Why For Wrongful Imprisonment DID KNOX NOT SUE ITALY?

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Sollecito lost a claim for compensation for wrongful imprisonment in January 2017, appeal against refusal being rejected by the Supreme Court the following June.

The following section from the Martuscelli judgement is particularly illustrative –

It does appear clear, in the light of the judicial truth established in the acquittal ruling concerning the indisputable presence of Knox in 7 Via della Pergola at the time of the murder, that if Sollecito had immediately said, without later changing his story, that the young woman had been far away from him during that time, and if he had told in a precise way the time at which she had arrived at his house and also her condition at that time – presumably upset or even extremely distraught, his legal situation would certainly have been different. It seems probable that he would not have even become a suspect, or even so, not seen as withholding information or lying in his statements. If he did become a suspect, the need for preventive custody would have been absent or much less important, inducing the judges to apply, at the worst, a less restrictive custody order.

It is unsurprising, in the circumstances, that Knox has not followed suit with a claim for compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

Hi James

Pesky alibis! He needs to work on that… RS not supporting Knox’s final alibi was a horror story for her from 6 Nov 2007 through 2015.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/seeds_of_betrayal_in_interview_knox_reveals_to_italy_her_considerable_

What you quote seems almost an apologetic tilt toward Sollecito while quite unrelenting against Knox, and is in line with the effort by RS and Bongiorno to warm up the media 2014-15 (which you have noted) by creating even more separation, and more sympathy for Sollecito than Knox.

Here below are some of the posts on that period. The second post is pretty funny. It shows how in Sollecito’s book Gumbel and misc others on the US West Coast had tried to do the opposite of separation - make Sollecito and Knox an undying item with RS forever “honor bound” to Knox. When in reality from 6 Nov 2007 he almost never showed any signs of that, and never in the court.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/sollecito_suddenly_remembers_he_wasnt_there

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/so_amanda_knox_left_sollecitos_house_by_herself

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/Rome_Press_Conference_reports

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/sollecito_posting_of_knoxs_diary_is_he_again_prodding_knox

This one below is a real shocker. The timing is 6 weeks prior to Marasca/Bruno’s first pronouncement, and as Machiavelli explains at the end could have been engineered by the lawyers - who of course had filed a huge appeal presumably saying the same things.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/sollecito_on_italian_tv_seems_rs_and_ak_selling_out_one_another

Bongiorno was reported as startled at the Marasca/Bruno pronouncement. She would have known it was bad law. Was she also startled because Knox got off? She had hardly wanted to engineer that, and she and RS may well have preferred Knox still inside.

Extrapolating from the last para just above… Knox still inside would surely have left RS much better off today, as a lot of the anger at her getting off and running her bloodmoney scams impacts him as well.

It has always seemed at least to me that Rocco Sollecito and Bongiorno on the one hand, and the US State Department and Rome Embassy on the other hand, were working neck-and-neck to get both of them illegally sprung, and that Rocco’s network did the trick.

But could it be that Rocco was working to spring just RS? And the Embassy was working to spring just AK? Making two different reasons why the two walked?

Judges Marasca and Bruno: if you were indeed hostages to such forces, please blink twice?

Let’s compare what Judge Martuscelli stated in January 2017 (point (3) of the main post and James’s quote) with what Judge Gemelli of the Supreme Court said in April 2008 (point (2) of the main post) when Sollecito was seeking release on bail or house arrest.

Raffaele:
-The knife that was seized from my kitchen does not have my DNA on it. Besides the victim’s DNA, there is only Amanda’s DNA.
-Meredith’s organic traces on my knife got there by chance and are not related to the murder.
Supreme Court:
Even if your DNA is not on your kitchen knife, this cannot only be used against Amanda insofar as it has been certified that the knife came from your house and Meredith never went to your house. Therefore, until we have proof to the contrary, we are assuming that this knife was under your control at all times and that it was used at Meredith’s house.

Raffaele:
None of my biological material was found at the crime scene.
Supreme Court:
The absence of your biological traces at the crime scene is not significant. Moreover, there is a Nike shoe print compatible with the shoes you were wearing at the time of your arrest. It is true that the identification with your own pair of Nikes is still uncertain, as the Court itself admits, but the size of the print left in the victim’s blood excludes the possibility of its being attributable to Rudy Guede, since he has a much bigger shoe size. However, the real value of the print resides in the fact that just a few people may be involved in the crime and not even Knox—who admitted her presence in the house—has excluded your presence at the crime scene. And since you said you never entered the room we have no reason to believe that the print was left the following day.

Raffaele:
The clues against Amanda have been arbitrarily transferred to me on the erroneous assumption that we must have been together that evening.
Supreme Court:
For the same reasons given above, we can exclude that clues against Knox have been arbitrarily transferred to you.

Raffaele:
The phases of discovery of the corpse are insistently used as a clue against me.
Supreme Court:

Raffaele:
No blood traces were on the sole of my Nike shoes, and I was even wearing them at the time of my arrest.
Supreme Court:

Raffaele:
It has not been proven that I wasn’t using my computer after the last interaction at 21.10 pm. After that time my computer was downloading films, even though this has not yet been proven.
Supreme Court:
The alibi you have provided is not necessarily false but, so far, has failed. Correctly, your defense refutes it technically as a clue against you; nevertheless, you were unable to prove your absence from the crime scene.
It is certain, however, that you interacted with your computer at 5.32 the next morning, and that at about the same time you turned your cellphone on. This runs counter to your assertion that you were sleeping and that you woke up at 10 am. In fact, your night was—to say the least—sleepless.
And this data is consistent with the cessation of phone traffic for both you and Amanda on the evening of November 1, 2007.
The proof that you were home is acquired until 20.40 pm (Popovic visit) or 20.10 pm (last interaction with computer). But this does not cover your whereabouts at the time of the murder, set at between 22 pm and 23 pm.

