Friday, September 30, 2011

Nineteenth Appeal Session: The Prosecution Seems To Be Looking Confident In Court

Posted by Peter Quennell

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Pseudoinnocence: Is This Possibly The Predicament Of Amanda Knox?

Posted by Vivianna

In a dissertation titled Pseudoinnocence ““ An Invitation To Murder, Barbara Shore explores the phenomenon of “pseudoinnocence” in American culture as an inadequate response to the “conflagration of violence that encircles us today.” These are her introductory words:

“America is a country long haunted by its pseudoinnocence, by its blinding prolonged naivete. We are a culture that closes our eyes to all that is too painful to see, persuading ourselves that we have escaped, that we are neither interdependent nor vulnerable, or that we are victims.

We cannot come to terms with our own unwitting complicity in the destructiveness brought to ourselves or others. Capitalizing on such naivete, we fail to see how such “˜innocence that cannot include the demonic becomes evil’ (Rollo May 50).” (Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences Mar, 2001 Vol 61(9-A))

Ms. Shores’ words, although published six years before the murder of Meredith Kercher even took place, represent an eerily accurate description of Amanda Knox’s predicament, even reflecting some of the terminology employed in Attorney Carlo Pacelli’s exposition on September 26, during the closing portion of the first appeal trial.  As a reminder, Pacelli, who represents Patrick Lumumba in his civil suit against Knox, pointed out that Knox “has a split personality, fresh-faced, the daughter everyone would like, Saint Maria Goretti, and then with her histrionic side [she is] an impostor, she is a she-devil, satanic, diabolic, addicted to borderline behaviour.”

Although Pacelli’s words have been seen by some as too harsh, they carry a heavy implication mirrored in the above quote from Shore ““ that “innocence that cannot include the demonic becomes evil”; in other words, that if Knox cannot reconcile her two sides and seek atonement, she has no hope of redeeming herself as a human being.

I have argued before, in a comment posted here on the TJMK board, that Knox is not likely to make a confession in the near future due to the pressures exerted by her family’s innocence campaign. The innocence campaign is, in my opinion, just one of the factors which prevent Knox from admitting her direct involvement in the crime against Meredith Kercher.

The other factors may include her failure to reconcile the two parts of her persona (innocent, carefree, kind, compassionate young woman versus “diabolical” murderer) and perhaps a culturally-engrained inability to accept involvement in a destructive act. The discussion of these latter factors is perhaps best left to someone with formal training in psychology or sociology.  What I would like to enlarge upon is my conviction that there is a direct correlation between the strength of the innocence campaign and Knox’s unwillingness to admit guilt.

I would like to draw your attention to a conversation between Knox, her mother (Edda Mellas), and her father (Curt Knox) which took place in the early days of the investigation, when Amanda had already been detained.  This conversation will be well-known to those who have been consistently following this case as evidence that, in the early stages, Knox may have been inclined to give a confession.  I have chosen not to include it, but it is readily available on both TJMK and PMF. 

The reason why I believe this conversation to be so important is not only because it might contain the beginning of the confession, but also because it highlights the involvement of her family in defining her position.  I would argue that, had Knox been left to her own devices, she might have cracked in the early stages and given an accurate description of that night’s events, saving both herself, her family, the victim’s family, and anyone involved in the trial considerable grief, time, money, and effort.

At that particular point in time, she may not have been as psychologically divided and conflicted, and she may have had an easier time accepting her criminal side and perhaps moving on to experience positive changes.  It is, however, her parents’ firm belief in her innocence and in her inability to commit such a heinous crime that has consistently mired her in a difficult position.

As we well know, the Knox-Mellas family hired a PR firm, Gogerty-Mariott, to clean up Amanda’s image after unflattering stories started appearing in European tabloids.  The PR campaign has grown exponentially from a few stories about Amanda’s childhood, complete with baby pictures, to what I consider to be a falsification of public opinion. 

On the one hand, there is a concerted effort to offer inaccurate information about existing evidence (limiting the crime scene to Meredith’s room, stating that there is no evidence linking Amanda and Raffaele to the murder, pushing Rudy Guede as the “lone wolf” assassin, etc.), which is then fed to news outlets unwilling to do their own research and pushed upon the unsuspecting public via books, blogs, and forums. Then comes the even more insidious effort to falsify the public’s response to these stories, by hiring posters to write positive reviews for FOA books, post positive comments to inaccurate stories, and shout down any reasonable opposition.

Of course, this entire effort does not come cheaply, and rumors say that the PR campaign’s tab is around one million.  This is an enormous debt to place on the shoulders of a young woman who already needs to contend with the guilt of having committed an incomprehensible, heinous, violent crime.  While it is difficult to feel sympathy for any of Meredith’s killers, I find it impossible not to feel a certain amount of compassion for Amanda, who most likely never asked for this campaign to be initiated.  How could she admit her role in this crime when a million dollars has already been spent to trumpet her innocence?

In addition to the material aspects, there are social and psychological aspects to contend with.  While many of the FOA members are paid for their public appearances and statements (and may not harbor any personal opinions about the case), there seem to be individuals who are supporting Amanda’s innocence out of personal conviction.  Some of them may have even donated money to help her family.  How could she disappoint everyone who invested money and time into supporting her, from her own family to charitable strangers? How could she look them in the eye, after four years of lies and obfuscation, and admit that she was terrified of being punished, or incapable of seeing herself as a murderer?

Peter Quennell has suggested to me that this may be an example of “path dependence,” a concept used in both economics and social sciences to describe a scenario in which current actions and decisions are inexorably determined by past decisions. While my personal knowledge of path dependence is limited, I think that it is certainly applicable in this case and that it can be traced back to the prison conversation discussed before.  During the conversation, Amanda’s parents indirectly communicated to her that the course had been set ““ that the legal team would handle all questions and that she was not to communicate her thoughts without supervision; also that a confession would be unacceptable because she was undeniably innocent. 

As to why her family took this position, I think we can find the answer in the concept of pseudoinnocence ““ the inability to accept responsibility for and involvement in a terrible event, accompanied by a forced distancing from anything that could be considered troubling. 

It is not a coincidence that Amanda has been consistently portrayed as a victim of the supposedly corrupt, medieval Italian justice system, as someone who has been “railroaded” in a “third-world” country, as her supporters want us to believe. It is more comforting to become a victim than to accept responsibility and acknowledge that Amanda’s problems may have started at home, long before she was on a plane for Perugia. I believe that the innocence campaign is not only meant to exculpate Amanda, but to also exculpate her family from any perceived contributions to the formation of a murderer. 

As long as Amanda’s family continues to invest so much money and effort into supporting her innocence, and to maintain so much publicity around her case, I believe that any professional attempts to help Amanda admit her involvement will prove ineffective. This entire undertaking, combined with her own psychological dividedness and any cultural influences, is placing an enormous amount of unnecessary responsibility on Amanda and displacing a more appropriate type of responsibility. 

Amanda, at this point, should feel responsibility towards Meredith and Meredith’s family primarily.  While the murder itself cannot be reversed and no true solace offered, a confession would offer a certain amount of closure to those who knew and loved Meredith. Instead, Amanda’s sense of responsibility is being artificially redirected to not disappointing her own family and supporters, and to not betraying the trust they have placed in her innocence. Aside from being hurtful to the victim’s family, this situation is also damaging for Amanda herself, as it’s setting her on a path of continued “evil” rather than one of heal

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Seventeenth Appeal Session: Tough Day Ahead For Raffaele Sollecito’s Lawyers In The Minefield

Posted by Peter Quennell

Today it will be Giulia Bongiorno and Luca Maori for Raffaele Sollecito.  Important considerations to bear in mind:

1) There are still all these open questions assembled by lawyer and main poster SomeAlibi and Sollecito chose not to address them on the stand.

