Saturday, December 30, 2017

Why Did The Mainstream Media Enable A Takeover By The Conspiracy Nuts?

Posted by The Machine



How Seattle is misinformed. Exoneration? Riiiight….

Rampant Conspiracies

This condemnation is written in light of the ever-growing wave of translated transcripts.

They show how extremely good the investigation and case at trial really were. And how extremely wrong were too much of the press. Why did mainstream media organisations allow so many conspiracy nuts to spout their unsubstantiated and ridiculously far-fetched claims?

Mainstream media organisations have known for a while that the general public has an insatiable appetite for documentaries about allegedly innocent people who have been convicted of murders they didn’t commit.

A cursory glance at the selection of true crime documentaries on Netflix provides evidence of the appeal of this specific genre. Amanda Knox, West of Memphis and Making of a Murderer are all hugely popular.

The Serial podcast about the Adnan Syed/Hae Mine Lee case is one the most downloaded podcast of all time. Sarah Koenig presented the case from the defence’s perspective and concluded there isn’t enough evidence to convict Adnan Syed of Hae Min Lee’s murder. 

The juries in the respective cases above listened to the prosecution and defence present their cases in court.

They weighed the testimonies of the experts and witnesses for both sides and they were all convinced that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, Damian Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin and Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey and Adnan Syed were all involved in exceptionally brutal murders.

There is damning evidence against all the people mentioned above. But many journalists don’t want the facts to get in the way of a good story.

Among The Worst

Paul Ciolino admitted in a question-and-answer session about the Meredith Kercher case at Seattle University that CBS News didn’t care whether someone was innocent. The only thing they care about is the story.

I work for CBS News. I want to tell you one thing about CBS. We don’t care if you did it. We don’t care if you’re innocent. We like a story. We want to do a story. That’s all we care about.

It was recognised as far back as 1999 in the legal profession that journalists have an inclination to slant their reports in favour of the defendants.

P. Cassell, “The guilty and the ‘innocent’: An examination of alleged cases of wrongful conviction from false confessions”, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 1999:

...academic research on miscarriages should not rely on media descriptions of the evidence against defendants. Journalists will all too often slant their reports in the direction of discovering “news” by finding that an innocent person has been wrongfully convicted.

The default position of mainstream media organisations in the US was that Amanda Knox is innocent despite the fact that the vast majority of journalists who covered the case weren’t in a position to know this - they hadn’t regularly attended the court hearings or read a single page of any of the official court reports.

The news organizations in Seattle was so partisan in their support of Amanda Knox that they were effectively just mouthpieces for the PR firm of David Marriott that was hired by Curt Knox to influence a credulous and naive local audience who felt duty-bound to support the hometown girl.

Lawyer Anne Bremner couldn’t resist the temptation to use the case to promote herself in the media. Judge Michael Heavey was recruited so he could use his position as a judge to sway the public.

The vast majority of people in Seattle were kept completely ignorant of the basic facts of the case by all their newspapers and all their TV news, so they were not in a position to realize that both Bremner and Heavey got basic facts wrong.

Many American journalists who reported on the case hold the ridiculous belief that the US legal system is the only competent and just one in the world, and that no US citizen charged by a foreign court with any crime can possibly be guilty of it or ever receive a fair trial.

The claim that Amanda Knox was being framed for a murder she didn’t commit by corrupt officials in a foreign country by her supporters was manna from heaven for mainstream media organizations in America.

It was a sensational story that was guaranteed to enrage and entertain a gullible American public in equal measure.

It’s not possible to ascertain precisely who originated the story that Amanda Knox was being framed for a murder she didn’t commit by a corrupt legal system.

But it almost certainly came from someone within or very close to Amanda Knox’s family. Jan Goodwin was one of the first journalists to make the claim after interviewing Edda Mellas for Marie Claire in 2008.

Studying abroad should have been a grand adventure. Instead, Amanda Knox has spent a year in jail, accused by a corrupt legal system of murdering her roommate.

Goodwin didn’t offer any evidence to substantiate her claim that the Italy legal system is corrupt, presumably the word of Edda Mellas was good enough for her.

It transpired that the word of Edda Mellas and ex-husband Curt and Amanda Knox’s supporters was good enough for the vast majority of journalists who covered the case on both sides of Atlantic.

They unquestiongly accepted everything they heard without bothering to do any fact-checking whatsoever. Time and again not a single investigator or court official in Perugia was interviewed.