Raffaele:
The time of my telephone conversation with my father, which I said took place at 23 pm but which instead was at 20:40 pm, has no significance whatsoever since we don’t know the time of death. The time of death has been indicated by the pathologist as 23 pm, but it depends totally on the time at which Meredith had dinner, and someone said the dinner was at 18 pm. So the time of death could be moved back to 21 pm, which is right after the Popovic witness came to see me. And she found me at home and not about to go out.
Supreme Court:
The time of death is between 22 and 23 on November 1, 2007.

Raffaele:
My statements were wrongly interpreted as an attempt to aid and abet someone else.
Supreme Court:
This doesn’t emerge from the investigative evidence. Anyway, this matter falls outside the jurisdiction of this court.

Raffaele:
The precautionary measures are not necessary.
As for the possibility that I can alter the evidence: this danger is no longer relevant since Guede was brought back [He implies that by having Guede the most part of the investigation is over].
The flight risk is neither concrete nor specific [i.e.: no particular place to go or person to reach is indicated].
That I am dangerous is presumed illogically, and only by taking into account the content of my blog, which is in fact totally conventional.
Supreme Court:
In light of the forgoing, as for gravity of the charges the Court of Freedom was correct.
The possibility of altering the evidence has not ceased just because Guede has been brought back. The investigation is evolving continuously and the positions of the suspects have yet to be defined. Their behavior has shown reluctance to cooperate and lying. You yourself admitted that you told “un sacco di cazzate” [a load of bullshit].
You are a flight risk because of the gravity of the charges.
Your danger to society matches your weak character and your personality, which we can’t define in terms of harmless juvenile stereotypes, since the context includes the habitual use of drugs.

Judge Gemelli spake! In no uncertain terms!

That was back in the early days, many months before trial, when Knox and Sollecito were on two judicial tracks, very helpful in understanding the building case against each as Machine shows.

In fact in those early days each was fixated on the other (Sollecito cold-shouldering Knox, her begging for his help) and it was not till mid 2008 that their defenses came to an uneasy agreement that both should turn and point their big guns at Guede. 

Both had several opportunities to “explain themselves” before being arraigned by the Micheli court late in 2008 and each could have walked free - and each failed big every time.

(Both the AK and RS books are HIGHLY misleading about this, and the pro-Knox faction, which for now includes Gladwell, never ever refer to these big fails.)

The April 2008 Supreme Court appeals were merely for bail or house arrest, which had been refused. Amazingly, the Supreme Court agreed to hear both the appeals - imagine any other Supreme Court in the world doing that! 

This Gemelli court event was several months before TJMK began, so for now we have no April 2008 post on it. But we do have two posts quoting Gemelli in full (thanks Catnip) in the Knox Interrogation Hoax series.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_16

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_17

Re the Nike shoe prints.  The police were utterly convinced they were Sollecito’s.  However, even though we now know they were almost certainly Guede’s - as there was a match to the brand with a shoe-box found in Guede’s digs - there was nonetheless a belief Raff had soaked his daps in bleach.  Even if they were not his prints at the scene, why would he have immersed the undersoles of his trainers in bleach and water.

It’s possible this was all an unwarranted assumption of the police.  However, initial fist impressions are often close to the truth.

How lucky his uncle managed to scour all those shoe shops and come up with the Guede alternative, bearing in mind the sheer popularity of this brand at the time.

Hi Krissy

Didn’t RS complain that he had to make it home barefoot from the Central Police Station while those sneakers were given the works?!

The Gemelli court summarised the states of the RS and AK evidences as of March 2008, and evidence collection and processing continued at least through to June.

I seem to recall that in March there were still several revelations to come and had Gemelli written in July, the RS and AK judgments could have been even more firmed up.

Do you (or James or Machine or anyone) happen to know what those revelations were?

@KrissyG, thank you for the precise facts in the previous post about DNA in Knox’s bathroom, where her DNA commingled with Meredith’s DNA which we know was from blood. This cannot be lied away.

It was the DNA evidence and the shoeprints of Guede fleeing versus Knox and her lover’s footprints found washed away but in Luminol that convinced me. There was enough evidence in that one bathroom alone to make an air-tight case for guilt. The blood trace in Filomena’s room made it a slam dunk. 

***

About Knox’s current frame of mind, her regrets or lack of them: I most often concur with your opinion KrissyG and those of pensky, The Machine, James Raper, DavidB and any other commenter who holds the firm opinion that Knox’s “regret over the crime” is nonexistent and that Knox regrets nothing except having been arrested and forced through trials to serve time in Capanne Prison.

She feels so aggrieved at the small measure of justice that was meted out to her that her anger drives her to find all kinds of ways to monetize her suffering. She wants her punishment to pay off bigtime. It’s her pushback, plus she loves money.

I flip-flop on my opinion about her personality. It’s a struggle to understand Knox. I keep thinking there must be some hidden sadness, regret, some wish that Meredith were alive again, even if the two of them went separate ways and never liked each other much. Surely Knox regrets the crime if only for the misery it created in her own life. Surely she would wish she had acted differently on November 1, 2007.

Then we look at her post-acquittal behavior, which is mostly Knox chasing the spotlight, craving headlines, TV talk shows, writing books and newspaper columns, doing podcasts, speeches and conventions, crime festivals and working on everything she can imagine to keep her name in the public eye with her masquerade.

Despite this money grab I keep thinking maybe there’s some humanity, some sorrow about Meredith however small, in the finally sobered up Knox; but then I see-saw between that and the belief others hold which may be the simple truth:  Knox is a natural-born aggressive killer with sex on the brain, and now after slipping out of handcuffs and escaping justice by the skin of her teeth she is hard as flint, unremorseful, and if the money is big enough she regrets nothing but sees the crime as the price she paid to get rich.

This is certainly true (no remorse) if she planned the murder in advance!

