Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Should The Knox Defense Point The Finger At An Angry Daddy?

Posted by Our Main Posters




1. State Of Judicial Process

Given a level playing field (a big if) it seems for now that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are almost certainly going down for the final count.

There is not the slightest sign that their defense lawyers know how to contend with the Supreme Court appeal filed by Umbria’s chief prosecutor Dr Galati. One may have already walked (Maori) and the fact that the others don’t respond publicly to the Galati filing speaks volumes to Italian lawyers.

If the first appeal (called in Italy the second level) is rerun in whole or in part, Sollecito and Knox could see Judge Massei’s “mitigating factors” annulled and find themselves each facing 30 years inside or even life.

The whole thrust of Sollecito’s ill-timed book (subtitle “how to shoot oneself in both feet”) is that he deserves to serve less time than Amanda Knox (who he “nobly saved”) and preferably to serve no time at all.

2. Sliding Scales Of Discussions

Many bright people follow the case. We have many lawyers and crime experts and even judges read here. Many took a long time to settle on a “guilt” point of view and approached it very professionally (reflected in many of the posts written by professionals here). This is contrary to the klutzy, amateurish FOA campaign and their inaccurate rants about “haters”.

There are various great sliding scales or continuums in considering all aspects of this case. A lot of what we talk about on PMF and TJMK is where, precisely, we should all come down on each of these various scales at the end of the day. Especially of course how the judges in Rome and Perugia should calibrate them.

Via Dr Galati’s appeal and especially Sollecito’s book, we now have a new one. If reconvicted, should Sollecito and Knox serve equal time? Or should one or other serve more? Let us approach this by considering first some of the most-discussed of the sliding scales.

1) Was Knox a good friend of Meredith or increasingly a pariah?

Many here incline strongly to pariah.

Knox has an obvious tin ear and sharp elbows, was doing little study in Perugia, was making life hell for all her flatmates, was bringing noisy threatening lowlife men home (the other three virtually never brought men home), was disturbing Meredith’s studies, was hitting on patrons in Patrick’s bar, and was definitely into drugs to the extent that she might already have become an addict.

2) Pre-meditated murder or a hazing or spontaneous spiral initiated by Guede?

At least some here incline to the view espoused by some psychologists that Knox and Sollecito were probably both at minimum fantasizing violence, Knox against Meredith, and Sollecito long-term generically.

Knox had become threatened by Meredith in several different ways: Meredith was prettier, was much funnier, had won the best available boy, was brighter, had a tougher study regime, was more directed and ambitious, and had left Knox in the dust on all fronts. Hints that Meredith was about to get Knox’s job at Patrick’s bar could have been the last straw.

To most here, Knox has always seemed the initiator and the leader in the rage against Meredith, and the other two were possibly drawn in by group dynamics.

Judge Micheli certainly believed this. Judge Massei might have done, and his pointing at Guede (espoused in spades by Hellmann and Zanetti) and Massei’s “mitigating factors” both seemed “humane” stretches to give them a few years off - stretches which Chief Prosecutor Galati in his appeal and the Supreme Court in their finding on Guede have already both rejected.

3) Isolated crime/unique family or does American society incline this way?

Statistics show that society here in the US is separated out between super-rich and the other 99% more than at any time in the past 80 years and although productivity has been going up amazingly, all fruits of growth have gone to those super-rich. Many of them have a mindset that basically tells them they made it on their own, and government roles in their success and that of their creative hard-working employees dont matter a damn.

The situation and the anger in the US has been worsening, and absence of true growth for most people also have European and Japanese societies in disarray

In the US one can see heightened levels of anger in the losers of the Superbowl, in the renewed buying of guns, in conspiracy theories on the Internet, in the success of the very thought-provoking Hunger Games books and movie (small people against rich and a captured, cruel over-militarized government), in politics (of course!), and in the vitriolic flames on the IMDB movie forums now against the front-runner movies and actors for the Oscars.

We may not see this at major play here in the crime against Meredith, though, except in the over-competition sense, and the sense that Knox grew up in slight poverty (see below) and was burning through her savings with all the cocaine use (Perugia cops think it was cocaine)

4) Mental ill health in the perps and/or families or original evil?