This explains the reason why so many articles about the case are riddled with factual errors and well-known PR lies.

Other media organisations wanted to get in on the act and claim there was dastardly plot to frame Amanda Knox for Meredith’s murder.

CBS News allowed a couple of zany conspiracy nuts to spout their nonsense without providing any evidence to support their wild-eyed claims. Here’s Paul Ciolino again:

This is a lynching ... this is a lynching that is happening in modern day Europe right now and it’s happening to an American girl who has no business being charged with anything. (Paul Ciolino, CBS News.)

Here is Peter van Sant.

We have concluded that Amanda Knox is being railroaded… I promise you’re going to want to send the 82nd Airborne Division over to Italy to get this girl out of jail. (Peter Van Sant, CBS News.)

The reporting was invariably tinged with xenophobic sentiments. Italy was portrayed as some backward Third World country whose police force was comically incompetent. Here’s CBS’s Doug Longhini.

But in the case of Amanda Knox, the American student convicted of murder in Italy last December, the Via Tuscolana apparently failed to separate fantasy from truth. Too many Italian investigators rivaled Fellini as they interpreted, and reinterpreted facts, to suit their own, surrealistic script.” (Doug Longhini, CBS News).

WHERE in all the transcripts is that proved?  Doug Longhini’s pompous and pseudo-intellectual comments are meaningless and lack any substance, although he was no doubt very pleased himself for his “clever” reference to Fellini.

Ironically Longhini was unable to separate fantasy from truth when he produced the error-ridden American Girl, Italian Nightmare for CBS News. The documentary includes the familiar PR lies about satanic rituals, the 14-hour interrogation sessions, and Knox not knowing Rudy Guede.

Lawyer John Q Kelly seemingly forgot the Latin maxim “semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit” - “he who asserts must prove” - when he claimed that Knox and Sollecito were being railroaded and evidence against them had been manipulated.

My thoughts, Larry, it’s probably the most egregious international railroading of two innocent young people that I have ever seen. This is actually a public lynching based on rank speculation, and vindictiveness. It’s just a nightmare what these parents are going through and what these young adults are going through also.

“There’s been injustice here. There’s been injustice in other countries but this is just beyond the pale. The manipulation of evidence; the most unfavorable inferences drawn from the most common of circumstances and conduct was just a gross injustice here.”

(John Q Kelly, CNN).

Judy Bachrach was also allowed to claim there was a conspiracy to Amanda Knox on CNN.

Everyone knew from the beginning that the prosecutor had it in for Amanda Knox, that the charges are pretty much trumped up…

From the beginning this was carefully choreographed, they wanted to find her guilty, they’ve kept her in jail for two years even before trial and they did find her guilty. This is the way Italian justice is done. If you’re accused, you’re guilty.

There isn’t an ounce of hard evidence against her and all of Italy should be ashamed actually.” (Judy Bachrach, CNN).

Arguably the craziest conspiracy nut - and the competition is fierce - is the former FBI agent Steve Moore in early retirement.

Steve Moore claimed the Perugian police, Guilano Mignini, Dr Patrizia Stefanoni, Edgardo Giobbi the head of the Violent Crimes Unit in Rome, Judge Massei, and the Italian Supreme Court were all part of a dastardly plot to frame Amanda Knox.

Moore claimed the following on his blog.

For this to happen, though, pompous prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, forensic perjurer Patrizia Stefanoni, and mind-reading detective Edgardo Giobbi (and others), must be prosecuted for their corruption. The judge who rubber stamped the lies in the first trial, Massei, must be also called to the bar of justice-or back to law school.

In a discussion with lawyer Paul Callan on CNN Moore actually claimed the Supreme Court was involved in the conspiracy.

Paul Callan: “And now “¦ and they (the Perugian police) got the Supreme Court of Italy involved in this conspiracy? You know, that’s like saying that “¦ [Steve Moore interrupts]”

Steve Moore: “Yes, they do. Yes, they do. You are being naive. You don’t understand the Italian system. You don’t understand it. You are defending something you don’t understand.”

Barbie Nadeau reported Moore’s claim that evidence was manipulated for The Daily Beast.

The evidence that was presented in trial was flawed, it was manipulated.

