Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

[Skeptic Ginger]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091205/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_student_slain

The reason I bring this up here is this trial was based on a criminal (as in he's a criminal) prosecutor and involved cultural face saving rather evidence of guilt. I heard an interview of a reporter who understood the issues and he said they would find her guilty despite the fact there is no evidence, because once the prosecutor stuck his neck out he had to continue to "save face". Apparently she might get out in ~2 years when the appeals court overturns the conviction.

I'll look for some more links with the rest of the story.


The cartwheel BTW, for those of you not familiar with the case, was what Knox did in the police station when she was being questioned. That made the police think she was too casual and made her guilty.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091205/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_student_slain

The reason I bring this up here is this trial was based on a criminal (as in he's a criminal) prosecutor and involved cultural face saving rather evidence of guilt. I heard an interview of a reporter who understood the issues and he said they would find her guilty despite the fact there is no evidence, because once the prosecutor stuck his neck out he had to continue to "save face". Apparently she might get out in ~2 years when the appeals court overturns the conviction.

I'll look for some more links with the rest of the story.


The cartwheel BTW, for those of you not familiar with the case, was what Knox did in the police station when she was being questioned. That made the police think she was too casual and made her guilty.

And the prosecutors, police, jury and judge all say she's guilty.

Fancy that. To think that you might*** be wrong. :rolleyes:


***Are

[Dunstan]

And the prosecutors, police, jury and judge all say she's guilty.

Fancy that. To think that you might*** be wrong. :rolleyes:


***Are

But didn't you read? Skeptigirl heard a reporter say that she's innocent! Good enough for me!

And the whole thing was based on a cartwheel. Well, that and motive, opportunity, DNA evidence, faking a burglary and falsely accusing an innocent man.

[newton3376]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091205/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_student_slain

The reason I bring this up here is this trial was based on a criminal (as in he's a criminal) prosecutor and involved cultural face saving rather evidence of guilt. I heard an interview of a reporter who understood the issues and he said they would find her guilty despite the fact there is no evidence, because once the prosecutor stuck his neck out he had to continue to "save face". Apparently she might get out in ~2 years when the appeals court overturns the conviction.

I'll look for some more links with the rest of the story.


The cartwheel BTW, for those of you not familiar with the case, was what Knox did in the police station when she was being questioned. That made the police think she was too casual and made her guilty.

She is guilty as can be....there won't be anything overturned. She will spend the next 20+ years in jail.

Sounds to me like you have some kind of chip on your shoulder or something.....not that it matters anyway, she is going to prison. End of story.

[lionking]

I've followed this case in local papers and over the web. "Innocent victim of unfair, corrupt foreign legal system" just doesn't wash.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

But didn't you read? Skeptigirl heard a reporter say that she's innocent! Good enough for me!

You're right. I missed that part. How could I be so naive?

[Drudgewire]

I've followed this case in local papers and over the web. "Innocent victim of unfair, corrupt foreign legal system" just doesn't wash.


No way, it fits perfectly.

Oh wait, they convicted the girl instead of the Congolese dude she tried to frame for the murder? Never mind. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/redface.gif

[maxpower1227]

Ok, maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought the case against Knox sounded extremely shady. Particularly the fact that, as I understand it, prosecutors were sure they had their killers within days, only to pick up a vagrant months later who had fled to Germany, who was tied to the crime scene by DNA evidence, and who claimed that while he was making out with Kercher, he went to the bathroom due to eating some bad food, was listening to his iPod while in the bathroom, and came out to find Kercher dying. That seemed extremely shady to me, and I never heard a plausible motive for Knox to have murdered Kercher (the whole "thrill sex murder" or whatever term they used seemed horribly contrived). I was unaware of any physical evidence tying her to the scene.

Was the case against her more solid than I'm understanding it to be?

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

The reason I bring this up here is this trial was based on a criminal (as in he's a criminal) prosecutor and involved cultural face saving rather evidence of guilt. I heard an interview of a reporter who understood the issues and he said they would find her guilty despite the fact there is no evidence, because once the prosecutor stuck his neck out he had to continue to "save face". Apparently she might get out in ~2 years when the appeals court overturns the conviction.

I'm not quite sure that I'd go as far as to say she was found guilty because of a cartwheel, but (with my very limited knowledge of Italian law) I do think that the intense media attention, coupled with an non-sequestered jury, is a tailor-made appeal.

After reading Douglas Preston's book The Monster of Florence, I don't have the best impression of Italian police, so I probably have some bias. The prosecution case didn't make a lot of sense to me, from what I've read of their theory for motive and how the victim was actually killed. On the other hand, Amanda Knox's stories don't seem to make a lot of sense either (though on Nightline today, one of her lawyer's seemed to claim the police literally fed her the story of being home and covering her ears, etc. but who the heck knows).

[maxpower1227]

She reportedly gave a confession while in police custody for 30 hours with no lawyer present, so I'm not sure how trustworthy that would be.

[tyr_13]

Having not heard of this before, the biggest red flag that I can see is the 'DNA contamination' silliness that OJ used. If the sample is of poor quality it won't come back with a match. Of course it could actually be a plant, so who knows.

Other than that, I'm having trouble finding much verifiable besides the media divide of American media saying she's innocent and Italy the opposite.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Having not heard of this before, the biggest red flag that I can see is the 'DNA contamination' silliness that OJ used. If the sample is of poor quality it won't come back with a match.

Yep. If Joe's DNA is on the shoe, and Bill picks the shoe up, then that magically converts Joe's DNA to Sam's. Which is also what OJ's lawyers argued. Sadly, the idiot jury in that case bought it.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

I just did a little Googling and realized the prosecutor that Douglas Preston tears into in his book The Monster of Florence is the person who was in charge of the Knox case. That makes me considerably more sympathetic to what skeptigirl is saying (for those unfamiliar, Preston is a fairly popular thriller/action writer, though the above title is non-fiction).

Here is an interview with Douglas Preston about both his experience with this same prosecutor and his take on the Knox case (http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/archives/131443.asp). Granted -- Preston has one point of view on the guy, and he certainly isn't an expert on real-life crime. Here is a fairly pertinent part of what he says about the prosecutor, though:

Giuliano Mignini is a prosecutor who just falls in love with conspiracy theories. Nothing is simple. Nothing is what it seems.

Let me give you an example of this. My co-writer Spezi and I believe the Monster of Florence is a lone psychopath. He killed seven couples, fourteen people. He mutilated the women and cut off their sex organs. Really horrifying.

A psychological profile prepared by the American FBI of the Monster stated that he is a lone killer. All the Italian forensic psychologists stated he was a lone killer. And all the evidence gathered at the crime scenes pointed to a single perpetrator.

But this is too simple for Mignini. He believes the Monster killings were the work not of a lone killer but a satanic sect dating back to the Middle Ages. His theory, based on nonexistent evidence, supposition and conspiracy logic, was that this sect was operating in high places in government and they needed female body parts to perform Black Masses.

Of course, this doesn't mean Knox is innocent. It could very well be that the prosecutor is a nut, but that she is nevertheless guilty. I don't know. But skeptigirl's...well, skepticism has some foundation here, IMO.

[Dunstan]

Of course, this doesn't mean Knox is innocent. It could very well be that the prosecutor is a nut, but that she is nevertheless guilty. I don't know. But skeptigirl's...well, skepticism has some foundation here, IMO.

I wouldn't call it that, and that's kind of the point. Or my point, at least. I haven't followed the case all that closely. But skeptigirl's OP is hardly an exercise in skepticism. She links to an article that cites numerous items of evidence of Knox's guilt, yet concludes that Knox was found guilty "all because of a cartwheel," citing a unnamed reporter's opinion that the prosecutor is biased.

[NewtonTrino]

I've followed this closely and it has all the markings of being a wrongful conviction. There just isn't much in the way of evidence to point to her. There isn't really even a decent motive. Add to that the completely whack prosecutor and the painfully broken italian legal system and you have the makings of a mistake.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

I wouldn't call it that, and that's kind of the point. Or my point, at least. I haven't followed the case all that closely. But skeptigirl's OP is hardly an exercise in skepticism. She links to an article that cites numerous items of evidence of Knox's guilt, yet concludes that Knox was found guilty "all because of a cartwheel," citing a unnamed reporter's opinion that the prosecutor is biased.

Yes, I agree. That's why I provided the Preston link prior to my comments. The OP link itself doesn't do much of anything to show what skeptigirl claimed (and I certainly don't think Knox was convicted "because of a cartwheel") -- not sure why she chose that article to lead this thread -- but there is at least some "smoke" out there regarding the person who prosecuted this case (he was indicted for abuse of power, amongst other things). Like I said -- that's certainly not proof that Knox is innocent, but the idea that there might have been some shenanigans seems at least plausible.

[Policenaut]

Both sides are shady. I don't trust either one but especially Knox who lied, misled, falsely implicated, and generally acted in a suspicious manner after the murder.

[Fnord]

But ... I read it in the Interwebs, so it must be true!

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

For a few more details about the Mignini-Preston thing, here is a copy of a letter Preston wrote to journalist organizations after his writing partner was arrested (http://johnbakersblog.co.uk/the-monster-of-florence/). It contains a pretty good rundown of his version of events -- this was from 2006, so a couple years prior to the Knox case. (The letter is published in the book, but I could only find its full text on the Internet on this blog).

