Thursday, December 29, 2022

Dr Mignini’s Book On How The Supreme Court Got Meredith’s Case So Wrong In 2015

Posted by KrissyG

1. The Fifth Chambers Reports

Dr Mignini’s legal observations on the Fifth Chambers’ written report on Knox’s & Sollecito’s final appeal fill a big information gap in this controversial legal area.

He had already written very damningly back in 2015 shortly after the Marasca court presented its oral report back in March.

That was some months prior to the written report (which was published almost three months after the official deadline). This is his first written comment on the full report. 

2. The Contamination Contention

With Meredith’s body having been discovered, the pathologist Dr. Lalli, and the Scientific Police, headed by Dr Stefanoni, arrives.

Dr Mignini, the prosecutor leading the investigation, deems that it more important to preserve on-scene evidence at this point than to determine exact time of death, so priority is given to collecting samples with the body still in situ.  Mignini states:

“I did not know, at that time, that, for the judges of the [2011] Perugia appeal and the [2015] Fifth Chamber of Cassation, the one that intervened after the final annulment of the judgment of the Perugia Appeals Court and the judgment of the [2014] Florentine referring court, as well as for the official defense counsel and for those “unofficial” intervenors such as Peter Gill and others, the abstract possibility of contamination and the reality of contamination could be the same thing.

That is absurd, I know, but that was exactly what was being been said.  p.34”

After the 2009 trial of Knox and Sollecito, with the Massei finding a ‘guilty’ verdict, the 2011 appeal court, called-for by the defendants, of Hellmann & Zanetti, appoints its own ‘experts’, Vecchiotti and Conti. They argue that contamination is an abstract possibility, but fail to explain how such contamination could have occurred, as would be expected in a trial court.

This is on top of Zanetti opening proceedings in 2011 by asserting that ‘the only certainty is the death of Meredith Kercher’, and not least, by Hellman failing to explain his rationale – as excoriated in 2014 by the follow-up Supreme Court I of Chieffi – of why Hellmann had appointed his own experts, as is required.

The scientific illiteracy of Hellmann (a business judge) was compounded only by his ignorance of criminal law and of how criminal evidence should be weighed up.

In getting Hellmann to agree to the defence demand for ‘independent experts’ – which Prosecutor Comodi argued against, saying there were many experts for both sides already - Hellmann argues that a judge does not have sufficient expertise to evaluate the experts’ opinions.

Having achieved the appointment of Conti & Vecchiotti, the paired delivered the coup de grace: international standards were not met, contamination could not be ruled out and the DNA profile of Meredith Kercher on the knife could not be reliable.

This faulty reasoning was reversed by the 2014 Chieffi Supreme Court (Chamber I). And yet the final Marasca-Bruno Court returns to it, notwithstanding the intervening Nencini Court (with Prosecutor Crini) upholding Massei’s and thus Stefanoni’s treatment of scientific evidence as legally sound. 

3. The Sample Size Contention

As Dr Mignini explains.

“Marasca of the Fifth Chamber seems not to understand the difference between ‘identity’ and ‘compatibility’ (the latter is a statistical standard which should be used in court), demanding the former and rejecting Novelli’s, to the astonishment of Stefanoni.

Likewise, claiming that the Kercher sample size on the knife was too small showed him seemingly unaware of the penal code: ‘unrepeatable findings’ is provided for in Article 103 EC. 360 cp, similar to rules for the autopsy inspection. p 279

If, on the other hand, the finding must be reproducible, as the Fifth Chamber claims, then I could have carried it out without any contradiction, in accordance with Article 108 EC 359 CPP.

The Italian Criminal Code CPP 360 allows for an otherwise minute sample size to be tested once, on the grounds that the testing itself will destroy the sample – as often happens in an autopsy, for example - with the proviso that the defense must be allowed to send its own experts to witness the testing event.

Sollecito’s witness was Valter Patumi, with Francesca Torricelli for the Kercher family. There was no Knox witness there.

Article 360 “Non-repeatable technical ascertainment

1. If the ascertainment provided for in Article 359 involves persons, objects or places which are subject to change, the Public Prosecutor shall inform, without delay, the suspect, the victim and the lawyers of the day, time and place set for the assignment of the non-repeatable technical ascertainment and of the right to appoint technical consultants.”  Cpp 360 Italian-Code-of-Criminal-Procedure-CanestriniLex

Clearly, Hellmann and Marasca-Bruno, along with Vecchiotti and Conti, do not know their own criminal code when they complain the sample was ‘too small’ or ‘unrepeatable’. Mignini says:

“if it were true that the genetic test must be repeatable but it is quite clear that it is not, if only because, regardless of its quantity, there is a risk that, pending any judgment, the genetic material will be altered.

That is precisely why the Code provides for a non-repetitive finding and the Court cannot claim that, in accordance with highly questionable scientific considerations, a procedural rule provided for by the law can be eliminated.”

Ex Judge Marasca

4. The Typographical Error Contention

Mignini’s frustrations are compounded by Marasca-Bruno’s inability to spot a simple typographical error.

In typing up its late-2014 motivational report, Nencini’s Appeal Court upholding the guilty verdicts inadvertently attributes a Y-chromosome (obviously male) to a female.

Such a proof-reading error requires a simple correction, an appeal is not necessary.  However, Marasca choose to create a big scandal out of it:

“There are even obvious material errors, i.e. oversights, which can frequently be found in an elaborate report, such as the attribution to Sollecito as well as Meredith, of genetic traces in the famous knife referred to in the finding n. 36 contained in the Florentine judgment.

It is clear that the author of this crime report inadvertently wrote “Sollecito” instead of “Knox”. It was a simple clerical error, but the Fifth Chambers, in an attempt to dramatize the negativity of the sentence of Judge Nencini, presented it as one of several flagrant errors in the “motivational fabric”. p 280

5. The International Protocols Contention

Mignini makes similar criticisms about Marasca’s treatment of so-called ‘international’ protocols:

‘Genetic investigations were acquired in breach of the rules established by international protocols’, the Court expresses with the logical characteristic of ‘circular reasoning’ in p. 33 of the judgment, where it also adds that the obsolete principle of ‘judex peritus peritorum’* should be revised.

If this is not a “break” in the substance, regardless of the objectionability of the assumption, then it can no longer be understood how it can be said of “legitimacy”, whose assessment is left to the Supreme Court, and “merit” instead to the judges, specifically “of the merits”.

And what are these international protocols? This is the penalty, you have to be precise, you can’t be vague, as the fifth section are. p 277

*[“The judge is the expert of experts “. The judge, in fact, is not bound by the result of the expert’s report, since he can deviate from or completely disregard the conclusions reached by the expert. Legal Wiki]

6. The Inadequate Evidence Contention

Mignini explains how it is not the legal prerogative of the Supreme Court of Cassation to set aside evidence found by lower courts.

“Thus, the profile relating to the assessment of evidence for the purposes of the decision is not known by the Court of Cassation.

It is legally concerned only with the fairness or otherwise of the process which led to the verdict and, if it finds, in particular, a defect or defects of a logical nature which vitiated the decision, it must set aside the defective judgment, and refer the substance of the case back down to the referring court.” p 272

Mignini states wryly of Marasca-Bruno:

“Never has the definition of the limits of the Court’s knowledge of legality been more correct in the preamble, and so much disregarded with the same determination in the body of the reasoning of the judgment that has in no way sustained that correct premise.” P272

If you look at the Marasca-Bruno report you can see its faulty reasoning in respect of repeatability or replicability of genetic sampling (compare and contrast it with the aforesaid Italian Criminal Code 360):

“Also, the traces observed on the two items, which the analysis of has produced outcomes that will be discussed further, were very small (Low Copy Number; with reference to the hook CFR.Ff222 and 248), so little that it didn’t allow a repetition of the amplification¸ that is the procedure aimed to “highlight the genetic traces of interest in the sample” (f. 238) and attribute the biological trace to a determined genetic profile.

On the basis of the protocols of the matter, the repetition of the analysis (“at least for two times” testimony of Major CC Dr Andrea Berti, an expert nominated by the Appeal Court, f. 228; “three times” according to Professor Adriano Tagliabracci, technical adviser for Sollecito’s defense, f.126) is absolutely necessary for a reliable analysis result, in order to marginalize the risk of “false positive” within the statistical limits of insignificant relevance.” Marasca-Bruno

This is the Chamber V reasoning – if you can call it that - despite CPP 360 allowing a one-off testing, and Taggliabracci’s claims of the evidence testing being ‘suspect-centric’ twice being dismissed in the lower courts, both by Massei and again by Nencini.

When PCR testing is carried out, the analysis is by computer.  Stefanoni could not possibly have known in advance whose DNA profile or what effluorescant peaks (RFU’s) the machine readings will throw out.

Ex Judge Bruno

7. The Use Of “Compatibility” Contention

Likewise, the term ‘compatible’ to or with - or otherwise - is used in all criminal jurisdictions and is based on statistical probability as the scientific method assesses the probability of getting any particular scientific result by chance.

Hence, Nencini states the probability of the genetic profile 165B not being Sollecito’s and as calculated by Prof. Novelli, as:

“The probability that a random individual from the population would also be compatible (the inclusion probability) [245] was calculated, and came out to be equal to 3.05592 x 10^-6, which is about 1 in 327 thousand.

This computation is considered to be extremely conservative, since all of the allelic components are taken into consideration together with their frequency in the reference population.”

(Pages 15-17 of the technical report submitted at the 6 September 2011 hearing before the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Perugia)”

Yet Marasca-Bruno appear completely ignorant of this convention, and write: “the outcomes of the analysis don’t arrive at a firm identity result, but merely a compatibility one.”

8. The Limits of Jurisdiction Contention

Mignini further notes of the (final) Fifth Chamber:

“Another disconcerting aspect was the fact that the Court, although only dealing with the Florentine judgment [Nencini] under appeal, wanted to revisit the whole process, even and perhaps above all those aspects that were now definitively covered by the judgment of the First Chamber, as well as the investigations on which the Court of Legality, in the doubly terminating seat moreover, could not say anything, also because it did not have the relevant acts….

“in p. 23 of the judgment, the V Chamber speaks of an “objectively wavering course” of the trial…” p 273

“[It was] anything but wavering. In a system of three sets of proceedings, the Kercher process indeed had an absolutely uniform decision-making content, with the exception of the Perugian appeal [Hellmann] and the last judgment. [Marasca-Bruno]” p 274

“The First Chamber [Chieffi] for its part had rightly taken into account the actions of the experts Conti and Vecchiotti, criticizing them with embarrassing expressions. And the decision of the First Chamber [Chieffi] was final and unassailable.

On the other hand, the Fifth Chamber, which intervened only after the order for reference, considered that it should reconsider everything, and “objectively” disprove even the judgment, which was also final, of the First Chambers.

The vulnus [wounding] of the judgment of the First Chamber is perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of the final judgment.” p 274

9. The Rudy Guede Contention

As well as the issues with the genetic testing, contamination and compatibility, Mignini explains how Marasca-Bruno gets it wrong about Guede in the following passage:

“In p. 28 of the judgment, the Court states that, in the course of the Peruvian appeal, Guede failed to be examined by the defendants.

But at the hearing on 27 June 2011, this was not the case, because although it is true that Guede did not at first intend to answer the questions of the advocate Bongiorno, Sollecito’s defender, on the murder of Kercher (see pp. 18 and 19 of the minutes of the hearing of 27.06.11 before the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Perugia), however then he faced the questions addressed to him by the lawyer.

From Guede’s own memorandum:

‘…finally I hope that sooner or later the Judges will realize my total estrangement from what was a horrible murder of a wonderful girl such as Meredith by Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox. Signed. Rudy’. P 276.

At the Hellman appeal session, Rudy specifically confirmed this letter and its contents!

10. The Referral-Back-Down Contention

Dr Mignini holds that Guede’s claim alone makes it a legal imperative that the case should be referred back down to a merits court, even if the Knox-Sollecito appeal is upheld, as it was.