Sollecito’s dad has long admitted that Raffaele is not normal, and he has struggled to keep him off drugs and focussed hard on his studies. His dad also admitted to all Italy that Sollecito included defamatory lies in his book.

An open and shut case? Seems so. Raffaele now looks “uncomplicatedly” psychopathic and the myriad wrong and nasty claims in his chest-beating book really hammer this take on him home.

That book seems to be his equivalent of Knox’s abrasive, uncaring two days on the stand in 2009 which so damaged her with the Massei jury.

Knox’s mental health seems more complicated. She was widely known to be “quirky” as a kid and then she became pretty wild in Seattle after she moved to live near the university. That certainly wouldn’t have helped.

Most recently, Knox seems to be sliding away into a bubble world without any possibility of admitting she needs treatment, which seems to explain her being kept well out of sight for a year now and not working or studying.

Generally the PROSECUTION in Perugia has been the side to suggest she is not mentally fully well (after the psychological tests in Capanne Prison in 2008) and the DEFENSE and FAMILY has been the side that shrugs this off and hasn’t made it any part of her defence.

Knox seems to have given off plenty of signs in the days after Meredith died that she was alternating between glee and horror. So she seemingly did know what she was doing on the night, and our guess is that it was she who pushed the knife in. In these circumstances the original verdict and sentence seem appropriate.

However!

5) Knox made herself what she was or did her family contribute?

Curt Knox’s seeming blind rage at Edda during their marriage and for years after are an open secret among some in Seattle. He apparently had one of the worst records in the entire US in not paying child support to Edda for Amanda and Deanna, and had again and again to be taken to Superior Court by Edda to be forced to make his monthly payments.

Here are two public records showing two instances of him being taken to Superior Court by Edda.

And we are told that Curt Knox was counseled by one or more judges to get himself some anger management therapy. Apparently he wasn’t formally required to take anger management therapy. He may have done so, though there seems no record that he ever did.

Okay. Not all kids growing up in such toxic family situations suffer, but some do, and a few end up with their hard wiring seriously messed up. Some even end up as drug-takers and murderers.

The classic example recently was the mass killer Anders Breivek in Norway, whose early childhood in a toxic family situation was not entirely unlike Knox’s. (In that case also, the prosecution thought maybe he was nuts, and the defense, successfully, argued otherwise.)

Italian lawyers tell us that it would be for the DEFENSE to bring this up in Perugia if it is a possible mitigating factor, and that it doesnt impinge on the prosecution’s case.

But how could they?

Curt Knox was apparently the one who shushed Amanda Knox at their first meeting in Capanne Prison, Curt Knox was apparently the one who misled her about the world-wide skepticisim against her (she didnt know about that until she came out of prison), and Curt Knox was apparently the one who drove the nasty PR bus - and most recently hosted all of the worst of the rabid PR nuts (including Sforza and Fischer) in Seattle.

Curt Knox has apparently consistently instructed the defense lawyers and PR honchos to keep the pedal to the floor, even though Chris Mellas once openly argued against that. Amanda Knox may have pushed the knife in, but Curt Knox for five years has not come clean about his own possible role in any mental condition.

Our present conclusion

Without a lot more information on Amanda Knox’s early days in her broken home in Seattle, and her current mental condition and condition back in 2007, it is pretty hard to calibrate this. It is not really possible to be precise about where she should be on any sliding scale of time deserved in prison if she is finally convicted.

It is really incumbent upon the defense counsel in Italy (their lawyers’ code of ethics requires this) to push hard for this information, and if they think it relevant to present it to court at any rerun of the appeal trial.

Amanda Knox herself should want this.

Comments

My guess is as good as any others (it is only a guess, after all) - I shall tick all the above boxes.

In my daily job I interact with young students extensively and I am quite confident that any violent action at this ripe young age is usually a toxic mix of reasons. So I would generally agree with your “present conclusion”. except that “Amanda Knox herself should want this”- no, that is not going to happen anytime soon.

Your point #3 is interesting. You are overlooking the victim side of the story.

But what about RS?

By their own admissions, they are made for each other. In this case, 1+1 makes 3. Seriously.