The Committee to Protect Journalists (http://cpj.org/2006/04/crime-journalists-imprisonment-raises-alarm.php) also wrote a letter to the Italian government regarding Mignini.

Interestingly, the prosecutor's original theory of this crime was that Kercher was killed in a Satanic rite (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/knox-stabbed-kercher-in-neck-as-part-of-satanic-rite-966242.html) (which appears consistent with Prestons's characterization of how he defaults to wild theories).

Amanda Knox, an American exchange student, stabbed her British fellow student and flatmate Meredith Kercher in the neck at the culmination of a satanic rite, a prosecutor told a Perugia court yesterday.

Winding up his case against Rudy Guede, another suspect in the killing of 21-year-old Kercher last November, the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, added that Mr Guede then strangled her while the third accused, Ms Knox's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, held her down.


Incidentally, Amanda Knox's parents are now under investigation for defamation (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/28/knoxs-parents-investigated-for-defamation/), stemming from an interview they gave in 2008. The prosecutor earlier attempted to charge an American newspaper with defamation (http://www.komonews.com/news/local/38731877.html) (or file a lawsuit, not sure which) for reporting on a story about a fundraiser for Knox.

[Wolfman]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091205/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_student_slain

The reason I bring this up here is this trial was based on a criminal (as in he's a criminal) prosecutor and involved cultural face saving rather evidence of guilt. I heard an interview of a reporter who understood the issues and he said they would find her guilty despite the fact there is no evidence, because once the prosecutor stuck his neck out he had to continue to "save face". Apparently she might get out in ~2 years when the appeals court overturns the conviction.

I'll look for some more links with the rest of the story.


The cartwheel BTW, for those of you not familiar with the case, was what Knox did in the police station when she was being questioned. That made the police think she was too casual and made her guilty.
Once again, I find myself wondering exactly what the "skepti" in "skeptigirl" stands for.

Granted, there are questions about the prosecution's motivations here. However, they have DNA. And far more damningly, they have a woman who not only blatantly lied about what happened, but tried to frame another man in the process!

So this poor, sweet, innocent girl thinks, "Oh, gee, I'm innocent, so I'll just make up a bunch of bull-crap and say that actually another guy was responsible...and when it turns out that he actually has an iron-clad alibi, I'll just take it back and say I was 'confused'."

I will agree with you about one aspect of this -- so long as one ignores absolutely everything that indicates she may be guilty, then yes, it is quite easy to see this as a blatant miscarriage of justice against an innocent woman.

[Dancing David]

She reportedly gave a confession while in police custody for 30 hours with no lawyer present, so I'm not sure how trustworthy that would be.

They have a different system, and that is going to be part of the critique.

But then parts of the US judicial system are also sort of using unbounded confessions (some extracted under duress) to possibly convict people.

If this is accurate, then it is worse than i would have thought:http://www.justlanded.de/english/Italy/Articles/Visas-Permits/Legal-System

I mean worse in the sense that it does not seem rational to me, but it is their system.

[Eddie Dane]

I haven't followed the story recently.
But I get from the posts here that that Congolese bloke was completely cleared.

If she wove a story around him being the perp, that's very fishy.
She has no consistent story of what happened that night? Fishy.
Claiming she all confused because she smoked dope? Fishy.

However, these things may be caused by a bad and intimidating interview method on the part of the police.

We had a couple of cases here in the Netherlands where people gave false confessions after many hours of being questioned in threating manner. Confessing to raping and killing a child, in one case. The guy turned out to be completely innocent.

A forced confession will also lead to an inconsistent story. So, I'm still not sure about this case.

[maxpower1227]

I was unaware that there was any DNA evidence found in the room. In fact, I had heard that there was no physical evidence whatsoever linking Knox to the bedroom where the murder occurred.

I still want to know what her motive was supposed to have been, and how Rudy Guede fits into a coherent narrative that has Knox also participating in the killing.

Her behavior seems very bizarre and aloof, but that does not constitute physical evidence of guilt. And if her false accusation was coerced while she was in police custody, then I wouldn't see it as especially damning either. In any case, a false accusation is not physical evidence anyway. There should still be SOME of that.

[Matthew Best]

so long as one ignores absolutely everything that indicates she may be guilty, then yes, it is quite easy to see this as a blatant miscarriage of justice against an innocent woman.

I haven't been paying enormous attention to this case as it progressed through the court so I've probably missed the mountain of evidence that indicates she may be guilty. The only things I can remember off-hand are (a) the testimony of the man who was already found guilty of the crime (though since his testimony was also that he was innocent there must be a doubt as to how reliable he is as a witness); (b) DNA on a knife that may possibly have been the murder weapon but this has not been demonstrated with certainty and as it was a knife from the shared home of the victim and alleged perpetrator there may be an innocent explanation for the presence of her DNA); and (c) fingerprints on something or other (ditto).

Could anyone give a quick rundown of what the rest of the evidence is, please?

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

I was unaware that there was any DNA evidence found in the room. In fact, I had heard that there was no physical evidence whatsoever linking Knox to the bedroom where the murder occurred.

Here is an ABC News rundown of the evidence in the case (http://abcnews.go.com/WN/AmandaKnox/amanda-knox-murder-trial-evidence/story?id=9113616&page=1).

It appears correct that there was not any physical evidence (or witnesses) placing Knox in the bedroom. Some of her boyfriend's DNA, however, was found on the clasp of the victim's bra, so that would seem to place him at the scene -- though that clasp was apparently misplaced by the police, found, and then tested some 40+ days later.

[Cavemonster]

Giuliano Mignini is a prosecutor who just falls in love with conspiracy theories. Nothing is simple. Nothing is what it seems.

Let me give you an example of this. My co-writer Spezi and I believe the Monster of Florence is a lone psychopath. He killed seven couples, fourteen people. He mutilated the women and cut off their sex organs. Really horrifying.

A psychological profile prepared by the American FBI of the Monster stated that he is a lone killer. All the Italian forensic psychologists stated he was a lone killer. And all the evidence gathered at the crime scenes pointed to a single perpetrator.

But this is too simple for Mignini. He believes the Monster killings were the work not of a lone killer but a satanic sect dating back to the Middle Ages. His theory, based on nonexistent evidence, supposition and conspiracy logic, was that this sect was operating in high places in government and they needed female body parts to perform Black Masses.

The conspiracy theory sounds pretty out there, but remember this is being written by a novelist who makes his living by finding the drama in stories. This quote isn't great evidence of what Minini really believed.

As for FBI profiling, it's pretty full of woo and contradicting it isn't the same as contradicting evidence, see the article in the skeptics dictionary (http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/funk58.html).

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

The conspiracy theory sounds pretty out there, but remember this is being written by a novelist who makes his living by finding the drama in stories. This quote isn't great evidence of what Minini really believed.

True, but here is a direct Mignini quote (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/masonic-theory-that-put-knox-in-the-dock-981759.html) on the Knox case:

The murder, Il Tempo newspaper reported him telling the court, “was premeditated and was in addition a ‘rite’ celebrated on the occasion of the night of Hallowe’en. A sexual and sacrificial rite ... In the intention of the organisers, the rite should have occurred 24 hours earlier” – on Hallowe’en itself – “but on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organised by Meredith and Amanda’s Italian flatmates, it was postponed for one day. The presumed assassins contented themselves with the evening of 1 November to perform their do-it-yourself rite, when for some hours it would again be the night of All Saints.”


And here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3424301.stm) and here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3561535.stm) are BBC articles from 2004 talking about the "Satanic Cult" theory in the serial killer case. They don't quote Mignini directly, but he is/was the prosecutor in charge of the case.

[Skeptic Ginger]

No way, it fits perfectly.

Oh wait, they convicted the girl instead of the Congolese dude she tried to frame for the murder? Never mind. http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/redface.gifThat is not what occurred.

And, in fact, the actual murderer was convicted and is in jail in Italy at the moment. There was overwhelming physical evidence he was guilty.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ok, maybe I'm missing something here, but I thought the case against Knox sounded extremely shady. Particularly the fact that, as I understand it, prosecutors were sure they had their killers within days, only to pick up a vagrant months later who had fled to Germany, who was tied to the crime scene by DNA evidence, and who claimed that while he was making out with Kercher, he went to the bathroom due to eating some bad food, was listening to his iPod while in the bathroom, and came out to find Kercher dying. That seemed extremely shady to me, and I never heard a plausible motive for Knox to have murdered Kercher (the whole "thrill sex murder" or whatever term they used seemed horribly contrived). I was unaware of any physical evidence tying her to the scene.

Was the case against her more solid than I'm understanding it to be?No, it was not.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not quite sure that I'd go as far as to say she was found guilty because of a cartwheel, but (with my very limited knowledge of Italian law) I do think that the intense media attention, coupled with an non-sequestered jury, is a tailor-made appeal.Sorry, I was referring to the initial act that possibly made the police believe certain things. Of course there were many many factors involved in this case.

The cartwheel symbolizes the cultural misunderstandings. The police seemed to have decided Knox's behavior in the police station suggested she was guilty. I half to wonder if a cross cultural mis-read of behavior wasn't one of the things which set the rest of everything into motion.

