Push Measures To Speed Up Justice 

In a move popular not least among those who are part of it Mr Renzi announces moves to speed up Italian justice.

Italian justice and those who work in it are widely trusted and respected in Italy. But a very humane system designed post WWII to give those accused a level of rights unique in the world has been even further tilted over the years by politicians passing laws to aid political and business colleagues in legal trouble.

14. Click here for post:  Why Numerous American JUDGES Favor The Supremely Neutral Italian Kind Of System 

See that above at the bottom of the YouTube screen? Some $280 million has been spent since the year 2000. Can you guess what the $280 million was for?

In fact the $280 million is funds raised and spent for judges’ election campaigns in the roughly 3/4 of all American states where such judges’ elections are held - the original intention of which was good: to get judicial choices out of smoke-filled rooms.

15. Click here for post:  Meredith May Not See Justice (Yet) But She Will Leave At Least Three Legacies 

Knox behaved grossly irresponsibly in heading to Perugia under-funded, intent on drug-doing, and with zero intention of seriously studying.

The University of Washington and many others realised they could have huge liabilities if they did not distance themselves a lot from such loose cannons in future.

In October 2009 we reposted this report by Andrea Vogt which described the initiation of measures many American universities have now come to implement….

16. Click here for post:  Counterterrorism: Another Way Italian Law Enforcement Is An Effective Model For Everywhere Else 

A leading military analyst is citing Italy as a model of counterterrorism done right, pointing out that despite many factors going against it, Islamic terrorists have failed to kill a single person on Italian soil.

17. Click here for post:  Italian Justice & The Telling Status Of Extraditions To And From Italy 

If countries agree to extradite to other countries, that suggests a high degree of trust in justice at both ends. They are in effect voting confidence in each other’s justice systems.

Italy achieves an exceptionally high rate of extraditions in both directions and continues to sign more bilateral treaties.

It is clearly trusted almost worldwide as a destination where those charged will receive a fair shake. And it is very no-nonsense about sending back fleeing felons who try to go to ground there.

18. Click here for post:  Knox’s Nasty-Prisons Hoax: NY Times Describes How Italy Leads The World In Rehabilitation 

Around five years ago, largely because of immigrant crimes, the prison population (previously below 100,000 - in the US, California prisons alone hold almost twice that) began to balloon.

New prisons were built, with no expenses spared, and in these images you can see the result.

Stories of extreme over-crowding have gone away, and the New York Times profiles the new prisons and their programs of today.

19. Click here for post:  How The Italian “Justice Tortoise” Is The Likely Winner Compared To For Example the US System 

Italy is working to try to update its justice system right now and we will report on that shortly. At least in theory, it has one of the easiest tasks in the world, because post WWII its legal system was redesigned from the ground up. It had already junked bad aspects, some going back centuries.

Italy already has some of the world’s smartest juries - jury service is compulsory, so smart people cannot dodge them. And the system already has some other very positive things going for it.

Mainly what is needed is some weeding. And such reforms are made easier in Italy because (1) judges and prosecutors all follow career paths and so they are not politically competing with one another;  and (2) there is the Council of Magistrates (CSM) which can be very progressive in the reforms it pushes at its level.

20. Click here for post:  So Where Would YOU Want To Go On Trial? In Italy Or In The U.S.?

We have still not seen even ONE American lawyer claim that after the first trial in 2009 which found RS and AK guilty that there were strong grounds for an appeal.

In the US, back in 2009, full prison terms would have been begun.

And in fact virtually nothing at the 2009 trial was challenged in the appeal. But the defenses subversively organized to get Civil Judge Hellmann instead of Criminal Judge Chiari to preside, and in 2011 a farcical “not guilty” outcome was the result.

Then there was a THIRD jury trial, in 2013-14, which (as so often in Italy) threw out the not guilty outcome of the previous appeal trial.

And finally, in 2015, due to more subversive defense machinations with a little mafia help, the final Supreme Court appeal was assigned to the FIFTH Chambers, for the first murder appeal that Chambers has ever heard.

A second farcical “not guilty” outcome was the result.

Say what you like about the American system, there is not remotely any parallel in its judicial history to all of that.  Quite the opposite in fact. We have had various posts pointing to an increasingly hard line in the US.

Saturday, December 12, 2020

PRIORITY Interrogation Hoax Series #22 IN COURT 2009 EDIT

Posted by Peter Quennell

https://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_amanda_knox_calunnia_trial_in_florence_1

KNOX ON THE STAND

GCM: Fine, fine, all right. Go ahead, pubblico ministero.

GM: I’ll go on with the questions. In the minutes it mentions three people, plus the interpreter. Now, you first said that they suggested things to you. What exactly do you mean by the word “suggestion”, because from your description, I don’t see any suggestion. I mean, what is meant by the Italian word “suggerimento”, I don’t find it.

[Interruptions]

GCM: [quelling them] Excuse me, excuse me, please, please, excuse me, excuse me! Listen, the pubblico ministero is asking you: “suggestions”, you also mentioned words that were “put in your mouth”, versions, things to say, circumstances to describe.