It’s the use of substances that might have introduced some temporary form of madness that complicates things. Her alcohol and drug use the night of the murder, mar the black and white motive. Was she rational or irrational during commission of the crime?

***

This Framing-for-Dummies post makes it crystal clear why Knox has no leg to stand on promoting herself as wrongfully accused.

She won’t touch Italy with a ten-foot pole in this matter, but they’re the ones she ought to hate if she had been so wronged by them!

If I had been wrongfully accused of a murder I would be enraged at the court system that threw me in prison for nothing. If it were the Italian justice system, they would be the focus of my white hot anger.  I would sue them to the max and take it all the way to their Supreme Court.

I would not slink around, as Knox does in the shadow of other criminals, who claim they were “wrongfully convicted” for crimes done on another continent, under another system. Why doesn’t Knox go after Italy, if simply to make a point, to avenge a real wrong?

She can’t! Knox could not win a lawsuit against Italy for wrongful conviction and she knows it. The reasons are outlined in the “Framing for Dummies” post above.

She lied, falsely accused the wrong man of murder and served her time for throwing him behind bars and destroying his business. That wasn’t a wrongful conviction against her at all. She has never paid him a dime either.

Her partner in crime Raffaele Sollecito who was arrested on the same evidence that Knox was, did not prevail with his wrongful conviction lawsuit, either.

So Knox has no leg to stand on trying to label herself “wrongfully convicted”. Yet she now attaches herself to every wrongful conviction case she can find in the U.S.A.

She creates a false equivalent.

Judge Martuscelli wrote:

“It seems probable that he [Raffaele Sollecito] would not have even become a suspect, or even so, not seen as withholding information or lying in his statements. If he did become a suspect, the need for preventive custody would have been absent or much less important, inducing the judges to apply, at the worst, a less restrictive custody order.”

Judge Martuscelli’s comments contradict the view of numerous judges - Judge Matteini, Judge Micheli, Judge Gemelli, Judge Massei, Judge Giordano, Judge Chieffi and Judge Nencini - who all clearly thought Sollecito is guilty of murder and regarded the evidence against him as strong.

The computer and telephone records provide irrefutable proof that Sollecito lied repeatedly to the police. His multiple false alibis are evidence against him.

Bruno and Marasca tried to understate the significance of his false alibis, and he called them failed alibis - which is just perverse and illogical. Sollecito’s claim he was surfing the Internet from 11.00pm to 1.00am and then slept until about 10.00am is a false alibi because there was no human interaction on his computer in this time, and he was clearly awake from 5.32am onwards.

Yet Martuscelli did an excellent job of detailing Sollecito’s numerous lies in her report. Bruno and Marasca ignored most of his lies and didn’t provide an explanation for them, let alone a plausible innocent explanation for them.

They also ignored another elephant in the room, i.e. the fact the bloody footprint on the bathmat couldn’t possibly belong to Rudy Guede. The fact it matched the precise characteristics of Sollecito’s foot is significant, especially when you place it in the context of the other pieces of evidence against him.

Adnan Syed: Supreme Court refuses new trial for man convicted in Serial podcast murder case

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/adnan-syed-murder-serial-podcast-new-trial-supreme-court-a9217111.html

This is excellent news.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/artificially_controversial_adnan_syed_case_adds_to_tilt_against_victims

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/good_balanced_debate_on_a_controversial_case

The Syed-Lee case seems to me somewhat Shakesperean, elements of Othello, and Romeo & Juliet (both set in Italy, sheesh, can Italy ever catch a break?!)

Two lovers from very different “minority” cultures whose two families became pretty set on their separation. Lee succumbing, Syed less-so, and becoming jealous and vindictive.

The prosecution case was always muddled by their number-one witness, Jay, who was unable to stick to a single story. Leaving him aside, the other evidence against Syed seems to me pretty compelling.

This evidence list below is on Reddit and was written by one of the pro-justice, pro-victim followers of the case - which the world could use a lot more of. Item 6 really is Shakesperean.

Click for larger image
_

Hi Pete,

Jay Wilds wasn’t an ideal witness for the prosecution, but the jury observed him being cross-examined on the stand and they found him credible and I understand their reasons why.

He was clearly an accessory after the fact - he knew where Hae’s car was. He also knew about Adnan Syed’s ploy to get a lift with Hae and he knew Syed received two calls shortly after 7:00pm whilst he was in Leakin Park. Jay Wilds’ account for the critical time period is corroborated by the mobile phone records and the mobile phone records are corroborated by Jay Wilds’ account. The odds of this happening by chance are astronomical.

Jay Wilds’ account is also corroborated by the toll records and other witnesses:

The State called additional witnesses who fortified key facts and critical features of the narrative and timeline established by the State at trial. For example, Nisha Tanna, a friend of Syed’s, claimed she remembered receiving a call from Syed who, conspicuously, then placed Wilds on the phone, just as Wilds testified. Id. at 136-37; (T. 1/28/00 at 189-90). Syed’s cell phone records also confirmed two calls to Tanna on January 13 during the time Syed and Wilds were together. State’s Exhibit 34.

Kristi Vincent also observed Syed and Wilds together the evening of the murder. Vincent told the jury, consistent with Wilds’ testimony, that Wilds arrived at her apartment with Syed, whom she had never met and whom Wilds never introduced, at around 6 p.m. (T. 2/16/00 at 209-215, 225-33; T. 2/4/00 at 144).

She recalled the episode because both men were acting “real shady,” and she noticed that Syed seemed to be hiding his face. (T. 2/16/00 at 237-39). Syed and Wilds left abruptly after Syed answered a call on his cell phone and said to the caller, “they’re going to come talk to me . . . what should I say, what should I do?” Id. at 213-14.

@The Machine: I tend to think when Martuscelli said amongst other things: “It seems probable that he [Raffaele Sollecito] would not have even become a suspect, or even so, not seen as withholding information or lying in his statements. ...” she was being more than a little wry and sardonic.