[Coming soon: another post, on Mignini’s view of the press and the media.]

Saturday, December 17, 2022

My Contexting Of Dr Giuliano Mignini’s Spectacularly Eye-Opening Book

Posted by KrissyG

1. Advent Of The Book

Italy finally gets to see the Italian version of this highly anticipated book, by one of the two trial prosecutors, Dr Guiliano Mignini, on the Meredith Kercher Murder case.

He can finally write much more freely, if not yet entirely, as he now works at the national level with official bodies unrelated to the case. The English-language edition might spell out details much more, as Italians had the advantages of watching most court sessions on TV and of reading key documents as soon as uploaded. 

The book reads almost like a novel, insofar as characters are rounded out by a few descriptive brush strokes, though without losing the clear logic and precision of the dry codified Italian Penal Code and procedural protocols.

2. Trial Persona, Observed

Mignini’s fine observational skills become apparent from page 1, in his natural ability to appraise everyone he meets at a glance, whether by accent, appearance, ethnicity, or even from which part of the world or specific region of Italy they are from.

Meredith Kercher is described thus.

The girl had dark hair and complexion, while her eyes were of medium intensity hazelnut. […] It was understood that she had “exotic” and extra-European blood in her veins, while there was an Anglo-Saxon origin of the other of her parents. It was as if that maiden expressed the great wealth and linguistic ethnic diversity of the British Commonwealth. p34

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are described thus.

[…] typically Anglo-Saxon face, with very light skin, with eyes of an intense blue color and reddish blond hair, not very tall, dressed in a blue vest with fur liner inside and jeans, and a normo-type boy, with light hair and eyes, with a pair of goggles, a showy yellow scarf at the neck on a blue pullover and jeans. p26

Rudy Guede’s judge Micheli is described thus.

The magistrate was the well-known Paolo Micheli, whom I would have dubbed “Zaratustra”, younger than me of some years, of “Sabina” origin, in particular, a creature surrounded by a halo of fame and respectability, among lawyers in particular. p116

Guilia Bongiorno, Sollecito’s counsel, is described thus:

...a brilliant lawyer from the “copana” school.

Carlo Dalla Vedova, Knox’s counsel, is described thus.

...who was very close to the U.S. Embassy and would easily be mistaken for an American because of his appearance, resembling that of a U.S. Army officer. p119

Dr. Claudio Pratillo Hellmann, 2011 Court of Appeal, is described thus.

The surname Hellmann, added to Pratillo, denoted German ties which I would not know […] well-known in Spoleto but not in Perugia and coming from the [court’s] business welfare section. p 183

For something on Hellman’s background please see my footnote.

3. Media Persona, Observed

A key section of the book describes the various journalists surrounding the courts in person, including:

There, I met envoys from various news agencies and television broadcasters, especially American ones, such as “CBS”, “ABC”, “NBC”, “Associated Press” and “CNN” or other media outlets, such as Barbie Nadeau, Andrea Vogt, Ann Wise, Sabina Castelfranco, Phoebe Nathanson and others. I also remember the Britons, Tom Kington of “The Guardian,” Nick Squires of “The Telegraph,” Nick Pisa of “Sky News”, John Follain of “The [London] Times” as well as a very nice old journalist, Richard Owen of “The [London] Times.” p124 on Massei Court.

Dr Mignini early on in the case sees very clear factions, differentiating the largely hostile US press, often depicted as purveying disinformation, although some, such as Barbie Nadeau, Peggy Ganong and Andrea Vogt are perceived as truer to their profession. 

Throughout the book, Mignini conveys an exasperated sense of frustration at some of the ‘reporters’ identifying as pro-Amanda Knox advocates, and these come across as stock comedy figures.

There is the hapless Doug Preston, who is one of the most vicious of the protagonists in his attacks on the prosecutor.  Mignini clearly and patiently explains how Preston completely misunderstands Italian Criminal law, mistaking it for US-style adversarial, and thus not realizing that a lawyer was not required to be present at the stage he was interviewed by Mignini in the Monster of Florence case.  Preston is mentioned here because he is key in initiating the destructive campaign against Mignini from the USA.

There is a large gaggle of these trouble-making characters. Example here:

Among these journalists, there was a strange character, completely uninformed in procedural matters, but who managed to credit himself as a kind of freelancer, self-styled as “persecuted” by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and in particular by me.

Frank Sfarzo (pseudonym of Francesco Sforza) was an individual with dark and thin hair, almost Maghrebi-looking, who lived with his mother and also it seems to me with his sister, with whom he was anything but on good terms, in an apartment of Via Fonti Coverte.

I do not know what he did in life, probably nothing until he was “electrocuted” on the “way to Damascus” by Amanda Knox whose innocence he “wedded with” immediately and tenaciously, without knowing anything about the trial. p127

Another, more concerning figure is the formerly friendly investigative journalist Bob Graham, turned Friend of Knox, who late in trial in 2009 wrote an especially misleading report in the UK Daily Express.

As with any evolving plot, Mignini becomes aware of a key turning point in the Hellmann Appeal, when his suspicions of collaboration by Vecchiotti and Conti with the defence are confirmed.  He and Manuela Comodi were joint trial co-prosecutors, and it is with grim amusement that Mignini relates how the Americans refer to himself as ‘Chief Prosecutor’ and Comodi as some kind of assistant.

Vecchiotti really annoys him in the Hellmann appeal by insisting on referring to Comodi as ‘Lawyer’ instead of ‘Prosecutor’.  Mignini points out that, contrary to US belief there were altogether four prosecutors in the case, himself and Comodi (2009), Giancarlo Costagliola (2011) and Crini (2013-14). Plus assigned judges in 2013 and 2015 at Cassation.

The other main troublesome characters are swathes of US armchair scientists, DNA experts, and lawyers, who see themselves as Knox’s proxy US attorneys, conducting her defence from afar. 

It seems to me that that period was the turn of a fat and somewhat ridiculous character who presented himself as a great investigator and demanded to give lessons to all the Italian investigators.

But also there were the more skilled who acted either as private jurists of the Knox family in the parallel fiction trial or who acted in a “reserved” way in the service of the “pro Amanda” lobby: the lawyer Theodore Simon, the geneticist Bruce Budowle, director of the Institute of Genetic Investigations, who among other things authored a letter addressed to the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Perugia, at the request of the lawyers Ted Simon, Carlo Dalla Vedova, and Carla Del Grosso, in which he challenged the validity of the scientific analysis, while technically lacking the credentials to be a Knox consultant in the judicial process.

Another was Greg Hampikian, professor of genetics at the Boise State University in Idaho […] For all these characters, who felt free to teach the Italian Scientific Police some lessons, the official work especially on DNA carried out by investigators was kind of shameful, and this judgment would be reflected by the [2011 appeal] “independent” experts, as the Americans called them. p 151

Again, few made even the slightest effort to grasp Italian law and legal processes, and several materially contributed to the Hellman verdict’s annulment. 

Courthouses: 2008 hard right, 2009 and 2011 top of hill

4. The Judicial Narrative 2007-15

The book is written in logical chronological order, commencing with Mignini who was on duty then being called in to investigate the murder of the young British student, Meredith Kercher.

As he arrives at the house, he takes in everything of the scene, noting that the window to Filomena Romanelli’s room (which is broken) showed no signs of scuff marks on the wall under the window, its aspect towards a busy road and its sheer height, whilst musing that there is nothing wrong with using circumstantial evidence.  One doesn’t need to wait weeks for a sample to be tested.

He describes how an unfortunate press conference by the then chief of the Perugia police, after he had arranged the arrest of Sollecito, Knox and Lumumba as of 6 Nov 2007, was to become a portent of the final Supreme Court Fifth Chambers’ erroneous reasoning to come, some seven-plus years later.

...the attribution to me of the unexpected and startling words of Perugia Police Chief Arturo De Felice, who on the morning of 6 November 2007, that of the arrest, said that the case had been resolved with unparalleled speed.

This attracted heated criticisms of myself and of officers of the Mobile Police. This was one of the foundation lies of the Friends Of Amanda lobby, and in particular of the self-proclaimed “insightful” (former) FBI agent Moore and his unruly wife Michelle, who repeated them over and over again. p274

De Felice was technically mistaken, and was not even a member of the judicial team. And yet the Marasca/Bruno Supreme Court Chamber used his announcement as an example of an error in our own investigation.

With respect to Knox’s arrest, Mignini explains and proves that neither the police nor he himself suggested the name ‘Lumumba’ or ‘Patrick’ to Knox.

This also later becomes an error repeated in the 2011 Hellmann Appeal Court and 2015 Marasca/Bruno Supreme Court, when they fail to add the ‘aggravated’ part onto the calunnia conviction wording, on the grounds that there was no link between Lumumba and Kercher (which there clearly was).

In the book’s later section dealing with the ECHR Knox judgment, Mignini with flawless logic shows that it is erroneous to claim or rule that under Italian law Knox needed a lawyer, as it was an act not of self-incrimination but one of accusing a third party (Lumumba).

He shows quite elegantly by way of court transcripts that, contrary to common Friends of Amanda beliefs, nobody suggested the name Lumumba to Knox.

Mignini takes us chapter by chapter through the 2009 Massei Trial Court (see one of the next posts), and then through the 2011 Hellmann Appeal Court.

Here he has a lot to say about outside interference and something decidedly fishy going on. Right at the start, Mignini realises the two main judges are duds.  Zanetti is described as a contrary character. Again a harbinger of things to come, and in hindsight, he avidly wishes he had demanded a recuse.

In the third line of the report, Dr. Zanetti [Hellman’s #2] wrongly claims [because this was an appeal court]: “it is necessary to start from the only objective and really certain and undisputed fact: on 2.11.2007, shortly after 13.00,  the body of the English student Meredith Kercher… was found in the building of Via della Pergola 7, in Perugia”.

This claim [by an appeal court] is incredible and denotes the inexperience of the magistrate in criminal matters.

I still seem to experience all over again when I listened scandalized to this clumsy expression that should have deserved immediate recusal, of Zanetti, and also of President Pratillo Hellman, who had allowed such a claim, because he could not fail to know the expression was an overreach transgression.

But the decision to recuse wasn’t taken by our colleague Costagliola, who was from the Prosecutor General’s Office, while we were at appeal. p 183

Mignini explains clearly and concisely the proceedings and the errors found in Hellman’s annulled ruling by the 2013 Supreme Court First Chambers – and directly links to those same errors repeated again in the 2015 Fifth Chambers Marasca/Bruno report.

For example piecemeal treatment of evidence, which leads to Curatalo’s fine testimony being excluded by them despite proof that party buses were indeed running on Thursday night 2nd Nov 2007. Thus belying the concept of “quae singula non probant simul unitant probant” as Mignini puts it. 

The 2013 Chieffi Supreme Court, and Nencini’s 2014 Appeal Court in Florence to which they referred back down the appeal, is dealt with in rather less detail than that found in earlier chapters, possibly because the prosecutor dealing with it is now Alessandro Crini, and all seems to go well and as expected.

However, disaster had already struck at the end of the 2011 Hellmann Appeal Court, for Hellman had erroneously freed the two defendants, and Knox had fled Italy to the USA, never soon to return.

We are then moved onto the final 2015 Marasca Supreme Court appeal, dealt with in detail. There is hard language about the American administration and its interference at this point which will reverberate both in the Italian media and in judicial circles in Rome. 

There are so many errors made, unusual logic, and a bizarre reversion back to the largely expunged 2011 Hellmann appeal.  This is quite detailed, so I will include the major points in a separate review.

Mignini goes into quite a lot of detail as to why the Marasca-Bruno report is an illegal curve ball, explaining with his usual clear logic why it is, and this is a chapter that will likely most interest the legally-minded as to the reasoning behind the overturned guilty verdict.

