Yet Another Smear Campaign By Candace Dempsey On Hearst’s For-Profit Defense Blog




This infamous area of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a long history of trashing the prosecutor and witnesses.

And seemingly intent on trashing anyone seeking justice in the Meredith Kercher case. Even trashing the victim herself.

Now it comes up with another sneering story about the Kercher-case prosecutor, Mr Mignini, in a minor scrape on a totally unrelated case.

Paid advertisements run conspicuously alongside the piece.

Giuliano Mignini is the kind of hard-driving, results-getting, really-caring prosecutor most victims would die for. That is, if they were actually still alive.

Meredith’s interests could not be served better. He just put Guede away, for a stiff 30 years.

Only a tiny minority of readers seem to go along with that callous blog writer. Most who seek fairness seem to simply get deleted.

And it seems to be doing the defendants no good at all. These were the first two comments to appear under the piece.

I honestly have no idea of what this blog article is about as regards the Kercher case.

Mignini authorised a wire-tap in that other case. The correctness of that authorisation has been called into question.

What does that have to do with the Perugia case?

I agree with [the comment above] on this one. I tend to think that the whole Monster of Florence story has been very unhelpful to the defense of Amanda Knox, because it has sidetracked many of her supporters into following a completely irrelevant story.

What would have been more useful, from Amanda’s point of view, would have been if those same supporters had spent the same time and energy looking at the evidence in the Meredith Kercher case, and in building a credible defense for Amanda Knox.

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Comments

I liked that last comment. I’ve been noticing what a superficial grasp the “friends” of Amanda have on the evidence. What you’ve been explaining here seems like way over their heads. Biscotti did not do very well for Guede though he’d promised a lot. Maybe all of the defence will look like straw men soon.

They should get to work and stop blustering, Amanda is not being properly helped at all. I want a long sentence if she did it, but I want to see her best shot at a defence first.

That stupid blog is really hurting her. It’s really sick.

Posted by Anne on 11/15/08 at 07:58 PM | #

the cook got the ‘copyright’ to the evil one photo from the sexy one blogger.  i remember he snapped it for his blog with a glee that must be seen as suspicious for its inappropriateness.

the evil one is watching him and his strange blog that opened the day of the murder and before the body was discovered - perhaps that is the sexy ones game after all.

Posted by rob on 11/15/08 at 10:17 PM | #

Apart from the fact that the prosecutor who faces charges of abuse of office in another, totally unrelated case, is the same one who is co-prosecuting in the Meredith Kercher case, there is no logical link between the two cases.

Blog owners are free to opine on any subject they wish, naturally, but one has to wonder given the larger context of this particular blog. For the past year, it has been about one thing: the Meredith Kercher case. So readers may well wonder why the focus today is on charges Mignini faces in a totally unrelated case, especially when Amanda Knox’s own defense team doesn’t seem to have made Mignini’s alleged abuse of office in a totally unrelated case a part of their defensive strategy. Which is a good thing, because that would be a sign that their line of defense is extremely weak.

What is more troublesome is that this particular blog owner actively promoted Doug Preston’s upcoming book on the Monster of Florence case by inviting Preston to be interviewed on the Meredith Kercher case, knowing that he had a book to sell in which Mignini is featured and that he had a score to settle.

Incidentally, Preston said in the interview that it was clear as day that a lone attacker had killed Meredith Kercher. It seems that a long enough series of investigators and judges have argued otherwise for that point to finally be discarded.

He also noted that he was able to tell just by looking at a photo of Raffaele Sollecito that he was not a killer. I guess he didn’t see the one where Raffaele is dressed as a mad surgeon, holding a meat cleaver in one hand and some kind of liquid cleaner in the other. Obviously, I don’t wish to imply that this photo makes Raffaele Sollecito a killer, but Preston’s statement is ludicrous in the extreme.

At the end of this interview, Doug Preston offers qualified reviewers advance copies of his forthcoming book. And as soon as the book comes out, the blog owner posts a glowing review. No laws are broken in the process, but the whole thing feels kind of wrong. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

Posted by Skeptical Bystander on 11/16/08 at 12:54 AM | #

Yeah, I just found that 8 February post of the interview with Doug Preston, and it sure makes quaint reading right now. Good one for us to take apart in a post.

He was as definite as Ciolino, perhaps the most categoric of all the commentators, that this was a simple rape. Rosy expectations, which Judge Micheli has already crashed.

The PI blogger is totally nuts to further aggravate the prosecutor and so Italy generally. What is she trying to do, have 10 years added to Amanda’s sentence if guilty?

The first comment by Anne above is very interesting. Amanda DOES deserve a competent defense. I buy that.

Dont hold your breath waiting for THESE money-grubbing clowns to come up with one though.

Posted by Fast Pete on 11/16/08 at 01:13 AM | #

I would like to thank the people who spend their spare time fighting deliberate misinformation. 

The blog hosted by Hearst and operated by C. D. is an attempt at preventing justice. 

Amanda Knox is presented as the victim, yet the known facts about the case do not lead me to believe that Amanda Knox is a victim. 

Ethical journalists do not spread information that is clearly misleading and Hearst does condone this for I have personally send several Emails to several people at the SeatllePI complaining about the misrepresentations made by the blogger and that she has deleted scores of my posts. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not know anyone involved in this case personally and I have never been to any of the countries of the people involved in this case, ie the victim’s and the suspected or convicted killers’ countries. 

I only know about them from reports in the media and blogs.

Posted by Observer on 11/25/08 at 07:25 AM | #

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