2) The Supreme Court has definitively shut down the argument of a possible lone wolf perpetrator and Guede in court accused Sollecito to his face.

3) Attempts to show that Guede did it with others (Alessi’s testimony) or two or three others did it (Aviello) both descended into farce.

4) A staged attempt by Bongiorno using a staff member to try to scale the wall of the house to Filomena’s window descended into farce.

5) Sollecito referred to Amanda Knox as a liar in his third alibi and in effect implicated her by saying that on the night she was absent for four hours.

6) Solleito has still not explained his phone record or computer record or how his DNA could have got onto Meredith’s bra clasp.

7) Sollecito has still not explained the other physical evidence tying him to the scene: how his bloody footprint ended up on the bathroom mat.

His family faces a trial for releasing an evidence tape to a TV station, and for attempting to subvert justice by involving national politicians. And the family have still not rebutted Aviello’s charge that a bribe was waved at him to testify.

Not a pretty mess, by any means. Good luck, Bongiorno and Maori.

Sixteenth Appeal Session: Lawyers For Patrick Lumumba And Victim’s Family Weigh In

Posted by Peter Quennell

1) Lawyers for Patrick Lumumba

A translation of the Umbria24 TV station report kindly provided by main poaster Tiziano.

MEREDITH, LUMUMBA’S LAWYER: “AMANDA IS DIABOLICAL” PATRICK: “I HAVE RELIVED THOSE DAYS”

“PATRICK IS THE SECOND VICTIM IN THIS CASE”

By Maurizio Troccoli

The civil parties are playing the last cards too in the Mez trial, represented by the lawyers of Meredith Kercher’s family and those of Patrick Lumumba, the young man who ended up in gaol with Amanda and Raffaele, because he was accused of being the author of the murder by the young American.

A few days before the sentence, which should come on Monday, and the reconstructions of what happened that night between the 1st and 2nd November, 2007 in the cottage in via della Pergola in Perugia, go on stage. A bloody murder which has seen the two ex-lovers condemned to 26 years prison for Amanda, and 25 for Rafaele at the first stage [trial}.

Patrick Lumumba was set free after a few days of detention thanks to an “iron clad alibi” which put him in a different place from “the house of horrors”, that is to say in his night spot, together with a Swiss professor, Roman Mero, who witnessed this, thus helping the young man to get back his freedom.

That testimony was sufficient to convince the magistrates - notwithstanding the accusations of Amanda - of his “complete non-involvement in the facts”, which originated in the questioning at the Perugia police headquarters on November 6th, 2007.

Patrick is still waiting for justice to be done, to be compensated for what was taken from him, for payment for the person who was stained by such a serious crime which sees him as “the second victim of this tragedy”, as his defender Claudio Pacelli said this morning. “Patrick has paid a lot, not only for his imprisonment but also for the damage to his image, said Pacelli. “My client ended up in the newspapers and on TV all over the world as the author of the murder of the young Englishwoman.”

“During the appearance of my lawyer - [Patrick] says ““ it is as though I had gone back, reliving that really sad period. We hope that justice is done. Today I relived those moments - the night when the professor came to the pub saying that he wanted to say good-bye because that next day he would be going back to Zurich,” Lumumba said, “However he came to save me, with neither I nor he realising this.”

“Amanda falsely accused an innocent person - lawyer Pacelli affirmed - exclusively to avoid being discovered. A classic scheme. Amanda is a consummate actress, a very intelligent girl, astute and cunning. One who really knows how to inspire the emotions of whoever is listening to her.”

And the fault of what happened to the damage of Patrick resides completely in “the young American, Amanda”, whose profile the lawyer drew in court, defining her “an explosive mixture of drugs, sex and alcohol.”

He added, “Quite the opposite of sweet, she has a split personality, fresh-faced, the daughter everyone would like, Saint Maria Goretti, and then with her histrionic side [she is] an impostor, she is a she-devil, satanic, diabolic, addicted to borderline behaviour.

What Amanda says when she claims that Patrick’s name was suggested to her by the police is a huge lie. She was the one to arbitrarily choose to point to Patrick as the guilty on, in order to distance herself from suspicion,” the lawyer said further.

2) Lawyers for the victim’s family

[translation to follow]

Monday, September 26, 2011

Sixteenth Appeal Session: Images Of Main Participants Before Start Of Court Today

Posted by Peter Quennell

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Fifteenth Appeal Session: Prosecutor Manuela Comodi Starkly Explains All The Forensic Evidence

Posted by Peter Quennell

This is a translation of key parts of a detailed report from the AGI news service - the excellent reporter is not named.

On Ms Comodi’s opening remarks to the court.

In Perugia the hearing of the appeal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, in the first instance [at trial] convicted for the murder of Meredith Kercher, has resumed. This morning, the prosecutor Manuela Comodi began her part of the indictment.

“Regardless of the scientific evidence, your decision can only be the confirmation of the decision at first instance [at trial],” the prosecutor said. During the day the prosecution will make its request for a tougher sentence for the ex-lovers who are present in the courtroom next to their defence teams.

Ms Comodi on the strength of the forensic evidence.

“Quite apart from all the scientific evidence, the outcome of this process can only be at least the confirmation of the conviction of first degree”...The prosecutor judge then began to attack the independent expert report on the traces of DNA ordered by the Court.

“That ploy may have led you to believe you do not trust the results for the knife proposed as the murder weapon and the hook of the bra worn by the victim when she was killed. Those conclusions are strongly challenged by the prosecution.” Then Comodi talked of “the awkward performance of experts who have betrayed your trust… [with] their absolute inadequacy and incompetence.”

She then mentioned the lack of experience in the field of the experts appointed by the Court. “Would you trust your daughter’s wedding to a cook who knows all the recipes but has never cooked?”. In the initial phase of her indictment the prosecutor also mentioned the process carried out in England to indict Danilo Restivo…

The Guardian has a good report on how Danilo Restivo was caught in part by incriminating DNA some TEN YEARS after his crime.

And Ms Comodi on the DNA on the knife and bra clasp.

“Who wielded the knife [that killed Meredith Kercher] was Amanda Knox.” The prosecutor said in court, mimicking the way according to the defense reconstruction that knife was contested by the murderer of Meredith.

“They will tell you, She used it at some other time while staying at Sollecito’s house, but Amanda’s DNA was found in the wrong place for normal use. Give it a try, you will see that in cutting bread or meat the hand rests on the back, not there.”

“Starch on the knife? It could come from the powder present on the “vast majority” of rubber gloves used by personnel involved in investigations.” The prosecutor was recalling the words of a senior advisor to the defense of Amanda Knox, according to whom the starch was derived from the cutting of food such as potatoes and is a sign of lack of washing of the blade on which should have been found traces of blood of the victim if it was used for the crime….

“Talc is present on most sterile disposable gloves, such as those used by the scientific and the Flying Squad in Perugia. It is totally unfounded, the thesis of the non-washing of the knife.”