She was surely mocking him when she said his father’s own evidence contradicts his story, as does Popovic’s, because they obviously popped up to help Raff with his alibi, so Martuscelli saying if these upright honest decent people are telling the truth, then you are not.  We all know the flooding pipes probably did not happen conveniently by 20:42 - the time he last spoke to Raff before the murder - but Martuscelli tells him, well you gave us him as your alibi so there goes your compo claim.

As for Knox’ elaborate hoax about having been ill-treated by police and by the prison doctors over an HIV test, well, that was thrown out by ECHR, she hasn’t a leg to stand on either.

***

@hopeful: I think the mistake some people make is in assuming that everyone has the same capacity for empathy.  Truth is, some people just don’t have it, thus committing an atrocious act is all the same to them.

If you recall the two escaped prisoners, Sweat and Matt from Clinton Correctional in New York, people expressed sadness when Matt was shot dead.  They could not understand that these guys were ‘dangerous dangerous’ men, as the Mayor described them at the time.  He thought nothing of casually shooting dead a cop by firing twice in his face.  As a psychiatrist explained, it is fruitless trying to understand such people as they are wired differently from the rest of us.

Obviously one doesn’t know what Knox’ and Sollecito’s status are with regards to personalty disorder, if any.  However, to assume they are wracked with guilt seems giving them too much credit as they haven’t shown any remorse at all at any time.  Their whole attitude towards even helping the investigators has been abysmal from day one.

I highly recommend reading The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker. He is a professor of psychology at Harvard University. He points out psychopaths can be clever and charming and some conned a number of intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s.

Norman Mailer and other New York literati helped win the early parole of killer Jack Henry Abbott despite the protestations of prison psychiatrists who saw that he had PSYCHOPATH written all over him. He was feted at literary dinners, compared to Solzhenitsyn and Jacaobo Timerman and was interviewed on Good Morning America and in People magazine. Two weeks later he murdered a waiter who asked him not to use the staff toilets.

William F Buckley helped win the release of Edgar Smith - who had been convicted of molesting and murderering Victoria Ann Zielinskia - a 15-year-old cheerleader. Three years later he was arrested for beating another young woman with a rock. He was sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder.

Amanda Knox, Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins might look like characters from The Little House on the Prairie, but they all participated in brutal and sadistic murders. They showed their victims no mercy. They also behaved inappropriately after the murders as if butchering defencless innocent women is just a bit of fun.

Amanda Knox laughed and giggled in the police station whilst Meredith’s devastated friends were crying. Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins laughed and giggled in the courthouse. Sometimes monsters look like the girl next door.

Hi KrissyG

On Martuscelli that hint of tongue-in-cheek absolutely could be.

As we know, she was writing 16 months AFTER the Fifth Chambers report appeared and her wiggle-room would have been small, she could not blow a “final judgment” out of the water even if only by Fifth Chambers and yet hope that Cassazione would back her own ruling up, as of course they did.

I’ll put that on my “to talk about in Italy” list. I believe opinions contrary to Fifth Chambers were pretty thick on the ground, and both Chieffi and Nencini would make great interviews. Mignini’s team of course cut the Fifth Chambers off at the knees even before the written report came out.

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/C856

If James comes by he may have an opinion on whether even Fifth Chambers were writing tongue-in-cheek as he wrote one of our comprehensive series on their report. Kind of their version of “If you are being held hostage, blink twice”?

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/a_critique_in_five_parts_of_the_fifth_chambers_motivation_report_1

Hi Krissyg and Machine (and Hopeful)

Re the psychology. I believe Hopeful was thinking beyond the simple psychopath checklists and examples you provide and has known about them for a long time.

Knox has certainly been bad news and immensely harmful to many others and continues to harm them to her profit through to today.

Meredith’s family has been hit with more stalking and more brutal treatment than almost any victim’s family alive. Knox actively encouraged that, and repeatedly stalked them herself.

But! We’ve had various posts on psychopathy and Knox. We’ve received warnings in return from our posting and non-posting psychologists that this may not be the full story at all - that Knox’s damage could be more complicated than this.

In effect, that Hopeful could be on the right lines.

Certainly there are signs that (perhaps unlike Sollecito) she does not fit the common-or-garden born-as-a-psychopath mould - it’s important to note here one which more often than not is hidden and very hard to tell.

1. She could have been damaged as a tot or later on by Curt’s brutal treatment of her mom and by extension herself. His was the rare case that REPEATEDLY was told by Superior Courts to pay her monthly child-support (and to get some anger-management too).

2. Knox was a an awkward oddball at high-school, and again at the University of Washington, wondered if she was butch, and did not leave behind a large group of loyal friends to whom her arrest was a surprise.

3. She was on drugs from even back then, and as we have posted, skunk marijuana or hashish and cocaine can both cause psychotic episodes. There were signs Knox might have been on an extended drug high from the night of Meredith’s death up to her arrest.

4. Her conniption at the Questura on 6 Nov and her prolonged hitting of her head, and her conniption at the sight of the knives in the house several days earlier, are not the signs of a typical born psychopath.

5. Knox was very chummy toward Dr Mignini before and after her arrest and he has always thought she came really close to a confession. She may have done also in her first conversations with her parents in Capanne Prison if she had not been sharply chopped off.

6. The psychological tests done late in 2007 that were mentioned in the top post were in part the reason why Knox and RS were not let out on bail or house arrest. They prevented release but did not factor into the prosecution case (or the defense).

7. She had to be programmed by family and lawyers to be in the daffy mode through 2009 that Marriott thought could build sufficient sympathy. And programmed to be in her widows-weeds and victim-on-steroids mode as from 2010 to, well, now. Many or most born psychopaths can manage that all by themselves.