Steve Moore has never provided any evidence to support his wild-eyed hysterical claims there was a huge conspiracy involving a prosecutor, different police departments, Judge Massei and judges at the Italian Supreme Court to frame Amanda Knox for Meredith’s murder.

It’s no wonder TV legal analyst Paul Callan was smiling, desperately trying not to burst out laughing, when he discussed the case with Moore on CNN.

Moore provided irrefutable proof in the short time he was on CNN that he is ignorant of the basic facts of the case, and that he hasn’t read any of the official court reports. He falsely claimed “the DNA that they said was Raffaele’s was actually a woman’s DNA.”

No expert claimed this at the trial.

Sollecito’s DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. Of the 17 loci tested in the sample, Sollecito’s profile matched 17 out of 17. David Balding, a professor of Statistical Genetics at University College London, analysed the DNA evidence against Sollecito and concluded it was “very strong”.

Moore told Erin Burnett: “The second trial proved with independent experts that the DNA that they claim was the victim’s was not on the knife.”

A number of forensic experts - Dr Stefanoni, Dr Biondo, Professor Novelli, Professor Torricelli, and Luciano Garofano - have all confirmed that sample 36B which was extracted from the blade of the knife WAS Meredith’s DNA. The independent experts did not carry out a test on this sample. 

In England there were deranged conspiracy nuts claiming Amanda Knox was framed too.

Amy Jenkins bizarrely claimed in The Independent that Knox and Sollecito were the victims of a miscarriage of justice because Knox was a young woman, the Italians didn’t like the fact Knox snogged her boyfriend and someone needed to save face or something.

The truth is, Amanda Knox’s great crime was to be a young woman ““ but mainly it was to be a young woman who didn’t know how to behave. She was 20 years old, she was suffering from shock, and she was in a foreign country. She was interrogated with no lawyer and no translator present. She made a phony confession.

Clearly no saint, she wasn’t a Madonna either. That’ll make her a whore then. She snogged her boyfriend; she was slightly provocative on Facebook; she turned an inappropriate cartwheel. In a Catholic country, it’s clearly not such a leap to go from there to stabbing your room-mate in the neck during a violent sexual assault ““ because that’s the leap the prosecution made.

To save face, Knox and her poor boyfriend had to be somehow levered into the frame. As the whole juggernaut of injustice chugged on it became harder and harder for the six lay judges who acted as a jury to destroy a case that had been constructed over two years by prosecutors who were their close working colleagues.” (Amy Jenkins, The Independent).

Conclusion: READ THE DOCUMENTS

More and more the translated documents prove that all of them have been wrong. The conspiracy theorists predictably haven’t provided one iota of evidence that there was ever any conspiracy to frame Amanda Knox for Meredith’s murder.

I suspect the producers at mainstream media organisations like CBS News and CNN knew there never was any conspiracy to frame Amanda Knox all along, but they didn’t get care because they wanted a sensational story. 

Too many people within the media perversely see murder as entertainment. Rather than providing balanced and factually accurate coverage of murder cases they want to outrage and entertain the masses with melodramatic stories of conspiracies involving corrupt prosecutors and cops who want to frame innocent people for murders they didn’t commit instead.

We shouldn’t be surprised by the popularity of Making of a Murderer on Netflix. It filled a vacuum after Knox and Sollecito were acquitted in 2015.

I have no doubts that journalists from mainstream media organisations are currently looking for the next alleged case of someone being framed or railroaded for a murder they didn’t commit.

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Comments

Hi Machine

Strong picture! Top targets. Not to be missed because there is such a good fit: Kermit’s satirical Powerpoints here;

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/powerpoints_16_we_now_examine_the_compelling_evidence/

Yes there are maybe 100 big names in media who reported dishonestly and flat-out wrongly. Also close to 200 who gave the Netflix report an effusive review. It was a way to go to get published and exposure on TV; seemingly a good career move, and some tried very blatantly to make big bucks.

I’d like to suggest these are some of the main enabling dynamics.

(1) Court sessions and documents were all in Italian and only our sites put real effort into collecting and translating and that often took months. We are running an eye-opening series now on early investigations and questionings that happened 10 years ago.

(2) Complete inability of the Italian prosecution to push back other than in court due to their strict rules. Had the prosecutors and judges been elected, as almost all are in the United States (Heavey was elected), they would have been speaking out daily against all of this. (Even so, during the Hellman appeal, Prosecutor Comodi quite openly said the court was bent.)