“The hook of the bra collected 46 days after being found missing? What of the DNA of Elisa Claps [in the Danilo Restivo case] analyzed after nearly 20 years? There is no way this could be contamination because Sollecito had not since been in the house.

Here is a very strong report from Il Mattino which after mirroring the AGI report above adds this:

“In addition to the knife and the bra hook there are other tracks that connect the presence of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to the crime scene” said the prosecutor in her indictment.

“Traces of the mixed blood of Meredith and Amanda have been found in the bathroom, where there was an imprint of a foot of Raffaele Sollecito in Meredith’s blood. Footprints of Raffaele and Amanda in Meredith’s blood were found using Luminol in the hallway and the room of Amanda.”

The prosecutor pointed out that under the bed, in Meredith’s room, the lamp of Amanda was found. In Meredith’s room there already was one lamp. Amanda’s lamp was there “because they had to find something to take away, maybe a bracelet or a ring that Amanda might have lost.”

And the prosecution concluded by asking for life sentences and some solitary confinement for Sollecito and Knox as the crime was “aggravated - carried out for trivial reasons” and asking for the exclusion of the mitigating factors that Judge Massei had allowed.

Some of the Italian media reports carried headlines quoting Ms Comodi saying “They killed her for nothing”.

Good Reports By Seattle PI And Daily Beast On Mignini Summarising The Evidence Presented At Trial

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: The indomitable victim’s proponent Giuliano Mignini preparing for court today with Giancarlo Costagliola]


Click the image above for Andrea Vogt’s report on Mr Mignini’s afternoon in court. Tough points Mr Mignini made:

“They know the truth because they were at Via della Pergola along with Rudy,” said Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said emphatically, pointing to Knox and Sollecito in his last remarks to the court. “Not only the young man of color should pay.”...

[Mr Mignini] sometimes seemed to obsess on small and bizarre details, but at other times showed an incredibly effective use of courtroom oratory. Just before showing the jurors gruesome autopsy photos of Kercher’s wounds, for example, he told them softly how he would never forget “the wide open eyes of the victim and the composed, immense pain of her parents.”

He reminded the appeals jurors that it was not a U.S. court, but rather one in the Italian republic and urged them to ignore “improvised detectives who give their superficial opinion from 10,000 kilometers away.”...

[Mr Mignini] went over all the witness testimony, described how a break-in in the apartment Kercher and Knox shared had been staged and frequently cited Knox’s own statements on the stand during her first trial, especially on the topic of a large drop of Knox’s blood on the bathroom faucet and mixed traces of blood and DNA of Kercher and Knox in the bathroom.

Highly worth reading the entire thing. Barbie Nadeau covers the same ground equally well in the Daily Beast and notes that today could be the final scene changer. The embattled Sollecito defense counsel Giulia Bongiorno was reduced to making this preposterous claim:

Sollecito’s attorney Giulia Bongiorno told reporters that Mignini was desperately clinging to old arguments because the independent experts’ report had demolished two key pieces of evidence : a knife and a bra clasp.

Demolished?! The independent experts didn’t retest the DNA material with modern techniques when they could and should have and they even admitted that was Meredith’s DNA profile the scientific police had produced the first time around.

They ended up looking weak and evasive. Hardly the silver bullet Bongiorno wants.

By the way, no sign of Mr Mignini being fazed by the presence (surely unhelpful to Knox and her lawyers) of the muddled “ex FBI agent” Steve Moore whose bizarre and often defamatory takes on the case and Italian justice officials we have again and again shown to be wrong.

Perhaps Mr Mignini should ask Steve Moore to publish his own detailed resume. So far, all requests for it have been stonewalled.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Umbria’s Attorney General Giovanni Galati: A Tough New Presence In The Courtroom

Posted by Peter Quennell

[We are told that this is AG Giovanni Galati at the recent justice info system announcement]


Italian media note that the defenses are up against quite a powerhouse prosecution team.

The media have observed that Giovanni Galati, the new Attorney General of Umbria, is in the court to give his full support to the case made by his colleagues.

He was formerly a a Deputy Attorney General with the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome and will know everything there is to know about winning appeals.

He is sitting next to his Deputy Attorney General, Giancarlo Costagliola, the lead prosecutor for the appeal.

Fourteenth Appeal Session: Italian Media Describing Very Tough Prosecution Opening

Posted by Peter Quennell

First good report on the opening remarks by Mr Costagliola is from RAI News:

Hard, harsh, and direct. The [Deputy] Attorney General Giancarlo Costagliola this morning attacked head-on the findings of the independent DNA experts in the appeal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the murder of Meredith.

Moreover the homeless man who claims to have seen Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito not far from the murder house on the evening of 1 November 2007, when Meredith Kercher was killed, is ‘“credible and reliable”...

Costagliola described the skill of the original DNA experts of the Court…The Attorney General also spoke of the “absolute certainty” of the analysis of traces of DNA detected by experts of the Court on the knife found to be the murder weapon. “A re-examination of the DNA by the prosecution was refused [by Judge Hellman] although it was the first request put to the Court.”

“Denying the presence of the DNA of Meredith Kercher, and Raffaele Sollecito on the knife and bar hook is a falsification of scientific reality” said the prosecutor, still attacking the expertise of Professors Vecchiotti Carla and Stefano Conti, which questioned the work of the forensic team…. “Professors Vecchiotti Carla and Stefano Conti had refused without any reason to analyze traces highlighted on the knife, which in 2007 were not analyzed because ‘there was no machinery suitable “.

“I want you to decide, you judges, if you feel a little for the parents of Meredith Kercher, a young, discreet and serious woman who these “good” kids from good families are prevented from living.”...

For Costagliola “there was an almost obsessive campaign by the media, the press and television that made the audience feel a bit like everybody is parents of Amanda and Raffaele, two kids from good families kept in prison because of the fury of a prosecutor.”.’

La Nazione reports that Mr Mignini in his opening remarks observed that he will never forget Meredith’s staring eyes. He’ll remember them for the rest of his life. He pointed out that 22 judges had already agreed with his reasoning.

And from a long report by Phoebe Natanson of ABC News:

Italian prosecutors argued today that American student Amanda Knox should be kept in prison and displayed a series of bloody crime scene photos, including gruesome close ups of murder victim Meredith Kercher’s wounds.

The bare knuckle tactics by the prosecutors comes on the final leg of an appeal by Knox, 24, and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 27, who were convicted in 2009 of killing Kercher. There has been growing speculation that Knox and Sollecito could win their appeal and be freed because court appointed experts have raised damaging questions about the prosecution’s DNA evidence.

Knox , serving a 26 year prison sentence, today seemed to reflect that hope that she could be released, as well as the worry that her hopes could be crushed. She appeared tense and anxious as she entered the courtroom in Perugia, Italy, for the start of summations. She barely smiled at her family who have gathered in Perugia for what they hope will be a final time.

As Knox walked in, her mother Edda Mellas was heard to say, “It looks like Amanda isn’t sleeping well.”...

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini presented the court with a slideshow of photos that included pictures of bloodstains in the house as well as photos of Kercher’s slashed body. The blood-filled pictures included close-ups of the wounds…

[Prosecutors] also appealed for the jurors to not be swayed by the press coverage that has been critical of the prosecution’s handling of evidence and what is perceived to be a growing sentiment for Knox and Sollecito. Mignini called it “media clamor,” and added, “This is not a media fiction… This case has to tried and decided here.”...