As we discussed their share of responsibilities in an earlier post, I personally think that the AK+RS match was made in hell. All the 5 points you wrote above are individually of no consequence. The scale was tipped when AK met RS. The die was cast that day.

Posted by chami on 02/06/13 at 09:05 PM | #

Almost everyone knows my opinions on all five crucial questions above. 

(1) Any goodwill they had towards one another had completely evaporated by the night of the murder. 

(2) It’s difficult to visualise an innocent explanation for Knox transporting a knife from Sollecito’s to the cottage that night.

(3) North America, Europe, and Japan are considerably safer and more productive now than they were as recently as the first half of the last century.  Crime statistics likewise indicate a drop in violence.

(4) Knox’s mental health was not made a part of the criminal proceedings against her.  Moreover, there were three aggressors that night rather than one and few if any mental illnesses are contagious.  One condition that is contagious is the group dynamic as violence escalates against one selected as an ‘outsider’.  Q.v Reena Virk’s murder or, very recently, the bullying attack against Baileigh Karam in California.

(5) There’s ample evidence that Knox could do no wrong in the eyes of her family.  Her biological father has been shown to have known that she was involved in the murder through his own words and actions in the days leading to Guede’s arrest.  Yet he has consistently denied his own feelings and likely due to his stature in the community.

Is Curt Knox any different in this, though, than Judge Hellmann?  Hellmann could clearly see the connection between the calunnia against Patrick—supported by all the evidence against Knox—and Meredith’s murder, yet did everything within his power to excuse her behaviour.

Posted by Stilicho on 02/06/13 at 09:43 PM | #

Nice thinking Stilicho. Always respected here.

Dr Galati labeled the proceedings presided over by Hellmann and Zanetti as “illegal” in several instances. We’ll see if Cassation agrees. As Yummi recently posted and as we have mentioned more in comments (and also eventually will post much more on)  already those judges have faced quite a reckoning. 

The Council of Magistrates denied Hellmann a key post he wanted and edged him into retirement. Zanetti has ended up at the small court in Terni - a post he said he wanted, although maybe to get away from universal ridicule by his Perugia colleagues who respect Mignin, Micheli, Massei, Chiari (the judge who was pushed aside for Hellmann) and Galati.

It would be nice to see AK and RS and Curt Knox and Hellmann and Zanetti all formally sanctioned for this crime upon crime upon crime, but even if that doesnt all come about their comeuppance is happening already.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/06/13 at 10:03 PM | #

Chami, with regard to whether Amanda would roll over on her dad.

I dont know if its in a majority of divorce cases but the estranged parent without custody often ends up as the idolised one by the kids involved, while the one that has custody has to battle for their child support and do a ton of work for them on top of that and even make them eat their spinach.

This might apply to Knox now. Her relations with her mom seem to have been fragile and she sure took off for the university and then Europe in a way that suggested she wanted more liberty. She also took off from the K-M home for Seattle mid-town with alacrity soon after her end-2011 release from prison.

Anders Breivek in the report by the Iraeli psychologist linked to above idolised his “tough” absentee dad and had contempt for his “soft” and “overweaning” mom who he lived with.  But it actually was the dad that angrily broke up the marriage, and thereafter behaved pretty horribly. He evntually cut all ties with Breivek.

In his huge manifesto (in English, go figure) Breivek STILL idolised his dad This came out starkly at trial, when his mom testified against him.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/06/13 at 10:15 PM | #

Well written Peter. Just one small point though. I believe the reason that Knox has been kept under wraps even to the extent of isolation, is that Curt and others who have a monetary claim on her future (Book notwithstanding) are terrified to let her out in public just in case she blows their entire scenario. ( no interviews at all) Curt Knox and company are not above creating a criminal scam in order to make money. Curt Knox over the years has shown his motivation of using others for monetary gain. I have always maintained that in order for them to make any money they have to throw AK under the bus thereby creating some sort of a mini scandal once more and improving book sales. It’s their only recourse after all.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 02/06/13 at 10:44 PM | #

Curt Knox controls and maybe finances almost all of the defamers and smoke-blowers such as Bruce Fischer, and if he chose to, he could reign all of them in in a heartbeat.