After reading Douglas Preston's book The Monster of Florence, I don't have the best impression of Italian police, so I probably have some bias. The prosecution case didn't make a lot of sense to me, from what I've read of their theory for motive and how the victim was actually killed. On the other hand, Amanda Knox's stories don't seem to make a lot of sense either (though on Nightline today, one of her lawyer's seemed to claim the police literally fed her the story of being home and covering her ears, etc. but who the heck knows).We can make a reasonable assessment of this very public trial just as the public mostly knows OJ Simpson was guilty in that very public trial. Knox's initial interview makes sense in that we have examples of many people who've signed false confessions after intense police interrogations. Such false confessions are a well known-phenomena.

[Molinaro]

Yep. If Joe's DNA is on the shoe, and Bill picks the shoe up, then that magically converts Joe's DNA to Sam's. Which is also what OJ's lawyers argued. Sadly, the idiot jury in that case bought it.

That's not the kind of contamination they are talking about. The knife being called the murder weapon was collected 3 weeks after the murder. There's no reason to think it wasn't handled at all during that time for normal use.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Having not heard of this before, the biggest red flag that I can see is the 'DNA contamination' silliness that OJ used. If the sample is of poor quality it won't come back with a match. Of course it could actually be a plant, so who knows.

Other than that, I'm having trouble finding much verifiable besides the media divide of American media saying she's innocent and Italy the opposite.Except in the OJ trial some of the contamination was supposedly purposeful. The claim the glove was planted and the fact the detectives carried OJ's blood around in their pocket after collecting it thus giving them a sample to use to spill on things are examples.

There was additional overwhelming evidence in the OJ trial so the two cases here are not comparable.

One thing that did compare was a film of the crime scene evidence collection in which many errors of procedure are found.

How Strong Is the Evidence Against Amanda Knox? (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1904571,00.html)Video footage from the crime scene of British student Meredith Kercher's murder flickers on a laptop screen as Bremner points out what she deems critical flaws in the collection of evidence. After placing rulers on the sides of a bloody shoeprint, for example, a blue-rubber-gloved hand reaches down with a piece of white cloth and scrubs the bloody mark off the tile floor before putting the cloth into an evidence tube. This happens three times for three separate footprints. In film footage taken at least a day later, another team of investigators attempts, using photographs, to place where the footprints had been. "They should have lifted the tile," Bremner says, shaking her head.


As for Knox's DNA on the murder weapon: The prosecution, she says, is most likely relying on a knife found at the house of Knox's then boyfriend and fellow accused Rafaelle Sollecito. That knife has Knox's DNA on the handle and what some forensic scientists say is Kercher's DNA on the tip. But Bremner dismisses the idea that it is the knife that killed Kercher: "They never found the murder weapon." Bremner claims that a bloody print on the bed linens conveys the shape of the actual murder weapon and that the knife in question "doesn't match an outline of the knife on the bed." Additionally, Bremner says, expert testimony has already indicated that at least two of the wounds on Kercher's neck couldn't have been made by that particular blade. That aside, she points out, it's not surprising that Knox's DNA would be on its handle; she prepared dinner with Sollecito in his apartment.It was Kercher's DNA on the knife that was questionable, not Knox's. And Kercher's blood was everywhere at the crime scene so contamination of the supposed murder weapon was very possible.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wouldn't call it that, and that's kind of the point. Or my point, at least. I haven't followed the case all that closely. But skeptigirl's OP is hardly an exercise in skepticism. She links to an article that cites numerous items of evidence of Knox's guilt, yet concludes that Knox was found guilty "all because of a cartwheel," citing a unnamed reporter's opinion that the prosecutor is biased.The article I linked to in the OP was just to get the thread going. I didn't put anything else there including the evidence supporting my conclusions. And I explained why I put the cartwheel in the thread title in a post above.

I find it, as a separate but related issue, fascinating to read the reactions in the thread which seem more concerned with attacking me as somehow not really knowledgeable about the case rather than discussing the actual case.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The cartwheel symbolizes the cultural misunderstandings. The police seemed to have decided Knox's behavior in the police station suggested she was guilty. I half to wonder if a cross cultural mis-read of behavior wasn't one of the things which set the rest of everything into motion.

So, what exactly is a cartwheel in a police station supposed to mean in American culture?

(this ought to be good)

[Skeptic Ginger]

Once again, I find myself wondering exactly what the "skepti" in "skeptigirl" stands for.

Granted, there are questions about the prosecution's motivations here. However, they have DNA. And far more damningly, they have a woman who not only blatantly lied about what happened, but tried to frame another man in the process!The DNA is not what it seems. See my last post.

It might be nice if people paid more attention to what I actually said in my OP:

"I'll look for some more links with the rest of the story." IE, of course I didn't yet post all the facts in the case.

AND:

"The cartwheel BTW, for those of you not familiar with the case, was what Knox did in the police station when she was being questioned. That made the police think she was too casual and made her guilty." IE the cartwheel symbolized the cross cultural influence that is part of what I think has influenced the trial. It's the key reason this case deserves to be discussed in a skeptic forum.

Any miscarriage of justice might be worthy of a thread. But this one in particular has all sorts of "why people believe strange things" permeating through it. I think we can add some preconceived feelings about skeptigirl to the list in terms of how some people have replied in the thread so far.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I think we can add some preconceived feelings about skeptigirl to the list in terms of how some people have replied in the thread so far.

:v:

Now that our musical interlude is over, care to inform/entertain us with your theory on what a cartwheel in a police station means in American culture?

[WildCat]

The cartwheel symbolizes the cultural misunderstandings.
I'm American, and doing cartwheels in a police station after you've been brought in for questioning in a murder case is quite bizarre behavior IMHO.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, what exactly is a cartwheel in a police station supposed to mean in American culture?

(this ought to be good)It means that Knox's behavior was not what the Italian culture expects of an innocent roommate after a murder such as this.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I'm American, and doing cartwheels in a police station after you've been brought in for questioning in a murder case is quite bizarre behavior IMHO.

I think it means you're innocent.

Generally, at that point, the police will usually drop the charges. At least in America.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm American, and doing cartwheels in a police station after you've been brought in for questioning in a murder case is quite bizarre behavior IMHO.
I totally agree and it's hard to imagine the circumstances where one would have done the cartwheel. It conjures up images that are easy to draw all sorts of conclusions from. Yet the conclusions could easily be false.

OTOH, it is also not so hard to imagine what one culture expects in terms of behavior can easily be misread when observing the reaction of someone from another culture. Much of this trial has been based on cultural misreading of cues and assumptions drawn from cultural misunderstandings. When one sees a MiddleEastern man in a courtroom for example, who doesn't speak English, all sorts of false conclusions can easily be drawn simply because of the expectation of behavior based both on the concluder's culture and on the concluder's biases of belief based on the culture of the suspect.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

It means that Knox's behavior was not what the Italian culture expects of an innocent roommate after a murder such as this.

Here's a newsflash for you: Knox's behavior was not what American culture expects of an innocent roommate after a murder such as this either.

[Kestrel]

As for Knox's DNA on the murder weapon: It was Kercher's DNA on the knife that was questionable, not Knox's. And Kercher's blood was everywhere at the crime scene so contamination of the supposed murder weapon was very possible.

How does one manage to clean a knife used to murder someone so there is only a spot of the victims DNA on the tip? :confused:

[maxpower1227]

:v:

Now that our musical interlude is over, care to inform/entertain us with your theory on what a cartwheel in a police station means in American culture?

While we're at it, can you inform me as to what you believe was the motive for such a brutal killing?

A cartwheel is not physical evidence, so I'm not overly concerned with it. Yes, her behavior seems a little strange, but *everything* about this case seems strange, and I can't say I know how I would act if I were brought in for questioning related to the brutal murder of my roommate in a foreign country.

[Darth Rotor]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=98995

We didn't get much mileage in the original thread, but there was some amusing stuff there on the "rough sex" angle that remains puzzling to me.

It's been years, but in the mid 1980's, I was Shore Patrol officer one fine evening in Gaeta, Italy. One of the American sailors got into some drunk trouble, and we went off to try and extract him from the loving arms of the Italian Polizia. I discovered from the local Sixth Fleet JAG rep that the Italians had no equivalent to the Miranda rights we have in the US. Our sailor, in jail and feeling less than brilliant, had a number of bruises on him. His two shipmates, also arrested and not so drunk, very soberly described a few whacks to the head during their initial interview by annoyed Italian police. Their drunk buddy apparently got a bit rougher treatment, in part I found out from the Italians, due to his swinging back the first time someone popped him one.

That was a long evening.

Not sure if that's still how it goes in Italy.

Thirty hours interview/interrogation by Italian police: might have been rough, might not. Depends on the cops and their state of mind. That Miss Knox had no Miranda rights, and was possibly bullied into something, is reasonable guess to make.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

How does one manage to clean a knife used to murder someone so there is only a spot of the victims DNA on the tip? :confused:On the 'tip' no less when the victim had her throat slashed.

[plumjam]

Well the cartwheel was an understandable attempt to improve her chances of bail by being picked for the US Olympic gymnastics team.