“Don’t commit grave error..it would be unforgivable,” Mignini warned. “It’s not just about the knife and the bra clasp. There are lots of other things.”

How Things Seem To Be Stacking Up As The Appeal Summations Get Under Way

Posted by James Higham

[Above: the media presence in court before the trial started in January 2009]

Cross-posted at TJMK’s invitation from my own website Nourishing Obscurity.

The interview with juror Jennifer Ford on the Casey Anthony outcome was quite fascinating because her decision was based on something we’ve been arguing about for a long time ““ circumstantial evidence. 

There’ve been classic cases at Orphans of Liberty where expert testimony described actual evidence found and tested and what conclusions were drawn from that.  When you get up to 12 or 13 experts all saying exactly the same thing and some of those were actually on site, then what do you conclude?

Against that, you have that comment that “circumstantial” is usually all you have in a murder.  By definition, the murderer does not oblige by taking snapshots or videorecording the event.”  Often he or she does everything in their power to cover it up.

It’s all very well for a Columbo to waltz in and cleverly trap the murderer he’s fixed on but in most cases, it’s the result of painstaking work building exhibits and other evidence which fits together.  True, when the police try too hard, you can get frame-ups. But what the pro-Knox machine are making out ““ that “a stream of lies” has come out of Mignini’s office, while conflating that with his provisional conviction over another case - concluding from that that Knox is innocent, they’re open to challenge.

Sorry ““ it doesn’t work that way.  Mignini has not been officially charged but has only been accused by the Knox camp of failure in his investigation and as for that other case, here’s what the Times said:

Mignini was convicted by a Florence court of exceeding his powers by tapping the phones of police officers and journalists investigating the still unsolved “Monster of Florence” serial killings between 1968 and 1985.

Phone tapping. Getting at the truth by any means possible.  The Knox defence, of course, has not used this separate issue but the Knox parents media machine has and it’s landed them in a slander trial, following this case.

Mignini was most surprised, in fact, that this conviction came up now, during the Knox trial.  Why now?  Who then is Judge Hellman?  Is there anything in his appointment?  You’d have to say no but keep it at the back of the mind.

Coming back to Jennifer Ford, what struck me was how tough it was for her because they did not have absolute final proof.  They did have so much evidence of what happened ““ the car trunk, the remains in the swamp and so on, the forensic evidence, so much so that it was pretty much a foregone conclusion, unless some other person or persons unknown had come into it.

Yet they did not convict, on the grounds that the prosecution had not finally proven, i.e. they didn’t have Casey Anthony at the scene, through an eyewitness, actually doing the murder.

In the Knox case, they have far more.  The Supreme court has unequivocally said there were three people and what’s more has named each of them.  On forensics alone and ignoring the conflicting evidence given by the defendants for now, the independent experts conceded that was Knox’s DNA on the handle and Meredith’s on the tip, as well as the mixed blood which neither side seemed to run with.

The independents ““ who seemed hardly that ““ did not destroy Dr. Stephanoni who waded in and presented exactly how the tests had been conducted, the one on the knife done in a one-off, with a member of the defence present who saw Meredith’s DNA appear.

Then you get to the other evidence:

(a) Why did Amanda admit to her parents in a recorded conversation that she was very very worried about that knife?

(b) Why did she concoct that fantasy about Sollecito’s having (maybe) put the knife in her hand while she slept & pressed her hand to give her fingerprints to the handle? And Sollecito and the bra clasp,  in conjunction with his footprint on the bathmat.)

(c) Why did Sollecito explain to the police that he had accidentally pricked Meredith’s hand while cooking?

And so on.  The tapped conversations.

Edda: Like I said, the lawyers believe that they are doing it on purpose, because they sure have nothing, so they are trying to put pressure on like when they interrogated you to see if you would say something more and so you have to keep calm and do not say anything to anyone.

Amanda: Yeah, when I was in the room with him I said what? “¦ (Laughs) and then when I returned to my bedroom I was crying. I’m very, very worried for this thing about the knife”¦ because there is a knife from Raffaele “¦

Curt: Well, here, here, here are the facts”¦ we talked yesterday with the lawyer and asked him about the knife. Every time that they have to review an item we have an expert there that will review it with them. This is an example of”¦ this knife of which they are talking about, they have never notified anything about the knife.

Edda: So, it’s bullshit!

Amanda: Is it bullshit?

Edda: It’s bullshit. [Curt cuts her off.]

Amanda: It’s stupid. I can’t say anything but the truth, because I know I was there. I mean, I can’t lie on this, there is no reason to do it.

Curt: Yeah, yeah, so what you have to do is not to talk about anything with anyone. Don’t write anything.

I don’t see that as confession, by the way, but it’s not necessary for it to be.  There is so much else.

There is Sollecito’s story about Meredith pricking her finger on the knife.  That alone raises so many questions of foreknowledge.  The body was moved.  Who moved it?  What has that to do with lack of DNA in the room it had been moved to? And the Knox camp’s major point ““ there were no fingerprints of anybody in the room where the body was found.

Precisely ““ there weren’t.  Not one.  What do you make of that?  And why was Knox at the Conad store next morning [two witnesses, including the manager]?

Lumumba ““ knowing her accusation was wrong, Knox let him languish in jail as the accused.  If she explains nothing else, how does she explain that, if she’s innocent?  You tell me how an innocent person would act?  If you say she was alone and scared, she wasn’t.  She had Sollecito with her and they were hugging and kissing, giving one another support.

Meredith’s phone.  It was taken.  Why?  They had their own phones.

The Knox camp never addresses these.  They only zero in on the DNA on two items and raise doubts on those. Fair to an extent.  Yet they never address the points just raised.

Meanwhile, the media really is culpable in all this. Tthere’s been so much written which point blank denies evidence which actually came out. 

Then we have my situation.  I wrote a reply at the First Post to the commenters and though other comments sympathetic to Knox were published, mine was not [it required moderation].  Make of that what you will.  I’ve written to First Post to complain but there’s been no response as yet.

If she walks, the prosecution will, of course, immediately file grounds for the appeal and that will take another year or more, but after the slander trial, she would for now be a free agent.  And don’t forget that the Sollecito family trial is also coming up.  Obviously they’d get Knox back to the States as quickly as possible and then that might be the end of it. Italy might never get her back on the witness stand again. This must weigh on the minds of the judges.

The most damning part, in my eyes, are the conflicting stories. Note even in the appeal, they never put the defendants on the stand ““ they’ve kept them well away.  The danger has been that if Sollecito had dropped Knox in it to save himself, her team would have had to tear at Sollecito and do the prosecution’s work for it. 

It’s not a cut and dried affair but it’s certainly at the stage where there are no credible alternative scenarios for the crime which anyone has been able to come up with, not from either side. 

The defence has based its entire appeal on the DNA being too little to test ““ something the prosecution claimed anyway would be the case after two years ““ with the original testing using up so much of the DNA ““ and on faulty procedures by Dr. Stephanoni and team.

The odds, with Judge Hellman having two votes, the other judge and the six jurors one each, is that to acquit, the defence has to have established gross negligence in the investigation. 

Judge Hellman, apparently is like Massei who leaves no stone unturned.  He might well look at the totality of the evidence and while he has not admitted some critical evidence for the prosecution, the reason could well be that he already accepts that and only wants to look at what the defence has brought, to see if it changes anything.

