Friday, September 13, 2024
Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #1
Posted by KrissyG
1. Overall Context
The image above shows Tuscany Chief Judge Nencini (left; 2014-15 lead judge on Knox’s main appeal) and Tuscany Appeals Court President Judge Anna Maria Sacco (second from right), the lead judge for this retrial, discussing another case.
This was Knox’s own repeat calunnia trial - a repeat of a segment of the 2009 trial. It was HER choice. It was not something Italy insisted upon. On this Knox had previously failed THREE appeals, in 2011, 2013, and (in part) 2015.
The option to request a new trial and potentially to wind back her felony conviction was offered to Knox (if she paid court costs if again found guilty) because of a bizarre and misinformed advisory to Italy from the European Court of Human Rights as we explain in earlier posts and again below.
Unlike the ECHR the Rome Supreme Court and Tuscany Appeal Court actually did their homework and now have seemingly left Knox without a leg to stand on.
Knox’s new guilty verdict was announced on 5 June by Judge Sacco. The long-form judges’ explanation (largely unique to Italy; the US and UK have no direct equivalent) signed by Judge Sacco followed several weeks ago. If there is an appeal route we don’t see it.
Our Wiki and two PMF forums and TJMK have a track record of great caution in translations, often requiring back-and-forths to Italy, and so a final English version is still several weeks away. Meanwhile this is a first of several overviews.
2. Immediate Wider Context
Back in June Knox turned up at the Florence Court with her entourage in tow, having “defaulted” (the court’s word) by skipping the “merits” hearing back in October 2023.
The press saw Knox’s attendance as a sign that maybe she could be acquitted. But the written reasons indicate that her attendance was not optional; it was to do with showing up as ordered by the court, and so the default was revoked.
In the event, Knox declined to read out her ready prepared victory statement (though she later shared her delusional opening statement with the whole world) as the court ruled in Lumumba’s favour. It ordered that she pay an immediately enforceable €10,000 to him, plus the court costs. Her calunnia conviction was reinstated, with an amendment to one of the “aggravating” factors, as ruled on by the Fifth Chambers on 27 Mar 2015 (final verdict).
3. Immediate Narrow Background
The background of the retrial is that Knox’s defence had demanded the Calunnia conviction be quashed, owing to the ECHR finding of 24 Jan 2019, under Article 6, “right to a fair trial”, and in part Article 3, “freedom from psychological pressure”, that (a) a lawyer was not provided as of the times Knox made her verbal allegations against Patrick Lumumba, and that (b) the interpreter provided, Anna Donnino, had exceeded her remit in providing Knox emotional support (this is all the ECHR upheld; Knox had requested more, including a vast payment, but ECHR endorsed a mere token equivalent of $20,000).
To this the Florence Court now points out:
However, the Strasbourg Court did not find any infringement of Article 81 EC in substantive terms of the Convention, observing that there was “nothing to support the conclusion that the applicant had been subjected to the inhuman and degrading treatment complained of.”
The only remaining allowable evidence re the calunnia charge was the written document dated 6 Nov 2007, which Knox had hand-written around noon and gleefully handed to policewoman Ficarra as “a gift” after having provided two signed statements after midnight.
It was thus decided by the Central Court of Cassation (Supreme Court) on 10 Oct 2023 that the case could go back down to retrial, with the two typed and signed statements impermissible, and the remaining independently-written post-noon one assessed on its merits as to whether it could be said to be a case of Aggravated Criminal Calunnia against Lumumba.
“Aggravated” relates to a serious crime that attracts more than ten years imprisonment and accordingly:
... of teleological connection, ex art. 61 n. 2 cod. pen. for having acted in order to obtain impunity for all and, in particular, Guede Rudi Hermann for the crime of murder.
Knox was jailed for three years (2009-2011) for “multiple aggravated slander”, with some aggravating elements excluded by the Supreme Court Fifth Chambers final verdict of 27 March 2015.
The Supreme Court’s College of Legality had thus ruled that the convictions of 26 Mar 2013 and that of 27 March 2015 together with the Perugia Court of Appeal of 3 Oct 2011 – the controversial Hellmann court that saw Knox freed to fly back to America but still convicted of calunnia – could all be annulled conditional upon a retrial and possible re-conviction of calunnia albeit with time served.
