Thursday, November 30, 2017
The Academic Fraud By Martha Grace Duncan Enabled By Emory & Harvard Law Schools
Posted by Our Main Posters
Emory Law Dean Schapiro; Martha Grace Duncan; Harvard Law Dean Manning
1. Yet Another Major Academic Fraud
Our main poster The Machine has spotted yet another academic fraud.
She is Martha Grace Duncan of Emory University, in Atlanta USA.
She joins a long line of other academic fraud we continue to expose. She follows and freely borrows from such other academic charlatans as Doug Bremner, Chris Halkidis, Greg Hampikian, Saul Kassin, Michael Krom, Michael Wiesner, Peter Gill, and Mark Waterbury.
She especially emulates the quack law-school psychologist Saul Kassin. He also could not explain the equal official focus on Sollecito by way of the madonna/whore complex which the PR shill Nina Burleigh also propagated hard.
Christine Corcos runs the blog where the Martha Duncan notice that the Machine spotted appears. She tells us in an email that the article will appear in a scholarly legal journal. Christine Corcos is not certain whether peer review has already happened or is still ahead but it is expected.
But Duncan’s flippant, xenophobic, callous, me-me-me paper is already widely published without peer review. By Harvard University Law School! Those who failed to vet it include Nasheen Kalkat, Alexa Meera Singh, and Brianne Power.
Duncan promotes the paper avidly and seems to have already duped thousands. She beats the drum about the paper on these lines.
Previous versions of this Article were presented at (1) the Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza, Università degli Studi di Torino; (3) the European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy; (3) the Emory Law Faculty, (4) the Emory Psychoanalytic Studies Program, and (5) the Emory Workshop on Geographies of Violence.
2. Duncan’s Simplistic, Self-Serving Thesis
Large parts of the paper are about Duncan herself. In the passages devoted to the case. Duncan seeks to make readers believe that Knox was demonized, charged and convicted.
Why? Because she was “free-spirited”. We get endless tortured examples. That’s it, apparently. Nothing else. There was no real case against Knox at all. Foolish prosecutors. Foolish judges. Foolish juries. Foolish Italy.
And the demonizer who amazingly swayed all of them? One of the prosecutors, Dr Mignini, an Italian and a Catholic (both groups Duncan tars as anti-women).
3. Duncan’s Appalling List Of Omissions
Duncan’s flippant, xenophobic, me-me-me paper with its dozens of false Knox PR talking points omits even more than she fraudulently includes.
1. Duncan ignores the victim, Meredith (mentioned only briefly and pretty callously).
2. Duncan ignores that Knox was not an exchange student, that she was perhaps the only American student who turned her back on available funding and any possibility of course credits.
3. Duncan ignores the bizarrely grubby, noisy, sharp-elbowed, tin-eared, self-absorbed behavior that was making Knox so unpopular in Perugia.
4. Duncan ignores Knox’s proven over-the-top drug use, extending back to Seattle and that Knox was stinking of cat-pee on the morning of the murder, a sign of cocaine use (and of no recent shower).
5. Duncan ignores the breaks Dr Mignini gave Knox. She ignores what he actually said. She ignores that he have her several breaks which her lawyers urgen her to take.
6. Duncan ignores Knox’s endless trail of incriminating behaviors.
7. Duncan ignores the co-defendant Sollecito (mentioned only once, because he doesnt fit the demonizing-of-Knox theory).
8. Duncan ignores the kind boss Knox maliciously framed, put in prison for two weeks, served three years for framing, and still owes $100,000 (Patrick).
9. Duncan ignores that two courts were provably corrupted and known to be so in Italy and that the mafias had a major role.
10. Duncan ignores that Knox’s so-called “interrogation” was a hoax, she was treated well, and she did not confess.
11. Duncan ignores or advances over 30 other hoaxes as listed in our right column.
12. Duncan ignores that the 30-plus judges who handled the case published extensive lists of evidence.
13. Duncan ignores that there were two unanimous pro-guilt juries (and one corrupted one).
14. Duncan ignores that Knox was NOT exonerated by the Supreme Court, bent though it was, and she was placed at the scene of the crime. .