I don't see any cultural misunderstanding here. More a kind of US imperial disdain for other nations, their citizens, their cultures, and their judicial systems.
How dare these other countries convict and sentence Americans.
(To be fair to the other Americans here, so far it's just Skeptigirl coming across that way)

[Skeptic Ginger]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=98995

We didn't get much mileage in the original thread, but there was some amusing stuff there on the "rough sex" angle that remains puzzling to me.

It's been years, but in the mid 1980's, I was Shore Patrol officer one fine evening in Gaeta, Italy. One of the American sailors got into some drunk trouble, and we went off to try and extract him from the loving arms of the Italian Polizia. I discovered from the local Sixth Fleet JAG rep that the Italians had no equivalent to the Miranda rights we have in the US. Our sailor, in jail and feeling less than brilliant, had a number of bruises on him. His two shipmates, also arrested and not so drunk, very soberly described a few whacks to the head during their initial interview by annoyed Italian police. Their drunk buddy apparently got a bit rougher treatment, in part I found out from the Italians, due to his swinging back the first time someone popped him one.

That was a long evening.

Not sure if that's still how it goes in Italy.

Thirty hours interview/interrogation by Italian police: might have been rough, might not. Depends on the cops and their state of mind. That Miss Knox had no Miranda rights, and was possibly bullied into something, is reasonable guess to make.

DRThe Innocence Project has a discussion of False Confessions (http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/False-Confessions.php)In about 25% of DNA exoneration cases, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pled guilty.

These cases show that confessions are not always prompted by internal knowledge or actual guilt, but are sometimes motivated by external influences.

Just like eyewitness testimony, scientific evidence has confirmed neither of these two commonly-presented-in-court types of evidence are reliable.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well the cartwheel was an understandable attempt to improve her chances of bail by being picked for the US Olympic gymnastics team.

I don't see any cultural misunderstanding here. More a kind of US imperial disdain for other nations, their citizens, their cultures, and their judicial systems.
How dare these other countries convict and sentence Americans.
(To be fair to the other Americans here, so far it's just Skeptigirl coming across that way)OK, now that is an interesting take and if there really was evidence of Knox's guilt you might be right. But in this case, you are not.

As for me and the Ugly American attitude you are ascribing to me, you couldn't be more any ignorant about me if you had tried.


The knee-jerk opinions in this thread based on various preconceived biases just keep coming. Fortunately there are enough people here who really are familiar with the case to neutralize the unsubstantiated opinions.

[Philip]

I haven't been paying enormous attention to this case as it progressed through the court so I've probably missed the mountain of evidence that indicates she may be guilty. The only things I can remember off-hand are (a) the testimony of the man who was already found guilty of the crime (though since his testimony was also that he was innocent there must be a doubt as to how reliable he is as a witness); (b) DNA on a knife that may possibly have been the murder weapon but this has not been demonstrated with certainty and as it was a knife from the shared home of the victim and alleged perpetrator there may be an innocent explanation for the presence of her DNA); and (c) fingerprints on something or other (ditto).

Could anyone give a quick rundown of what the rest of the evidence is, please?

See the ABC News link ARubberChickenWithAPulley provided:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/AmandaKnox/amanda-knox-murder-trial-evidence/story?id=9113616

Guede, whose DNA and bloody handprint was found in the murder room, originally didn't implicate Knox or Solecito, but at the opening of his appeal he implicated Knox. He said he was with Kercher but fell ill and went to the bathroom. He said that while there he heard Knox and Kercher arguing and then heard Kercher scream. He said he then came out, and saw an unidentified man who tried to attack him. Guede said he backed into the hallway and then "heard footsteps leaving the house and looked out of the window, where he saw a silhouette that he later identified as Knox's".

Even though the murder was violent, according to the prosecution, resulting from a sadistic sex game, there was not a trace of evidence that places Knox in the room - no DNA, no fingerprints, and no footprints. DNA from Solecito was found on the victims bra clasp which was cut from the victim's body by the assailant.

"The clasp was identified and photographed when forensic scientists analysed the crime scene, but it was not taken into evidence until six weeks later when investigators realized it was missing. The house had been turned upside down in a police search in the meantime.

Sollecito's lawyers argued that the crime scene had been contaminated, and that the tiny clasp had picked up Sollecito's DNA in the mess."

Both Knox's and Kercher's blood was found in three stains in the bathroom they shared, which isn't surprising for two young women.

The knife that the prosecution claim was the murder weapon was not from the women's house; it was from Solecito's apartment. Knox's DNA was found on the handle and the prosecution claims their test found Kercher's DNA on the blade, but the amount of material was so small that the DNA test couldn't be independently repeated and the sample tested negative for blood. Also defense experts contended the blade didn't match some of the wounds on the victim.

There were no fingerprints by Knox or Solecito in the victim's room although there was a bloody handprint from Guede.

The most damning "evidence" was Knox's and Solecito's behavior and inconsistent statements. At the beginning of the interrogation, Know said she was at Solecito's apartment the night of the murder. According to Curt Knox, Amanda was interrogated for 41 hours straight with no food, no sleep, no lawyer, and no professional interpreter. Toward the end of the interrogation she said she had a vision that she was at the apartment outside the door and heard screams and covered her ears, and this was included in her signed statement at the end of the interrogation. She said her interrogators suggested Lumumba's name to her.

She later returned exclusively to her original statement that she was at Solecito's.

I know that, when I've been extremely sleep-deprived, I've gone absolutely nuts and confessed in a nonlegal situation to something I didn't do.

I think the obsession of the prosecution, media, and internet posters with the confused alibi puts the burden of proof on the wrong persons. It should be up to the prosecution to prove someone was at the murder scene; it should not be up to the defendants to prove they weren't at the murder scene.

A higher Italian court threw out Knox's statement under interrogation because she didn't have a lawyer, but it's being thrown out was meaningless because the prosecution had already leaked it and Italy has an idiotic jury system.

The jury consisted of two judges and six Perugia citizens who weren't screened for biases and weren't sequestered. Not only had they already been influenced by all the leaks, rumors, and sensationalist media before the trial, for the many months of the trial they went about their regular lives outside the courtroom being exposed to all those pressures.

Whereas in the US, a unanimous verdict is required, only a majority is required on an Italian jury and, in case of a tie, the chief judge gets a second vote, so someone could be convicted with only four jurors including the chief judge supporting conviction.

I don't think that those in this thread who were so quick to declare Amanda Know guilty should ever serve on a jury because clearly they have no concept of "reasonable doubt".

[Fiona]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/05/meredith-kercher-murder-trial

This seems to be a fairly balanced piece about the uncertainties in the case.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8394110.stm

And a different narrative here

[Yoink]

:v:

Now that our musical interlude is over, care to inform/entertain us with your theory on what a cartwheel in a police station means in American culture?

I find the cartwheel thing kind of odd from any direction. I can't really see why it would lead the cops to think she was guilty or innocent. I can see a young person kept waiting for a long time on an uncomfortable police station chair deciding to do some stretching exercises to keep limber/awake. I have to wonder if there's a translation problem here and that what she actually did was handstands rather than cartwheels?

In any case "Objection, immaterial" are the words that spring to my mind.

[Darth Rotor]

See the ABC News link ARubberChickenWithAPulley provided:
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/AmandaKnox/amanda-knox-murder-trial-evidence/story?id=9113616

... snip much interesting stuff ...

A higher Italian court threw out Knox's statement under interrogation because she didn't have a lawyer, but it's being thrown out was meaningless because the prosecution had already leaked it and Italy has an idiotic jury system.

The jury consisted of two judges and six Perugia citizens who weren't screened for biases and weren't sequestered. Not only had they already been influenced by all the leaks, rumors, and sensationalist media before the trial, for the many months of the trial they went about their regular lives outside the courtroom being exposed to all those pressures.

Whereas in the US, a unanimous verdict is required, only a majority is required on an Italian jury and, in case of a tie, the chief judge gets a second vote, so someone could be convicted with only four jurors including the chief judge supporting conviction.

I don't think that those in this thread who were so quick to declare Amanda Know guilty should ever serve on a jury because clearly they have no concept of "reasonable doubt".
An interesting argument for the concept of studying abroad to be confined to examining the smootheness of a stripper's skin in a nice, safe, US strip joint. :p

Sorry, I could not help myself. From what you say, seems like Italy has changed little since I was on Shore Patrol, back in the day.

@ SG: thanks for the link, interesting read.

@ Fiona: also, thanks for that link.

DR

[The Central Scrutinizer]

While we're at it, can you inform me as to what you believe was the motive for such a brutal killing?

I have no idea. Nor do I care.

A cartwheel is not physical evidence, so I'm not overly concerned with it. Yes, her behavior seems a little strange, but *everything* about this case seems strange, and I can't say I know how I would act if I were brought in for questioning related to the brutal murder of my roommate in a foreign country.

I don't know the exact details of how I would act, but I'm 100% sure cartwheels wouldn't be a part of it.

[maxpower1227]

I have no idea. Nor do I care.



I don't know the exact details of how I would act, but I'm 100% sure cartwheels wouldn't be a part of it.

Ok, so we're still left with no motive and no physical evidence. You seem content to condemn her based on a cartwheel though. I had really come to expect more of posters at this site.

[Philip]

There were several posts while I was composing my previous post..