8. RS and her cellmates described her as at times in other worlds and detached from hard reality. No obvious hiding of this went on, even the reverse, and we had several posts showing this.

9. Knox’s parents stopped her lawyers in 2008 from offering a psychology-based or drug-based plea. Curt angrily refused tests or therapy for her when she returned to Seattle late in 2011, one of many suggestions that he knew he had caused her harm.

10. Our posting and non-posting psychologists suggest it is possible she could be pulsing in and out of several conditions as well as in a worsening trend. And it could be the suppressed horror of what she did on the night that could in part drive that.

Bottom line? Not entirely unlikely, when she is pressed in the way we press, that she could just wake up one day and confess. As several points above suggest, her lawyers and her mom and especially her dad really have feared this.

@Peter Quennell, Thank you for reminding me why Knox is so complicated to analyze as a personality. So many factors have entered in to influence her to jump this way or that. Her youth and immaturity were also an issue. And what an H-bomb you drop with the suggestion that Knox might “just wake up one day and confess.” Wow! That’s a new idea.

That would be pure Knox, ditching the innocence act and swapping the last few years for a new mask. She could sell a new book like “How I Repressed Myself For Years Trying to Please My Toxic Parents by Pretending I’m Not a Killer; Now, the Real Story”.

An about face. Knox is capable of such a reversal if she thought she couldn’t be sued for wrongful death or if she thought she could make money on a whole new raft of media offers after exhausting the stale “I was wrongfully convicted” world tour.

She’s had parental pressure on her from the beginning to NOT tell the truth.

Her parents don’t want to know the truth. It’s too terrifying. It casts judgment on them they probably feel. As parents they think they were protecting Knox from the terrible horrors of decades in prison. They wanted to spare her that (to spare THEMSELVES that, as well), even if it meant trapping her in a lie forever.

They wanted to discharge their parental duties by helping her avoid prison, no matter if she was guilty or innocent. Once they got her though the final legal hurdles and she was literally home free having left Italy and back in Seattle, they breathed a sigh of relief. But Knox’s ordeal was just beginning although in a different way: keeping on the chafing mask of falsehood forever. Trying to make a living selling lies. Pretending for the rest of her life.

You’re right. She may tire of it one day and wake up and confess, I don’t think that possibility ever seriously occurred to me, but it is a real possibility.

If Edda and Curt had pressed Knox to tell the truth, the whole truth, her parents might have seen Knox’s life bear good fruit and be more meaningful in the long run, even had she been in prison for ten years or twenty.

The merciful Italian system would probably have given her perks for good behavior and an early release, after which she could have held her head up with the dignity of knowing she had paid for her crime and the world knowing she admitted the truth and was no liar.

I know it’s easier said than done and not easy to believe if one is personally facing a long prison term but Knox might have helped a lot of fellow prisoners along the way. She might have prevailed on her Mom to move to Italy. She might have become a celebrity from behind bars. World interest was high in her case. She could have taught her fellow inmates English, art, dance, taught them how to crochet like she made the snowflakes, music, guitar lessons. She could have written and studied a lot in prison.

She might have had the chance to write a true book that would actually edify people instead of a book that deceives the reader like “Waiting To Be Heard.”

She might have remained prison pen pals with Raffaele (maybe not, I imagine his family would have been furious with her had she told the truth which would have sent Raf to prison, too).

But in the long run, did the family decision to enable Amanda the daughter in a lifetime of lies really do anything positive for her or just add more destruction to the family history?

I do understand her tormented parents’ desire to not see their daughter face prison. That would be a terrible decision to make for a child. I might not be able to “do the right thing” faced with such a crucible.  The temptation to lie would be all too great, thinking one was sparing the child tortures untold. It seems Edda should have or could have turned to the Church and even to Italian priests to help strengthen her resolve to do right, to urge her daughter to trust God, shame the devil and tell the truth. The mother didn’t have the courage and Knox was allowed to manipulate and deceive her entire family yet again, to everyone’s shame.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after the supposed Leap Day wedding Feb. 29, 2020 the whole family implodes, if they aren’t already estranged from each other because of the Perugia debacle.

@The Machine, I totally agree that it is a bad trend for celebrities and influencers to lobby for release of prisoners they think are not going to reoffend. Kim Kardashian comes to mind. The examples you gave point to the dangers, despite the good intentions of the kindhearted few. They are not experts, merely sentimental and easily mistaken in their judgments.

Some good is done to release people who did only petty crimes but who got harsh sentences. However, the murderers and con artist charming psychopaths should not be allowed to be adopted as pets by brainless celebrities who spend a lifetime pretending for a living yet get charmed by the ultimate actors who live behind bars, actors highly motivated to lie and deceive.

I watched a TED talk by Stephen Pinker about The Blank Slate, how human nature and personality traits are genetically wired from birth. Pinker says that nurture does have some effect but not as much as once thought.

Culture does shape a person and it helps form some overrides to the genetically formed mind.

I agree with Pinker. You might say Mr. Pinker is preaching to the choir here because I grew up hearing similar theories from adamant science-only thinkers. I was never sold on the idea of nurture over nature. The chemicals in our body and the gray matter in brain, the firing of neurons and muscles and all the physical machinery of the brain are based on the DNA our parents gave us.

Genetics tells each cell what to become and how to act, every move the cell is to make. The structure is fully determined by genetics; parental training and environment have much less to do with a person’s personality than his DNA. It tells the person what he already is. He behaves according to its blueprint, compromising somewhat with the principles of his culture.

Studies show identical twins despite being reared in wildly opposite environments turn out to be incredibly similar in habits and personality. Adopted children raised under the same roof and with same nurturing grow up to become vastly different people from one another.

Genetics is real. It forms behavior, mental function, mental focus and interests in the same way it forms blood type.

There is no blank slate even in infancy.