If Knox walks, it will be a major boilover, which negates the entire investigation and calls the Italian investigative authorities and the court system into question.  There’s no doubting it would be a massive coup for the Knox camp and the media machine who’ll claim their part in the victory.

If she gets 30 years, it would surprise many and would indicate a certain anger on Hellman’s part and possibly of the judiciary as a whole.  That doesn’t seem indicated so far and the defence have made a reasonable case on the only evidence they can attack.  There would not be a “retribution” factor here.

More likely is that the sentences will be upheld, with possibly a reduction of some form, although one pundit asked, “On what grounds a reduction?”  Fair question.  That’s where you would put your money, particularly as the defence did not seem to lay the sort of groundwork for a complete acquittal.

There is the possibility that Judge Hellman, in his desire to show the world the impartiality of Italian justice, accepts the defence case and wishes to rap the forensic team over the knuckles for sloppiness, which has not been established as yet.

There are ways Knox could walk and if she did, that would be a huge travesty, let alone what it does to the Italian investigative and justice system.  For us, it would be a body blow because here, finally, was one case where the power of money to buy a PR firm and to dominate the media did not win. 

Alternatively it could be a case where, with so many perpetrators walking free these days and with courts failing to impose proportional penalties, just this once an appropriate punishment was meted out.  In a way, that would be one small victory for justice and as it doesn’t involve execution and as there is one more appeal left after this anyway, it is less critical than the Troy Davis case.

Finally, Knox has much to answer for, aside from the questions from Meredith’s murder.  There is Lumumba, there is her alleged slander (with her parents) on the investigators, there is her allowing all blame to fall on Rudy Guede ““ there seem some very nasty things she has done. 

Even if she does not go down for the murder, as I’ve stated before, she surely needs some time inside for all these other things.  To walk completely free would be a travesty.

An Overview Of What The Italian Media Are Saying In Advance Of The Final Appeal Sessions

Posted by Peter Quennell

As usual, Meredith and her family and the prosecution are being given much more space than in the USA and UK.

Italian media and the Italian public are generally cognizant of the fact that no final verdict for this level of crime can be issued except by the Supreme Court. In effect what Judge Hellman’s court will issue is a provisional finding, and Sollecito and Knox may not know their final verdict and sentence for a year and a half.

That is, if the Supreme Court does not bounce the case back to the lower courts for reconsideration of some aspect as quite often happens - that happened in the case of defense witness Mario Alessi’s wife though her final sentence was not greatly affected.

In that event a final outcome could take even longer. 

Libero News reports (as we of course knew) that the prosecution will be seeking a more severe sentence and looking to exclude the mitigating circumstances that Judge Massei allowed.

Il Secolo reports the same thing, with no quotes from the defense teams. Prosecutors Giancarlo Costagliola, Giuliano Mignini, and Manuela Comodi will all present parts of the prosecution argument. Ms Comodi will rebutt the independent experts’ report on some of the DNA.

Il Secolo also mentions that that the court has accepted that Guede has confirmed Knox’s and Sollecito’s presence at the house. Unclear where this comes from but usually it is impossible to be sure what was weighted heavily until the sentencing report comes out. No evidence is rejected in the Italian system; it is all carefully weighted instead. .

And many media sites are reporting in Italian a statement by Meredith’s mother. Here from Comments is a translation by our Italian poster ncountryside.

My daughter Meredith was killed while she was in the safest place: in her bedroom. Who killed her knew her well, but her confidence had been betrayed. For me it is inconceivable that should have happened.

My daughter was killed in her home. Not in a park, not in a street. Her body was not found in a garden.

I had talked with her the day before the murder. She was happy. She promised me that she would be back to celebrate my birthday. She had bought the chocolate that she wanted to give me.

During these four years I have never stopped thinking about her. And it is as if I always had her near me.

She loved Italy, She was fascinated by Perugia.

I do not care about the names of those convicted, I do not care whether they are called Rudy, Amanda and Raffaele. For me it’s just that my daughter was killed by someone who at first instance was found guilty and convicted.

In that trial there was much strong evidence, I am wondering what is happening to it now. They tell me that some may no longer be valid but they are two items, what of all the others? What has changed from the first trial?

I accepted the ruling of the Court of Assizes, and I accept what will be decided by the Court of Appeal and all the others will have to do like me without any distinction.

I want justice done for my daughter.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Reflecting On Andrea Vogt’s Fine Report “Knox: Innocent Abroad Or “˜Getting Away With Murder’?”

Posted by Skeptical Bystander

Cross posted from my personal blog. Please click the image above for Ms Vogt’s new piece.

In this intelligent and well-written piece, Andrea Vogt wonders aloud how Italians would react to an acquittal of the Seattle woman who was convicted in December 2009 of taking part in the killing of her roommate, Meredith Kercher. She notes that an acquittal would be cause for celebration in Seattle.

It would certainly be cause for celebration among those who have taken up the cause and believe in Knox’s innocence despite the compelling evidence of her involvement in this horrific crime. But the fact is, most people in Seattle are simply not that interested. And among those who are, the consensus is certainly not that an innocent abroad got railroaded.

If it seems so, it’s because the local media has dutifully followed the lead of the national media and adopted the “innocent abroad” narrative concocted by David Marriott, whose PR firm was hired to manage Knox’s image shortly after she was arrested. In Seattle, Meredith’s murder has been played as a human interest story in which only the local protagonists matter. Meredith was British; it is assumed that Seattleites could not possibly give a toss about her.

Hence, local coverage has favored news of fundraisers for the accused local woman and then for the convicted local woman. Questions from local journalists to her supporters (family) have ranged from “How is she holding up in prison?” to “How is she holding up in prison?” And since there is no guilter movement, local or otherwise, except in the minds of a few shrill locals, there has been no local coverage of the movement’s “activities”. How can a non-existent movement have activities?

I have met many people in West Seattle who quietly shake their heads in disbelief at Steve Shay’s coverage for the West Seattle Herald. Yesterday, someone who works at a local business said “you’re skeptical bystander” when she handed me back my credit card. She told me she was a long-time lurker who reads perugiamurderfile.org and TJMK every day for information about the case. There are many people like her in Seattle.

I found it amusing, though sad, to read the comments that follow Andrea Vogt’s thoughtful piece for the First Post. Naturally, loud vocal supporter “Mary H” (this is her online pseudonym, and hiding behind it may be one reason she is so loud on the internet) was quick to condemn Vogt for merely pointing out the obvious. Mary H (fake name) asked Andrea Vogt (real name) how she could sleep at night!

It ain’t that hard, Mary, when you have the courage of your convictions and when you stand by the facts rather than getting sidetracked by the cause.

The fact at hand is that many people—in Seattle, in Italy, and elsewhere—would come away from an eventual acquittal with the feeling that justice had not been done for Meredith Kercher and her family and that at least two of those responsible for her death had gotten away with it. Mary H and others may not like to hear this, but it is a fact. And no amount of shaming on the part of Mary H or anyone else is going to make a bit of difference.

Yesterday, a lawyer friend and I were musing about what would have happened had this case been tried in the US. Many Knox supporters have said, repeatedly, that it would never have gone to trial here. My lawyer friend agreed, but for a different reason than the one implicit in this view (i.e. that there is supposedly no evidence).  He said

I don’t think the case would have gone to trial in the US. First, they would not have had to stop questioning her when they did. They would have artfully gotten her to waive her Miranda rights. They would have told her they can’t help her unless tells her side of the story, been very sympathetic initially and built up her confidence that she could talk her way out of it. They would eventually hone in on the inconsistencies, and when she finally cracked there wouldn’t be a lawyer there to stop her. The death penalty would have been on the table, and her only sure way to avoid that would be to plead guilty in exchange for life.