Regarding Amanda's cartwheel, if I may be judgmental for a second, I think it's evidence of her being a little ditzy, not evidence of her being a murderer.

If unusual behavior is necessarily evidence of having committed a murder, the JREF forum is teeming with serial killers.

[Darth Rotor]

Ok, so we're still left with no motive and no physical evidence. You seem content to condemn her based on a cartwheel though. I had really come to expect more of posters at this site.
You might want to read what Scrut wrote
don't know the exact details of how I would act, but I'm 100% sure cartwheels wouldn't be a part of it.
before you get all a-lather about your expectations. ;)

Scrut has been giving SG the business over her dishonest thread title since he joined in. Even if her thread title was false advertising, the case is intriguing, and educational for some of us Yanks as we get to learn a bit about the Italian justice system.
If unusual behavior is necessarily evidence of having committed a murder, the JREF forum is teeming with serial killers.
Can I blame a one-armed man? I can't run like I used to ...

DR

[Brainster]

I'd say that the cartwheel proves she was innocent. Would a guilty person do a cartwheel in the police station, knowing it would be seen as suspicious by those from a different culture?:rolleyes:

[Brainster]

Can I blame a one-armed man? I can't run like I used to ...

Then I'd suggest blaming a one-legged man might work out better for you.

[NewtonTrino]

I'm astounded that people think that a cartwheel is anything but a young girl who is nervous acting a little weird. The facts of this case are pretty clear. There is simpy zero evidence that she was involved in the murder. They have another guy in jail that was clearly tied with physical evidence.

I'm shocked about how people are reacting to this without looking at the evidence which is simply non-existent.

[plumjam]

Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel.


I have also followed the case from time to time, and I have a completely different picture of a travesty of justice. But it isn't so much a 'corrupt' legal system as it is more of a bigoted population and a cultural clash similar to how many blacks were lynched in the South in this country half a century ago.


The cartwheel symbolizes the cultural misunderstandings. The police seemed to have decided Knox's behavior in the police station suggested she was guilty. I half to wonder if a cross cultural mis-read of behavior wasn't one of the things which set the rest of everything into motion.


It means that Knox's behavior was not what the Italian culture expects of an innocent roommate after a murder such as this.


As for me and the Ugly American attitude you are ascribing to me, you couldn't be more any ignorant about me if you had tried.


The knee-jerk opinions in this thread based on various preconceived biases just keep coming. Fortunately there are enough people here who really are familiar with the case to neutralize the unsubstantiated opinions.

Look at the stuff you've been saying. Particularly the parts I bolded.

What knowledge do you have of Italian culture?

If you have any, what is it in Italian culture which means cartwheeling in a police station when you're under suspicion of murder would be interpreted any differently in Italy than in the USA?

Are there any cultures on the planet where cartwheeling in such a circumstance would not be viewed as unusual by police?

I'd be interested to know what substance you have behind your description of the Italians as 'a bigoted population'.

And your attempt to compare this in some way to blacks being lynched in the southern states is just bizarre.
Maybe we should join hands and sing a few verses of "We Shall Overcome".

The final quote is the most telling. I think it's you showing the preconceived biases here.

[NewtonTrino]

Frankly I don't think the italian justice system is very well designed.

Specifically the nonsense where the jury
a) each contributes a possible penalty or acquittal (e.g. acquittal, 5 years, 10 years) etc.
b) then votes starting from highest penalty to lowest penalty.
c) when one of these penalties has a majority vote yes then that is the result.

I'm sure someone with awesome math skills can describe how this is going to create bias.

Add in all of the oddities with the prosecutor in this case and it seems broken.

Not to mention the fact that it's considered "normal" for people to get convicted on "the first go around" and then get released on appeal after spending years in jail.

Can you say broken?

[Yoink]

Look at the stuff you've been saying. Particularly the parts I bolded.

What knowledge do you have of Italian culture?

If you have any, what is it in Italian culture which means cartwheeling in a police station when you're under suspicion of murder would be interpreted any differently in Italy than in the USA?

Are there any cultures on the planet where cartwheeling in such a circumstance would not be viewed as unusual by police?

I'd be interested to know what substance you have behind your description of the Italians as 'a bigoted population'.

And your attempt to compare this in some way to blacks being lynched in the southern states is just bizarre.
Maybe we should join hands and sing a few verses of "We Shall Overcome".

The final quote is the most telling. I think it's you showing the preconceived biases here.

Plumjam, skeptigirl might have completely bollocksed up the way she framed this case, but that hardly proves Knox's guilt. This looks like a pretty shonky case--regardless of one's general opinion of the Italian justice system.

[Darth Rotor]

I'd be interested to know what substance you have behind your description of the Italians as 'a bigoted population'.
You been to Italy?

The final quote is the most telling. I think it's you showing the preconceived biases here.
Note to PJ: blacks were not the only victims of lynch mobs in the US, just in case you were unaware.

DR

[Kestrel]

I'm astounded that people think that a cartwheel is anything but a young girl who is nervous acting a little weird. The facts of this case are pretty clear. There is simpy zero evidence that she was involved in the murder. They have another guy in jail that was clearly tied with physical evidence.

I'm shocked about how people are reacting to this without looking at the evidence which is simply non-existent.

This is a classic case of pop psychology woo. Society is full of people who believe they can pick out guilty people by looking them in the eye, or seeing behavior that doesn't follow a script for how people behave under stress.

People behave differently when under extreme stress. Some roll up into a ball and whimper, others can't keep still. That Amanda Knox was part of the later group doesn't prove her guilt.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

OK, now that is an interesting take and if there really was evidence of Knox's guilt you might be right. But in this case, you are not.

So the police, prosecutor, jury and judge saw absolutely no evidence of her guilt, but went ahead and convicted her anyway?

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in the jury deliberation room:

Juror 1: There's no evidence whatsoever to place her at the murder scene.
Juror 2: Not only that, she had no motive!
(all jurors nod in agreement)
Juror 3: It's pretty clear the evidence was contaminated
Juror 4: I think it was planted!
(all jurors nod in agreement)
Jury Foreman: Let's take a vote - all those who think she is guilty please raise your hand
(all hands go up)
Jury Foreman: Guilty as charged!

:crazy:

[plumjam]

Plumjam, skeptigirl might have completely bollocksed up the way she framed this case, but that hardly proves Knox's guilt. This looks like a pretty shonky case--regardless of one's general opinion of the Italian justice system.

Fair enough. Though I'm not commenting on her possible guilt/innocence. I'm more pointing up how it's unjustified to, among other strange statements, use one moot judgment to liken the Italian population to southern states bigots lynching blacks on trees.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Ok, so we're still left with no motive and no physical evidence. You seem content to condemn her based on a cartwheel though. I had really come to expect more of posters at this site.

I'm not condemning her for the cartwheel. However, the OP wants to let her go free for the very same thing!

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Regarding Amanda's cartwheel, if I may be judgmental for a second, I think it's evidence of her being a little ditzy, not evidence of her being a murderer.

No one is arguing that it is evidence for a murder. I think we've pretty much decided that it is odd. So did the Italians. "Skepti"-girl has said that was a cultural misunderstanding. We're simply waiting for an explanation of where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal".

[Darth Rotor]

I'm not condemning her for the cartwheel. However, the OP want to let her go free for the very same thing!
She might have made a better impression on the cops if she'd done the splits.
It might have got her off.

It might have gotten the cops off.


If she wasn't wearing panties ...
We're simply waiting for an explanation of where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal".
On the set of the movie Police Academy Eleven.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I'd say that the cartwheel proves she was innocent. Would a guilty person do a cartwheel in the police station, knowing it would be seen as suspicious by those from a different culture?:rolleyes:

That's it!!! Why didn't I figure that out? :)

[Slayhamlet]

At first glance, I would take the cartwheel incident as evidence she was hopped up on something. Am I wrong?

[Aepervius]

Skeptigirl I have absolutely no preconceived feeling against you (refering to a post on page 1) or on the case. But you gotta kidding me if you base your opinion on journalist stuff on the case. If you have access to a full copy of the process and evidence, I bow down to your better informed assessment of the case. Otherwise you are reduced to opinion like every single one of us. You should be really skeptic of what journalist say on a case like this, as they most certainly had no access to the real evidence case.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Sorry, I was referring to the initial act that possibly made the police believe certain things. Of course there were many many factors involved in this case.

The cartwheel symbolizes the cultural misunderstandings. The police seemed to have decided Knox's behavior in the police station suggested she was guilty. I half to wonder if a cross cultural mis-read of behavior wasn't one of the things which set the rest of everything into motion.

Okay, I understand your point. I disagree that this is a cultural issue. The issue of how to interpret emotional reactions to stressful situations is one that pops up in cases like this everywhere. A good example is the JonBenet Ramsey case: The Ramseys were pilloried in the press (and by the police) for not acting enough like "true victims." They didn't cry enough in public, they made sure they had a lawyer (because no victims could ever want ensure their legal rights were protected!), etc. This was all perceived as evidence of their guilt.

The reality is, people react differently in stressful situations. Some people are very emotional or even hysterical, and some people react (at least outwardly) very cold and unemotional. Some people do strange things (like, maybe, cartwheels). I was probably the only member of my family who didn't cry at my grandfather's funeral. I'm sure someone would try to interpret that as meaning I didn't care (which couldn't be farther from the truth), whereas the reality is that I just don't cry a lot -- never have.