15. Duncan ignores Knox’s promotion of the stalking of the victim’s family (a felony).
16. Duncan ignores that Italy’s murder and incarceration rates are 1/6 those of the US.
17. Duncan ignores the co-prosecutor Dr Manuela Comodi, never once mentioned, presumably because a very bright woman prosecutor doesnt fit the demonizing-of-Knox theory.
18. Duncan ignores the huge wave of court documents or trial transcripts which of course support none of her thesis.
More? Please see here.
Posted by Our Main Posters on 11/30/17 at 08:00 AM in Various hypotheses, The psychology, Faux feminism
Comments
I am checking into the Emory University attorney Martha Duncan Grace.
The little I was able to find showed her parroting the Madonna-whore dichotomy, the hybrid Italian justice system, the crazed Satanic theories of Mignini, and poor Knox who was just an innocent free spirit from the West who lacked ability to cut a bella figura or to tone down her individualistic streak which is her American heritage.
Complete hooey that underestimates Italian common sense and tries to erase the hard evidence against Miss Knox and that can’t account for her needless lies and changes of story and tales of amnesia while admitting drug use and “confusion”.
The Italians might have seen Knox as an ignorant hoyden but they didn’t decide her guilty of murder based on her atrocious manners and lack of sensitivity chip.
Ms. Duncan would do well not to assume medieval blindness to the quite smart and modern Italians whose biggest weakness may be an overabundance of caution and compassion to the obvious liars.
Posted by Hopeful on 11/30/17 at 05:58 PM | #
Hi Hopeful
Like Burleigh, Duncan comes off as anti-catholic. They are not the only ones. We might use some posts exploring that.
Mignini being catholic actually only affected him in one way that we know of - it makes him a target in Perugia for the numerous anti-catholic masonic elements. The chief judge was one of them.
Perugia prosecutors have all been targets for the dangerous Ndrangheta mafia which has been moving into Perugia and Umbria generally throughout this whole period.
Sollecito’s relatives in Montreal and the Dominican Republic are Ndrangheta. No wonder they were happy to help to take Dr Mignini and Italian justice down a peg.
With Rocco Sollecito gunned down and his son on trial, Raffaele now lacks an effective godfather, and could even become a target.
Perugia and Florence prosecutors are also targets of those accused of corruption in government as trials that cannot be held in Rome for safety reasons are held there.
What about all this then, Martha Grace Duncan? Still inclined to screech at the prosecutor? Then explain why.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/30/17 at 06:58 PM | #
My mini review of the Martha Grace Duncan paper is here. (Can’t write a longer one, sorry)
http://perugiamurderfile.net/viewtopic.php?p=132330#p132330
Posted by Ergon on 12/01/17 at 07:29 AM | #
Copying here James Raper’s helpful mini review on the previous thread, below our notice first mentioning the Martha Grace Duncan fraud.
***
Re Martha Duncan. Supposed to be a scholarly work. She lists the names of 16 research assistants, and acknowledges the input of 17 other people, who are all presumably students and/or professional colleagues of hers.
Her base data is derived from reading news reports and articles in the american media as well as books on the case (and on others) available for sale in american bookshops, so her myopic slant is not surprising.
She is flogging a notion (the tribulations of adolescence) drawing (as if no-one else ever has) on personal experience and literature.
The article, which is garbage, but which might have been interesting in another context, could have been written as a thesis by a trainee social worker or an immature student of psychology.
Difficult to believe she is actually a professor of law. I would have thought that this would be rather embarrassing to her faculty, but I suspect not (she has received an award for the article) and if so that is an indictment of the sad state of affairs in academia in the US.
By James Raper from previous thread.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/01/17 at 01:50 PM | #
1, James along with Yummi anticipated Martha Duncan’s huge confusion over how the Italian system actually works now. They explain it accurately in this key post.
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/reasonable_doubt_in_italian_law/
2. American legal commenters who actually understand the Italian system as described there respect it just fine.
3. The UK/US alternative is “black box juries” which can convict or release based on anything they choose and never have to explain why. Plus no automatic right to appeal. It’s the US system that is under so much fire now.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/01/17 at 02:35 PM | #
I’ve read Martha Grace Duncan’s academic paper. It’s riddled with factual errors and she regurgitates many well-known PR lies.