Maybe not Frank Sforza, who has good reason to fear prison in the US and Italy and blows smoke now like a factory (to their credit the K-Ms are said to have thrown Sforza out when he tried to paw Amanda).

Obviously not Raffaele Sollcito, though his team seem to have given Sollecito a lot of help (to Sollecito’s present discomfort). But certainly he controls and hosts and maybe finances the US based car full of clowns.

Italian lawyers telll us they have never ever seen anything like the brutality that is now being vented toward the victim’s family, the Kerchers, by Candace Dempsey, Steve Moore’s wife, and the worst of them all, as usual Bruce Fischer. 

The family lawyer Maresca is retained (and paid for by the Kerchers) for a reason every Italian understands but these dimwits dont.

The Italian system is sharply imbalanced like almost no other system in the world toward giving every possible break to the defendants. The purpose of the lawyer for the victims or their families is the to provide s small token semblance of balance.

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

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

If the Italian system was not so imbalanced, as in the UK and US, Knox and Sollecito would not even have been granted any first appeal. And Maresca is driving none of the calamities now heade RS’s and AK’s way.

To help himself and his daughter. Curt Knox should at minimum place that abuse off-limits.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/06/13 at 11:23 PM | #

Pete,

If Curt Knox thinks he can Instruct AK’s lawyers because he is paying them, he should be mistaken. AK is their client, not Curt.

AK’s lawyers owe to AK the duty of Zealously Representing her, with Undivided-Loyalty.

Posted by Cardiol MD on 02/07/13 at 12:03 AM | #

Great picture 😊

I’m not sure where Curt Knox stands in regard to the rest of the family. Someone suggested Curt works with Marriott and Chris Mellas supervises the grassroots operation, but I think that’s an oversimplification.

I’m struck that RS pointedly did not thank Curt Knox in the acknowledgments for Honor Bound (the only family member who was not thanked).

Meanwhile Curt didn’t turn out for last year’s shindig on Vashon Island.

Is he angry that he isn’t getting a piece of the media money, or his he just angry?

P.S. Regarding Stilicho’s comment about the state of relations between Meredith and Knox on 1-NOV, we know that Meredith felt bad for not having returned Knox’s texts on Halloween. Meredith told friends she was trying to repair her relationship with Knox. We may never know whether there was another setback on the afternoon of 1-NOV, but I suspect there was. Sollecito said Meredith didn’t say much, which is at odds with Knox’s unconvincing attempt to portray the three of them as chummy before Meredith left for Robyn’s house.

Posted by brmull on 02/07/13 at 02:23 AM | #

Wow..and thank you.

I was struck that RS did not acknowledge Frank…

Posted by Bettina on 02/07/13 at 06:51 AM | #

Hi Cardiol

We all know! We all agree. Only AK is the client. She can direct HER lawyers in any way she wishes.

We dont know for sure whether Amanda Knox or her proxies ever read here though there are strong signs that some do.

But if she wants to try to mitigate a 30 year sentence and obtain some sympathy from any new court, this opens up one way. 

I already agreed with Chami above though that it would not be easy for AK to roll over on her dad, though loyalty to anyone is not known as her strong point.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/07/13 at 08:47 AM | #

That would depend upon how much control Curt has over AK. She has never struck me as being someone who would stand up in this way but would leave things to others in the hope that it would just all go away.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 02/07/13 at 05:28 PM | #

@brmull re: “Meredith told friends she was trying to repair her relationship with Knox.”

———-

Are you sure about this?  It’s tough to reconcile this statement with the hours-long complaint sessions against Knox or the pages ripped from AK’s diaries.

Go back to AK’s trial testimony where she is asked directly about the testimony of Meredith’s English friends:

LG: For instance on the fact that there was a certain friction between you and—between the roommates. The English girls all said that there was some friction in the house over some specific facts. Do you agree with this, with what the girls said?

AK: Well, actually, I was astonished and didn’t feel right about what they said, because I don’t think I deserved that attitude. I never did anything with them that deserved that.

I stand by my assessment that any goodwill the two had previously built was entirely gone by the week prior to Meredith’s murder.  I think Meredith’s friends would agree with me.