It is, IMO, awfully difficult to psychoanalyze someone's emotional reaction to a stressful situation and come up with a meaningful conclusion. But that doesn't stop people from doing it. And people do it in the U.S. just as they do it in Italy, unfortunately.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

She might have made a better impression on the cops if she'd done the splits.
It might have got her off.

It might have gotten the cops off.

She should have gone all Sharon Stone on them!

[tesscaline]

At first glance, I would take the cartwheel incident as evidence she was hopped up on something. Am I wrong?
Sleep deprivation + the stress of police interrogation + lack of food? If it were me, I'd probably be bouncing off the walls at least figuratively, if not literally.

Personally, I haven't seen anything that references the context the cartwheel was done in. Was she alone in the interrogation room at the time, and maybe attempting to keep herself awake or otherwise occupy herself? Was she in the process of being interrogated and just hopped up off a chair and started to do cartwheels with no provocation at all? Did she say something during interrogation that spurred the police to ask for a demonstration of her agility? If it was the first one (alone at the time), it doesn't seem quite so odd to me. If it was the third one, also, not quite so weird. If it was the second one, alright fine, that's weird. But given the length of time and the conditions of her stay in interrogation, even that could be excused as going a bit crazy from lack of sleep/food.

[Skeptic Ginger]

You might want to read what Scrut wrote

before you get all a-lather about your expectations. ;)

Scrut has been giving SG the business over her dishonest thread title since he joined in. Even if her thread title was false advertising, the case is intriguing, and educational for some of us Yanks as we get to learn a bit about the Italian justice system.

Can I blame a one-armed man? I can't run like I used to ...

DRMy dishonest thread title? You've got to be kidding!

It was a symbolic literary device. I have explained that several times. It represented the cultural bias that this case is permeated with.

And Scrut's posts have been personal throughout the thread, deserving of the reply maxpower posted.

[Slayhamlet]

My dishonest thread title? You've got to be kidding!

So it was all about a cartwheel, then? You're really going to maintain that BS?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

It represented the cultural bias that this case is permeated with.

People are noticing that you continue to avoid answering this question:

We're simply waiting for an explanation of where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal".

I think we all know why. :cool:

[Skeptic Ginger]

Look at the stuff you've been saying. Particularly the parts I bolded.

What knowledge do you have of Italian culture?

If you have any, what is it in Italian culture which means cartwheeling in a police station when you're under suspicion of murder would be interpreted any differently in Italy than in the USA?

Are there any cultures on the planet where cartwheeling in such a circumstance would not be viewed as unusual by police?

I'd be interested to know what substance you have behind your description of the Italians as 'a bigoted population'.

And your attempt to compare this in some way to blacks being lynched in the southern states is just bizarre.
Maybe we should join hands and sing a few verses of "We Shall Overcome".

The final quote is the most telling. I think it's you showing the preconceived biases here.While I've only been to Italy once. I was not aware of the cultural issues until this case. But if you look at the evidence and reports which have been abundant over the last 2 years, you will find this is a general consensus, it is not my original idea.

You are guilty of the crime you imagine I am guilty of, that is reading an awful lot into comments without enough fact gathering in the first place. You are assuming I know little about this case as were some of the first thread comments which suggested I was going by a single reporter's view.

This about me, the person who posts about 50% of the time on cross cultural issues and the unreliability of the news media. In fact the right wing faction of this forum attack my views on a regular basis as one of the "blame America" crowd despite the fact this is a superficial version of my views on the subject as well.

[Cicero]

At first glance, I would take the cartwheel incident as evidence she was hopped up on something. Am I wrong?

You are indeed, unless you are associating cartwheels with the drug slang for amphetamines.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

This about me, the person who posts about 50% of the time on cross cultural issues...

And yet you aren't able to explain where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal".

Perhaps you should spend 50% of your time posting about something else. Clearly, cultural issues aren't your area of expertise.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So the police, prosecutor, jury and judge saw absolutely no evidence of her guilt, but went ahead and convicted her anyway? Actually, yes, that is the opinion of more than a few people who have looked at the actual case, including me.

I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in the jury deliberation room:

Juror 1: There's no evidence whatsoever to place her at the murder scene.
Juror 2: Not only that, she had no motive!
(all jurors nod in agreement)
Juror 3: It's pretty clear the evidence was contaminated
Juror 4: I think it was planted!
(all jurors nod in agreement)
Jury Foreman: Let's take a vote - all those who think she is guilty please raise your hand
(all hands go up)
Jury Foreman: Guilty as charged! How do you think most innocent people are convicted?

The Causes of Wrongful Conviction (http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/)As the pace of DNA exonerations has grown across the country in recent years, wrongful convictions have revealed disturbing fissures and trends in our criminal justice system. Together, these cases show us how the criminal justice system is broken – and how urgently it needs to be fixed.

We should learn from the system’s failures. In each case where DNA has proven innocence beyond doubt, an overlapping array of causes of has emerged – from mistakes to misconduct to factors of race and class.

Countless cases
Those exonerated by DNA testing aren’t the only people who have been wrongfully convicted in recent decades. For every case that involves DNA, there are thousands that do not.

Only a fraction of criminal cases involve biological evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing, and even when such evidence exists, it is often lost or destroyed after a conviction. Since they don’t have access to a definitive test like DNA, many wrongfully convicted people have a slim chance of ever proving their innocence.

The Innocence Project has found evidence exonerating 245 people as of the web site's report (http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/) today. It is only a tiny fraction of the estimated % of wrongfully convicted persons in US jails today. While I don't know what the stats are in Italy, there is more than enough information about the Knox case to confirm there was not a substantial case against her despite the conviction.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Guede, whose DNA and bloody handprint was found in the murder room, originally didn't implicate Knox or Solecito, but at the opening of his appeal he implicated Knox. He said he was with Kercher but fell ill and went to the bathroom. He said that while there he heard Knox and Kercher arguing and then heard Kercher scream. He said he then came out, and saw an unidentified man who tried to attack him. Guede said he backed into the hallway and then "heard footsteps leaving the house and looked out of the window, where he saw a silhouette that he later identified as Knox's".

This is what makes me at a bit skeptical of this case. They have a guy who was definitely at the murder scene. His DNA was all over the room. They have his handprint. He is convicted. There isn't much evidence of anyone else having been there.

Then you have a prosecutor (with past history of conspiratorial thinking) who comes up with a theory that killing was really a "Satanic rite" involving three people sacrificing a victim to the devil on Halloween :eek:

They start trying to build evidence to prove that theory. Ultimately, they (smartly) drop the "Satanic rite" bit and just go with a vague, mostly undefined motive for three people conspiring to kill someone.

[maxpower1227]

I'm not condemning her for the cartwheel. However, the OP wants to let her go free for the very same thing!

Maybe I phrased that badly, but you do seem, based on your first post in this thread, to believe that Knox is guilty. Am I wrong about that? And if you do believe she is guilty, on what do you base that assumption?

[Agatha]

She might have made a better impression on the cops if she'd done the splits.
It might have got her off.

She did do the splits as well as cartwheels, if one believes the BBC. Police and friends testified that Knox had performed cartwheels, done the splits and giggled with Sollecito. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8390909.stm

I do not know whether Knox is guilty or not, I am not party to all the evidence and I think that those who were - the judge and jury - are better qualified than I to determine that.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Fair enough. Though I'm not commenting on her possible guilt/innocence. I'm more pointing up how it's unjustified to, among other strange statements, use one moot judgment to liken the Italian population to southern states bigots lynching blacks on trees.Then you took my comments and applied them to the whole of Italy when they only applied to the jury and a fair number of people in the town who sided with the prosecutor in spite of the evidence.

One of the issues here was the fact Knox was vilified in the Italian press. That has been reported in numerous discussions of this case. It is an undeniable fact and the difference between Knox's portrayal in the US vs the Italian media is indeed a reflection of the difference between the South and the North in the US prior to about 1970. Of course I am in no way implying the Knox case rivals the scale of the Southern treatment of blacks here.

But you seem upset I mention this aspect of the case when it is an overwhelming aspect of this case. And that is not just my opinion, it is a common opinion.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Maybe I phrased that badly, but you do seem, based on your first post in this thread, to believe that Knox is guilty. Am I wrong about that? And if you do believe she is guilty, on what do you base that assumption?

I have no opinion on the case. I haven't really followed it.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not condemning her for the cartwheel. However, the OP wants to let her go free for the very same thing!I think there have been sufficient links now provided in this thread for you to reassess this view. Otherwise you are just continuing to :footinmou .

But suit yourself.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptigirl I have absolutely no preconceived feeling against you (refering to a post on page 1) or on the case. But you gotta kidding me if you base your opinion on journalist stuff on the case. If you have access to a full copy of the process and evidence, I bow down to your better informed assessment of the case. Otherwise you are reduced to opinion like every single one of us. You should be really skeptic of what journalist say on a case like this, as they most certainly had no access to the real evidence case.
Where do you get the impression I have only based my opinion on "journalist stuff"?