The book ends with chapters on the Knox appeal to ECHR, long before the Italians process was done, and the highly misleading Netflix production “Amanda Knox” in which Mignini is cast (and later ridiculed by the American Friends Of Amanda) as seeing himself as Sherlock Holmes, not revealing the Netflix producers from Knox PR had specifically asked him a question – not seen by viewers - about his preferences in sleuths.

5. The Book’s Final Overview

All in all, Mignini has no doubts at all about the original guilty verdict.  There is a whole chapter devoted to what Mignini thinks happened on the night of the murder, which I will not spoil here (you need to read the book!).

In closing, Mignini has the following remarks to make about the three ex-defendants:

Three suspects were in due course found: the Ivorian Rudi Hermann Guede, the Apulian Raffaele Sollecito, and the American from Seattle, Amanda Knox.

Rudi has never shown signs of influencing the judicial process in any way and has always respected Italian jurisdiction over the matter.

Sollecito was and is, in my opinion, the most enigmatic, indecipherable character of the three and who had suffered most in his life, especially for the death of his mother.[…]

[Key about] the girl from Seattle is that she was and is actually a normal girl of the far west American, very extroverted and extremely curious, this is a very important aspect of her, very open to the dialogue, but also extremely narcissistic, and very firm in her own convictions which, however, she tends to simplify, often excessively. p 311

The family circles and the rivalries of Sollecito and Knox, well-known in Italy, are not a main focus of this edition. 

In all, a logically set out, easy to read, flowing and relatable account, albeit slightly repetitive in parts, of a now retired, successful prosecutor disappointed by the failure to achieve justice for Meredith Kercher’s family thanks to the nefarious interference of outside forces, of shady characters with little understanding of how Italian criminal law works.

A recurring theme is Mignini’s astonishment at the utter ignorance of too many American writers, especially Nina Burleigh, and more recently Jessica Bennett of the NY Times, with their near-childish belief in the ‘bad prosecutor’ versus the innocent-because-I-can-sense-it Knox supporters.

In the context of the article, the journalist Jessica Bennett argued that, during the trial, I had presented Amanda as a “sex demon” who wanted to take revenge on her roommate and that I had charged her only because the blanket that had been placed on Meredith’s corpse must have been laid by a woman and this woman should have been her.

I am appalled, once again, by the proverbial ease and superficiality of certain Americans, in particular Bennett, who is the author of this report for which condemnation is deserved. p306

6. For Now An Interim Take

As you can see, this book helps clear up issues that have puzzled many for years. More contexting is still to come.

The book ends with an intriguing revelation that Knox had requested to meet him in person, and after all of the vilification Mignini has been put through by her and her supporters as the ‘wicked prosecutor’ he has clear reservations about this.  For the moment, they kept in touch via WhatsApp.

*[author’s note: [Hellmann is from Padua. In Veneto. The name Hellmann comes from the name that the illustrious Venetian lady (the widow of Renier) acquired from his second husband, who was an officer of the Austrian army (at the time Venice was part of the Austrian Empire). The officer, Mr. Hellmann, had a status significantly lower in prestige than the noble Mr. Renier and his wife, therefore the really “important” person was the Lady, who is also remembered for having donated an art collection to the city]

Friday, December 02, 2022

Mignini Unchained: Rollback Starts, Of Perhaps The World’s Greatest Legal Hoax

Posted by Peter Quennell

Context

“The Meredith Kercher Case”. Published by Morlacchi Press, the University of Perugia Press.

This preface is rather long for an excerpt, but we doubt that Dr Sagnotti will mind. It frames the book.

Dr Sagnotti is a Full Professor of Law & Philosophy at the University of Perugia. Where she also teaches Legal Computer Science, Legal Logic and Judicial Criminology; in addition to Epistemology and Criminal Evidence in the Course of Advanced Training in Criminological Sciences and Investigation Techniques. 

Preface By Simona C. Sagnotti

I have always maintained that the magistrate is a person, an individual, like anyone else. In his veins the blood flows, in his chest pulses a heart. But, in his head must lie a refined attitude of logical character.

This is precisely as the author of this volume, the Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, testifies about the account of the well-known legal case linked to the murder of Meredith Kercher. He finds himself a protagonist in a double role - as he himself says - of investigator and jurist.

From the reading of the pages of the book there immediately surfaces a special talent of Mignini: in the observation of the facts, on which only later the investigative hypotheses are grafted, and never vice versa.

There is no falling in love with a hypothesis. Always far from that.

We see it clearly when the author of the book recounts his arrival at the house of Via della Pergola, the scene of the tragic crime. At first Mignini analyzes the house from outside, noting that the window whose glass was broken (reason for which investigators were initially alerted) is not easily accessible except by climbing a few meters up the wall below it.

The Magistrate is immediately alert to the fact that that there is no sign, no corresponding evidence, on that wall to prove that any attacker had entered the house by that route. In addition, Mignini realizes, it would have been much easier to enter through other windows closer to the ground, and less visible to any passers-by.

Once inside, our investigator - it’s obvious to call him that at this point - also realizes that on the windowsill of the violated window there is glass shrapnel with which, if someone had passed through, he would inevitably have injured himself. But there was no blood trace, precisely to confirm that the rupture of that glass could only have been staged.

Here is what it means to act with method: first to observe, and only then to formulate hypotheses capable of forming a logical link between the facts observed and the hypothesis formulated in support of it.

A good investigator, a good magistrate can be recognized through this professional instinct - which the author of this book himself recognizes - to link facts or behaviors distant from one another in time or space. This attitude is the real luminous thread of the story that winds through the pages of this book.

And it is for this reason that, as a teacher, I recommend that students and young jurists who want to pursue a career in the judiciary also read it. This book, therefore, by Mignini is aimed not at an audience of experts alone.

On both the literary and judicial levels, the choice of chronology is a major lesson.  Not as they happened, but in the order in which they made themselves known to the Prosecutor himself. In this way the reader can relive with the author the feelings, impressions, knowledge, deductions in the order in which the investigating protagonist lived them.

The story told in this book also has the peculiarity of developing on different levels. While the history tells of a young victim of a heinous crime and three young people accused of that crime, the history also tells of politics, media, and unjustified attacks on the prosecution.

Regarding the political pressures, the book explicitly mentions them, along with criticisms from the highest institutions of the United States, which were addressed to both investigating magistrates and the Italian judicial system itself.

Systematic proof that the Americans were far from capturing both the letter and the spirit.

These politics pressures were amplified by an “innocentist” press overseas. The press is even now still silent about numerous circumstances of no secondary importance, such as the final sentence for criminal slander [calunnia] awarded to Amanda Knox.

This is a tale of badnesses narrated by Mignini in this volume.

Bad for the young age of the victim: Meredith, Mez for friends, as Mignini himself recalls. Bad for the young age of the defendants: Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox, Rudy Guede.

Bad for the “interference” in particular in the judicial process Knox and Sollecito were required to undergo.

Mignini, in this regard, refers in the concluding pages of his book to the conduct of Section V of Court of Cassation. This Chamber, contradicting many previous findings of the First Chamber of Court of Cassation, annulled the sentence of the defendants Knox and Sollecito by the Court of Assizes d’Appeals of Florence, and itself ordered itself the acquittal of the defendants.

Such a serious legal act is difficult to understand. The [2013-14 Nencini] Florence court only complied with the requirements of the First [“murder”] Chamber of the Court of Cassation. The Fifth Chamber, not being a judge on the substance of the case, had no legal right to convict or acquit any person.

Yet this is what happened and, I would add, this is precisely why, if the case is closed, it is still open and remains in the eyes of a large part of public opinion.

Lastly, I would like to turn to the literary nature of the text in question, as well as the legal case. In this sense, both the autobiographical digressions (childhood, the disappearance of the father…) and the historical digressions (from the Etruscan origins of the Italian places narrated to the suburb of Croydon, the place of origin of Meredith, evocative of a part of Spanish history linked to Francisco Franco) are unusual and pleasing for the reader. Geographical references are always present in the background, allowing the reader to better contextualize the whole.

As I hope to have shown in this preface, there are many reasons to go through the pages of this book and learn, perhaps for the first time, decisive details that have remained hidden from the general public.

Simona C. Sagnotti

In the next day or two there will a media presentation in Perugia’s Morlacchi Theater. A video will be uploaded to YouTube not too long after. Translations of key excerpts and Italian reviews are down the road. Good news for so many here who held the fort for so long.

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Dr Mignini’s 360-Page Blockbuster Book Due To Be Released in One Month

Posted by Our Main Posters

1. Re The Book

Dr Mignini’s book will be released before Christmas by the University Of Perugia Press.

An English edition of the ultra-serious 360-page opus is in the works. We have not seen it yet, but we do understand that it closely mirrors and takes much further the general thrust of this page.

It follows hard on the heels of the Rudy Guede book which has just hammmered home that:

(1) all courts ruled that it had to have been a three-person attack (this was largely based on autopsy and situational evidence and a whole-day reconstruction PRESENTED IN CLOSED COURT);

(2) Knox & Sollecito were definitely at the scene of the crime; there was not a single scrap of evidence that anyone else was.

Not something unknown to every single Italian, but a useful time for it to be hammered home.

2. Re The Case

It seems all Italy is heartily sick of being globally impugned for a fine and fair legal process which was repeatedly illegally undermined. Sollecito’s appeal for damages was caustically shot down; tellingly, Knox did not even apply. 

The 2015 Supreme Court findings and verdict were nonsense, probably deliberately so to hint at pressures applied. In their report, the Fifth Chambers made clear that new evidence could render their verdict null and void.

The new evidence is of course the small mountain which the Fifth Chambers chose to ignore.

The President of the Republic and the Italian Supreme Court can each order a reopening of the case and a repeat of the final appeal.

The initiative is said to already have support within Parliament, Cassation, the Ministry of Justice, and the Council of Magistrates.

It is clearly likely to be huge, and could ripple on for years. Knox & Sollecito, their parents, their lawyers, their PR, and others in Italy could find themselves caught up in the net.

Maybe even more in the US: mafioso wannabes Preston, Ciolino, Moore, Fischer, Heavey, Burleigh, Hampikian, and a dozen others might find diffamazione targets on their backs.

Sollecito and his shadow writer Gumbel already lost a diffamazione trial, in Florence, that cost them big fines, and Knox lost a calunnia trial in Perugia, which cost her three years and huge damages owed to Patrick (still unpaid).

It’s strongly recommended that you check out the 2015 Cassation critiques in our right column and especially (in this order) the critiques of the Prosecution, of Machiavelli, and of James Raper, who may all be having a very nice day.

Monday, August 29, 2022

Alert! Serial Misrepresenter Of MK Case Now Misrepresenting Under New Name

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. Overview

Two heavily promoted and wildly inaccurate new reports have appeared.

In both, a whiny I’m-the-real-victim Sollecito reprises his recent Der Spiegel rant in German which we took apart here. 

One is a two-part report on the new Paramount Plus video-streaming channel, and the other is a Kate Mansey story in the Online Daily Mail.

We’ll also be taking each of them apart next. First, some wider context here.

2. Wider Media Context

Netflix entered the internet-based video-streaming business first and has generally grown very fast. Today it is global, and still huge.

Back in 2016 Netflix took a huge stock hit, when a so-called real-crime report turned out to be in part fake.

On-line streamers have generally tried to be above board in their relatively few cautious true-crime productions since. 

Paramount Global with all its subsidiaries, including Showtime and CBS, is worth in total only about 10 percent of what Netflix is worth. William Cohan in Puck News explained Paramount Global’s overall fit.

Paramount Global is a minnow among sharks. With a market value of around $23 billion [now down to $16 billion] it is the smallest of the group of companies that aspire to Hollywood hegemony. Netflix, even after its recent plunge, still has a market value of about $157 billion. Comcast [NBC] is valued at around $206 billion. Disney [ABC] has a market value of more than $250 billion. [Content provider Amazon is at $1.3 trillion, Apple at $2.54 trillion, and Alphabet/Google/YouTube at #1.42 trillion.]