Knox’s oral accusations against Lumumba had been made at around 01:00 and again at 05:45; these are the statements now barred as evidence because of the murky ECHR ruling. But Knox’s claimed ‘retraction’ was written in private and in English at circa 13:00, the same day.
The warrant executed for Lumumba’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment had been enacted at 08:30 that morning (6 Nov 2007) and thus precedes the timing of the memo in question.
4. The Defendant’s Case
Knox’s lawyers (Carlo Dalla Vedova of Rome and Luca Luparia Donati of Milan) argued thus:
... the memorial was a dream-like account of the fragments of a nightmare in which Amanda Marie Knox repeatedly admitted that she was unsure of having lived the confusingly reported experience, which re-emerged in the reality elaborated by her mind, badly prostrated after the last interrogation held the previous night. These were flashbacks which she herself doubted to the point of questioning who the real murderer was and of ruling out the possibility of being considered a witness against Diya Lumumba.
The Florence Appeal Court rejected this claim, reasoning that the language deployed was escamotage – a trick or sleazy ploy. For something to be considered circumstantial evidence, there needs to be a logical chain of events that leads up to it and from it.
The Appeal Court now points out that Knox’s use of the clear chain of events (seeing Patrick in the basketball court – seeing him at the door - hearing Meredith’s screams) couldn’t be claimed to be a “messy dream” in particular because the event of Meredith’s screaming had been independently witnessed and verified by two separate neighbours, and because Knox was the only person with the key to access the apartment that night.
5. The Civil Party’s Case
Carlo Pacelli of Perugia representing Patrick Lumumba argued as follows.
In this regard he highlighted the part of the writing in which Amanda Marie Knox claimed that she had not lied when she had said that she thought the killer was Patrick and added immediately afterwards “I really thought he was the murderer”.
6. Court Consideration Of Arguments
The defence for Knox claimed the memo represented a retraction of the claims she had made during the early hours and a need to clarify that she was doubtful and confused.
The Florence Court rejected this, saying that far from being a retraction or a description of a dream state, it was a reiteration, with the language used not as expressing doubt but as “a ploy” or a literary device if you like.
It explained that under the criminal code, a defendant was allowed to lie about their own involvement in a crime (equivalent to the right not to incriminate oneself), but, when an innocent third party is blamed, it brings in the concept of risk brought upon against that person.
Thus, Knox had endangered Lumumba with imprisonment and the risk of a conviction of a serious crime, of which he did unfairly serve fourteen days.
In its reasoning, the court further points out the transcripts of police wire-tapping of Knox talking in prison with her mother, in which she says she felt “terrible” about what she had done to Lumumba. Putting him “in a horrible situation and in jail through her fault, reiterating that concept several times”.
And yet, the court points out, Knox failed to mention Lumumba’s innocence at her post-arrest remand hearing with Magistrate Matteini, indicating a deliberate false accusation against Lumumba. (That was the hearing where for the second time Sollecito seriously sold Knox down the river. And as per routine procedure, Matteini now took over overall management of the case from Dr Mignin.)
The court also notes:
The defendant told her mother - who spoke of possible lies spread artificially by the mass media - “But it is stupid. I can’t say any more, because I know that I was there and I can’t lie about it, I have no reason to do it.” (bold is mine).
The defence had also argued that Knox’s further memo written before 1:00 pm on 6 Nov 2007 (four days after the murder, at the Questura) was done after the time of the order of detention of Lumumba, at 08:30 am, and thus, they argue, cannot be said to have caused his arrest, her earlier statements which caused this now not being permitted as evidence.
The court dismisses this point, stating:
On the other hand, for the offense of criminal slander to be capable of being characterized, it is only necessary that the false accusation contains in itself the necessary and sufficient information for the initiation of criminal proceedings against a person who is unequivocally and easily identifiable, as was certainly the case - both nominally and documentally - in the present case.
It rejects the claim Knox was confused and bringing up false memories because of the logical nature of the sequence of events she describes, as pointed out above.
In any case, I note, personally - not the court - a false memory typically occurs when a person suffers a traumatic event and is unable to remember what happened. Later, with the passing of time, one’s brain fills in the missing details to make sense of the forgotten parts, and these details may be false.
For a memory to be false, a traumatic event must have happened in the first place. For example, via early childhood abuse or a car crash. If Knox had never been at the cottage whilst Meredith was murdered, how could she have a false memory of it? It certainly wouldn’t qualify as a “false memory” in its conventional sense.