Media Literacy (a favorite topic of mine) is about taking the information we do get from various media sources and determining the credibility of that information. It's not like the various forms of media information from blogs to interviews to news reports to scientific research are all useless but the latter. There are ways to gather information from the news and other information sites and draw reasonable conclusions. There is a wealth of information available about this case just as there was a wealth of information available about the OJ case whether you watched every minute of the trial or not.

[Darth Rotor]

My dishonest thread title? You've got to be kidding! It was a symbolic literary device.
That's the most interesting synonym for "falsehood" I've seen in a while.
I have explained that several times.
It represented the cultural bias that this case is permeated with.
SG, imagine this title: Amanda Knox guilty, due to cultural bias.
States your position clearly, even if you are or aren't right about it. Nothing misleading about that, is there?

How to Write A Topic Sentence seminars are offered once per month, on Thursdays ...
And Scrut's posts have been personal throughout the thread, deserving of the reply maxpower posted.
Yes, Scrut has been giving you the business, but max seems to have confused who was claiming what, and also missed the sarcasm in Scrut's posts.

All this bickering aside, I'm glad you started the thread as I'd lost track of Foxy Knoxy's case. Also, Philip offered some worthwhile insights.

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

.... I half to wonder ....Gag, a typo too late to edit. :(

[Brainster]

I found this article in Vanity Fair (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/perugia200806?currentPage=1) the most interesting and fact-filled, although it's from a year plus ago. The writer sees little evidence against Amanda:

The Italian police may have had their reasons for holding 20-year-old American Amanda Knox in connection with the “extreme sex” murder last November of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher: her callous reaction, changing story, and unsettling MySpace page among them. What they don’t seem to have is a case.

But the article also notes some details that I have not seen in the other articles I've read. For example, it has been suggested that Amanda's oddly inappropriate behavior was caused by the long interrogation and conditions in the police station. But what explains her behavior here (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/perugia200806?currentPage=2)?

The next day (after the murder was discovered), Amanda and Raffaele went shopping at Bubble, a fashionable clothing store on Via Calderini. In its brightly lit window were an assortment of flashy skirts and shoes. There the couple purchased two pairs of thong underwear, at which point Carlo Scotto di Rinaldi, the store’s bi-lingual owner, tells me, they kissed and embraced, and Raffaele told Amanda, “ ‘We can have wild sex tonight!’ Sesso selvaggio.” As Amanda was only his second girlfriend, Raffaele was pretty new to sex in all of its forms, according to his voluble lawyer, Marco Brusco. “Selvaggio, he learned from her,” the lawyer says, raising his hands, while speculating on the number of Amanda’s previous lovers, which he believes to be unnaturally high. What can you expect? “È americana!”

All of the couple’s amorous behavior was caught on closed-circuit camera. The shop owner, taken aback when he recognized Amanda’s face on the local news, mentioned what he had seen to a friend on the police force. A few days later, police retrieved the tape and handed it over to Perugia’s deceptively mild prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, whose position is roughly equivalent to that of a U.S. district attorney. Within days, the tape was released to the rest of the world. On television and Web sites everywhere, the couple’s passion over the thong underwear was played and replayed.

And what about this?

From Robyn Butterworth, one of Meredith’s closest friends in Perugia, he learned that, just hours after the girl’s mutilated corpse was discovered, Amanda was boasting about “having seen Meredith’s body by the closet with a cover or a sheet over her.” Butterworth got the feeling that Amanda “seemed proud to have been the first to have found her.”

How could Amanda have known such vital details? Mignini wondered. The door to Meredith’s bedroom had been locked when police arrived. It had been forced open by police, but then quickly closed. If Amanda had seen the corpse of her housemate, Mignini decided, it could mean only one thing: she had watched Meredith die.

Or it could mean that she's a BSer, you never know. But it's certainly strange. Note as well that her boyfriend had already cooled (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/perugia200806?currentPage=5) on her quite a bit when the story was first written:

“I never want to see Amanda again,” Raffaele has told police. His father, Francesco Sollecito, a prominent urologist from Bari, in southern Italy, is particularly agitated on the subject of the young American girl’s pernicious influence on his only son.

“She is a strange girl. I think we can agree on that,” he says. “I have my doubts about her truthfulness. What happened the night of the murder? Every time she talks a different truth comes out of her mouth. There are so many truths and versions of the truth that it is hard to know what she is saying!”

[newton3376]

And yet you aren't able to explain where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal".

I'm waiting for that onemyself....

I am really curious how a cartwheel connects to a "cultural misunderstanding"...

I'm an American and I don't know of any "cartwheels in a police station are perfectly acceptable and are, in fact, expected" rule.

I guess they would have to take the handcuffs off first...kind of like you get a phone call....you also get one cartwheel.

Maybe I missed when the "right to perform a totally awesome cartwheel in a police station" law was passed....

[Darth Rotor]

She did do the splits as well as cartwheels, if one believes the BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8390909.stm

I do not know whether Knox is guilty or not,
perhaps guilty of not wearing panties, or, maybe guilty of wearing jeans while doing tumbling maneuvers in a police station! :jaw-dropp

It is puzzling to see the coverage that presents the case as lacking evidence to convict her. So, I wonder, what did the prosecution present, and what did the jury consider? :confused:

DR

[Skeptic Ginger]

Okay, I understand your point. I disagree that this is a cultural issue. The issue of how to interpret emotional reactions to stressful situations is one that pops up in cases like this everywhere. A good example is the JonBenet Ramsey case: The Ramseys were pilloried in the press (and by the police) for not acting enough like "true victims." They didn't cry enough in public, they made sure they had a lawyer (because no victims could ever want ensure their legal rights were protected!), etc. This was all perceived as evidence of their guilt.

The reality is, people react differently in stressful situations. Some people are very emotional or even hysterical, and some people react (at least outwardly) very cold and unemotional. Some people do strange things (like, maybe, cartwheels). I was probably the only member of my family who didn't cry at my grandfather's funeral. I'm sure someone would try to interpret that as meaning I didn't care (which couldn't be farther from the truth), whereas the reality is that I just don't cry a lot -- never have.

It is, IMO, awfully difficult to psychoanalyze someone's emotional reaction to a stressful situation and come up with a meaningful conclusion. But that doesn't stop people from doing it. And people do it in the U.S. just as they do it in Italy, unfortunately.Might be a bad example. The Ramseys did exhibit behaviors that were indicative of guilty persons. I don't think one can say there are no such things as telling behaviors, or chalk it up to individual differences in reaction to a tragedy.

It's just my opinion that the cartwheel(s) would be one of many things that might be interpreted differently across two cultures than within a culture. I was not trying to imply it was the only behavior the Italian police might have misinterpreted, or that without context it looks like a guilty behavior in and of itself.

There has been much discussion in the media and elsewhere about the view of Knox within Italy and the view of her outside of Italy. It would be nice if we had any Italian forum members that could give us some insight here.

[Darth Rotor]

I'm waiting for that onemyself....

I am really curious how a cartwheel connects to a "cultural misunderstanding"...

I'm an American and I don't know of any "cartwheels in a police station are perfectly acceptable and are, in fact, expected" rule.

I guess they would have to take the handcuffs off first...kind of like you get a phone call....you also get one cartwheel.

Maybe I missed when the "right to perform a totally awesome cartwheel in a police station" law was passed....
Italy ain't like the US ... so when in Perugia, do as the Romans! :D



(And rape a Sabine woman!)

(Reference to a famous work of art, and legend ...)

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have no opinion on the case. I haven't really followed it.:rolleyes:

And the prosecutors, police, jury and judge all say she's guilty.

Fancy that. To think that you might*** be wrong. :rolleyes:


***Are

[Bill Thompson]

And the prosecutors, police, jury and judge all say she's guilty.

Fancy that. To think that you might*** be wrong. :rolleyes:


***Are

I heard that there was no physical evidence linking her. How can someone do this crime without leaving any physical evidence? Magic?

Something fishy is going on here. I don't know if it is anti-americanism or what.

[Darth Rotor]

I heard that there was no physical evidence linking her. How can someone do this crime without leaving any physical evidence? Magic?

Something fishy is going on here. I don't know if it is anti-americanism or what.
This is just nuclear fallout from the recent CIA agent case, obviously! :rolleyes:

[plumjam]

While I've only been to Italy once. I was not aware of the cultural issues until this case. But if you look at the evidence and reports which have been abundant over the last 2 years, you will find this is a general consensus, it is not my original idea.
You're being very vague. You said a few times that there was some cultural misunderstanding over the cartwheel, you've been asked about that a few times, but haven't answered.

You are guilty of the crime you imagine I am guilty of, that is reading an awful lot into comments without enough fact gathering in the first place. You are assuming I know little about this case as were some of the first thread comments which suggested I was going by a single reporter's view.

Not at all.

This about me, the person who posts about 50% of the time on cross cultural issues and the unreliability of the news media.
And you are basing your views on anything other than what you've seen in the news media? If so, what?
Of course miscarriages of justice happen, but I'm reluctant to second-guess verdicts made by judges or juries who have sat for weeks listening to all the evidence, and then spent many hours deliberating over it.

In fact the right wing faction of this forum attack my views on a regular basis as one of the "blame America" crowd despite the fact this is a superficial version of my views on the subject as well.
I'm aware of your political views, and I agree with many of them. Not with your approach here though.