Posted by Stilicho on 02/07/13 at 11:43 PM | #

Where on earth did you get this photo?! 

Papa Knox looks very angry indeed but then he always does.

One question: Should Cassazione approve the appeal and any subsequent court hearings / appeals declare them to be guilty, does Italian law permit an increase in the sentence imposed by the first court? 

It was mentioned here somewhere that AK may end up with the full term of 30 years after all. 

Is that actually possible?

Posted by thundering on 02/08/13 at 02:18 AM | #

Hi Peter & the other excellent posters,

re: (Perugia cops think it was cocaine)

From the 1st I read of this case, back in the “old days” (sadly it’s not over yet), I always thought there is NO WAY that Meredith died because of the perpetrators’ use of marijuana - at least not on its own, and not by its use by balanced, healthy,  individuals. I also thought that there’s no way AK & RS could have such nearly absolute amnesia from a joint (marijuana alone) or even 5 joints.  It’s preposterous, and medically impossible from all my reading of the research, many decades years of life experience, world travel, and anecdotal evidence combined.

I’ve read occasionally, and only on this site, of cocaine use/abuse by AK & RS. That was my 1st thought when reading about them and this case: that that behaviour (the perps’ towards Meredith - so irrational, violent, and short-sighted) was in fact well explained by use/abuse of illegal stimulants, particularly cocaine abuse, but also meth, et al. As for explaining AK/RS’s alleged amnesia (which I don’t for a moment believe), the use/abuse of hard drugs like cocaine, especially if combined with chemical/emotional imbalance (which results anyway from hard drug abuse) is more probable than is the poor old unprocessed herb, cannabis.

Cocaine use is also a faster way to burn through $$ (which AK was doing), than pot. A little costs a lot.  Marijuana is not in the same cost/quantity category (as cocaine) in any country except perhaps Columbia.  And AK & RS were obviously in Italy at the time the amazing Meredith was brutally tortured and killed.

“Normal” people smoking a joint or 2 do not get violent. Average people abusing cocaine DO!

If anyone here could provide more info on the offline or official documentation re: AK & RS hard drug use, I would be very interested to know of it.

Thank you all for your integrity, intellectual and fair analysis, and commitment to finding justice for Meredith.

Posted by all4justice on 02/08/13 at 03:19 AM | #

Hi all4justice, I’m sure you know the drug angle has been discussed many times on PMF. Here’s what we know:

1) Most of us now think that Rudy was “a person who could get drugs” rather than a dealer.

2) Giuseppe Castellini, the editor of Giornale dell’Umbria, still believes firmly that Kokomani was telling the truth when he said Guede was one of his dealers. I’m doubtful but it has to be taken seriously because Castellini is in a good position to know.

3) Guede’s friend Viktor said that Guede once bought cocaine on the steps of the duomo, on behalf of a group of students going to a club. Viktor said that at some point later Guede became very afraid of those dealers and he wondered if Guede had had some sort of a fight with them.

4) Guede’s friend Momi said that Guede used cocaine and became aggressive when he did so.

5) Both said that Guede had episodes of bizarre behavior such as barking like a dog in which friends wondered if he was on drugs. He would also fall asleep at odd times. Both said that to their knowledge Guede was not a dealer.

6) Guede’s friend Benedetti said that Guede spent a lot of money and had no apparent source of income. Benedetti said he gave Guede money on a regular basis. He could not rule out that Guede was a small-time dealer, but found it hard to believe it could be any more than that.

7) Guede of course indignantly protested that he was not a dealer, and although I wouldn’t bet a large amount of money on it, my instinct is that he was telling the truth.

8) The press seems to have misinterpreted when the police said, Guede “may have been involved in the drug trade” to mean he was “drug dealer” and this became established lore even in Italy. His friends didn’t know it. Some Perugians who spoke to the media called him a drug dealer but they probably heard it from the media.

9) What’s not in doubt is that Guede used cocaine, at least occasionally, and that he bought it for other people on at least one occasion. There’s a fine line between buying for other people and being a dealer yourself, so that’s how he may have come into conflict with the dealers on the Duomo.