In this distinctly precarious situation, where misrepresenting true crime could be a real mistake, minnow Paramount Global’s video-streaming service Paramount Plus was launched a year ago in the US.

Paramount Plus was also launched a few weeks ago in parts of Europe including the UK (but not Italy) with its flagship promotional vehicle… an anti-Italy Sollecito whine?!

3. Demonizing Italy Context

Paramount Global under its old names (first Viacom and CBS, and then Viacom/CBS) has long been the most misleading and dishonest of all of the exploiters of the case among the main media in the US.

It had no reporters in the Italian courts (in fact none to our knowledge anywhere in Italy) and it has done zero translations of key reports.

Nevertheless it has historically taken a large number of cracks at Italian justice with help from a group of Seattle money-grubbers and members of Knox’s PR. See this partial list of posts below. 

Click for Post:  Why CBS Should Report Better - Way Better - On This Case

Click for Post:  CBS Attempts To Trash Another Witness, Lies To Its Audience

Click for Post:  Rumors In Manhattan About Ludicrously Bad CBS Report

Click for Post:  CBS Reporter’s Bizarre Claims About Prosecutor And Reporters

Click for Post:  CBS Report Sets New Record For Trashing Of Meredith, Xenophobia, Multi-Inaccuracies, Possible Libels

Click for Post:  Plight Of CBS Network: Anti Justice For Meredith Is Increasingly Bad Business

Click for Post:  We Now Examine The Compelling Evidence For The REAL Railroading From Hell

Click for Post:  Producer Of CBS Reports On The Case “Crazy, Desperate, Stupid, And/Or Unscrupulous” ?

Click for Post:  CBS Producer of Most Biased Perugia-Case Reports Pleads Guilty To An Unrelated Crime

Click for Post:  Emmy Nomination For CBS Producer For Xenophobic And Wildly Inaccurate Reports On Meredith’s Case?!

Click for Post:  The Very Appropriate Casting Of CBS’s Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe

Click for Post:  That Supposed Tsunami Of Leaks That Supposedly Hurt The Alleged Perps: Who REALLY Leaked?

Click for Post:  CBS’s Paul Ciolino Hit With A $40 Million Suit For Real Railroad Job From Hell

4. Context Of Daily Mail

The Daily Mail has had no fixed positions on the case, and mainly dabbles in it sensationally now and then, often to the discomfort of Knox.

Kate Mansey is a main editor of the paper, and her crackpot report mainly summarizes and promotes the streaming Paramount Plus report which mainly has Sollecito whining in misleading terms yet again.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

Georgia Meloni Likely To Become Italy’s First Woman Prime Minister Next Month

Posted by Our Main Posters

Context

Georgia Meloni is the leader of the Brothers Of Italy Party.

Her party is now ahead in the polls. She has uploaded similar statements in excellent Spanish and French.

The party is widely labeled ultra-conservative and does seem to include adherents who have taken some very hard lines. The UK’s Observer newspaper has published this cautionary report. 

So here for an international audience she sets out to compare her own positions as being more akin to those of Liz Truss and the conservatives in the UK.

What of Italian justice? Typically, it goes its own way, politically unaffected, because of all the checks and balances built in - nice, but hard to execute even the few reforms it really could use.

Friday, August 05, 2022

Another Legal Hoaxer Takes The First Of An Expected Many Hits

Posted by Peter Quennell

Overview

Bad day for legal hoaxers as the American justice system delivers another body-blow. 

The Texas jury has now awarded PUNITIVE damages of $45.2m against the money-grubbing far-right radio host Alex Jones. This is on top of $4.1m awarded against him yesterday in COMPENSATORY damages.

Suing were just the first two of a possible 50 parents and teachers’ relatives that Jones had demonized daily for years in his false claims that a real bloodbath at a Connecticut school was a hoax to drive gun-control legislation.

Evidence that his own staff knew that it was a moneygrubbing hoax was presented. Alex Jones’s legal troubles have barely begun. He already faces a second trial in Connecticut next week.

Also Jones egged on the 6 January mob. thousands of recent text messages to Donald Trump etc etc that were handed over to the court by his own lawyer are headed for the Justice Department and Congress. This could result in criminal charges down the road.

For the many anti-Jones comments under the video (scroll down) please click here.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Back In The News: UK’s Suzy Lamplugh Case, Maybe Most Obsessed-Over Anywhere

Posted by Peter Quennell

The History

Suzy Lamplugh disappeared in West London exactly thirty-six years ago today.

A real-estate broker, she had headed out alone to show a “Mr Kipper” a house, and she has never been seen since. No body. No hard proof of murder. Articles still pour out ceaselessly. There are so many YouTubes that it seems best that you take your pick.

The national frustration in England in part results from the fact that there are TWO suspects, both serial killers, the probable John Cannan whose car showed traces of Suzy’s DNA; and the possible Steve Wright, the Ipswich Killer, who Suzy’s family want interviewed - his own father labels him a possibility.

They have each spent years in prison and have divulged details of other crimes. So if either is guilty, why not do the same for this one?

Especially the one called John Cannan, locked up in Yorkshire, who is said to be on the point of dying. On 31 October 2018 our main poster James Raper kindly posted this tip about him.

I see that the police have started excavating the back garden of John Cannan’s mother’s back garden in the hope of, at long last, finding the remains of Suzy Lamplugh. Suzy was an attractive young estate agent who disappeared some 32 years ago after she had gone to meet a certain Mr Kipper at one of the properties on the agency’s books.

I rather doubt that they will find her there but if they do it will bring closure to Suzy’s remaining family. Her parents died a few years ago. Cannan can also then be charged with her murder.

The police never had anyone else in the frame. At the time of her disappearance Cannon was staying at a bail hostel nearby where he was called Mr Kipper because of his love of fishing and always being asleep. He was, it has to be said, rather a handsome man (though with rather strange, staring eyes) but he was also a sexual predator whose MOD with women was to portray himself as a successful businessman.

I bring this up because I was practicing law in Bristol when he was arrested and convicted for the murder of the newly-wed Shirley Banks. He had tried to abduct another woman only the day before Shirley disappeared. He is currently doing life.

It also transpired that he was having an affair with a Bristol solicitor whom I remember from my days there. IIRC she was representing him on some marital issue. She was married to a Bristol barrister though I never did work out who that was. Anyway, a narrow escape for her, and I didn’t see her around after that.

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Mainstream Media Woes: NBC Takes Heat For Blatantly One-Sided Report

Posted by Peter Quennell

NBC originated a live feed from the court. Now NBC slams those who actually watched?!

Below: 5 minutes. Comments here.

Below: 37 minutes. Comments here.

Below: 120 minutes. Comments here.

Below: 120 minutes. Comments here.

Below: 46 minutes. Comments here.

Below: 120 minutes. Comments here.

Thursday, July 14, 2022

More Proof That Mainstream Media Does NOT Accurately Report On Trials

Posted by Peter Quennell

Context

Main-media’s slow suicide by another name?

We recently quoted from some very ill-informed mainstream-media op-eds on the Depp-Heard case.

The NY Times’s and Washington Post’s OWN READERS in online comments below the op-eds almost universally said the opinion writers had NOT WATCHED THE CASE.

There are now literally thousands of comments under the numerous YouTube videos on the case arguing that social media did NOT affect the jury. It was hard facts that did.

Social media in fact simply reflected what many millions saw (except seemingly any mainstream media reporters) on the 20 or so live feeds from the court.

This video of a wildly biased NBC “news report” that aired last night was uploaded just a few hours ago.

Click through to the (at present 2600) comments here (scroll down) in effect almost all saying that, once again, mainstream media is lying to all of us on a grand scale.

Shades of the Meredith Kercher case and Danielle Redlick cases? You can find similar comments to these below under those biased media reports too. We have a lot of like-minded friends out there.

Betsy Packard 1 hour ago

Social Media did NOT determine this case. We watched Amber get caught lying time after time.

Jack White 7 hours ago

Wow NBC, this is how you treat information? Twist it to your will, you know as the public we see what you are doing and you are just loosing viewers.

Ashley Jordan 6 hours ago

This right here is why I refuse to watch MSM! They clearly did not watch the entire trial like most of us with common sense!

Matt Davis 10 hours ago

Really upsetting to see a big news media video like this completely disregard 90% of the trial and give a narrow, biased view on the trial discrediting the court and jury’s verdict, and humiliating Johnny depp, a surviver of amber heard. Both had huge evidence suppressed, Johnny couldn’t play the audio she admits to cutting his finger off.She was proven to be the abuser in a 6 week trial, and to watch this video is disgusting- this would not be happening had the roles been reversed

Gina Simmons 10 hours ago (edited)

I have never seen anything so biased in all my life. I watched the trial ! With an unbiased opinion and the truth slowly unfolded   that Amber Heard was the abuser,  based purely on fact.
I am a woman, and for my own reasons have always side with women about abuse - but this this trial changed my perspective- that men can be victims of abuse too. It sickened me that a woman could go to the depths she went to, to destroy a man that could no longer suffer her abuse.
It is saddening that something like this could be put together in such a way to discredit the verdict. I am sick of being called a Depp fan - I am a fan of truth and justice - something you have left out of this, people who know right from wrong - not fans. Though the right verdict was reached, you have tried to smear it and social media who have been far more truthful about the trial evidence than the MSM.
And as for Elaine Bredahoft- shameful, as she herself knows the lies her client has told and is still pushing them, she even told a few herself, I witnessed that - she should be disbarred.
Shameful that you have put a handful of people together so speedily who obviously never watched the whole trial,  trying to sway the audience to believe a person who constantly perjured herself and covered it over with theatrics - was the victim and treated unjustly.
Amber Heard is the calculating, manipulative,  narcissistic, physical and mental abuser of her former huband - why do you try to paint it as though this fact is not true - and because I have come to this conclusion after seeing it with my own eyes - I am described as Johnny Depp fan?
These are two people, the whole world is not split into two categories - either fans of Depp or Heard. Like me, as I said , just a fan of the truth and justice - for women and for men.

Kris 1 hour ago

This is actually appalling and insulting to everyone who watched this trial live. Insulting to all the fantastic Lawyers and law-workers commenting on this and cases similar to this for years to be smeared by wanna-be journalists who blatantly lie about them again and again. To give this stuff such a stage is unbelievable. Unquestioned biased opinions being presented as “facts”. As i can still see the dislikes this is getting rationed and rightfully so. When will the media finally get the message that they can NOT lie to their viewers any more? Its over. And imagine they would not have allowed cameras in there? News cannot be trusted, so called “experts” cannot be trusted. Thats what i learned from it. Because they lied to my face about stuff i was able to see first hand. This is just another idiotic try to change the “court of public opinion”.

barbde65 3 hours ago

And y’all at NBC and all other MSM’s wonder why we are all turned off? I recall the day she went and played the victim and the fallout… how I was so disappointed and had to believe her…then here comes this trial and I found a new community to follow and these attorneys didn’t believe he could win, the law was on her side… then JD puts on his part and I began to wonder… then AH takes the stand and I was angry… she showed herself as a liar and was fake…the way she kept trying to stare down the jury, the way she told stories that weren’t the same as her “witnesses”…then during both rebuttals, I changed my mind and realized how she’d used the metoo movement, women wanting to believe any claimant and the media to cancel JD… while he’s been all the things he said he was, I mean come on we all knew of his drinking and drug usage way back to the Viper Room and River Phoenix… but the way she described certain alleged abuses? She’d have needed IMMEDIATE treatment for sliced and bleeding feet and in Australia had he really committed SV with a “broken bottle” he would still be there in jail… you all owe JD the actual and fair truth which I highly doubt anyone of you has the decency to report… you’re nothing better than TMZ at this point! Shame on you for not reporting the ACTUAL facts and how disgusting she is as a person…

Randy Moog 3 hours ago (edited)

Three things.
1) NBC was caught replacing audio in the middle of the sentences Amber Heard was saying during their big interview.  They replaced words mid sentence because it was pointed out when the first teasers came out she was obviously lying about facts, and it was easy to prove she was lying.  So NBC removed parts of the video, and edited words mid sentence to make audio clips that were never said, but didn’t have the lies in them.  There are a number of videos that show the teaser clips versus the final clips where this is clear.
2) The trial influences social media, not the other way around.  People mocked AH lying and bizarre behavior AFTER they watched the trial, not the other way around.  People watched the trial with open minds and it was the trial that made them then go to social media and talk about what they saw. 
3) With social media it is easy to comment and fact check in real time.  It is harder with MSM like NBC.  NBC tries very hard to control the narrative and blocks and fact checking.  Luckily this is posted on YouTube were people can comment - something you CANNOT do on NBC’s sites.  And after watching them edit audio and change what people said, you can see why.