He also thinks that this would not have been such a high-profile case had it happened in Seattle.

Let’s wait and see how this court weighs the two contested items in the overall scheme of things. As a poster on PMF (another lawyer) wrote last night, it all boils down to this: How many pieces of evidence… ‘consistent with, but not conclusive of’ guilt can stack up against someone before, as a matter of common sense, it is no longer reasonable to believe they are innocent?

Monday, September 19, 2011

Several Cautious Overviews Of The Possibilities In The Final Sessions Of The Appeal

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: the central London area of Southwark where Meredith was born]

We note that Andrea Vogt is reporting on the prospects from Coulsdon in south London where Meredith grew up and went to school.

Hellman and his lateral judge, Massimo Zanetti, will guide a jury of six civilians toward a decision. If there is disagreement, the matter could go to a secret vote. Each juror has one vote, Zanetti has one vote and Hellman has two.

The jury members have free reign to fashion their decision as they please. They could acquit, convict or also choose to convict on lesser charges, reducing sentences, or even opt to release Knox from prison but order house arrest with electronic monitoring in Italy as the case moves on to the final phase in Court of Cassation.

If there is a full acquittal, Knox would go from court to Capanne penitentiary and after two hours of signing papers, walk out of prison a free woman.

“It is common for Italian courts of appeal to review sentences, and I would not be surprised if the two defendants in fact receive a more lenient sentence, also given the final outcome of Guede’s trial,” said Stefano Maffei, who teaches criminal procedure at the University of Parma.

But it ain’t over untill it’s over, though, given Italy’s automatic two levels of appeal where the prosecution too can advance grounds. The Supreme Court Of Cassation will hear the final appeal next year. As Tom Kington notes in the Guardian.

Mignini claims he is “satisfied” with the disputed forensic work, finds the triumphalism of the Knox camp “questionable”, and also has a new legal argument up his sleeve.

“The legal code states that any review of evidence must be requested immediately, not two years later.”

If the couple are acquitted, he added, the verdict could yet be annulled if Italy’s high court decides the recent DNA review was illegal.

Judge Hellman of course refused a prosecution request for a re-test of the DNA material which Judge Hellman’s consultants had failed to do. That could be appealable too.

Mr Mignini also believes that the Supreme Court made a mistake in disallowing Knox’s first written statement implicating Patrick Lumumba and placing herself firmly at the scene with facts no-one who wasn’t there could have known.

His reasoning is that Knox ASKED to write out this statement. Mr Mignini merely observed while she went ahead and he asked her no questions, and so she did not need to have a lawyer present for that.

So far the Supreme Court has been firmly on the prosecution’s side except for the above, and the court specifically noted a taped conversation in Capanne Prison where Knox appeared on the verge of a confession (one of several times where she seems to have come close).

Her parents interrupted her, apparently, the court thought, to stop her dropping herself even further in the soup. Seeming proof that her parents have all along known of her guilt is suggested also by their not passing on that Knox said to them that Patrick had been framed.

And suggested also by this hot potato of a post by Finn MacCool.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Slate’s Katie Crouch Comes Across Like A Callous, Ill-Informed Knox PR Puppet

Posted by Peter Quennell

Slate’s sneering self-promoter Katie Crouch seems to forget that there is a real victim here. Like Lis Wiehl she seems to find Meredith’s death one huge joke.

For a slightly trapped Umbrian tourist with a 16-month-old on her hands, this case seemed a gift. Finally, something to talk about in my broken Italian with the locals! Do you think she’s guilty? My pension owner, a jolly man with two kids, said yes, definitely. Hadn’t I been to college? It was an orgy with a knife! An American expatriate friend over cappuccinos at Sandri’s: Guilty. It’s a known fact that the girl had sex with three men in two months. Need we say more?

She seems to rely only on ill-informed gossip from bar-flies to conclude that Amanda Knox is innocent and, yes, she should be set free. Even a remotely competent reporter would have managed to find out and report on these basic facts.

• Italy’s is one of the most cautious and painstaking justice systems in the world. It is so careful and so reluctant to conclude guilt that its incarceration rate is less than one-sixth that of the United States. Italy has less than 100,000 prisoners behind bars. The US with a population less than five times that of Italy has 2.7 MILLION.


• Part of every trial and appeal process in Italy as required by the constitution is an exhaustive report explaining every verdict and sentence. In this case there are FOUR such documents amounting to nearly 700 pages. Two for two trials and two for Guede’s two appeals. One of those is by the Supreme Court and it confirms three people attacked Meredith on the night.

Had Katie Crouch read Judge Micheli’s sentencing report for Rudy Guede (linked to in our right column) and Judge Massei’s sentencing report for Knox and Sollecito (linked to in full and summary above) here’s betting she would never have concluded as she did.  These claims for example would never have been made.

After naming Knox and Sollecito as co-killers, Guede’s time was reduced to 16 years.

Rudy Guede has never named Knox and Sollecito as “co-killers”. He named them as the only two killers, only once, to their faces, in the appeal. His sentence was automatically reduced solely because he opted for the fast track process which Italy allows. It was not a reward and he did not testify at Knox’s and Sollecito’s trial.

During the trial, Knox and Sollecito were accused of planning and carrying out a sex crime that ended in the slow sawing open of the victim’s throat…. Then there was the prosecutor’s theory of a bullying four-way sex game gone wrong.

The sex crime idea is not so farcical as Katie Crouch suggests. Meredith had been sexually molested, and her body had been re-arranged some time after her death to point to a sex attack. It was reasonable that the prosecutor put this to the court. Judge Micheli named Knox as the probable initiator in sending her to trial. Judge Massei named Guede as the probable initiator. Guede, Knox and Sollecito were all convicted of a sex crime. Two trials and two appeals have all concluded that three people had to have participated in Meredith’s attack.

For one thing, during her interrogation, Amanda named her boss, a bar owner named Patrick Lumumba, as the killer, and herself as present in the cottage. But Lumumba had an airtight alibi of tending his bar, Le Chic, that night. Why this bogus accusation implicating herself?

This is fully explained by Judge Massei. The interrogators were checking Knox’s recent calls and Lumumba’s name came up. Knox was in an apparent panic at the time as she had just been told that Sollecito had just destroyed her first alibi. Naming Lumumba (which she did not recant until he was released) was an apparent panic attempt to create another.

Meredith Kercher’s blood was on the murder weapon, a knife found in Sollecito’s kitchen. But no it wasn’t, the experts who testified at the appeals said.

This is simply incorrect. The scientific police expert who conducted the original test invited defense experts to be present. One did appear, and he witnessed Meredith’s DNA profile emerging from the machine.  One prosecution witness at the appeal said there was enough material for a retest and the prosecution asked Judge Hellman for this. After a consultation with the jury he said what they had heard already was enough.

OK, well, what about the fact that Knox bought bleach at 7 in the morning after the murder? Wait, but she didn’t. A witness later said her co-worker was coerced into saying that by a reporter. (Plus, after a violent diaper emergency, I myself can tell you that no store in Perugia is open at seven in the morning.)