Someone on IIP argued that Knox and Sollecito couldn’t have bought drugs from Guede that night because there wasn’t enough time to get high from the end of Amelie at 9:10 (or, if you will, 9:30 when Curatolo first saw them in Piazza Grimana). I disagree. I think you can get high on cocaine in a matter of minutes and there would have been time enough to commit the murder as early as 10pm.

Alternatively they may have already had the drugs, but then the reason for them to hook up with Guede is less clear.

It is also suspicious that not just Meredith’s but also probably Knox’s rent money was missing.

Posted by brmull on 02/08/13 at 09:17 AM | #

Is Vedova trying to stop Curt’s jaw from sagging, or quivering?

Posted by James Raper on 02/08/13 at 11:45 AM | #

He is now! Italian media are picking up on this story. About time Curt’s role before and after Meredith’s death so carefully kept quiet was brought out into the glare of daylight and examined.

You can see above how Stilicho etc who have studied him consider him really bad news. He seems a huge coward in two respects.

One in taking his extreme anger out on his two little girls and making them grow up in poverty, and one in not allowing AK and her defense to go for the short-form trial, with a bid for sympathy, which would have exposed his own role in Meredith’s murder. 

Dalla Vedova would not have known about whats explained in the post - while it is known quite widely in Seattle, it is not at all in Perugia - and might now be feeling quite shocked and quite betrayed.

Dalla Vedova has zero expertise to offer at Supreme Court level, which is maybe why he has nastily tried to undermine Mignini, by persuading a judge to refer the AK calunnia suit to Florence (as discussed on PMF, you James were part of that) and bundling Mignini into it.

In Florence, that suit will be sent back to Perugia (though Mignini is in good shape in Florence) and Mignini will be detached from it again (he wasnt defamed as he wasnt at the interrogation). But it will again be out of the media for some months. 

Dalla Vadova was an odd choice as his law practice (in Rome) is mostly business. Bongiorno and Maori for RS are both better qualified than he and Ghirga are, though Maori has walked, and none of the other three outclass Galati.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/08/13 at 04:57 PM | #

Hi Thundering.

Yes Curt Knox doesnt look very amused. The appeal court can throw out Massei’s mitigating circumstances (Hellmann and Zanetti were asked to do that but didnt) in which case the sentences revert by law to 30 years or life.

Of all the defense lawyers, Dalla Vedova the naive business lawyer in the photo seems the only one who has swallowed the “innocence” line of RS and AK hook line and sinker.

He seems at times almost as rabid as the FOA who we are told he may talk to - and maybe now seriously mislead as to AK’s prospects at Supreme Court appeal. 

Sollecitos lawyers dont care for Sollecito at all. Ghirga quite likes Ak and pats her on the head, but he is a criminal lawyer, and his tuned instincts must tell him to be cautious..

Although he looks a nice guy Dalla Vedova has pulled off some of the sleaziest stunts in the past 4 years. Being from Rome he may look down upon the Perugia group, but they look down on him too.

Especially as he’s faking being a criminal lawyer. We suspect he has been the #1 selective leaker of evidence, a sleazy and disloyal move at best as it has escalated US audience anger at Italy.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/09/13 at 01:31 AM | #

“Amanda Knox was not brutalized by Mignini but by her own father”. Could this be really true ?

Posted by aethelred23 on 02/09/13 at 01:56 AM | #

Hi aethelred23. Not entirely. Edda is said to have been the one to have born the brunt but even before she could talk AK could have been an onlooker during extreme tantrums. Deanna was not born before Curt Knox moved out, and they maybe never lived together under one roof.

The arrival on the scene of Chris Mellas might have been the change factor. Edda may have had more income and seemingly didnt sue Curt any more. Chris was known to have gone in for extreme teasing (“obtuse retard”) and AK might have thought she’d gone from the frying pan into the fire.

No wonder she turned out at minimum manic and maybe herself suppressing a cold anger (not unlike Breivek) which periodically in some circumstances got to be hot. The top post suggests that Knox knew what she was doing, during and after the attack on Meredith, so getting real time off will be a long shot now.