Pinker does allow for “chance” such as chance accidents and the chance of varying opportunities as well as pre-natal chance such as embryonic insults and events to the unborn child. These chance events can affect the person as well.

Pinker is by no means a fatalist but he concludes that nobody is born a blank slate to be written on by environment alone. I was reared in a Protestant home that leaned heavily on the doctrine of original sin inherited from the parent of all, the first man Adam. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Old Testament teaches by prophet Jeremiah iirc: “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Maybe this is a leap to equate this spiritual pre-ordained stuff with innate tendencies in the personality a la genetics, but it seems similar in proving no blank slate, man already has predilections.  He or she has bad predilections spiritually which puts all mankind in the same boat once born into this world, all needing a Savior.

In a nutshell that’s what I believe and in a very merciful God who makes it easy by basically doing it all for us. All we have to do is have faith in His finished work, the blood of Christ covers all sin.

King David in Psalms said he was known long before he was born and all of his inward parts were known by God when he was still in his mother’s belly.

My son likes the old English? twist on destiny as I mentioned some time ago:  “Wyrd beith full arayed”. It translates to, “One’s fate (wyrd) is already fully prepared in advance.” Sounds pretty stark but if DNA wires us, if biology is destiny, maybe true?

They say of grace it’s like running as hard as you can back and forth inside a train, yet the track is carrying you to a before ordained destination whether you run this way or that. You will get there whether you run or don’t run, nothing matters but the right track so get on the Love Train. This is a terrible hash of theology but maybe it helps.

I’m only now learning via YouTube and online Christian websites that the term “iniquity” and “evil” used in many places in the Scripture are not meant to refer to normal sin of the average person but are terms used to denote sociopaths and psychopaths, those who have no conscience and are unable to repent or to change.

However this is a new concept to me so don’t quote me. I’m still new to the subject.

Even this brief opinion opens an unending vault of religious controversy which is beyond the scope or purpose of this website so I usually limit my remarks.

Meanwhile on a lighter note, Happy Thanksgiving to all TJMK in the States.

I am facing my yearly pumpkin pie overeating marathon.

One pie is baked. Six frozen pie shells await a filling of pecans or pumpkin or apple. Luckily 2 large pans of dressing are baked loaded with celery, onion and chicken broth, but need gravy. The road trip begins tomorrow.

Thank goodness someone else may be cooking the turkey. Gobble gobble. Happy Thanksgiving Day Thursday, Nov. 28th and then football game to end the season.

Hi Hopeful

As you know Italian prisons are especially humane and they teach those crafts you list and try to treat inmates’ mental health and send prisoners out in a specific mental state making it extremely unlikely for them to commit a crime again.

Victims’ families dont like the short-ish sentences, but they often do see the one who hurt them and theirs emerge in a penitent mood. The Kerchers could have looked forward to that. There’d have been no stalking, and no blood-money profiteering, any gains would seized by law.

In this light the general hunch of our psychologists was that Knox would be much better off inside for a long spell, and give the Kercher family some relief and respite, and the longer she stayed the more normally social she reportedly became.

But then she emerged from a bent court, illegally released into the clutches of her forever-ticked-off dad, and the scorched-earth PR and the rabid groupies egging her on (who she pretty quickly brushed off).

Knox committed the crime, and needed to pay. We all stand for that. But it was Curt Knox that always called all of the shots, and hired Dalla Vedova and David Marriott, and created the PR and the toxic environment into which Knox emerged.

Curt and Edda were seen to seeth at one another in Perugia. There was an occasion when Edda Mellas and Chris Mellas urged Curt to ease up, but Curt publicly refused, and so it remained white-hot anger and pedal to the floor right up to where Knox got released and beyond.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/andrea_vogt_reports_chris_mellas_to_his_credit_throwing_the_conspiracy

There seem to have been no reports of Curt Knox having any further interest in AK for years. He got away with HIS crimes, is he seemingly back to ignoring her?

Here is the posting arc of Seeking Understanding, our British psychologist who posted very enlightingly on Knox after she emerged.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_amanda_knox_trainwreck_how_tv_and_book_suggest_knox

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_amanda_knox_trainwreck_what_the_newly_published_knox_writings_reve

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/Why_Numerous_Psychologists

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/meredith_and_her_understanding_of_the_power_of_good_thoughts

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/The_Nencini_Email_Why_This_May_Be

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_case_for_more_observation_and_firmer_action

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_psychology_of_the_human_race_puts_us_on_a_rising_curve

I have seen zero sign of any contrition.

In addition, many of us have angry dads/mums who yell.  By all accounts, aside from her parents’ acrimonious divorce, Knox seems to have been sheltered, nurtured and well cared for, even if she did have to take a long bike ride to school.  Deanna managed to turn out well.

If you really do feel sorry for Knox, may I suggest you read pages 68 -78 of Darkness Descending (chapter 7) and let me know if you still believe Knox sheds a little tear for Meredith now and then.

Prison sentences should reflect the gravity of the crime. Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede should have been sentenced to life without parole just like other sadistic sex killers in the US e.g. Steven Avery, Brendan Dassey and Rodney Reed.

There are no excuses or mitigating circumstances. Nobody made Knox, Sollecito and Guede sexual assault Meredith and slaughter her like a farmyard animal.

Meredith will never have the opportunity to finish university, get her dream job, fall in love, get married and have children. Her last moments were hell on earth - after being sexually assaulted and repeatedly slashed and stabbed, she was left to drown alone in her own blood. Please remember this whenever you’re tempted to see Amanda Knox as a victim and think she should have been granted an early release from prison.

Hi Krissy and Machine

I am not sure who this is addressed to? “Let me know if you still believe Knox sheds a little tear for Meredith now and then.”  Actually, we were discussing static Knox v dynamic Knox, not bad Knox v good Knox, as seen through the eyes of the prosecutor and several professional psychologists.