She falsely claims
(1) Amanda Knox was retried in absentia
(2) she was fully exonerated by the Supreme Court
(3) her DNA wasn’t found at the crime scene
(4) there were long hours of interrogation on 5 and 6 November 2007
(5) Knox had the option of leaving Perugia, but chose to stay
(6) she had a noble desire to be honest and helpful with the police and prosecutor
(7) Sollecito’s kitchen knife was chosen at random
(8) the Supreme Court dropped all charges against Knox and Sollecito
(9) Knox was found guilty of murder largely because of what others saw as her strange behaviour
(10) Mignini said Meredith was killed in a sex game gone awry.
She seems completely oblivious to the fact that the Supreme Court ascertained the following:
(1) there were multiple attackers
(2) it’s a proven fact that Amanda Knox was at the cottage when Meredith Kercher was killed
(3) she washed Meredith’s blood off in the small bathroom
(4) she lied repeatedly to the police
(5) she falsely accused Diya Lumumba of murder to cover for Rudy Guede
(6) the break-in at the cottage was staged.
Posted by The Machine on 12/01/17 at 06:08 PM | #
It is truly amazing the garbage that can get published when one has Ph.D after their name.
As discussed in Part One, Amanda was found guilty of murder largely because of what others saw as her strange behavior, in particular, her failure to mourn her roommate’s death. Through a series of improvident and impulsive actions, she actually helped the prosecutor build his case against her, leading to two murder convictions, four years of incarceration, and over seven years in a legal limbo before she was finally exonerated.
Freud who seek punishment to alleviate the tension of unexpiated guilt?170 Or were the police correct that the most compelling explanation of Amanda’s behavior was her involvement in the crime?171 As the reader may have surmised by now, I believe the answer to the last question to be no. Amanda’s actions, however unseemly, can be persuasively explained by theories other than her participation in the murder. Let us now consider some of these alternative theories
Fully 1/3 of her paper is listing Knox’s ‘‘quirky’’ behaviour and listing it as reasons why she IS viewed oddly. Duncan quotes Nina Burleigh, and Dempsey, along with some generic media
To Martha Duncan’s credit, she does seem to understand at least that Florence 2013/2014 was a redo of AK/RS appeal.
March 26, 2013: The Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest criminal court, overturns the acquittal of Amanda and Raffaele and orders a new appeal.
January 30, 2014: The new appeal ends with the court reinstating the murder convictions of both Amanda and Raffaele. The court increases Amanda’s sentence to twenty-eight and a half years, while leaving Raffaele’s sentence of twenty-five years unchanged.
Martha Duncan clearly never actually read the Mignini/Knox transcripts of either December 2007, or of June 2009, or this would never have come out in her writing
However, contrary to her expectation, Mignini controlled the encounter, turning everything Amanda said into further evidence of her guilt.204 This certainty that one’s innocence is both obvious and protective is so common that it has been given a name in criminal law: “the illusion of transparency.â€
Martha Duncan is clearly taken in by the whole long-exposed Knox interrogation Hoax to which even Knox’s own lawyers did not subscribe.
In fact, false confessions were the fourth most recurrent cause of these wrongful convictions, preceded only by mistakes in eyewitness identification, perjury by prosecutorial witnesses, and “community outrage over a crime.†Not all false confessions are alike.
According to scholars, they fit into three categories: (1) voluntary; (2) coerced-compliant; and (3) coerced-internalized.
The first type, the voluntary confession, occurs when the suspect makes a false confession that is unsolicited, sometimes arising from mental illness or morbid guilt.
The second type, the coerced-compliant confession, manifests itself when the suspect, unable to bear the torment of the interrogation any longer, breaks and admits to the crime; however, in a unique characteristic of this type, the suspect often retracts the confession once the interrogation ends.
And finally, the coerced-internalized type occurs when the suspect becomes disoriented during the interrogation and ends up doubting her own memory and accepting a false story as true.