Keyyyyzzzz 8 hours ago

I recall a time when both the media AND online commentary were overwhelmingly in support of Amber ... which gradually turned around to support Johnny after the public release of two things: (1) the footage of Amber’s testimony in the UK, and; (2) the many hours of audio recordings - largely Amber’s own. So, as a ‘liberal’ minded (Australian) lawyer I made a point of following the entire six week trial, while deliberately blocking all commentary (both online and traditional media). My verdict was virtually identical with that of the Virginia jury. Not only was Amber’s testimony very contradictory, but there was simply no credible evidence to support her DA claims: and the little that there was ultimately seemed to emanate from Amber herself.
I have to say I’m really surprised at the traditional ‘liberal’ media commentaries - like this one - which appear to have rejected this verdict on the grounds that it will have a suppressing effect on victims of DA! Not only have you clearly NOT followed the evidence presented in this case itself, but you are ignoring the fact that the jury DID vindicate the DA survivor in this case: ie, Johnny Depp. As even your own expert commentators make clear in this video: men are extremely reluctant to come forward as DA victims! Its pretty clear that Johnny would NEVER have come forward ... if it weren’t for the fact that his entire reputation and career were at jeopardy! And yet you’re prepared to disregard both the bulk of the evidence AND the verdict of the jury; simply because it doesn’t conform to your outdated notion of what a DA survivor must look like. It seems to me that the traditional US ‘liberal’ media stands in very real danger of losing relevance in the News environment; a sad and frightening prospect in my opinion ... and in the opinion of hundreds of millions of fair and reasonably minded people around the world.

Tuesday, July 05, 2022

Unsavory Knox & Sollecito Chums Are Taking Quite A Beating Now

Posted by Peter Quennell

Fine Australian report praised by Italian viewers (scroll down)

1. Italian Developments

The video report on a mass trial in southern Italy could be good news.

That is if there is to be more exposure of the nefariousness in Meredith’s case. And of how way too much of the American media and the political administrations were led around by the nose, by these guys intent on taking Italian justice down a peg.

Not that Italian media have been exactly shy though. Few in Italy believe all was above board - in the selection of Judge Hellman and his “independent” consultants, in the final sentence issued in 2015 by the Supreme Court, and in Knox’s “not guilty” verdict in the Florence calunnia trial.

Everybody knows of the Sollecito family’s blood ties in the deep south and in Canada, though those have mostly dwindled since the assassination of Canadian mafia kingpin Uncle Rocco in Montreal in 2016.

Calabria is in the deep south of Italy, across the Strait of Messina from Sicily. Several thousand years ago, those were among the wealthiest areas in the world. Agriculture flourished back then, and the south was a major waypoint for cargo traffic making its way along the Mediterranean.

The remorseless decline of the deep south was first set in motion by climate change, and by piracy from bases in countries further to the east. Lawless gangs emerged after the 19th century uprisings against royalty.

The mafia big three families have long been considered Cosa Nostra (Sicily), Camorra (Naples) and Ndrangheta (Calabria). All three had connections with Meredith’s case.

The Ndrangheta was infiltrating the Perugia area around the time that Meredith died. Knox’s and Sollecito’s lead lawyers had represented mafia previously. Appeal judge Hellman was assigned in suspect circumstances. Sollecito was suspected of seeking help from the Canadian arm of the Ndrangheta. Both of the lead Supreme Court judges were from Naples and subjects of whispers. The judge in Knox’s second calunnia trial was transferred to Florence from the Ndrangheta area due to suspect friendships. A pro-prosecution witness had been a Camorra member. Perugia prosecutors and judges sometimes have a role in mafia cases. Perugia saw a mafia mass-arrest. One of the lead investigators transferred to Rome to head anti-mafia investigations.   

Sicily’s Cosa Nostra was mostly responsible for the assassination of over 100 judges, prosecutors and others in law enforcement through the 1990s, at which time the kingpin was put away and the first several of various mass trials put away additional hundreds. It then faded, and the Ndrangheta mushroomed.

The current Ndrangheta mass trial in western Calabria is of the Mancuso clan, the west-coast segment of the Ndrangheta, which because of a seaport built in the 1990s is definitely the most significant. The trial will conclude in a few months - many took the short-form trial (in effect they pleaded guilty) but over 300 didn’t. 

Does this suggest the last of the big Italian mafia families is finally on the ropes and of diminishing significance? Maybe; maybe not. As the Australian video explains, for many in the area, the Ndrangheta remains more popular than the government, because they make sure to provide more services.

But certainly by global standards they are not such big-fry. Russian, Japanese and Mexican crime families are estimated to be larger, both in membership and turnover. But the Ndrangheta is still big in European cocaine, and has bought a collection of conventional businesses.

Italian law enforcement has developed a number of admired and emulated techniques to diminish their crime families. One is to isolate members from one another and from other prisoners, in prison conditions that by Italian standards are not too nice.

Even at the peaks of these crime families, reported crime rates in Italy, murder or otherwise, have steadily remained below 1/5 of the American rates. Italian law enforcement is brave, and their systems are good models.

2. Canadian Developments

Mobster Dominico Scarfo has been on trial for the shooting of Rocco Sollecito at a traffic light in Montreal in May 2016, and for a related killing.

Rocco Sollecito had been the de facto head of the Rizutto crime family, which was very closely associated with the Italian Ndrangheta. Raffaele Sollecito met with him several times in 2012 and 2014 in a mob-controlled town at the east end of the Dominican Republic island.

Scarfo was found guilty of both killings in April. This is a report on the trial outcome from the Montreal Gazette.

The jury also found Scarfo, 49, guilty of conspiring to kill both men.

The trial began in late January, and the jury deliberated for 19 days — one of the longest deliberations in Canadian history — before reaching unanimous decisions on all four charges. The record for the longest deliberation is 28 days.

“In the name of us all, and in the name of the community you served as judges, I want to thank you for your services. All good things must have an end though,” Superior Court Justice Michel Pennou told the 10 jurors who remained on the panel at the trial’s end.

The prosecution faced an uphill battle as its key witness, an informant, initially refused to testify when he was first called to the stand in February.

“No. I won’t be answering any questions,” the informant told prosecutor Isabelle Poulin after she asked her first question.

“F—ing me over is f—ing everybody over. It ain’t happening,” the informant said back in February while complaining that his contract with the Sûreté du Québec was not being respected.

He eventually settled down and testified at length, despite several outbursts throughout.

With the first-degree murder verdicts, Scarfo automatically received a life sentence with a period of parole ineligibility fixed at 25 years. Pennou said he will hear sentencing arguments on the conspiracy charges at a later date….

Scarfo is said to have collaborated with, among others in the Canadian mob, a “deceased crime boss”.

Hmmm…  Rocco Sollecito’s predecessor Nicolo Rizutto was gunned down in his house by a long-distance sniper.

Rocco has been widely presumed to have been behind that, and although said to have been a guy quite easy to get along with, some in the mob may have remained loyal to the previous boss.

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Ghislaine Maxwell’s Sentence Is 20 Years, And A Fine Of $750,000

Posted by Peter Quennell

Ghislaine Maxwell Sentencing Due Today; Defense Asks For Postponement

Posted by Peter Quennell

Thursday, June 23, 2022

Quack Psychologist Todd Grande Misrepresents Redlick Case, Ridicules Classic Signs Of PTSD

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click here for viewer comments. Video summary of facts below.

Context

The misleading title of the video is “Wife Hurries to Find New Lover After Stabbing Husband”

That never happened.

We have encountered the money-making by victim-shaming quack psychologist Todd Grande before. He seriously misrepresented Amanda Knox.

Now he seriously misrepresents Danielle Redlick, mainly by playing the tragedy for giggles and omitting most of the hard facts.

Viewing of the brutal honesty of her testimony is a real eye-opener. Prior to her taking the stand just about all bets were against her, and she had been demonized for years.

These things among others came out at trial and strongly justified her verdict of “not guilty”.

1. She was NOT on a dating site. The dating app showed up for a mere 10 seconds as the app provider testified.

2. Evidence of abuse by him was extensive, like witnesses to his hitting her. She tried for divorce and he stopped it.

3. They separated (hence the dating app) but he moved back in unilaterally and resumed roughing her up.

4. He had been raging at her since the previous day after spotting the app. Their children texted her to take care.

5. He attacked her violently, coming down on her, and the single defensive stab apparently seemed minor to both of them.

6. He walked around and yelled at her locked in the bathroom for up to 20 minutes. When she finally felt it safe to emerge he was dead. 

7. Her muddled actions for the rest of the night are already declared by more-professional psychologists to be strong symptoms of PTSD - which she may need to keep fighting for years.

Todd Grande’s YouTube is the one irresponsible outlier. The first of the other YouTube analyses and the viewer comments below them - again mostly by women - are all totally on the mark.

Below: a factually correct 13-minute overview

Monday, June 20, 2022

How Three US Trials Associated In The Public Mind Are Right Now At Their Tipping Points

Posted by Peter Quennell

To reach comments click here.

The Three Cases

All three cases involve women who faced trials by jury. These are their imminent tipping points.

1. The Heard-Depp Damages Hearing

This Friday the 24th of June a meeting between the judge and the legal teams in the Depp-Heard case will arrive at agreements on the sizes of the damages awards.

The big unknowns are (1) how much the Depp team will ask for presumably in exchange for Amber Heard’s agreement that she will no longer poison public minds about the jury verdict; and (2) whether Amber Heard will be psychologically capable of biding by any such agreement.

Some professionals watching are seeing her psychology now as in a pretty bad way, rather than seeing a monster, and would prefer that Heard’s personal and media enablers stop getting in the way of treatment.

Many agree that Heard’s symptoms we see today mirror the diagnosis of two syndromes (Borderline and Histrionic) by court-ordered psychologist Dr Shannon Curry.

2. The Ghislaine Maxwell Sentencing

Last December the jury found Jeffrey Epstein’s procurer guilty of harm to several young women and in New York on Tuesday 28th next week she will be sentenced, probably to 20 years at a minimum.

She really is being seen as something of a monster. She might do herself a lot of good by sharing her little black book of all the men that violated the dozens of young girls at Epstein’s various properties. The only firmly known one was Prince Andrew and he settled a civil case with one girl for millions.

However, don’t hold your breath. Maxwell has shown no remorse, her team’s losing strategy was a pretty horrible one of trashing the young women, and her team is angling for a new trial. 

3. The Danielle Redlick Sentencing

Our first-time mention of this high-profile Florida case. Danielle Redlick (below pre-abuse) admittedly stabbed her husband to death, but has just been found not guilty in light of very convincing evidence of self-defense and domestic violence.

She will be sentenced August 5 for some crime scene rearrangement, and as she was held before trial for over three years she may not serve any more time.

Why is this associated with the other cases in the public mind? Well, one or two had seen in her a monster, like Ghislaine, while many others, genuine domestic violence victims and experts, have declared online that her DV predicament rang true to them.

Her perceived unflinching honesty is the very opposite of the many negative reactions online to the escalating DV descriptions Amber Heard has been trying to market, evidence-free.