A cool-headed and “scientifically modulated” assessment of Knox, channeling professionals, is a very smart thing at this point. In the coming months we’d be ill-served to carry statements which pro-Knox forces can use to marginalize us as “haters”.

For example, statements like this would be nice to avoid now. “In addition, many of us have angry dads/mums who yell.  By all accounts, aside from her parents’ acrimonious divorce, Knox seems to have been sheltered, nurtured and well cared for, even if she did have to take a long bike ride to school.  Deanna managed to turn out well.”

No, Deanna was not even born when Curt and Edda separated, and was not a witness to the wars resulting in that and possible damage to Knox then. And, very very unusually, Edda had to take Curt to court at least two times (we have proof of two) to get a court order that he pay Knox’s child support - a second court order often involves prison time.
 
The initial prosecutor, Dr Mignini, has been face to face with many more psychopaths then any of us ever has, and he has had to make sense of numerous crime scenarios. He was with Knox for extended periods several times prior to his arresting Knox early on 6 November and handing over the steering wheel to Judge Matteini thereafter.

He also had extended time with the Kerchers and did all he could to give them some relief via a fast decisive trial, including the funding of some airfares. 

Early on, he assessed this as a DELIBERATE hazing PRE-PLANNED with DRUGS involved, I think we can all agree with that? And after a long hazing Meredith’s death-blow wielded solely by Knox INTENTIONALLY at that point (ie, fleetingly pre-meditated) but not pre-planned and not signed-off on by either RS or RG.

Thus we saw the “sex game gone wrong” proffer early on, which could have led to a quick trial, some permanent relief for the Kerchers, and all three going down for Murder 2 or Manslaughter, which would still have amounted to over 20 years. (Guede’s ultimate short sentence was very unusual, and Judge Micheli had sentenced him to very much longer.)

When Knox’s parents arrived in Perugia Knox was already locked up and all prison meetings except with lawyers were recorded. So they did not want to hear her tell the truth of what happened which she seemingly began to, both of them seemingly (like many back in Seattle and maybe 100% in Perugia) believing she did do it, and the only real question (which they couldn’t ask because of the mike) was “why”?

Edda was several times very skeptical of Knox and (like all Knox’s lawyers) might have accepted the proffer, but Curt was pedal-to-the-floor on the take-no-prisoners PR which ultimately proved a huge factor in Knox’s illegal liberation and the Knox we see today.

Thereafter we saw the 17 December interrogation (her first ever) that Knox herself insisted upon, from which GM emerged convinced (he still is) that Knox would have broken if Knox’s lawyers had not stopped the session.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_14_third

In early 2008 Knox was trained (as described in her book) to have a deep distrust of Dr Mignini while the demonization of prosecutors and cops funded and managed by Curt Knox steadily escalated. In face of this, the prosecutor progressively hardened, and requested stiff sentences for all three at the Micheli and Massei trials (as Crini did at the Nencini appeal).

The prosecution at trial was remorselessly hardline, especially in the closed sessions which proved the barbarity of the attack, and in the summations.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_prosecutions_closed_court_reconstruction_of_the_brutal_and_prolonged

A hard Knox was seemingly already set in stone by the time she testified on the stand in July 2009, and as the daffy Knox 1.0 had led to a guilty verdict, she was retooled as “widows-weeds I’m-the-victim” Knox 2.0, essentially the Knox we see today.

Finally, I think we all felt appropriate the sentences requested by the prosecutors at the Massei trial and at the Hellman and Nencini appeals. They were for Murder 1.0 with aggravating circumstances, and as stiff as Italian courts normally award.

Mandatory life sentences in the US dont have wide support any more - and I don’t think they exist in Europe?

In England recently, Sarah Barrass received a 35-year life tariff.  It doesn’t make you a ‘hater’ if you believe that sentence was correct.

Hardly relevant. Barrass goes away with the majority will of the British people. Right now Knox walks free with the majority will of the American people. Reaching for a bridge too far with over-dramatic denunciations could perpetuate that.

“I have seen zero sign of any contrition.” Prosecution believe there were two attempts in Capanne, one instance chopped off by Knox’s parents, and the other instance chopped off by Knox’s lawyers. Both already mentioned.

Hi Pete,

There are still whole life tariffs in England and it’s an appropriate sentence for sadistic sex killers like Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Levi Bellfield and Mark Bridger. Peter Sutcliffe - the Yorkshire Ripper - was also given a whole life tariff. Ian Huntley - who sexually assaulted and/or raped two ten-year-old girls before strangling them - was given two life terms with a minimum term of 40 years. No-one in their right mind would argue they should be given a second chance. Most them of were serial killers.

The punishment should fit the crime and the criminal justice system has a duty to protect the general public from maniacs like Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Huntley.

In England, over 30 killers killed again after being freed from prison between 2000 and 2011.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16638227

The reoffending rate is even higher for convicted sex offenders. Over a three-year period, more than 400 convicted sex offenders went on to commit rape.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9402209/More-than-400-freed-sex-offenders-went-on-to-commit-rape-in-the-last-three-years.html

Guede’s ultimate sentence of 16 years was not unusually short - at least, not by the standards of Italian justice.

He was charged and convicted, in complicity with others, for the murder, aggravated by sexual assault.

He was not charged with other offences, such as the transport of the knife nor any staging.

In fact IIRC he was not held responsible for the knife thrust.

He was sentenced to 30 years, reduced by 6 years on account of his age, and no previous convictions, and then a third off the remaining 24 years for choosing a fast track trial. Hence 16 years.

He should be released unconditionally in 2023.

Amanda Knox wouldn’t have walked free with the majority will of the American people if the mainstream media in the US had provided balanced and factually accurate reports.

Hi James

Sure thing. Pehaps we could add that it began at 30 years with no mitigation (unlike Massei’s sentence for AK and RS) and through a pretty unlikely series of events was dropped to just over half that. He was also awarded three years in Florence for stolen property which was not to run concurrently, do you know what happened to that?