Kassin Part Deux!! Not once ounce of testimony or defense argument was ever presented on these lines. The defenses always knew Knox’s claims were a hoax and filed no complaint. Even Knox ended up denying it on the stand. Read the testimony posts here.
This ‘‘professor’’ goes on and on about how Knox’s image was used against her. She seems either unable, or unwilling to distinguish the difference between what was said in the press, if it ever was (in Italy Knox was reported on just fine) and what was actually said in Court
Still, we are left with a question: how did the reporters, lawyers, and judges so easily make the leap from whore to murderer? One theory is that a woman’s virtue is closely tied to her chastity; thus, once she is seen as “easy,†promiscuous, or lustful, the idea that she could murder is not much of a stretch. A second is that in some eras and locales, murder by a woman has been considered “so unthinkable . . . that it [has] to be explained away as the action of a whore, witch, monster or madwoman.†And underlying both of these hypotheses is a third: the psychoanalytic concept of condensation. A characteristic of primary process thinking311—the kind of thinking we do unconsciously,
Perhaps if she were remotely (and I do mean remotely) up to speed on the hard facts, not the media spin, the article would be more substantive.
And then there is this quote. Pardon the length, but too absurd to omit. Ms. Duncan is very Hellmann-esque in her belief that evidence should be viewed individually, rather than in its entirety. Remember, it is one of the big reasons Hellmann/Zanetti got annulled in March 2013,
At the risk of annoying him, I raise the topic again. “A few minutes ago,†I say, “you referred to the overwhelming case against Amanda, but wasn’t there doubt over every witness, over the supposed murder weapon, the tainted bra clasp, and the footprints?†Stefano thinks for a minute before answering with confidence. “When the Supreme Court nullified the acquittal,†he says, “it was as if they had a puzzle with five hundred dots. Every single dot could be something else, but taken all together, the dots can only mean one thing.â€
The argument is one I have heard before, during an exchange with a criminal law professor at the University of Florence. I am aware that in continental Europe, judges often employ the “holistic†approach to interpretation, whereas in common-law countries, they rely more heavily on the “atomistic†approach. Doubtless because of my immersion in the Anglo-American system, the “holistic†approach is unconvincing to me. I wonder how the sheer quantity of evidence can be compelling if every piece of evidence is ambiguous or compromised.
“I was very surprised at the second opinion,†Stefano goes on. “When the Court of Appeals acquitted, it claimed that if you take one piece out, the whole case falls apart. They took out the DNA from the bra clasp, which was contaminated, but DNA is not necessary to prove guilt.†His comment puzzles me, because the Court of Appeals had not merely challenged “one piece.†Rather they had questioned the credibility of witnesses, rejected the lower court’s analysis of the footprints and the motive, and declined to attach incriminatory meaning to Amanda and Raffaele’s behavior after the murder.
Duncan does not speak or read Italian. She seriously garbles the final ruling. See for example here.
http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/in_english_the_vital_supreme_court_rationale
To summarise:
(1) No clue of the actual hard facts or evidence
(2) Takes at face value the PR claims that it was puritan values that condemned AK
(3) No clue how thoroughly Knox interrogation hoax has been rebuffed
(4) No clue how Knox and Mignini actually interacted
(5) Takes a Hellmann style approach, that evidence should be viewed in piecemeal fashion, which in 2013 the Supreme Court shot down.
Crap indeed
Posted by Chimera on 12/02/17 at 05:30 AM | #
I want to build on the previous comment of mine, the one above.
1. Ms Duncan wrote:
At the risk of annoying him, I raise the topic again. “A few minutes ago,†I say, “you referred to the overwhelming case against Amanda, but wasn’t there doubt over every witness, over the supposed murder weapon, the tainted bra clasp, and the footprints?†Stefano thinks for a minute before answering with confidence. “When the Supreme Court nullified the acquittal,†he says, “it was as if they had a puzzle with five hundred dots. Every single dot could be something else, but taken all together, the dots can only mean one thing.â€
The argument is one I have heard before, during an exchange with a criminal law professor at the University of Florence. I am aware that in continental Europe, judges often employ the “holistic†approach to interpretation, whereas in common-law countries, they rely more heavily on the “atomistic†approach. Doubtless because of my immersion in the Anglo-American system, the “holistic†approach is unconvincing to me. I wonder how the sheer quantity of evidence can be compelling if every piece of evidence is ambiguous or compromised.