But if Curt Knox did set up the psychological preconditions for the attack, her too deserves to pay a heavy price - and a price too for the vicious PR campaign of the past five years, which he never, ever reigned in.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/09/13 at 03:17 AM | #

I have a question regarding those “tantrums” that supposedly took place in the Knox home . Were they limited to verbal aggression , for instance Curt shouting at Edda, or did they proceed into physical violence as well ? Was Knox beaten as a child ? May she even have been the victim of sexual abuse, given the fact the attack carried out against Meredith was of a sexual nature ?

Posted by aethelred23 on 02/09/13 at 06:27 AM | #

Onlooker. We have been told of nothing more. The post says its for AK’s family or friends or lawyers to bring this out if they consider it helpful to her. Or she could herself insist.

As the lawyer Cardiol observed in his comment up above, Amanda Knox is the ONLY client of the counsel for the defence. Not Curt Knox. And its her neck on the block.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/09/13 at 03:10 PM | #

As I’ve said before, I think that Amanda would have been better off completing her prison sentence.  Her family and everyone who jumped on the FOA bandwagon for personal gain have done a lot of serious and lasting damage to her.  I don’t think that she’s in a good place psychologically (or that she ever was), and I’m skeptical about her ability to live a quasi-normal life.

They’ve paraded her in the media, opened her up for dissection, and done some pretty disgusting things in her name (like smearing Mignini, attacking Mr. Kercher, or harassing people who don’t believe in her innocence).  The “freedom” they bought her seems more terrible than a term at Capanne.

Of course, the way out has always been at her disposal - confess, return to Capanne, and serve out her sentence.  I’m under no illusion that prison is easy in any way, but with some structure and counseling, she could come out in better shape than she is today.

Posted by Vivianna on 02/09/13 at 04:25 PM | #

Three points of interests

Vivianna,

I remember that Knox was very happy while in prison, singing and dancing etc: I would suspect that being in a controlled society where someone else made the rules had a calming effect upon her.

brmull,

Then there’s Merediths missing money and Knox sudden wealth which source of has never been established. Point is this could be as simple as a robbery/argument/accusations gone wrong which was the tipping point to all of Knox frustrations and of her feelings of inferiority and stupidity which later events proved to be the case.

Peter,

Curt Knox’s appearance upon the scene and the current P/R campaign was, and is, laughable particularly such stupidity as the break-in and all the other ridiculous excuses for AKs behavior afterwards. Having read some of the nonsense on her web page it never ceases to amaze me how stupid these people are.

Posted by Grahame Rhodes on 02/09/13 at 04:46 PM | #

I am a part-time photographer and I am enchanted by the picture. Amazing.

I wonder what he was saying.

Posted by Yummi on 02/10/13 at 04:16 AM | #

Yes, an ideal picture for a caption contest.

But there is a depressing side too.

Divorces are becoming more of the norm rather than an exception. We were taught “what cannot be cured, must be endured” but today we see more of “what cannot be mended, must be ended”. If no child is involved, it is fine and welcome. But what if…

It is not the physical abuse that matters most: physical scars heal but emotional scars expand and fill the whole mind. We do not know what to say or not to say. Communication fails completely.

Most children are smart and do hide their feelings. Some become disturbed; some introverted and again some fail to communicate. All become terribly lonely. This is the greatest killer. It kills yourself and your spirit.

Once they become an introvert and later lonely, they are lost forever. They are hardly influenced by others and the course has been set.

I think AK was mostly happy in Perugia. But the beast finally caught up with her. I think, someway, she was trying to run away from herself.

Posted by chami on 02/10/13 at 08:38 PM | #

Hi Pete.

Thank you for the explanation.

I hadn’t realised the slander / calunnia trial date was upon us.  I suppose the Defense received their orders and I wonder how much Amanda herself has a say in what goes on now that she is out and able to get the full take on what is happening.

Or perhaps she is imprisoned by being beholden to ‘Knox Family plc’ for securing her ‘release’. 

Trapped. 

Yet, as Vivianna so rightly says, she can certainly break free - with a little bit of will power.

But there again, it could be quite scary cutting away from all those resources to go it alone .....

Posted by thundering on 02/11/13 at 04:11 AM | #

Andrea Vogt tweet:

Italy’s high court: #Florence abuse of office charges against #amandaknox prosecutor G.Mignini for MOF case are “inadmissible.”