Hi Machine

(1) Yours on 11/27/19 at 12:13 PM (are you seeing that same time?)

As I said, prosecutors ultimately went for the max in 2009, and it was Massei or someone on his jury who wanted the mitigation.

I think comparisons of UK justice and Italy’s justice are a little bit apples and oranges. Both have about the same murder rate now, but see this:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/14/england-and-wales-has-highest-imprisonment-rate-in-western-europe

This is almost the very opposite of Italy with its low incarceration and recidivism rates, and (as I said above) the psychological compass of prisoners hopefully pointed toward penitence.

Proportionally much more of Italy’s justice budget goes into policing - into stopping crimes happening in the first place.

(2) Yours on 11/27/19 at 12:42 PM

Amanda Knox wouldn’t have walked free with the majority will of the American people if the mainstream media in the US had provided balanced and factually accurate reports.

Probably, but even though he’s dead don’t deny Rocco Sollecito all credit.

But that’s the past, and all our recent work (including very valuably yours and Krissy’s) is oriented to the future now, to see if we can reverse that with a remorseless flow of hard facts.

With most posters needing to post here anonymously (as I started out) cold, hard facts in a deluge are Knox’s worst enemy.

Guede went for fast track on the stolen goods as well. Taking that into account he ended up with a prison sentence of 1 year and 5 months.

There was an appeal but the conviction and sentence were confirmed. I don’t see anything in the judgements which says the sentence was not to start until completion of his sentence for murder. That would be an unusual method of disposal anyway.

Accordingly he must have served the sentence about three years ago.

Hi James

Very valuable. We needed that tidied up. Are there some references? Or a post in the works perhaps?

That was Guede’s one and only other trial, right? No trials for the supposed drug-dealing or the supposed breaking and entering - the “proofs” for both disappearing in smoke in the Micheli and Massei trials.

That is even though Guede was only at the Massei trial for the blink of an eye, whereas the AK and RS defenses had remorselessly. demonized him for months and months in his absence.

To my knowledge the prosecution never even spoke up about this, simply sat and watched with occasional amusement, the evidence of a 3-party attack on Meredith was so overwhelming. Just time-wasting and pretty boring to the jury.

Leading directly to the real farces of Alessi and Aviello as Defence Plan B’s at the Hellman appeal, Hellman floundering, Guede defiant, and Bongiorno wanting to sue her own witness (telling fact: that never happened).

Odd how this whole arc was totally left out of the infamous 2012 ebook “The Forgotten Killer” which might be subtitled “The Forgotten X Hundred Points Of Hard Evidence”.

That book was apparently gospel to Malcolm Gladwell.

References?

I found the documents on Amandaknox.com which is an Injustice Anywhere website run by you know who. Ignore the crap. Click on Court Rulings/Appeals and scroll down to Miscellaneous.

There is an english translation of Guede’s trial judgement plus, in Italian, his appeals before the appeals court in Milan and then at the Supreme Court.

Guede was convicted of two offences, the others with which he was charged being barred by Statute limitation.

The two were attempted burglary aggravated by possession of a knife and receiving stolen goods. For both he got 2 years, one month and fifteen days, and a fine of 2,100 euros.

As he was entitled to a third off for fast track he ended up with 1 year and five months imprisonment, plus the fine, plus costs.He can pay that when he writes his book!

I haven’t put all the Italian through the Google translate blender, but the original sentence was confirmed by the Milan Appeal Court and whatever further points of appeal were made they were dismissed by the Supreme Court.

I confess to being confused in places reading the english. It looks to me as if the trial court was a lot tougher on Guede in terms of sentencing than the prosecution was actually asking for.

Normally, for a first offence (as it was, at the time), I would expect a non-custodial sentence for possession of stolen goods and attempted burglary of an empty non-residential property, but no doubt the possession of a knife made it worthy of custody, and then of course a non-custodial sentence would be nonsense for someone already in prison for murder. However it does look as if the Prosecution were looking to keep the custody relatively brief, perhaps for that reason.

Normally, when sentencing of charges is dealt with at the same time you can tot up the penalties if that is appropriate, but if not, and Guede was convicted of the foregoing several years after his conviction for murder, there would have to be some clarity as to time spent inside. I see nothing of that which leads me to conclude that his incarceration was effective forthwith.

If any Italian readers can pick up something I’ve missed or misunderstood. please let me know.

Yes Italian comes in diverse flavors and Google Translate seems to have evolved to not favor a few. With the Bing counterpart and one other, and the outputs put in 3 parallel columns in Word, or Wordperfect (my choice), mostly a pretty good and fast result now pops out.

I’d be interested in double-checking this: “attempted burglary aggravated by possession of a knife”. First reaction was, good grief, not another bent court.

Guede was reported as entering in the Milan pre-school with a key, and he did not carry a knife into there, he picked it up there and put it away, and did not threaten the principle with it when she arrived.

Despite this, when the principle (an American) was on the stand in Perugia (not for Guede’s trial, for the Massei trial) and again in an interview on YouTube she did not really impress. She sounded like FOA had maybe done a number on her and she lashed out a bit at him.

In contrast the lawyers in Perugia whose office was burgled were almost hostile defense witnesses, uncomfortable to be there, and this post below (follow the links) explains why. Signs were that the burglars were bag-men for legal foes.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php/tjmk/comments/the_serial-break-in_arm_of_the_rudy_guede_hoax_testimony_in_court_far_short

Prosecutors had no dog in that fight, and sat silent. Guede and his lawyers were not even there when any of these witnesses testified. So no cross examinations at all.

Pity about that. It opened the way to great demonization by eg Gladwell ever since.

Where next:

Or to next entry Knox’s Toxic Campaign: How Safe Are Women Really In Italy?

Or to previous entry Demonizations By Knox: Yet Another Paying Audience Is Lied To