“I was very surprised at the second opinion,†Stefano goes on. “When the Court of Appeals acquitted, it claimed that if you take one piece out, the whole case falls apart. They took out the DNA from the bra clasp, which was contaminated, but DNA is not necessary to prove guilt.†His comment puzzles me, because the Court of Appeals had not merely challenged “one piece.†Rather they had questioned the credibility of witnesses, rejected the lower court’s analysis of the footprints and the motive, and declined to attach incriminatory meaning to Amanda and Raffaele’s behavior after the murder.
Here is where the article I ‘‘want’’ to read starts, but this is as close as Ms. Duncan will get.
2. ‘‘Odd behaviour’’ is what she calls Knox: (1) falsely accusing an innocent person, aka Susan Smith; (2) false alibis and other lies to police; (3) blurting out details, such as cut throat, the scream and body being moved, which no one else could have known. Rather these items reek of guilt.
3. Further I would add (4) the callous indifference Knox showed. While not direct evidence, it stands the whole ‘‘she was my friend’’ on its head. Shit happens, but let’s move on with life.
4. It would nice if Ms, Duncan would discuss the hard truths against Knox: (5) mixed blood; (6) bloody footprints; (7) double DNA knife; (8) woman’s shoeprint; (9) the mop story; (10) AK’s lamp being locked in Meredith’s room. Rather she is a ‘‘law and gender’’ professor. Apparently the actual facts and evidence are not relevant if one of the accused is an attractive American woman.
5. It would also be nice if Ms. Duncan could explain (11) how 2 men, Sollecito (Italian), and Guede (15 years in Italy), also were the victims of xenophobia and the Madonna-Whore divide.
6. It would also be nice if (12) she could explain AK’s April 2007 staged break in ‘‘prank’’ in Seattle on her roomies, in a way that doesn’t look like guilt. After all there were (12) signs that the Perugia break in was staged.
7. The 1st Judge Knox faced was Claudia Matteini in November 2007. She supervised the case through 2008 and in effect Mignini. Are we to infer that it was sexism that caused her to remand AK?
8. It would be nice if Ms. Duncan could explain why Hellmann (2011) was justified on overturning Massei (2009), or the legal reasoning behind Cassation 1st Chambers (2013) annulling the Hellmann appeal. Several poster here have done just that, at least regarding Cassation. She could explain how the 1st Chambers directed Nencini (2013/2014), and why he ultimately confirmed the Massei trial verdict. She could try to explain Bruno-Marasca (2015) fully.
But a law and gender professor has no interest in the actual arguments of the Courts themselves, preferring instead to focus on the media attention involved. She quotes not the Judges’ rulings, nor any court documents, but generic media.
9. It would be nice if Ms. Duncan could explain how and why the media attention altered AK’s legal proceedings. Rather than rambling on about historical discrimination against women, some actual research would have been appreciated.
Ms. Duncan ‘‘could’’ have done an article about how Knox received fair proceedings in spite of the media mess. But she would have to have actual material, and she clearly did no research.
Crap article indeed.
Just a final thought from U.S. Chief Supreme Court Judge, John Roberts:
Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18th Century Bulgaria, or something.
If the academy wants to deal with the legal issues at a particularly abstract, philosophical level, that’s great and that’s their business, but they shouldn’t expect that it would be of any particular help or even interest to the members of the practice of the bar or judges.
That is right. The top Justice in the U.S. Supreme Court thinks academic legal articles are useless to practicing Judges and lawyers.
See why?
Posted by Chimera on 12/03/17 at 09:52 AM | #
Hello again,
For examples of fine articles that can be done if the author actually does research, here are 2 that Selene Nelson submitted in 2014. Short, factual, and hard to argue down. Not 80+ pages of rambling.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/selene-nelson/amanda-knox_b_5529905.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Posted by Chimera on 12/03/17 at 10:00 AM | #
An interesting conversation over on PMF.net, link to it in the left column above. Here it is in part.