Click here for a YouTube with numerous comments from DV survivors about Amber Heard faking it and Danielle Redlick not

Danielle Redlick in pre-marriage days

Thursday, June 16, 2022

ABC News Channels A Juror, Undercutting Heard’s Wildeyed Claims On Other US Networks

Posted by Peter Quennell

(1) Scroll down for viewer comments. (2) See at foot for UK lawyer analysis.

Additionally to the video analysis at bottom there is this newer longer one examining the whole of the pussyfooting NBC Dateline interview with Heard.

Context

The NBC network has aired an interview in several parts with Amber Heard.

This now looks like a disaster. Informed court-watchers have gone to town both on the timid and ill-prepared NBC interviewer and on Amber Heard over her multitude of unchallenged conspiracy theories (some excellent comments there).

And now, unsurprisingly, the jury starts to push back against Amber Heard’s incessant media trashing of them. The GMA website carries the video above and also this telling reporting.

By Mark Guarino & Doug Lantz

A juror in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial said in an interview that aired Thursday on “Good Morning America” that when the actress cried during her testimony the jury saw only “crocodile tears.”

“It didn’t come across as believable,” he said. “It seemed like she was able to flip the switch on her emotions. She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. It didn’t seem natural.”

Depp, he said, “just seemed a little more real in terms of how he responded to questions.”

The juror, one of seven jurors during the six-week trial, spoke exclusively to “GMA” and is the only juror on record to speak publicly about the case. He asked to have his name not used for this report.

In early June, a jury in Fairfax, Virginia, awarded Depp more than $10 million in damages; Heard received $2 million in her countersuit.

The catalyst for defamation countersuits was a 2018 op-ed Heard wrote in The Washington Post in which she said she “became a public figure representing domestic abuse.”

Depp argued that suggested she was victimized by him, although she never identified him by name.

‘Why would you buy the other person a knife?’

Heard’s credibility was suspect throughout the duration of the trial, the juror said. Besides how she acted on the stand, several other factors led the jury to believe Heard was not credible, the juror said.

The jury concluded “they were both abusive to each other” but Heard’s team failed to prove Depp’s abuse was physical.

“They had their husband-wife arguments. They were both yelling at each other. I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong. That’s what you do when you get into an argument, I guess. But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying,” he said.

Heard, the juror said, was considered the aggressor in the relationship by the majority of the jury. “If you have a battered wife or spouse situation, why would you buy the other person, the ‘aggressor,’ a knife? If you really wanted to help Johnny Depp get off drugs, why are you taking drugs around him?” he asked.

Heard testified she purchased Depp a large knife as a gift, which Depp’s legal team presented to jurors.

The juror said that photographs Heard took of her ex-husband also fell flat. Although the defense used them to show Depp’s decrepit state after a drug or alcohol binge, the juror said they failed to make an impact.

“If you mix alcohol and marijuana, that’s where you usually end up—passed out,” he said. “We discussed at length that a lot of the drugs she said he used, most of them were downers. And you usually don’t get violent on downers. You become a zombie, as those pictures show.”

In his testimony, Depp also admitted to cocaine use, a stimulant, and Heard testified he was frequently doing the drug in her presence.

No make-up: no credibility

The juror also said the jury essentially dismissed all witnesses on both sides who were employees, paid experts, friends or family from either side.

Also suspect were the photos that Heard’s team presented that purported to show bruising on the actress’ face. Two photos presented near the end of the trial were not credible to the jury, he said.

They believed the accusation by Depp’s team that one photo was edited to artificially redden Heard’s face to suggest bruising. Heard testified the photos looked different because of a “vanity light.”

“Those were two different pictures. We couldn’t really tell which picture was real and which one was not,” the juror told “GMA.”

The juror also said the defense failed Heard by telling them that the actress “never goes outside without make-up on,” he said. “Yet she goes to file the restraining order without make-up on. And it just so happens her publicist is with her. Those things add up and starts to become hard to believe,” he said.

$7 million donation that never happened was ‘a fiasco’ for Heard

The juror said the four-hour debate over the difference between a pledged donation and an actual donation ended up “a fiasco” for Heard.

On the stand, Heard testified she never finished donating all $7 million from her divorce settlement to two charities because she didn’t want Depp to reap the tax benefits by sending her settlements to the charities directly.

Heard testified that a pledge and a donation are “synonymous with one another” and “mean the same thing.” The jury was shown video of Heard on a Dutch talk show saying she gave her donation to the charities.

“The fact is, she didn’t give much of it away at all,” the juror said. “It was disingenuous.”

He blamed Heard’s legal team for giving her poor advice, such as looking directly at the jury when responding to questions. “All of us were very uncomfortable” at that, he said.

He also said her team “had sharp elbows versus being sharp.”

“They would cut people off in cross because they wanted one specific answer without context. They were forcing people to just answer a very narrow question ... which was obvious,” he said.

“She needs better advice,” he said of Heard.

Publishing the 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post that defamed Depp was a poor choice, he said. “If she didn’t do any of this stuff with the op-eds, Johnny Depp could have helped her out in her career. They didn’t leave things on a nasty turn,” when they divorced, he said. “It turned nasty after the op-ed.”

‘We only looked at the evidence’

The juror denied the jury was swayed by outside forces. He and “at least” three others did not have Twitter accounts.

“Some people said we were bribed. That’s not true. Social media did not impact us. We followed the evidence. We didn’t take into account anything outside [the courtroom]. We only looked at the evidence,” he said. “They were very serious accusations and a lot of money involved. So we weren’t taking it lightly.”

The juror also said that no one on the jury was starstruck and their individual celebrity never played a factor in their decision. While he admitted he knew of Depp more than Heard, he hadn’t seen many of his films. “None of us were really fans of either one of them,” he said.

Asked whether he would go see a future movie starring Depp or Heard, the juror said it would depend on the movie.

“What they do in their personal lives doesn’t affect me whatsoever. Going to movies is entertainment. I go for the quality of the movie or the storyline,” he said. “Not for the acting.”

Monday, June 13, 2022

Some Main Media Continuing “Farcical & Biased” Commentary On Why Heard Lost

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seven minutes. Comments by viewers who WATCHED THE TRIAL here (scroll down)

Ten minutes. Comments by viewers who WATCHED THE TRIAL here (scroll down)

Thirty minutes. Comments by viewers who WATCHED THE TRIAL here (scroll down)

Thursday, June 09, 2022

Main Media Again Behind The Curve, On What Camille Vasquez’s Promotion Means

Posted by Peter Quennell

Analysis Of New Partnership

Brown Rudnick, the law firm for Johnny Depp, has about 250 lawyers in all branches on its staff.

As of the other day before Camille Vasquez’s promotion to partner, there were 66 equity partners and 51 non-equity partners in the firm.

The concept of a non-equity partner is a bit weird. It gives more job security and higher pay but may see no bonuses at the end of the year.

Probably Camille was voted into the equity group. She has really helped to put that quite small firm on the map.

She had a sudden rush of job offers and really had them over a barrel.

The median pay of a lawyer in the US is $128,000 (the median for medical doctors is $260,000) and so (as in Italy) many or most don’t make very much.

Camille was possibly pulling in around that $128,000. As a partner, she should now be on over $200,000 a year.

If she is an equity partner, she could see double that at the end of each year.

So. From a possible $128,000 to a possible $400,000 a year…

But that is not all. If she registers as a paid speaker for conferences, she could now make $1 million and up.

“It couldn’t happen to a nicer person” seems to apply.

Wednesday, June 08, 2022

Beyond Denial: As Many Millions So Much Better Informed, Main Media Bends To The Wind

Posted by Peter Quennell

Less than 24 hours after broadcast, the NBC and ABC videos here are showing a combined 10 million views, and 22,000 comments. Also this is weird. And there may be a move to disbar Heard lawyer Elaine Bredehoft in Virginia for unethical claims about judge & jury soon after trial.

Context

Johnny Depp lawyers Camille Vasquez and Ben Chew were interviewed today on NBC and ABC.

At trial they did truly great work, helpfully aiding Amber Heard to repeatedly shoot herself in the foot.

Already, thousands of supporting comments can be read here and here (scroll down). 

One big winner: cameras in court.

Remember what happened in Italy? There were cameras in court. Most of the trial of AK and RS was broadcast live. Italian media did not “intermediate” on the biased lines of the New York Times and Associated Press and US TV.

So there is little doubt in Italy about AK’s and RS’s guilt.

Same thing here. Main media deniers have been trounced by live court feeds on the social media they love to despise.

The island shrinks for lazy journalists like Michele Goldberg (see previous post below) that are witting or unwitting captives to toxic PR. 

 

Thursday, June 02, 2022

Myriad WOMEN Are Seeing Amber Heard As The Dangerous Troublemaker

Posted by Peter Quennell

Jury verdict: Malice toward Johnny Depp by Amber Heard in misleading Washington Post op-ed was indeed proven, jury suggests damages of $15 million. Award hearing in front of same judge 24 June. Heard counter-claims all unproven except only one: a statement by a Depp lawyer (not Depp) that a home scene was rearranged to fool the police.

Context Of Video

Amazingly, some daffy men still break for Amber Heard.

But women for Heard? A tiny minority. Pretty well all those angered that Amber Heard tried to hijack and slant and weaponize what had been a quite useful movement are by their own accounts women.

Quite often themselves genuine domestic-violence victims. Scroll down and read the comments. Pretty well all are by women angered at this ridiculous shoot-from-the-hip woman commentator who clearly did NOT watch the full arc of the trial.

As of posting, these were the dozen most “liked” comments. 

[By a woman] There was no ‘mountain of evidence’. Amber Heard did indeed make her accusations up out of whole cloth, and she had NO evidence, none whatsoever. It was proven she was lying about multiple things, and the majority of her witnesses weren’t credible. It was proven she lied about Warner Brothers, she lied about donating the divorce money, she lied about fights, she lied about damage to property, she lied about injuries…  This was not a ‘he said, she said’, it was a ‘she said, everyone else said’. Either Johnny was right and all his witnesses, who were credible, or Amber was right, and everyone else was lying, including multiple police officers.

[By a woman] The setback for women is that this woman used the #MeToo movement to further her career.  Amber lost her cash cow and the person with whom she attached herself that made her more well known and she punished him for leaving her.  This is unacceptable behavior no matter what your gender.

[By a woman] This is a terrible perspective, and this is what’s holding us back. The evidence overwhelmingly showed that Depp was the abused. Too many of us have suffered the same tactics and manipulations that AH dished out. I do have some empathy for her, her past trauma etc… but she needs to deal with her past, instead of projecting it on to others.

[By a woman] I’m all for victims coming forward and I am so happy to see a man stand up for himself because in this case Amber audio recordings greatly contradict her testimony.  I believe justice was served.  Unfortunately there are women who make false claims of sexual assault.  Men lose their freedom and name forever tarnished when falsehoods are told and there should be repercussions when you defame someone in this way.  She planted seeds of doubt.  Some will believe her and some won’t.  You need to follow the evidence.  Male or female abuse victims deserve justice and I think this time the jury got it right.

[By a woman] This lady is on another planet. Yes she made allegations but she lied they were false allegations, they were to her own benefit, and it’s a lesson to both men and women that domestic violence is not something that’s OK to lie about. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, domestic violence is domestic violence. Also the judge in the UK case discredited everything Johnny said because of his substance-abuse. He didn’t listen to any of Johnny’s evidence, and it was one person, a single judge in the UK, where standards are different, laws are different, versions of proof or different. Here in our country seven people found Amber to be a liar. Justice for Johnny has been done today!

[By a woman] She manipulated evidence. That’s a big no-no. She couldn’t keep her story straight and she said on the stand that everyone else is lying except for her, she’s the only one that’s telling the truth. I’m sorry but the jury got it 100% right. This is a big win for men who are victims of domestic violence. More women come forward than men do, and maybe this is an opportunity to show that men can come forward and they are victims too. She said in her own words on a voice recording “Tell them you’re a victim and see who believes you”...