The court further writes:
To conclude this point, it must be added that - a fortiori - the essential and direct nature of the false accusation does not make it either absurd or unlikely and confirms its suitability to integrate the material element of the alleged crime.
In Knox’s read-out statement to the current hearing she said “I wanted the police to know that I was doing my best to cooperate.” But the Florence Court questions this:
It must be said that the crime of slander requires general intent, that is to say, the conscience and willingness to charge a person who is innocent of a crime, the reason for the false accusation being irrelevant (Cassation 2489 of 2000).
[snip]
Amanda Marie Knox was perfectly aware of Diya Lumumba’s innocence, as Patrick is known, from a number of elements.
The first is that the defendant was at the time of the murder of Meredith Kercher at the house and, therefore, she knew that there was no Diya Lumumba there.
The situation is clear from Knox’s own writing, which locates her inside the house, and reports a scream from Meredith (“I saw myself curled up in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I heard Meredith screaming”).
That harrowing scream, which in her account required her to press her hands to her ears and to curl up in the kitchen in an attempt not to hear it, was a fact that really happened and was clearly perceived by Capezzali Nara and Monacchia Antonella, two neighbors of the house, with dwellings located near the cottage of via della Pergola #7, who both heard her, deeming it anomalous and atrocious, so much so that they were shocked.
[snip]
Meredith Kercher’s harrowing scream, at the time of Knox writing the accusatory statement against Diya Lumumba in the noon 6 November memoriale, was an element unknown to investigators, and to anyone who could not hear it because they were not present in or near the house where the murder took place.
[snip]
That circumstance demonstrates - first - the presence of Amanda Marie Knox in the house where the homicide occurred, at the time when it occurred, a place where, moreover, she herself sits (“curled up in the kitchen with her hands over her ears”) and, secondly, that the defendant was perfectly aware of the innocence of Diya Lumumba, known as Patrick, who was certainly not in that house.
7. The Florence Court’s Conclusions
The persistence of this attitude marks a clear departure from any behavior aimed at cooperation with investigators, so often represented by the defense and by the defendant herself, most recently in her final statements.
In short, Amanda Marie Knox must be held liable for the crime of aggravated criminal slander within the meaning of Article 2(2) of Regulation No 40/94 subpart f of paragraph 368 of the penal code).
The judgment at first instance [2009] must, however, be reformulated in part, first, by considering the definitive exclusion of the aggravating teleological link by reason of the formation of the final judgment on Knox’s acquittal on the charge of participation in the murder of Meredith Kercher, handed down by the Court of Cassation on 27 March 2015, and, second, from the point of view of the penalty [actually adjusted slightly by Judge Hellman in 2011].
[There follows various court costs orders.]
Thus decided in Florence on 5/6/2024
Anna Maria Sacco, President
Angelo Grieco, Jury Manager
And six lay judges
Posted by KrissyG on 09/13/24 at 02:59 PM in Hoaxes Sollecito etc
Comments
Hmmm. Definitive. Even if long overdue and still partial, a powerful hit-back on Meredith’s behalf at last. Much commended in Italy.
This is a subtext to the judgment that comes across strongly here:
The retrial was referred down to the Florence court by Cassation’s Fifth Chambers, obviously no longer in cover-your-ass mode with the bent or leaned-upon judges Marasca and Bruno now edged out.
Had that same Chambers followed the law back in 2015, requiring that Cassation not stick its nose into evidence issues but refer all such issues back down to the same Florence court, that [Nencini] court’s stiff rejection of the repeat Knox/Sollecito appeal would have remained standing.
In that event RS and AK would probably quite rightly still be in prison, we would long ago have moved on, justice for Patrick would have come full circle, Knox would no longer be plaguing America and Italy, and the sad and betrayed family of Meredith might have a modicum of peace at last.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/13/24 at 10:22 PM | #
And as we have observed many times on this ludicrous finding by the ECHR: “a lawyer was not provided as of the times Knox made her verbal allegations against Patrick Lumumba”.
A lawyer for what? No country in the world has a law saying you must have a lawyer present when you are busy accusing someone else.
And Knox kept babbling that Patrick had done it all through the wee hours until the investigators shut her up with chamomile tea.