(3) Speaking out, presuming that they knew about it. There were considerable efforts made to keep this toxic PR below the radar in Italy. The Knox & Sollecito books were not published in Italian - though Mignini has just successfully sued against Sollecito’s English version. Those reporting from the courtrooms honestly were slimed as “yellow journalists” and often legally threatened.

(4) The enormous PR machine of the deeply dishonest and hyper-aggresive Curt Knox and David Marriott, the biggest PR ever for a crime, was sharp-elbowed and often legally threatening, and it amassed huge financial resources to throw around. Only Barbie Nadeau was ever brave enough to explain how virulent it was. A British newspaper published an expose of several pages; it was gone again within hours. 

(5) The Big Three that sway so much English-language reporting (the BBC, New York Times, and Associated Press, which are carried on up to 2,000 sites) just didnt bother. The BBC did carry the excellent Paul Russell/Andrea Vogt report, but largely sat on its hands. The New York Times slimed Italy several times. The Associated Press was serially in Knox’s camp.

(6) Some of those you name already had what seemed to be fine reputations and followings (John Douglas, Doug Preston) or could point to their present or past employers (FBI, Seattle courts) to show they were competent and could be professionally trusted. Preston rode his self-serving Monster of Florence book throughout. Steve Moore used up to half of his writings and time on TV extolling himself.

(7) Knox and Sollecito could feed the beast easily from inside prison. Knox’s antics were reported several times a week; Sollecito ran a blog. Law schools and journalism schools read their books as epitomes of truth, though we now have new TJMK pages up showing Knox told over 500 lies and demonized many dozens in Italy.

Behold fake news. This is where it became big and so far worked. The documents are quite implacable, though.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/30/17 at 03:37 PM | #

Hi Pete,

Andrea Vogt and Barbie Nadeau provided excellent coverage of the case. I was also impressed with the BBC’s coverage. Their journalists didn’t know the case as well as Andrea or Barbie, but they provided balanced and factually accurate reports. They didn’t get swept along by the wave of hysteria that was created by Amanda Knox’s family and supporters and David Marriott. I always found them to be impeccably polite and fair. They also know Knox and Sollecito were involved in Meredith’s murder, but they didn’t try to persuade the public that they are guilty. Charles Mudede deserves credit for being the only journalist in Seattle with the courage and integrity to try ascertain the truth and not mindlessly regurgitate the PR lies.

Posted by The Machine on 12/30/17 at 06:02 PM | #

Charles Mudede, right. Credit too to the Seattle PI (which hosted the vacuous Candace Dempsey) for carrying all Andrea Vogt’s valuable courtroom reports. Other media also carried strong voices on both sides. Paul Callan is CNN, so is Wendy Murphy, so was Nancy Grace, all okay.

NBC had the worst reporter on its morning show, yet its several Datelines were very fine work. ABC had Nicki Battiste - and Ann Wise. CBS never had anyone good, nor did Fox, nor The Independent, almost never The Guardian. We had 5 posts on the bias of the Associated Press. Nina Burleigh would have fit in your group.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/30/17 at 11:08 PM | #

I’ve been following this case since 2008 and have been by turns pro-innocence and pro- guilt, depending on whom I happened to be reading at the time. In the end, I didn’t really want to be pro-guilt, but found there were far too many questions to place myself in the pro-innocence camp.

As far as the Knox story being “fake news”, it is pretty much on par with dozens of other news topics which daily are spewed out by the US media with little regard for the facts.  Trump is correct on this assertion at least.

The High Court in Italy unfortunately did Knox a huge favor, despite having ruled that she was present for the murder and involved in the clean up. All the American press needs to know is that she wasn’t sentenced to any further prison time:  in their minds, this is a full exoneration.

Notwithstanding all of the documents and Court materials which have gone unread,  who can blame them?  Anyone in America who had been found to be present at a murder, who didn’t call police, who engaged in a staging and clean up, and who then lied to the police,  would certainly not be covered by having served four years. They would be facing an additional 25-30, being considered full accomplices and participants;  I even saw a documentary in which a US man faced a life sentence for helping his boss get rid of a body AFTER the boss alone committed the murder.  If the Italian courts have been remiss or “corrupt”, it is by being far too lenient by American standards.