1. hugo wrote:
Perhaps she’s a friend of Doug Bremner at Emory?
2. Ergon wrote:
Quite possible, Hugo, since they have similar areas of interest.
Faculty Profiles:
J. Douglas Bremner, MD
Martha Grace Duncan
I see she even clerked for Judge Bortus at the Supreme Court. Yet it’s her interview with Knox and Madison Paxton at the restaurant when she lets her academic neutrality slip and comes like another media groupie. Sorry, but it detracts from her paper.
3. Hugo wrote:
Yes, and if you remember what a far-right nightmare her patron Judge Robert Bork was, it makes you think.
She teaches a course on ‘law and psychoanalysis’ (good grief, is psychoanalysis still a thing?), so it’s unlikely that she isn’t pals with notorious Emory psychiatrist Doug ‘Brother of Anne’ Bremner, leading light of the FOA.
She would appear to have failed to declare that interest.
Posted by James Raper on 12/03/17 at 12:31 PM | #
Hi James Raper. Thanks. Doug Bremner was profiled here - not a fount of coolheaded advice and even Anne once urged him to cool down.
Anne Bremner has often been corrected factually, by us, and by for example by Wendy Murphy on TV. Posts here correcting ex-Judge Michael Heavey generally also apply to her. She is said to have fallen out with Marriott: Bruce Fischer hijacked her FOA.
They all get in that echo chamber and jabber about haters instead of developing any depth at all. Bad move. Let’s see if they can give Duncan any defence, but a hard nut to crack, that, we already provide above 50-plus reasons why she is wrong.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/03/17 at 02:16 PM | #
Lots of great stuff here in response to Martha Grace Duncan. No time for a worthy rebuttal of her Knox-induced illusions, but she might look at the big picture, the simple reality.
In that objective reality we have PROOF of a cleanup. I won’t labor the details, but watered down blood and a missing footprint and all the blood washed off that Luminol detected should be a clue. So we have a cleanup.
But who was available to clean up?
Everyone was gone away from the cottage for days, everyone except Amanda. And she had a wild story of why she was seen on the front porch of the cottage with a mop and bucket.
Pressed for time, there is so much powerful stuff in posts and comments suddenly and hello, as Machine says more dispassionately than this but, hello Knox was NOT exonerated, no way baby, she was ruled not guilty due to INSUFFICIENT evidence. Two different animals.
Posted by Hopeful on 12/03/17 at 05:03 PM | #
Major flaw in Ms. Duncan’s “pretty free-spirited girl envied” theory is that police came down just as hard on her boyfriend, and he wasn’t so winsome.
He quickly confessed to police that he was lying to cover for Knox, who had asked him to lie for her! Raffaele said that to police out of his own mouth.
Later his DNA was found on the bra clasp. Speaking roughly, there’s only a chance in a million it could get there by accidental transfer.
The not so lovely Raffaele was prosecuted just the same as Amanda Knox, so the Italians were not swayed by beauty or lack of it. They were interested in the 5 spots of mixed Knox DNA in the victim’s blood. Maybe that’s why Knox asked her boyfriend to lie for her.
Posted by Hopeful on 12/04/17 at 03:59 PM | #
p.s. Sollecito when told they found blood on his knife, instead of denying the possibility, made up a story of how blood got there innocently. He said he had once pricked Meredith with that knife.
Yes, he pricked her with his knife while he was cooking with her at his place.
And then it turns out she had never been to his apartment to cook with him, ever.
Posted by Hopeful on 12/04/17 at 04:08 PM | #
The “Peer-Reviewed†“Scientificâ€, and “Legal†“Literatureâ€s are replete with b-s, such as that written by Martha Grace Duncan.
Its a sad fact of Life, and trying to correct the Authors and the Publishers is like p’ing against the wind, but we have to go on trying.
Posted by Cardiol MD on 12/04/17 at 08:05 PM | #
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