This is an absurd mis-statement of the relevant evidence. The manager of the Conad testified that Knox was waiting for the store to open when he arrived. Nobody testified that she bought bleach. The real significance of this evidence is that it destroys Knox’s claim that she slept in until after 10:00.

I got up at 5 in the morning and crept to the cottage where the murder happened, staring in the window that the prosecutor argued no one could climb into, meaning the killer had to have keys. But the window didn’t look that high. I could probably climb up there.

A tall and very agile defense staff member tried this and after getting his hands up to the windowsill he had to give up. Judge Massei describes extensively the evidence below the wall, on the wall, on the window sill, and in the room itself to prove that nobody entered by that route. The only DNA found in the room was Knox’s mixed with Meredith’s DNA. No DNA of Guede or any other possible perpetrator was found there.

Knox and Sollecito turned off their phones that night not so they couldn’t be tracked, but because they didn’t want their parents bothering them during sex.

They had never simultaneously turned off their phones before. Sollecito’s final alibi has it that Knox was away from his place for four hours which is hardly conducive to a claim that they were having undisturbed sex.

Knox named Lumumba as the murderer because it was 5 in the morning and she’d been interrogated all night in a language she didn’t, at the time, understand very well.

It was not 5 in the morning. She made the claim soon after midnight and then repeated it in writing at her request for Mr Mignini. At the witness interview (which she volunteered for and could have refused) she had a translator present. Knox mentioned the translator in her testimony at trial.

She had only been in Italy about six weeks, and she hadn’t had any food or water for hours.

Knox herself confirmed at trial that she was given refreshments and treated well. Her own lawyers have never backed up such claims or filed an official complaint. For making claims of abuse against the interrogators both Knox and her parents face calunnia suits by those who consider themselves defamed.

Amanda’s DNA is mixed with Meredith’s blood on the bathroom sink because she brushed her teeth every day.

Not even Knox herself made that absurd claim. Katie Crouch should read this post on the various traces of mixed blood which the defenses have kept well away from disputing.

The knife the police had didn’t match Meredith’s wounds because it wasn’t the right one.

A defense witness at trial conceded that the large knife did match one of Meredith’s wounds. Good grief. Is there ANYTHING that Katie Crouch did get right?

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A New Book Explains The Unfruitful Emergence Of More And More Conspiracy Theories

Posted by Peter Quennell

Conspiracy theorists have dismally failed to come up with a plausible alternative theory of how Meredith died.

However, they do keep trying. So do the proponents of literally hundreds of other conspiracy theories, constituting vast amounts of effort probably better spent elsewhere - conspiracy theorists very rarely achieve very much, or do well economically, or rise to the top jobs.

The articles here and here look with skepticism on the 9/11 conspiracy theories which on the tenth anniversary of the twin towers coming down have been pushed hard by the various factions.

Now a new book “The Believing Brain” explains the mental makeup that disposes people to so eagerly believe the worst of our fellow man or our governments: One review in the Wall Street Journal..

In Mr. Shermer’s view, the brain is a belief engine, predisposed to see patterns where none exist and to attribute them to knowing agents rather than to chance””the better to make sense of the world. Then, having formed a belief, each of us tends to seek out evidence that confirms it, thus reinforcing the belief.

This is why, on the foundation of some tiny flaw in the evidence””the supposed lack of roof holes to admit poison-gas cans in one of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers for Holocaust deniers, the expectant faces on the grassy knoll for JFK plotters, the melting point of steel for 9/11 truthers””we go on to build a great edifice of mistaken conviction….

Mr. Shermer offers a handy guide for those who are confused. Conspiracy theories are usually bunk when they are too complex, require too many people to be involved, ratchet up from small events to grand effects, assign portentous meanings to innocuous events, express strong suspicion of either governments or companies, attribute too much power to individuals or generate no further evidence as time goes by.

The increasingly shrill posts appearing daily on the website Ground Report seem to mark pretty high against that list. Could the Evil Mignini have engineered even this?

Oops. Another conspiracy theory in play.

Monday, September 12, 2011

As We Long Predicted Knox Will Not Face Cross Examination When It Really Matters

Posted by Peter Quennell

Majority opinion in Perugia has long inclined to the view that the right perps were convicted back in December 2009.

It is very hard to see the six jury members (the lay judges) bucking that trend without being given a great deal more red meat for them to convince their friends and neighbors (and for that matter most of Italy) than they have now.

And Judge Hellman has a reputation similar to Judge Massei’s for making sure all the bases are covered and for not arriving at trial or appeal outcomes based on a few outlying contradictory “facts” or a mere whim. He too has been given very little that is new.

Putting Knox and Sollecito on the stand now would seem the last best shot at taking care of that.

But there is no sign that either defense team has been eager to see their clients speak out at any time, and Knox was even publicly warned early on not to do so.

The teams quite possibly winced now and then (along with many others) at Knox’s performances in past spontaneous declarations and in her stint on the stand in July 2009 which did not really go over at all well.

See here and here and here.

Kermit in this December 2010 post explained the risks Knox would face on the stand. Kermit helpfully included 150 cross-examination questions to drive home the stark point.

So. Knox and Sollecito. Trapped by poor legal and PR strategy between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Conspicuous By Their Absence Now: Legal Commentators For Sollecito And Knox

Posted by Peter Quennell

There is a marked sharp contrast now between how various reporters without legal backgrounds and various real lawyers are seeing the state of play in the appeal.

The post below shows how flavor-of-the-month reporters like Nick Pisa are still reporting happy talk from Knox and her entourage, while, within their professional constraints, we see more and more lawyers realisng Sollecito and Knox really are cooked.

Half a dozen of the main posters on TJMK who are lawyers (they identify themselves as such when they post) have explained how tough is the real case. Various Italian lawyers continue to offer us insights and tips from Perugia and Rome.  And we continue to see maybe half a dozen lawyers a week getting in touch by email or signing up, a trend that shows no sign of fading out.

In contrast all of the lawyers and legal commentators who were once suggesting the process in Perugia had taken a wrong turn have gone quiet, and no new legal voices for Solllecito and Knox are speaking up. The CNN legal shows devote almost no air time to the appeal, and Geraldo Rivera, Dan Abrams, John Q Kelly, Lis Wiehl and others have wound down their commentaries to brief equivocations or nothing at all. 

Ted Simon who is believed to be still on the Mellas-Knox payroll seems be operating only from very deep cover. Knox’s own lawyers pass on the (to us sad) happy talk from Capanne while themselves sounding very cautious and down.

And the former lawyer and political commentator Ann Coulter who does us the peculiar favor of including us in her definition of right wing is starkly declaring that the increasingly small number of increasingly shrill non-lawyers for Sollecito and Knox really should get a life.

By now, the only people who believe Knox and Sollecito are the usual criminal apologists and their friends in the American media.

Serial smearer and evidence incompetent Steve Moore as one of the usual criminal apologists?! That has to hurt.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Fourteenth Appeal Session: Judge Hellmann Consults Jury And Concludes They Have Enough To Wrap Up

Posted by Peter Quennell

Judge Hellman took the jury into chambers for half an hour yesterday and they decided not to delay matters for a further DNA review.

Final arguments will therefore take place later this month (dates in our right column) and a verdict on the appeal could be announced by the end of the month.

Defenses didn’t ask yesterday to put their clients on the stand, no further impromptu remarks from the defendants were made, and no defense request for review of the very damning mixed blood traces was advanced.

