Saturday, July 18, 2009

Trial: Defendant’s Mother Claims Defence Getting Kind Of Squished

Posted by Peter Quennell


Click above for a brief report - only in the Belfast Telegraph and then by an unnamed reporter.

It’s the last day of the trial before a summer break, lasting almost two months.

Knox’s mother Edda Mellas said the Italian holiday is a big disadvantage for them,

“The prosecution was able to take a very long time to slowly present their case.

“The defence was getting kind of squished we had to kind of hurry to get some things in before this really long break.”

This is odd.

To us and our legal watchers, the prosecution appeared to present voluminous evidence and a huge number of witnesses impressively fast.

If there were examples of slow presentations we all seem to have missed them. And of course the defenses in their cross-examinations occupied at least a third of all time taken.

We wonder if any named reporter will repeat this slow-prosecution claim unquestioningly.

The defenses in contrast do appear to be proceeding very, very slowly, with short trial days, many scheduled witnesses seemingly AWOL, and not much of real substance to latch onto.

From the defenses’ angle, a long summer break might actually be a convenient time to re-tool the remaining defense strategy.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/18/09 at 04:48 PM in Trials 2008 & 2009

Comments

Terms used by members of the FOA have been causing confusion all round. To clarify we present the official FOA dictionary which is also available on T-shirt or mug with proceeds to the cause.

FOA Dictionary     3rd edition

African American       -  Black man

African African American -  Black immigrant. Probably illegal. If not should be.

Italian African American.  -  Black immigrant. Somebody else’s problem.

Burglar             - Black man

Rapist               - Black man

Murderer             - Black man

Lone wolf             - Black man with no friends

Pole vault           - Method of entry favoured by burglars

Basketball court     -  Where black people make nefarious plans.

Basketball team       - Gang of black burglars.

Jewish people   -  The ones grandad missed. But we can all laugh about it now.

White 20 year old smoking hash -  Normal student. Loved by everybody. Fluent in Italian and German and learning Russian, French, Hindi and Sanskrit. Brilliant future saving humanity.

Black 20 year old smoking hash - Dangerous drug dealer. Does cocaine probably deals heroin. Interferes with women. Feeds his habit by burglary at knifepoint and steals laptops. No window too high as basketball player. See above terms.

DNA of black man - Proof of guilt.

DNA of white man - Contamination of evidence

DNA of white woman - Police incompetence

Empathy - Amanda Knox

Naiive / Innocent / Trusting / Truthfull - Amanda Knox

Mother Teresa - Amanda Knox

The Virgin Mary - Amanda Knox

The Passion Of Christ - Amanda Knox in prison.

Long term relationship - One night stand

One night stand - 3 minutes between railway stations.

Vigil for muder victim- Low priority social event attended by those who have nothing better to do.

Murdering a pizza - High priority social event.

Hot pants - Item of court attire used to distract judge at unfavourable moments for defense.

Cleavage -  Natural asset the display of which is used in court to distract judge at unfavourable moments for defense.

Make-up- Something you slap on a fourteen year old so that she can use hot pants and cleavage to advantage. See above terms

Police brutality - Coffee and cookies

Inappropriate behaviour - Similar to police brutality. Examples: Insisting witnesses do yoga routines and cartwheels when they should be solving crimes. Disapproving of sexy hip swinging and ooplas when the light heartedness is clearly needed to cheer everybody up.

Alphabetical listing - Outmoded method of organization used predominantly by older educated people.

Imagining who could have committed the crime - How police solve crimes because they have no idea themselves. They just ask the witnesses to suggest a perpetrator to save faffing around.

Dilemma - Racking your brains for the name of a black man to finger.

False confession - When the fingered black man can show he’s innocent.

Gift - Elaborating on false confession to portray selected black man as scary and violent woman hater. Sometimes known as a false accusation though not to the FOA.

Bleahhhh - Summarizing exclamation that conveys that dying slowly from knife wounds is like, quite yucky, so you shouldn’t think about it. You risk being put off your pizza.

Getting on with life - Consequence of above. Also: Not giving a shit. Putting it all behind you because it happened a long way from home and you didn’t know the victim too well anyway. A learning experience.

Character witness - Somebody who has bought the T-shirt but has decided not to come to court after all.

Alibi - Something you have to create lots of because they could be useful. Mutually contradictory can be unhelpful but not fatal.

Goo-Goo eyes - The endearing look you give somebody who has denied your alibi for murder. He could say worse.

Chocolate - What you get in court in return to keep you on his side so you don’t say any more about him either.

Flowers in prison - See above

Water flowing uphill - Italian term to indicate that wealth will buy off the necessary officials who seek to impose consequences on youthfull indiscretions.

Release is the only possible outcome - 30 years is probable.

Book deal - How the folks back home console themselves.

PI - Private Investigator who will say what you want as long as you can pay him.

Lawyer - Similar to above but has fewer scruples and says it to a judge.

PR Consultant - Similar to above but gets other people to say it, especially newspaper editors and internet blogs.

Dude - Good guy

Retard - Bad guy

Posted by Faustus on 07/19/09 at 06:20 PM | #

I think what Edda meant is “the prosecution presented a mountain of evidence, but the defence have hardly any to contradict it”.

I am actually surprised the defence is winding up so quickly, their only real chance was to dispute as much evidence as possible. It seems like quite a weak defence, so I guess the verdict will depend on how the jury saw the prosecution case.

I have a feeling that Amanda and her family are being very complacent and will get quite a shock. I hope this does not lead to more bad-mouthing of Italian justice system, a tactic which has not been productive so far.

Posted by bobc on 07/19/09 at 09:25 PM | #

Yeah, I think BobC and, uh, Faustus might have nailed some real home truths there!  Maybe we shouldn’t laugh, but there is a “Through the Looking Glass” quality to such an extraordinary percentage of the FOA statements.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/19/09 at 10:43 PM | #

Orwellian, I think; not so fluffy and innocent as the magical through the looking glass.

Posted by bucketoftea on 07/20/09 at 04:53 PM | #

This is the first time I have had a good chuckle Faustus. Such a sad case. Yes, some very real truths here. Bobc, I don’t think Edda meant that at all. She is trying to convey that the defense wasn’t given proper due to present their case. Considering the spin of their PR firm, she is now trying to infer that RS and AK may not have been given a fair trial, which is entirely false.

Posted by tigger34 on 07/20/09 at 09:35 PM | #

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