To the American press, then, these findings were just a perfunctory nod to the Italian system and had no real bearing.  Even the Kercher family seemed to throw up their hands after the 2015 final acquittals, and have said that they now want to remember Meredith for who she was, and not for what happened to her at the end.

A question I now have is:  Does this site believe there may still be some future activity in this case,  a real reversal—or are you simply posting the truth for its own sake? It’s a very eloquent, evocative, well written and maintained site, and I’m thrilled to be allowed to comment here.— but I often wonder if anything may still come of all this info…..
Best regards.

Posted by CBHeidegger on 12/31/17 at 01:13 AM | #

Hi CBHeidegger,

I’ll never stop fighting for the truth with regard to this case. I won’t allow Amanda Knox and her supporters to rewrite history. Every time someone like Peter Gill or Martha Grace Duncan deceives the public by claiming Amanda Knox was exonerated, I’ll correct them. None of Amanda Knox’s supporters is in a position to assure people that she is innocent because she wasn’t with them on the night of the murder and there is no exculpatory evidence. This is self-evident even to a half-wit. It’s embarrassing when her supporters and journalists unquestioningly believe the word of Amanda Knox because she is a self-confessed liar who has been convicted of lying by multiple courts, including the Supreme Court. It’s obscene beyond words that she is brazenly pretending to be a victim of a miscarriage of justice and has made millions from killing Meredith. I can’t think of a woman who is more evil than her.

Posted by The Machine on 12/31/17 at 01:52 AM | #

It’s good to see CDHeidegger who has followed this case since 2008, give such an honest comment. I am grateful to all who post on TJMK. The truth will survive the war against it. As The Machine expresses so well the hard cold facts of the case, all of which the documents contain, documents largely ignored by hurried journalists, the sad trend we see today is media hankering for sensationalism over substance. They appeal to the lowest common denominator of interest, treating real murders as entertainment.

Knox herself once addressed a gathering after her Supreme Court acquittal, and stepped to a podium and a microphone to say that she learned the trick to winning in court (I paraphrase her words) was to tell a good story. Truth was irrelevant, the issue was what one could impress the listeners with, get them to believe. IIRC in that very speech she eventually quoted Monica Lewinsky.

In this day of expansive knowledge of mental illness with websites on narcissicm, psychopathy, borderline personality, bipolar and manic depressive illness, etc. etc. etc. it seems ironic that Knox’s behavior in Italy, coupled with her known drug use was not seen as evidence of some instability. Rather than that possibility coloring their story, the mainstream media seemed to project the rabid Knox to the masses as some clean cut American sweetheart misunderstood by provincial and narrow-minded Italians.

The Marriott PR created that false image of Knox, all paid for, paid for by the girl’s own prejudiced father who had a big stake in having his daughter look innocent (and to get the monkey off his own back, he as much confessed, was why he hired Marriott). It was Curt Knox’s paid for PR that began the snowball effect in American media, IMO.

Because of money and the distortions it bought, truth took a tragic turn.

It is bracing to hear The Machine state his unyielding resolve to stand strong for truth and justice. Equally refreshing it comes without hysterics or emotionalism but simple truth.

TJMK and PMF.net have been beacons of truth and light in the darkness of this simple but fog-enshrouded case. The Machine quotes 5 forensic experts who confirmed that Meredith’s DNA is on Raffaele’s knife. David Balding another undisputed expert confirms Raffaele’s DNA is on the bra clasp which was removed after the crime. These two facts alone should shake the cobwebs out of the mind of the most wishful thinking about the innocence of Raffaele and his then girlfriend and what happened at her house.

Posted by Hopeful on 12/31/17 at 03:43 AM | #

Hi CBHeidegger

Obviously two strong votes there for an onward pursuit. The deepening of our info is presumably a given, it is so obvious. As for other prospects:

First, let us start with the delegitimizing of the 2015 Cassation outcome. That is 100% in the cards and already quite advanced. We gave that report a hard time in numerous analyses here. Similar analyses have been circulated or presented to panels in Italy. There is a YouTube we will post with Mignini and Comodi confirming a strong case. It went up just a few days ago.

But at the same time there is a belief in Italy that such damning analysis was maybe made easy - that Marasca-Bruno may have sabotaged their own work, it is so blatantly wrong in the law and the facts. It also rather contradicts what they had announced back in March. And it can be subject to appeal, it was the kind of judgment that allows that.