[By a woman] So evidence that we all saw with our own eyes and testimonies listened to with our ears are not the reason she lost, but its because an actor is a powerful man. Was the judge also in on this? I love this victimhood spin the media are putting on this. Yes, let’s forget a woman lied about physical violence to destroy a man’s life, all the while being the one committing domestic violence against that man.

[By a woman] I am a woman from Istanbul and I’m on the side of “human” rights. I’ve watched the trial for 6 weeks and I truly believe that justice is served. That’s what matters.

[By a woman] Less than ten percent [of women lie]? Then Amber is in that ten percent. I wanted to believe her, but I watched the trial, and as an abused woman in the past, I could not buy a single word out of her mouth. She does more harm to abused woman with her false accusations. Justice prevailed!

[By a woman] What an untruthful statement. This analyst obviously didn’t watch the trial. This is a win for an abused person by a manipulative person with borderline personality disorder.

[By a woman] Men can be abused too. I personally watched my mother abuse my father for years. When police showed up they believed her every time because she was the woman. This happens and men are not believed or are shamed as if they are not man enough if abused. Men and women can both be victims. Did you guys actually watch the trial? It was very clear and I agree with the jury.

[By a woman] A colossal loss for women??? Since when are women in favour of injustice??? Couldn’t you have found a less biased legal analyst? Shame.

Wednesday, June 01, 2022

Amber Heard Claims Of Abuse In Op-Ed Were Malicious, Jury Finds

Posted by Peter Quennell

State Of Play

This verdict could be appealed, but don’t be holding your breath… *

Johnny Depp now has the upper hand in deciding between now and 24 June the size of the damages payment he will settle for.

In light of this, Court TV commentators were almost struck dumb by the stupidity of Amber Heard’s post-verdict statement, basically repeating the defamations all over again.

Okay, Camille Vasquez: now take down serial defamer Amanda Knox…
_____

* As you may have seen elsewhere, a possible appeal has been announced. But it will be hard for Heard now to deny malice when she exhibited it to the jury throughout her several sessions on the stand. Her constant addressing of the jury may have rubbed this in, it was as if she was remembering all their faces for future stalking.

She should perhaps spend any remaining money on treatment; other borderline personality order cases have been online saying treatment largely worked for them; this applies to Knox too.

 

Monday, May 30, 2022

A Sound Lawyer’s Take On Final State Of Play, And A Satire Of Amber Heard’s Non-Answers

Posted by Peter Quennell

Added: This newly uploaded video above explains why Harvard lawyer Ms Lee has come down for Team Depp. Bruce Rivers’ commentary is down below now.

Overview

Up to the present, most main-media commentary remains deeply superficial.

Reporting has been skipping over numerous hard facts in favor of extensive waffles about #MeToo, social media, and who is waiting to enter the courtroom.

Main media did give some belated attention last week to Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez, who they have actually noticed is a woman.

On Facebook and YouTube threads it is rather obvious that half or more of the scathing comments also are from women. Many of them are DV survivors, explaining why they are quite sure Amber Heard is faking it.

This fact-influenced changing center of gravity in the huge audience is still not being noticed mainstream. 

Above and below: two lawyers’ commentaries. Further below: a sardonic take on Amber Heard’s cross-examination, with real reactions from her own team increasingly dumbfounded.

After the jury met briefly last Friday, a rumor was floated that they were “divided”. At a guess, this was Heard PR hard at work. There was little time to do other than take a straw vote. Such straw votes are notorious for differing from final outcomes.

 

 

Friday, May 27, 2022

Out-Of-Nowhere Depp Lawyer Camille Vasquez Delivers Implacable Closing Argument

Posted by Peter Quennell

Context

Camille Vasquez is one of eight lawyers on Johnny Depp’s team.

For most of the trial she was held back and to many remained invisible. But when she was finally unleashed it sure was worth the wait.

Loaded for bear in witness examinations, including of Heard, and from her first few words really searing in her final argument, she ended powerfully with the names of all who testified why the Washington Post article and a post-separation restraining order against Depp were both hoaxes.

Looks like this closing argument might be one for the law schools. And for TV interviews: she would not be interviewed during the trial.

Total viewership today already exceeds 25 million. Surely one for the Guinness Book of Records?

Monday, May 23, 2022

Good Lawyer’s Take On Tipping Points Depp-Heard Jury Might Soon Face

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Context

There are TWENTY live feeds of the trial running on YouTube as of Monday AM. Wow. 

And maybe several million watching live on cable TV. Why so?

Well, as explained in previous posts, the number of American defamation trials in any one year fell off a cliff several decades ago.

Law-changes in many states made them much more difficult to win - though one plus is that a media outfit that has no malicious intent in its reporting does not risk being totally wiped out.

This does mean that defamation law is somewhat of a financially risky area for lawyers to specialize in, and so proportionally there are not that many defamation lawyers all-told.

Johnny Depp has hired what are clearly some of the best defamation lawyers in the US, and you can see them keeping their cool, building the case against the Op-Ed in the Washington Post brick by brick, and having an enormous effect on the crowd (such as us).

In sharp contrast, it seems that not even one of Amber Heard’s team specializes in defamation, and several aparently don’t even normally appear in any court. They have taken the jury on various irrelevant trips, which noticeably bored the jury and did nothing for Heard.

This video above is another by Bruce Rivers, who really does know his defamation law, and there is a lot of respect for him in Comments.

It is really good to see how focused on the law and hard facts - and against dishonest Amanda-Knox-type tirades - a large majority is right now. Very promising for us in our end-run.

Friday, May 13, 2022

Abuser “Triangulation” Seems Blatant In Amber Heard, Jada Smith,  Amanda Knox Cases

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Context

The two video analyses are of Will Smith, of Oscars notoriety, and his wife Jada.

They seem highly relevant also to our own case, and to the Heard-Depp case, with the repeated new airings of a 2019 Smith-Smith video talked about here.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s Resurfaced IG Live With Will Smith

Video Shows Tension Between Will Smith and Wife Jada

See Will Smith pleads with wife Jada

Details about Will and Jada Smith relationship revealed

The video is being suggested as a classic instance of triangulation. This is where the abuser (think Heard and Knox too) incessantly builds third-party support (from “flying monkeys” to use the technical term!) for their pattern of abuse.

In the 2019 video, Jada keeps filming Will, and taunting him, very obviously against his wish.

Jada keeps referring to an Esther Perel, a Belgian shrink and avid open-marriage promoter, who Jada intends to bring back in to “analyze” their marriage in front of the whole world.

And there is this indicting Amber Heard.

 

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

How Amber Heard Testimony Matched Point By Point Depp Psychologist’s Checklist

Posted by Peter Quennell

Another Sharp Video Take

Dr Shannon Curry testified first, of course, waving red flags that the whole world would expect a target of a $50 million lawsuit to adjust her language and demeanor to.

But, but, but… as this video explains, that is very far from what happened in the last week.

And yet another Knox affinity. Knox shows the same train-on-rails obtuseness. Remember Chris Mellas’s nickname for her?

Saturday, May 07, 2022

Timely Contrasting Of The Amber Heard & Johnny Depp Psychologists

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Context

Defamation trials are rare in the United States. Ones on “telly” and streaming video with 10-20 million viewership are even rarer.

Some here feel that this is a real pity, that it has become so incredibly tough and expensive to get a reputation back, not least because it has led to an explosion of toxic PR-emanated hit-jobs - just as in both this case and our own main interest.

This invidious sub-optimal system has allowed, not least, Amanda Knox to demonize dozens in Italian law enforcement highly dishonestly for huge bucks for a full decade now.

Particularly unusual is to see warring psychologists sharing diagnoses with the jury of the other party. But this actually could prove to be a very good thing; in a first for any media, hundreds of domestic violence survivors have posted valuable insights from what they lived through.

We came in with Dr Shannon Curry offering a razor-sharp diagnosis of Amber Heard over the past decade (borderline and histrionic personality disorders) startling similar to what Amanda Knox has long been demonstrating.

All professional psychologists who have posted for us have inclined in this direction, and discounted that Knox is simply psychopathic or sociopathic, even if she tests high on those scales. They have noted how much she believes in her illusions, and how she could be moving further and further way from hopes of recovery.

In this new video, Australian court analyst Katherine Elizabeth does the first comparison online between the takes of the two psychologists - impressive, as she does it without a script, and apparently into a cellphone!

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

A Clinical Psychologist Gets Widespread Praise Today For Shapeshifting Expert Testimony

Posted by Peter Quennell

Actor Johnny Depp’s Defamation Suit

This is the second week in a courtroom just outside Washington DC for actor Johnny Depp and his ex wife Amber Heard.

Johnny Depp (net worth $150 million) is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard (net worth $8 million) for defamation, for having implied in a Washington Post article in 2018 that he had frequently been violent with her.

Court proceedings are being shown live on several TV channels and various streaming YouTube channels. The national audience may have jumped by several million today while forensic psychologist Dr Shannon Curry testified for Depp’s team.

There were strong shades of Amanda Knox’s apparent syndromes in this testimony. As The Guardian reported:

An expert in intimate partner violence called to give evidence in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard has testified that her evaluation of the actor revealed two psychiatric diagnoses – borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.

Depp’s witness, Shannon Curry, said that the diagnosis came from examination of Heard’s previous psychological assessments, coupled with direct examination on two occasions, and participation in a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test, a court in Alexandria, Virginia, heard on Tuesday.

Curry said that Heard, 36, displayed a “reactive”, “overly dramatic presentation” and used words like “magical” and “wonderful” to describe events. Heard, she said, flitted between “princess and victim”.

As sophisticated, “cute and girlish” as such people may present, Curry said, they “may in reality be very destructive”, “dramatic, erratic and unpredictable” and possessed of an “underlying drive to not be abandoned but also to be center of attention”.

Curry said borderline personality disorder represented an unstable personality, alert to rejection, with little access to self-regulation and marked by “a lot of anger, cruelty toward people less powerful, concerned with image, attention seeking and prone to externalizing blame, a lot of suppressed anger that may explode outwards”.

Anyone attempting an intimate relationship with such a personality, Curry said, would likely go from “idolized to dumpster”. It was typical of borderline personalities, she added, to be “assaultive as partners. They’ll make threats using the legal system, threaten to file for a restraining order, claim abuse.”

There are several full-day versions of today’s testimony on YouTube. Amber Heard did not seem to be enjoying it. YouTube comments are worth reading (scroll down). One comment:

A movie or show could never equate to this woman as a witness. Hands down best witness I’ve ever seen in all the court cases I’ve ever seen.

Saturday, March 19, 2022

Der Spiegel, Mafia Tool?! Yet More Fake News Inflames Millions Against Italian Justice

Posted by Peter Quennell

Editor-in-Chief Clemens Höges oversaw this fake news

1. Spiegel’s Fake-News Past

It now appears that Der Spiegel has grossly mangled the facts of the case TWICE!

The first instance consisted of Der Spiegel mindlessly channeling Knox’s greatest fraud. We posted on that the other day.

Now the second consists of Der Spiegel mindlessly channeling Sollecito’s greatest fraud. The low points are summarized below.

Clemens Höges, Der Spiegel Editor in Chief (image above) is greatly respected in German publishing. He was brought in specifically to stamp out fake news after a damaging incident hit Der Spiegel in 2018.

“Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me!” One instance of fake news can perhaps be blamed only on the reporter. But two instances?! Especially at Der Spiegel, they are a sure sign of editorial mismanagement, or of grandstanding intent at top-manager level. Herr Höges??

2. Spiegel’s Fake News #2

For a current Sollecito baseline, you might do well to read this first. It is along the lines of what Der Spiegel should have reported.

Better than the weird nonsense about “I’m the real victim” Sollecito below. More about the one that all Italians know only too well in the next post.