Our Italian lawyers are not rating chances of a full acquittal above one or two percent. They believe the groundwork for that has simply not been laid.  The judges and jury dont have what is needed to upend the detailed outcomes of two trials and two other appeals. And the Italian system is nothing if not very cautious and lacking in surprise. 

The Supreme Court has accepted that THREE attackers had to have been present on the night. Not the slightest evidence of any perps other than the three put on trial has been advanced. No scenario has been offered in court for Guede having committed the crime on Meredith alone - in fact Guede accused the other two of being there right to their faces in court.

Free-lance reporter Nick Pisa (image above) who we often quote on the occasions when we think he’s got it right reported yesterday in the Daily Mail that Prosecutor Comodi expressed frustration with the judge and predicted an acquittal due to bias.

This is not confirmed by any Italian source and Ms Comodi is simply reported there as saying she had expected the request for further tests to be turned down and the defendants COULD still walk. Nothing more.

TJMK main poster Will Savive offered this explanation for Nick Pisa’s apparent serious mistake in a comment on our previous post.

ABC News is also reporting that they spoke to Comodi after the session and it is a big difference than what Pisa wrote.

In fact, it is ABC who has claimed that they interviewed her. According to ABC, Comodi informed them that there is “a possibility” that Knox and Sollecito could win the appeal. There is also a possibility that the sun will fall from the sky, so it is all in the context and translation of how she said it. Then ABC quoted her as saying, “I would find it very serious if they were set free.”

FOX News also reported Comodi speaking out. Sheppard Smith put Comodi’s alleged quote on the screen and it read word for word what Pisa wrote. FOX has been decent, in my opinion, thus far on reporting on the case, but Sheppard and his two cronies today were amateur at best and clearly not educated on the case.

It is very likely that Pisa twisted her quote to fit his agenda and make news; I wouldn’t be surprised!

HOWEVER”¦

The Seattle Times has the best piece on it I think.  In their article they write the interview as going like this:

COMODI: We did our job. I am convinced by what I have said. I am fully convinced of their guilt and I would find it very serious if they were set free. Today’s decision could lead one to think that there is more of a possibility that they be set freed.

So in essence, she never said that there is a possibility, in her opinion. She said that the hearing today “could lead one to think that there is more of a possibility that they be set freed.” It seems as though only Pisa is reporting it the way he did.

The Seattle Times included this: “Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga warned that the court’s rejection of new DNA testing was not equal to a positive outcome of the whole appeals trial.”

As discussed at length on PMF (link just below) the present Knox PR hype is very reminiscent of the hype just before Judge Massei’s blunt and unequivocal verdict was read out.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Thirteenth Appeal Session:  It Looks Like The Defenses Have A Real Friend in Court - Judge Hellman

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. Context Of Overt Hellman Bias

Do you recall this fraught post?

“Corruption Of Appeal: Angry Top Criminal Judge Chiari Is Blatantly Forced Aside”

Umbria’s highly qualified top criminal judge had been yanked from the case by Umbria’s Chief Judge (and avid mason) De Nunzio, who has seemingly been gotten-to by the Sollecito family or their defense team.

Conjectures in Perugia abound. Maybe money was involved, or mafia ties, or masonic ties. 

In the period since the prosecution seems to be winning every shot at the hard facts. And yet Hellman intermittently seems to show major bias in his pro-defense rulings.

Hellman’s opening remarks back in 2010 favored the defense. So did his defined scope of the appeal, which has been illegally expanded into a mini-trial.

Contrary to appeal law, Hellman has accepted a total of FIVE new defense witnesses! None of whom relate closely to trial substance.

Two clearly biased and competent “independent” DNA experts were appointed to review some of the DNA. But why? The Carabinieri labs are meant for this purpose.

And whereas the defenses have been granted everything they ever wanted, time and again Judge Hellman has ruled against the prosecution.

And it happened again today.

Astoundingly, Hellman ruled that a confession on 27 July under oath by Luciano Aviello in front of Prosecutor Comodi making serious accusations against the Sollecito family and their defense team was not accepted for court follow-up!

Roll on Supreme Court. That is where Umbria Prosecutor General Galati recently transferred from and he has told the prosecution they will prevail for sure at that level.

2. Today In Abbreviated Court Session

There is a strike in Perugia so court could only meet for a half of a day. The Italian reporting today conveys a picture of more of the same tough prosecution rebuttal that we were seeing yesterday.

It emerged that the DNA that was remaining on both the bra clasp AND the knife might have been re-tested if Carla Vecchioti and Stefano Conti had not come up with some contentious quibbles for not proceeding.

The prosecution may now call for those tests to actually be done, by a new set of independent experts. Let us see if Judge Hellman will allow them.

Amanda Knox looked increasingly down today as she absorbed the trend in the testimony, and at one point she slumped on the table seemingly asleep. Serial over-promising by her suffocating entourage hasn’t done her any good.

Mr Mignini believes that at several points Amanda Knox wanted to confess and to pay her dues. Surely better this than a Casey Anthony or OJ Simpson situation with their attendant huge overtones of illegitimacy.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Twelfth Appeal Session: Prosecution Start To Undermine The Independent Experts’ More Tenuous Claims

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: Dr Stefanoni head of the Scientific Police’s Rome DNA labs with her prosecution interrogator Ms Comodi]


Monday’s Italian reporting suggests that Dr Stefanoni is coming across as highly competent and very objective.

Her team’s DNA handling and testing seems to have cut no corners. Her testimony will spill over into Tuesday.  The AGI News Service describes Dr Stefanoni on Monday running through her procedures and precuaions and denying that contamination could have taken place.

She hit point by point on all the complaints made by the consultants of the Assize Court of Appeal at Perugia about the police work in the context of scientific investigations into the murder of Meredith Kercher. She strongly defended the specialist work done by her laboratory. Stefanoni has categorically ruled out a possible contamination of the findings, pointing out that “the contamination is not ‘a thing that comes out of something abstract.”

The expert then recalled that the DNA of each operator that operates within the laboratories of the scientific police is ‘duly filed and that any possibility of contamination, whether by a person or from sample to sample, is tested on a regular basis. Dr Stefanoni also described how the “wet samples” collected on the first day of the murder investigation were kept in the refrigerator of the house and then brought to Rome.

And La Nazione in describing the same testimony adds that the defenses are taking quite a gamble in their all-or-nothing approach where a full acquittal seems increasingly unlikely and where the prosecution are asking for tougher sentences for Knox and Sollecito based on a waiver of Judge Massei’s mitigating circumstances.

The huge volume of evidence not being re-examined in the current appeal (about 95% of all evidence including a majority of the forensic evidence) is highlighted in many of the reports. Rudy Guede’s direct accusation of Knox and Sollecito to their faces in one appeal session is also recalled.

No mention of the position of the no-nonsense Supreme Court of Cassation position but that gorilla has to loom large in Judge Hellman’s mind. Judge Hellman does not have the final word on this appeal in Italian law, and a final outcome may take another 18 months. And if there is any funny business suspected, appeals can always be made to Cassation instantly.

In light of these two circumstances, the defense teams are still much more pussyfooting in Italian in the appeal court than the shrill PR claims in English-language media, while still not making the smartest move in Italian courts when defendants seem cooked and evoking some sympathy for them.

Knox’s best chances seem to be falling between those two stools.