Second, we have explained the various mafia fingerprints on the case. Do observe that nobody, absolutely nobody is sticking their head up to try to make that go away. Rocco Sollecito bit the dust. Nobody wants to be next. Everybody the Machine named could be regarded as a witting or unwitting mafia tool. Let us hear Heavey explain away that. Bruce Fischer’s huge operation and his mangling of evidence and his extreme demonizations of officials and reporters who tell the truth are said to resemble classic mafia. As this situation sinks in, even with our few mentions so far (but just wait) the quietness grows.  And although we may not yet discuss it, there is a route to overturning the 2015 verdict here.

Third, we have long mentioned masonic fingerprints also on the case, in the appointment of Hellman to the 2011 appeal when Chiari was pushed aside by De Nuncio. Right now national investigations are bringing to light how certain Ndrangheta and certain masonics have co-operated. We have been sent links to public reports and should have some info up soon. Masonic fingerprints were also on the trumped-up prosecution of Dr Mignini (ripped to shreds by the Supreme Court) when he came too close to nailing those behind the Monster of Florence deaths. 

Fourth, the legal and economic power of Sollecito is being whittled away. Sollecito has just lost big twice (over his book and his damages appeal) and is likely at the end of the road. His reputation is shot, he has little money, and he can’t get a corporate job.

Fifth, the legal and economic power of Knox is being whittled away. She’s had to hide her paid presentations to lawyer groups etc from public view which dampens their marketing. The Netflix report will be shown to have feet of clay. The VICE demonization program she will host will be bedeviled by the hundreds of demonizations by Knox herself. She will be sued for her book. And she will get at most a very minor financial award from the ECHR (she has not even asked for the calunnia judgment to be overturned, and she is 100% a felon for life). No steady career or high income down the road. 

Finally, the Italian government and media should step up soon to say the tarring of Italy has gone way too far. They have hundreds of Italian American politicians not liking what they see. If Trump survives and he finds out that the previous administration angled for Knox’s release he could start tweeting that Knox should go back.   

Death by a thousand cuts? Revenge is a dish best served cold? Rather our shoes than theirs? Take your pick…..

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/31/17 at 05:44 AM | #

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating.  Until we have an Errol Morris; Michael Moore; Werner Herzog; Ken Burns; Martin Scorsese (continue with your own highest profile suggestions) willing to mine the wonderful WIKI site and this outstanding site, we are not going to bring this truth to masses.  (I can’t even get my friends to take serious interest in the case.)  This really is a powerful story of the highest order that needs to be told.  We need the bestseller and we need the movie to move this from us geeks to the mainstream.  If we can see that happen then Knox will be exposed for the lying murderer she is.

Posted by whatswisdom on 12/31/17 at 06:18 AM | #

Indeed. Think also Alan Dershowitz, or George Clooney? I am iffy about a lone guru though, even the best cannot persuade whole nations, and they could take years to break out. We had more in mind targeting about 100 and much sooner.

Even non-geeks may need ducks to line up in a row. Such tendencies are still dictated from Italy. Panels are happening there. The new court documents are still coming from there. Much of the translation is done there. Mafia and masonic investigations are happening there. Sollecito’s situation is worsening there. Sueing Knox will happen there. All our good tips come from there.

Here in NY there are writers and TV stations who are not disinterested, but still in watch and wait mode, and their confidence can only get stronger. More posts coming up on good & bad media.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/31/17 at 07:25 AM | #

@Peter Quennell, it’s good to start the New Year with your list of more than half a dozen serious possibilities of this case turning around, starting with 2015 Cassation decision in jeopardy.

Meanwhile the deluded Knox and Raffaele think they are gaining ground rebuilding their reputations, but if past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, both of them will act out again in months to come to reveal their true colors.

VICE may be Knox’s next downfall, and Sollecito may soon have nothing left but his long ponytail and a ticket to Dominican Republic, a one-way ticket this time.

The Italian media may come into their own and uncover some previously disregarded but vital facts. The world scene changes. The Italian government may find friends in high places who aren’t afraid to ratify the findings of the honest Perugian jury and Florence’s no nonsense Nencini.

Times change, it’s a fact of life. Fads appear like mushrooms and fads can fade suddenly including the fad of blind enthusiasm for a disordered woo-hoo person like Amanda Knox.

Many victims’ families can tell you of their loved ones’ cases that seemed hopeless but twelve or more years later powerful information came to light that pointed out the killers undeniably. 