Posted by Helder Licht on 02/11/13 at 08:24 AM | #

Vindicated!

Posted by thundering on 02/11/13 at 11:42 AM | #

Thanks Helder and Thundering!

Yes Yummi will be posting on this at length. This is a very popular win for Mignini and there are many reports in the Italian media. I posted this interim explanation on PMF and TJMK (under Yummi’s previous post which is highly worth reading) on Saturday.

********

http://tinyurl.com/ah773lz

Giuliano Mignini’s success in rolling back his persecutors and clearing his name seems to continue unabated.

Yummi will explain this better than I and correct any errors I might make but yesterday Mignini and Giuttari won very big at the Supreme Court.

Previously an appeal court in Florence had thrown out not only the trial JUDGEMENT against Mignini and Giuttari that FOA etc often rant about (“felon”, “criminal”, “abuse of power”), but even the INVESTIGATION was declared illegal because those doing it were the same as those testifying to harm - their own witnesses, in effect!!

Investigation of the case could have been resumed by impartial investigators in Turin, but the Florence parties decided illegally to try to keep the investigation going in Florence - in effect, put Mignini on ice and themselves safe from him.

The Supreme Court yesterday denied this possibility so the case is dead, dead, dead. Probably to the satisfaction of most judges and lawyers who followed the trumped up case in Italy. Giuttari and Mignini are both very popular there.

This is how Sollecito jumped the gun and mischaracterized Mignini in his book (from page 208).

On January 22, 2010, Mignini was convicted on abuse-of-office charges and sentenced to sixteen months in prison, six more than even the prosecutor had requested. The judge in his case later wrote that Mignini and his codefendant, Michele Giuttari of the Florence police, had taken advantage of their positions to blackmail people and either order wiretaps or open investigations into their perceived enemies for reasons that had nothing to do with the business of criminal investigation. Mignini was upbraided for failing to accept any limits to his behavior, and for finding criminal intent “in the slightest hint of anything that might be susceptible to critical interpretation.” That certainly sounded familiar from our experience.

There remained, however, a crucial difference between Mignini the convicted criminal and Amanda and me. He was never placed in preventive custody. That meant, under the rules of Italian criminal procedure, he didn’t need to worry about jail time until his case had been heard all the way up the Corte di Cassazione, a process that would take years and supersede any dealings we would have with him.

In the meantime, the law recognized him as innocent until proven guilty; nothing and nobody could prevent him from continuing his duties as prosecutor, if he so chose. And he so chose. We were, after all, his passport to professional rehabilitation, and he showed no sign of letting up on us, even for an instant.

Long before the Sollecito book came out (plenty of time to get it right) the appeal had taken place. The writers, editors and publishers’ fact-checkers and lawyers could and should have known. So the passage is deliberately inaccurate and self-serving.

Sollecito fails to explain that Ak and Sollecito were kept in preventive custody in 2008 in part because their crime was way more serious than the trumped up charges against Mignini - and in part because psychological tests in Capanne suggested they might both be dangerous nuts.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/11/13 at 02:12 PM | #

Love the photo!

Posted by bucketoftea on 02/12/13 at 03:26 PM | #

With regard to the invovement of cocaine, I’d say that Meredith might have been in as much danger from someone high on cocaine as one who is experiencing an unpleasant ‘coming down’ after cocaine use. Effects include acute paranoia.Just sayin.

Posted by bucketoftea on 02/12/13 at 04:43 PM | #

Hi bucketoftea,
It’s a valid point, but in my experience people coming off cocaine mostly just want to sleep. It’s not nearly as bad as coming off heroin, or even meth.

Posted by brmull on 02/13/13 at 04:46 AM | #

Yes, she irritated her roomies by bringing unknown men over. To the other flatmates, the cottage was their home, their refuge from work and public. Their home…not a party pad..Amanda did not grasp this because she thought she could do anything she wanted..and that included making her roomies uncomfortable in their own home. It was all a big funfest for her…but, the Italian women worked, and wanted to relax when they got home…not be put on edge by the presence of a stranger.  ick ick

Posted by Bettina on 01/11/14 at 03:09 AM | #

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