You destroyed our life” Raffaele Sollecito was falsely charged [untrue] ... [He says] hardly anyone knows his name [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox and Sollecito were finally acquitted [untrue] ... Spiegel: Quickly, the officials take in two suspects [untrue] ...  an unprecedented media hype develops [untrue] ... Sollecito features in the reports only on the edge [untrue] ... Sollecito [says] my fate was completely overlooked, no-one was interested in me, not even the police [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox and Sollecito were falsely arrested and accused of murder [untrue] ... The police had thought up this screenplay that Amanda and I would have allegedly killed Meredith [untrue] ... I was only a minor figure [untrue]: even the prosecutor was especially interested in Amanda [untrue] ... Sollecito [was] described by friends as restrained and thoughtful [untrue] ... Sollecito: The night of November 1st, Amanda and I spent together in my apartment [untrue]. We looked at a movie, heard music and slept [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox’s parents advise her to leave Italy, but Knox remains in good faith to help the police [untrue] ...  What we do not know is ... they already suspect us of the murder of Kercher [untrue]...

Knox had been afraid since the murder to stay alone in his apartment, and [for that reason] accompanies him [untrue]... The officials decide to interview her as well [untrue]...  Spiegel: You and Knox both posted confessions that night [untrue]... Sollecito: We immediately withdrew the confessions next day [untrue]... The police manipulated us and played us against each other [untrue]... After hours of interrogation [untrue] they presented to me a prefabricated document [untrue], Amanda similarly [untrue]... When I asked them to change it because I did not agree, they said, I should not worry, it’s all accurate [untrue]... Spiegel: Knox says these days the police had put them under great pressure [untrue] ... Both - Knox and Sollecito - are arrested, although DNA analysis from the scene later prove that they had not been in Kercher’s room [untrue]...  Sollecito: The investigators know [untrue] that there are traces of a police informant [untrue] named Rudy Guede ... He had a criminal prehistory for burglaries [untrue], his traces were everywhere on the crime location [untrue] - it was clear that he was the killer [untrue]...  The investigators constructed the absurd theory that Amanda, I and Guede had killed Meredith together [untrue]... In the first months in court I had to laugh, it was almost as if the police invented their evidence [untrue]... A bra clasp of Meredith, allegedly with my DNA, lay around 46 days [forgotten] at the scene [untrue] ... But the police and the prosecutors were so in love with their murder theory that they did not want to give it up [untrue]...

Spiegel: Media worldwide reported on the “angel with the ice eyes” [untrue] The Italian judiciary is being observed by the global public - and under enormous pressure [untrue]... “Giving that she had been wrong, was not an option [for the officials],” writes the journalist [untrue] Nina Burleigh ... Spiegel: It was suggested several times you testify against Knox, in return for a milder prison sentence. You rejected this [untrue]. Sollecito: Of course [untrue] ...  Spiegel: In 2011, an appeal court released Knox and Sollecito [finally] from the allegation of the murder [untrue] ... Two independent [untrue] experts certify the police previously made blatant mistakes in the evidence collection and analysis [untrue]... Today it is assumed that the footsteps and Knox and Sollecito traces came from impurities [untrue] ... Knox and Sollecito have spent four years wrongly imprisoned [untrue] ... A new court [untrue] sentenced him and Knox in 2013 to long prison sentences [untrue] ... Two years later, 2015, Italy’s ultimate court exonerates him and Knox [untrue] ... Sollecito sued the Italian state for damages - and lost. The argument of the judges: he was wrong to defend himself [untrue]...

Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Correcting Fake-News Fraud In Der Spiegel By Alexandra Rojkov

Posted by Peter Quennell

Clemens Höges Der Spiegel Editor in Chief

1. Rojkov’s Defamatory Claims

These claims below are all taken verbatim straight from Rojkov’s Der Spiegel report.

All are 100% false. The interrogation hoax is Amanda Knox’s key hoax. She typically shrieks and wails, amid false claims that she was made to “confess”.

But Knox did not confess. She was not made to do anything. The Q&A on 6 Nov was purely voluntary. In fact it was suggested she go home and sleep, but she refused. It lasted less than 90 minutes, mostly listing some names.

While doing continued considerable harm in Italy and elsewhere, such as now in Germany, that hoax has paid Knox an estimated million or two to this date. Rojkov swallowed and propagates the hoax whole, and even makes it more inflammatory.

Reporters report [prosecution claims] that the murder was a satanic ritual [untrue]... They call the woman “Luciferina,” the devil [untrue]... The prosecutor claimed that Knox had committed the crime out of sheer lust and seduced the men into helping her [untrue]... Sometimes he speculated about a sexual orgy, sometimes about a satanic ceremony [untrue]... Sollecito was summoned by the Perugia police as a witness [untrue]... The couple claimed to have spent the night together [untrue]... This answer was not enough for the officials [untrue]... [Many] hours of interrogation [untrue]... police claimed they had evidence that Knox was lying [untrue]... Her lack of memory is a consequence of the trauma [untrue]... For hours after, the officers repeatedly demanded that Knox “remember the truth” [untrue]... In the process, they became more and more angry [untrue]... twice someone hit her head [untrue]... [Knox was] 24 hours without sleep [untrue]... she suddenly saw pictures and heard screams [untrue]...

Knox finally signed a statement that would cost her four years of her life [untrue]. “Of all that happened, this interrogation was the worst experience” [untrue] says Knox, “I was as scared and confused as I have never been in my life [untrue]... many people still don’t understand how police could incriminate someone just like that” [untrue]... A recording or transcript of the interrogation does not exist [untrue] although all other conversations were recorded [on paper] with Knox… Sollecito signs a statement saying that Knox was staying in [untrue]... Knox also signed a confession [untrue]... Both withdraw their statements shortly afterwards [untrue]...  the prosecution’s theory quickly crumbled [untrue]... The forensic experts… found neither their fingerprints nor DNA [untrue]... Guede had already been noted several times: for burglary, theft, attempted assault [untrue]... the forensic investigation of the crime scene acquitted Knox and Sollecito [untrue] but the judiciary did not let them go… a two-year pre-trial detention began [untrue]... supposed evidence that later turned out to be the product of a sloppy investigation [untrue]...

Sometimes it seemed as if the authorities were bullying [untrue]... Independent experts will later explain that the DNA may come from impurities [untrue]... After an appeal Guede’s sentence changes to 16 years [untrue]... Independent experts investigating the bra clasp again after some years conclude that it has probably been contaminated [untrue]... numerous errors were found by the investigators in the tracing and analysis [untrue]... March 27, 2015: Italy’s Supreme Court finally acquits [untrue] Knox and Sollecito of the charges of murdering Kercher.. [Knox] was an invention of the Italian authorities and the media who reported on the case [untrue]. Robinson had never heard of Knox’s case [untrue]... Knox grew up in sheltered conditions, nothing bad had ever happened to her [untrue]... What she experienced in prison and in court shook Knox [untrue].

All of the above is incorrect. For starters read our interrogation hoax series here, and some or all of these posts.

True to the Knox PR’s barbaric rules, Rojkov makes Meredith a non-person: Rojkov barely mentions her, and calls her only “Kercher” then. True to the Knox PR’s barbaric rules, Rojkov makes Knox the REAL victim here. 

There was zero interrogation on 6-7 Nov, merely a session of just over an hour listing names of visitors to the house; Knox’s notes and diagrams exist. Her status was “person with possible useful information”. She was not even a witness at that point. Same with RS.

Knox never confessed anything. She framed an innocent man, when under no pressure, and rightly served three years (Rojkov does not bother to mention that).

Knox confirmed at trial she was treated well. Sollecito absolutely did not ever back up Knox’s (third) alibi. Neither ever recanted what they had said. Knox herself insisted (twice) on writing her claims down. She signed every page of the typed records for every Q&A with the police.

Guede was not known for burglary. Evidence the three attacked Meredith is overwhelming - as even defenses agreed. There was zero evidence of anyone else. Knox and RS didn’t make bail in 2007-08 because evidence was so strong - even the Supreme Court ruled that.

In prison Knox survived just fine and there are shots of her enjoying herself. The untruthful husband Robinson is actually the son of the West Seattle Herald’s owner; in which from 2007 he published the nastiest and most defamatory of all US reports.

2. Rojkov’s Numerous Omissions

Example: The illegalities of the enormous and brutal PR in bending three courts ls totally left out; also the known mafia role.

Example: Knox was not an exchange student with the normal funding and supervision; she was (very unusually) freelance, with her foolish and irresponsible parents in the know.

Example: Knox spent more time in Perugia doing drugs and chasing guys (mostly unsuccessfully; she was not much liked as her manner and hygiene were repellant) than anything else.

Example: The investigation was overseen by a magistrate (Matteini) and decision to go to trial (at which there were TWO prosecutors, one a woman) was made by a judge (Micheli).

Example: The evidence gathering took a full eight months, and its presentation at trial (much behind closed doors) left the pair and their defenses distraught.

Example: Most of the trial was shown on live TV. Media did not bend what Italians could see with their own eyes. Knox was an unmitigated disaster on the stand.

Example: Knox rightly served three years, and is a convicted felon for life. Because of that, dangerous trashing of Italy has been her only day-job for a decade. 

3. Tough Reaction From Dr Mignini

Rojkov’s article was published only in German (of course). Compared to suing reporters for libel in the US, suing in Germany is a walk in the park. Libel laws are tough, and newspapers are required to print the truth, not target justice officials in a country Germany is very friendly with. For starters Dr Mignini has published this for his team.

Kercher Case: Amanda Knox falsely attacks investigators again

First response from former deputy chief prosecutor Mignini: “Why keep lying so seriously?”

Amanda Knox again attacks the investigators and again presents herself as a victim of misjustice. An expression that produced this immediate reply from trial co-prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.

“I am forced, once again, to intervene on a trial I dealt with and which ended in 2015, with the second judgment of the Court of Cassation, opposing the judgment of the First Chamber of the same Court, 2013, on the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

I can understand different opinions about the evaluation of evidence, in a process, like the majority, circumstantial and linked to biological assessments. And I can understand, if not justify, that everyone feels empowered to deal with such complex matters, without a modicum of expertise in this regard.

What is not tolerable, however, is the total omission of facts which cannot be called into question and which have become irreversible; or the false interpretation of judgments wrongly stated to have been issued under Article 201 EC. 530, first paragraph, of the code, whereas they were actually issued under Article 530, second paragraph, of the same article. That is to say, in a “mitigated” and “doubtful” form [can be reversed in a further trial].

Also it is intolerable to ignore that there were two convictions handed down by two Courts of Assizes, of first instance of Perugia, and of second instance of Florence. In total, sixteen judges, highly competent and respected,  have condemned the two “Caucasian” defendants.

Instead, the De Spiegel article focuses on the police and the PM, which would be me, who merely asked for conviction [based on overwhelming fact].

It should be pointed out that the most detached expressions from reality did not come from Amanda Knox, but from the columnist Alexandra Rojkov, awarded by CNN, and by the American journalist Nina Burleigh who is notorious for a total, striking misunderstanding of the Italian legal system.

Why do they keep lying so seriously? Is it possible that they did not understand and did not even take a quick look at the judgment [2015] of the Fifth Chamber? Or the definitive and of opposite conclusion [2013] of the First Chamber? They may pretend to forget this, but it is also there and is definitive. Why do they continue to ignore the final sentence [of Knox] for calunnia [for which she served three years] ?

These are questions that neither Rojkov nor Burleigh will answer because they don’t know how.  We live in an age of decadence, not only because of wars but also and perhaps above all because of the contempt for the truth that characterizes this historical moment.

Giuliano Mignini, retired deputy prosecutor

4. Legal Assessment

The false claims made to very large and influential audiences are damaging and court-worthy in Germany and Italy. Bennett and Rojkov have put their reputations and careers on the line, soaking up defamatory talking points of the Knox PR, lying to their readers, harming their newspapers, and putting people in Italy they never even consulted at real risk.