Truth goes through many delays but finally arrives all the more welcome.

There is more hope than we know for 2018.

Happy New Year to all.

Posted by Hopeful on 12/31/17 at 05:13 PM | #

We hope this is another takeway from our websites: Italy is really worthy of going to bat for.

Few in Europe demonize Italy, many try to move there, and many more take vacations there, whether culture-laden or food-&-wine-laden or or history-laden or scenery-laden. The people are kind, friendly, and really a lot of fun.

The crime-rate and incarceration-rate remain 1/6 those of the US and Italy hardly needs Americans to “save” Italians from their justice system. That system is correctly judged in Europe if not the US as a humane and well meaning one and it remains popular and trusted.

The real mega-problems? Too many of them are here in America. Pity that the Knox PR shills are too manipulated and eaten-up by xenophobias to address, say, this huge justice problem of close to 1/4 million wrongly in prison - while they foolishly deflect anger to Italy.

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/netflixhoax_19_-_omitted_the_vital_context/

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/netflixhoax_19b_-_more_on_a_genuine_huge_justice_problem_in_the_us/

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/netflixhoax_19c_-_yet_more_on_a_genuine_huge_justice_problem_in_the_us/

Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/31/17 at 11:30 PM | #

HNY everyone.

I guess our Canadian friends regard us as all wussies! We admire them. But NYC is about 1/3 of the way through what is expected to be the longest cold snap in its recorded history. More than two weeks well below freezing.

Temperatures won’t hit the coldest we have known here (below zero degrees F every decade or so) but last night over 1 million people were out in the Times Square area, where with the windchill factor it was several degrees below zero F or -20 C.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/31/us/new-years-eve-winter-weather/index.html

Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/01/18 at 11:54 PM | #

Hello Pete.  Yes, but we love you guys anyway.

@CBHeidegger—I add my vote for keeping going. 

As for my own take, I started out heavily pro-innocence.  The little available information up here made it sound like a farce.  But like you, there were far too many questions to keep that viewpoint.  In fact, viewing the case through ‘‘pro-premeditation’‘, (at least with regards to Knox), seemed to answer most questions.

(1) Turning off the phones; (2) The timing—everyone else gone; (3) bringing Guede into the mix for ‘‘reinforcements’‘; (4) trying to selectively clean up; (5 staged break in; (6) Using her own lamp for a light source; (7) tossing Meredith’s phone’s as a diversion; (8) the Gubbio trip as an alibi; (9) keeping Patrick’s old message; (10) the broken pipe alibi .... all of these are best explained through that viewpoint.

Of course, we all hope Bruno and Marasca gets overturned

Posted by Chimera on 01/02/18 at 07:46 AM | #

Thank you Quennel, Hopeful,  The Machine, and Chimera, for such poignant and thorough responses.  I would agree that it is a worthy and hopeful enterprise to continue stating the truth . There may in fact be future changes or events which could lead to legal changes as well. Bravo to you all.

Posted by CBHeidegger on 01/02/18 at 05:42 PM | #

Lying that she was Meredith’s friend.  Accusing Patrick of the murder and watching as he sat in jail for weeks.  Stealing rent money for drugs (not proven but likely).  Denying on U.S. TV that she was at the cottage…  (We must never give up fighting for the truth.)

Posted by whatswisdom on 01/02/18 at 06:34 PM | #

Ed note: We’ve asked CBHeidegger if they would prefer this comment under the new post.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/04/18 at 05:30 PM | #

I don’t understand why so many Americans think the double jeopardy law is a good thing. It was abolished in England and Wales in 2005. The Court of Appeal can now quash an acquittal and order a retrial when new and compelling evidence is produced. This has meant killers like Gary Dobson, David Norris, Mark Weston and Billy Dunlop could be brought to justice.

Timothy Hennis is a vicious sex killer:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/18/us/death-row-stories-hennis/index.html

I’m not surprised to learn that the Innocence Project supported this evil murderer because they’ve also supported Amanda Knox and Simon Hall. They are a deeply perverse organisation.

Greg Hampikian - the Director of Idaho Innocence Project - has carved a lucrative niche for himself defending convicted killers and sex offenders, including two child rapists: Bradley Roberts and Dennis Dechaine. I really don’t know how he can sleep at night.

Posted by The Machine on 01/05/18 at 03:04 AM | #

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