The ECHR really can be a loose canon at times. Amateurism runs rife. Here it did real harm - though that bit Knox in the tail at the end.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/14/24 at 08:37 AM | #
To be fair, all the ECHR had was what Dalla Vedova for Knox submitted in the application. He relied heavily on Boninsegna who wasn’t even the judge at the Lumumba calunnia trial.
I think the ECHR did what courts often do, throw out the main bulk of a complex claim but offer a crumb of comfort by finding in favour of one minor point. It’s a veiled insult, really. Probably to demonstrate how neutral and impartial they are. Rather like a well-known character in the news who once vexatiously claimed libel yet only won one penny in damages. The fact the ECHR threw out all of the claims about doctors giving AK fake HIV results, slapping and who-knows-what but allowing in part of Art 3 that Knox was badly treated because the cops were too nice to her when they should have been aloof (and I do see their point on an ethics level) and only awarding €18K (when her legal fees will be many times this) indicates they let her win on a smaller point just to dispose of the case.
Having managed to swing results at the Hellmann court and a minor victory at the ECHR re the calunnia, she obviously thought all it needed was a quick cancellation of a pretty solid conviction, now there was a result at the ECHR.
I can’t see how this conviction can be appealed as no Italian Court has ever found in her favour in the calunnia issue.
Posted by KrissyG on 09/14/24 at 11:32 AM | #
While ECHR is a bit too notorious for “dividing the baby” in the way that Krissy describes, to its credit it did make this enormously damning point.
“However, the Strasbourg Court did not find any infringement of Article 81 EC in substantive terms of the Convention, observing that there was “nothing to support the conclusion that the applicant had been subjected to the inhuman and degrading treatment complained of.”
But they could have got the lawyer matter right so easily. All they had to do was to read the numerous pre-arrest transcripts and 2009 trial transcript. Knox kept brushing off suggestions that she say no more till she had a lawyer - and she was not confessing to anything, she was framing Patrick.
It took investigators a while to accept she was really the leader of the murderous pack, though Sollecito did hurry that along a bit.
ECHR were not limited to Knox lawyer Dalla Vedova’s cherrypicking of the cherrypicking of Judge Boningsegna (later laid off by the way). ECHR could also have looked at the 2011 and 2013 court reports.
Instead it opened this vast opportunity for Knox to claim she was tortured while a lawyer was being kept at bay.
Knox actually went on Bruno Vespa’s popular TV show AFTER the verdict was announced back in June to say she was tortured - Bruno had no comeback (for which he was angrily criticised) - and to claim Patrick and she are both equally victims.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/15/24 at 11:58 AM | #
Not that we are in the business of giving Amanda Knox legal advice… But Knox KNEW exactly what was about to hit her between the eyes.
A whole year ago, the Supreme Court’s Attorney General had laid out for the Fifth Chambers the enormous strength of the calunnia case (we have it and will be posting on that).
This is why the Fifth Chambers would not annul the conviction without the retrial.
Italian courts can be pretty forgiving. But here Knox really shot herself in the foot - three times.
(1) Knox sticking with her arrogant, expensive, seemingly incompetent lawyer (Dalla Vedova is a business lawyer and maybe a good one, but in criminal law makes mistake after mistake after mistake; they are widely laughed about).
(2) Knox skipping the merits hearing. It was HER HEARING. Who in their right mind says okay, full speed ahead to a retrial - and then fails to show up to present their case?!
(3) Knox not getting on the stand this past June and giving it a shot. Instead, she made some seriously stupid claims about having been tortured by police on the worst night in her whole life, which even ECHR denied as the evidence against that is so vast. And then she chickened out.
Serious Italian taxpayers’ resources were put into this. Good that Knox was made to pay some of her bloodmoney for all the abuse and wasting the court’s time.
This over-aggression in claiming she is not aggressive is bit-by-bit laying Knox low. Back in 2013 prior to her crazed book, Dalla Vedova should have advised her to just shut up and disappear - and then walked off her case. That is what her other main lawyer Ghirga did.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/16/24 at 11:01 AM | #
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Where next:
Click here to return to The Top Of The Front PageOr to next entry Florence Court Explains Second Knox Guilty Verdict For Criminal Slander #2
Or to previous entry Knox Lie-A-Thon #4: How Myriad Past Lies About “Forced Confession” Are Sinking Her Now