AK: All right. It seems to me that the thoughts of the people standing around me, there were so many people, and they suggested things to me in the sense that they would ask questions like: “Okay, you met someone!” No, I didn’t. They would say “Yes you did, because we have this telephone here, that says that you wanted to meet someone. You wanted to meet him.” No, I don’t remember that. “Well, you’d better remember, because if not we’ll put you in prison for 30 years.” But I don’t remember! “Maybe it was him that you met? Or him? You can’t remember?” It was this kind of suggestion.

GCM: Then you say they said “Maybe you met him?”, did they specify names?

AK: Well, the important fact was this message to Patrick, they were very excited about it. So they wanted to know if I had received a message from him—

[Interruptions]

...

GCM: So the pubblico ministero was asking about the suggestions. All right?

AK: Sure.

GCM: So, you were the one who gave the first indication, introducing this generic pronoun “him”? This “him”, did they say who it could be?

AK: It was because of the fact that they were saying that I apparently had met someone and they said this because of the message, and they were saying “Are you sure you don’t remember meeting THIS person, because you wrote this message.”

GCM: In this message, was there the name of the person it was meant for?

AK: No, it was the message I wrote to my boss. The one that said “Va bene. Ci vediamo piu tardi. Buona serata.”

GCM: But it could have been a message to anyone. Could you see from the message to whom it was written?

AK: Actually, I don’t know if that information is in the telephone. But I told them that I had received a message from Patrick, and they looked for it in the telephone, but they couldn’t find it, but they found the one I sent to him.

GCM: I also wanted to ask you for the pubblico ministero, you wrote this message in Italian. I wanted to ask you, since you are an English speaker, what do you do when you wrote in Italian? Do you first think in English, and then translate into Italian, or do you manage to think directly in Italian?

AK: No, at that time, I first thought in English, then I would translate, and then write.

GCM: So that clarifies that phrase. Go ahead, pubblico ministero, but I think we’ve exhausted the question.

GM: Yes, yes. I just wanted one concept to be clear: that in the Italian language, “suggerire” means “indicate”, someone who “suggests” a name actually says the name and the other person adopts it. That is what “suggerimento” is, and I…so my question is, did the police first pronounce the name of Patrick, or was it you? And was it pronounced after having seen the message in the phone, or just like that, before that message was seen?

??: Objection! Objection!

GM: On page 95, I read—

CDV:Before the objection, what was the question?

GM: The question was: the question that was objected was about the term “suggerimento”. Because I interpret that word this way: the police say “Was it Patrick?” and she confirms that it was Patrick. This is suggestion in the Italian language.

GCM: Excuse me, please, excuse me. Let’s return to the accused. What was the suggestion, because I thought I had understood that the suggestion consisted in the fact that Patrick Lumumba, to whom the message was addressed, had been identified, they talked about “him, him, him”. In what terms exactly did they talk about this “him”? What did they say to you?

AK: So, there was this thing that they wanted a name. And the message—

GCM: You mean, they wanted a name relative to what?

AK: To the person I had written to, precisely. And they told me that I knew, and that I didn’t want to tell. And that I didn’t want to tell because I didn’t remember or because I was a stupid liar. Then they kept on about this message, that they were literally shoving in my face saying “Look what a stupid liar you are, you don’t even remember this!” At first, I didn’t even remember writing that message. But there was this interpreter next to me who kept saying “Maybe you don’t remember, maybe you don’t remember, but try,” and other people were saying “Try, try, try to remember that you met someone, and I was there hearing “Remember, remember, remember,” and then there was this person behind me who—it’s not that she actually really physically hurt me, but she frightened me…

GCM: “Remember!” is not a suggestion. It is a strong solicitation of your memory. Suggestion is rather…

AK: But it was always “Remember” following this same idea, that…

GCM: But they didn’t literally say that it was him!

AK: No. They didn’t say it was him, but they said “We know who it is, we know who it is. You were with him, you met him.”

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Amanda_Knox’s_Testimony

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https://sorrytelevision.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/i-read-the-amanda-knox-memoir-so-you-dont-have-to/

(other good stuff in comments there)

If you ask any Cop about the reaction of an innocent person when the police try to bluff them about what the person in the next room is saying about their role in a crime, they will make make one of two responses:

The first is to to tell the police that they don’t believe that they have said it, and will usually follow that up with a demand to confront their accuser which more or less destroys the bluff.

The alternative is to say that they don’t know why they are saying this because it’s untrue.

Knox did neither. Instead, she gave a version which supported the allegation RS made made against her of seeking a false alibi. RS never denies saying this.

In fact he gave a total of eight different accounts as to what he did on the night of the murder, and two of them allowed for Knox to have committed the crime on her own because he claimed she was not with him at the key time.

My recollection of the case, was that the police had no interest in Lumumba until he was named by Knox, so the idea that they were trying to nail Lumumba at that stage of the proceedings lacks substance.

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