Then you took my comments and applied them to the whole of Italy when they only applied to the jury and a fair number of people in the town who sided with the prosecutor in spite of the evidence.
Your own words were "a bigoted population", in the context of your accusations of cross-cultural misunderstandings, and your metaphor of the southern lynchings...
So now it's just the jury and some people in that town... I see..
Shifting, shifting.

One of the issues here was the fact Knox was vilified in the Italian press. That has been reported in numerous discussions of this case. It is an undeniable fact and the difference between Knox's portrayal in the US vs the Italian media is indeed a reflection of the difference between the South and the North in the US prior to about 1970.
But you did not mention that it was press treatment you were supposedly referring to when introducing the southern lynchings. Rather, you introduced it in your description of the "bigoted population"
So you're shifting again.

Of course I am in no way implying the Knox case rivals the scale of the Southern treatment of blacks here.

Then why introduce the topic at all, and link it to your view of the Italian population as being bigoted?

But you seem upset I mention this aspect of the case when it is an overwhelming aspect of this case. And that is not just my opinion, it is a common opinion.
How do you know this was an overwhelming aspect of the case?
How do you know the jury took negative press coverage into account in their decision?
Defendants are vilified by the press during court cases in all kinds of cultures all over the world. That doesn't make their host populations bigoted.
(I also wonder what kind of bigotry this is supposed to be. White Italians being bigoted against white Americans? Or what?)

[Darth Rotor]

(I also wonder what kind of bigotry this is supposed to be. White Italians being bigoted against white Americans? Or what?)
Newflash for PJ: cross nationality bigotry has been reported in the wild. It is possible for an Italian to just not like Americans, this "white" thing be damned.

DR

[Cicero]

Friday's 20/20 interview with Knox's father and sister Ashley did not help Amanda's cause. The sister declared that there is no way Amanda will spend 26 years in an Italian prison regardless of what the court and jury have ruled is the sort of haughty comment that probably drives the Italians (and Meredith Kercher's parents) crazy.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Might be a bad example. The Ramseys did exhibit behaviors that were indicative of guilty persons. I don't think one can say there are no such things as telling behaviors, or chalk it up to individual differences in reaction to a tragedy.

I don't want to derail this into a thread about the Ramseys, but I disagree (unless you know of some specific "suspicious" behaviors. Ultimately, they were ruled out as suspects and given an apology). My point isn't that people can't act suspiciously. For example, if someone finds out their daughter was murdered, then hops a plane to Mexico and refuses to come back... that is suspicious. But small emotions or reactions (crying or not crying. Doing cartwheels or not)... those you can chalk up to individual reactions.


It's just my opinion that the cartwheel(s) would be one of many things that might be interpreted differently across two cultures than within a culture. I was not trying to imply it was the only behavior the Italian police might have misinterpreted, or that without context it looks like a guilty behavior in and of itself.

Yeah I understand, I just don't see that as a cultural issue, for reasons others have pointed out. I don't think that it would be considered "normal" here either. I see it much more as a poor attempt at psychoanalysis.

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's the most interesting synonym for "falsehood" I've seen in a while. So the fact the Cartwheels made worldwide headlines had no significance?

Amanda Knox did cartwheels and splits at police station after Meredith Kercher murder (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/4863279/Amanda-Knox-did-cartwheels-and-splits-at-police-station-after-Meredith-Kercher-murder.html)A police officer who investigated the murder said Miss Knox, 21, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 24, behaved "inappropriately" as they were waiting to be questioned a few days after the killing in the university town of Perugia, Umbria.

Domenico Giacinto Profazio, the former head of the city's Flying Squad, said other officers had told him that the American undergraduate did cartwheels and the splits in the police station in which she was waiting to be questioned. ...

...The couple had a "strange attitude", Detective Profazio said, adding that Miss Knox sat on her boyfriend's lap. "I told them it was not appropriate," he told the court.
Police: Coed Slay Suspect Knox Did Cartwheels After Murder (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,501776,00.html) Italian investigators testified Friday in the murder trial of an American student and her former boyfriend, with one saying the American turned cartwheels in the police station after the killing.
Cops Cite Amanda Knox's 'Strange Attitude' After Roomie's Murder (http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6975061&page=1)Police told an Italian court today that Amanda Knox had a "strange attitude" after discovering that her roommate had been murdered, doing a cartwheel in the police station, sitting on her boyfriend's lap, making faces at him and kissing him.
Meredith Kercher murder trial: Court hears how Arrested Amanda Knox did cartwheel in cell (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/02/28/meredith-kercher-murder-trial-court-hears-how-arrested-amanda-knox-did-cartwheel-in-cell-115875-21159052/)As Knox's trial in Perugia resumed, police officer Giacinto Profazio told of her bizarre behaviour after her arrest.

Mr Profazio said: "I heard on the night Knox and Sollecito were arrested she was in a room at the station sitting on his knee. I was told that she did the splits and a cartwheel in one of the rooms then later after being questioned all night she burst into tears." Dressed in tight denim jeans and a purple top, Knox appeared more sombre than usual yesterday.
Knox did 'splits after Meredith murder' (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2279075.ece)Ms Napoleone said: "I saw Amanda doing the splits and a cartwheel.

"She and Sollecito had a bizarre attitude throughout. They were laughing, kissing and pulling faces at each other.

"They were very indifferent to the situation. I found it disturbing considering the body of a young girl had been found in terrible circumstances."

The court heard Knox did her bizarre gymnastics routine three days after Meredith's body had been found.



SG, imagine this title: Amanda Knox guilty, due to cultural bias.
States your position clearly, even if you are or aren't right about it. Nothing misleading about that, is there?Kind of boring.

Yes, Scrut has been giving you the business, but max seems to have confused who was claiming what, and also missed the sarcasm in Scrut's posts. Maxpower correctly observed Scrut's posts while you are defending his gratuitous insults.

All this bickering aside, I'm glad you started the thread as I'd lost track of Foxy Knoxy's case. Also, Philip offered some worthwhile insights.

DRPart of you knows I am an intelligent reasonable person and the other part of you can't quite admit it. As for the bickering, I'm not too interested other than clarifying the facts as they pertain to the thread.

[jimtron]

FWIW, here's a NYT oped piece (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/amanda-knox-revisited/?scp=2&sq=knox&st=cse).
In closing arguments, Knox was described as a “Luciferina” and “a dirty-minded she-devil.” Preposterous, made-up sexual motives were ascribed to her. One prosecutor speculated before the jury what Knox may have said to Meredith Kercher before, he claimed, forcing an orgy that resulted in her death:
“You are always behaving like a little saint. Now we will show you. Now we will make you have sex.”
Nobody alleges that Knox said this to Kercher. But prosecutors asked the jury to imagine her saying such a thing.
What century is this? Didn’t Joan of Arc, the Inquisition and our own American Salem witch trials teach civilized nations a thing or two about contrived sexual hysteria with a devil twist?
there is no physical evidence placing Amanda Knox at the blood-splattered crime scene, the room where the killing took place. Zero. But there is abundant evidence linking a drifter named Rudy Guede to the scene — blood, DNA, prints and his own admission. Little wonder he fled to Germany just after the killing, while Knox went to the police voluntarily, without an attorney. Little wonder that he was found guilty, last year, of sexual assault and conspiracy to kill Kercher. He’s serving a 30-year sentence and appealing the case.
There is no motive for Knox and Sollecito; they have no criminal record, no history of violent group sexual encounters. E-mails show Knox and her roommate got along fine, except for the typical college-student disputes over bathroom and household chores.
The one bit of physical evidence from the scene that ties Sollecito — not Knox — to the crime is a bra clasp from Kercher. Prosecutors claim they found some of his DNA on this. But it was not “discovered” until 46 days after the murder, making it subject to contamination and manipulation.

[Agatha]

I heard that there was no physical evidence linking her. How can someone do this crime without leaving any physical evidence? Magic?

Something fishy is going on here. I don't know if it is anti-americanism or what.
There appears to have been some physical evidence, disputed by the defence (as one would expect) but nonetheless there was some presented in the trial. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8394110.stm This references computer records, DNA evidence and footprints.

I am still unclear on how cartwheels can be a cultural issue.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't want to derail this into a thread about the Ramseys, but I disagree (unless you know of some specific "suspicious" behaviors. Ultimately, they were ruled out as suspects and given an apology). My point isn't that people can't act suspiciously. For example, if someone finds out their daughter was murdered, then hops a plane to Mexico and refuses to come back... that is suspicious. But small emotions or reactions (crying or not crying. Doing cartwheels or not)... those you can chalk up to individual reactions.



Yeah I understand, I just don't see that as a cultural issue, for reasons others have pointed out. I don't think that it would be considered "normal" here either. I see it much more as a poor attempt at psychoanalysis.
There are legitimate cues in a person's behavior that provide evidence in some criminal cases. There are incompetent assessments of those cues just as there are cross cultural influences on interpreting those behavioral cues.

The police in this case made quite a deal out of Knox's behavior implicating her guilt. I would put both incompetence in assessing behavioral cues to guilt AND cultural influences on inaccurately assessing those behavioral cues as having an impact on this case.

A young girl acting all kissy with a boyfriend and dressed in shorts was viewed by the Italian police as inappropriate. I'm not sure that many cops here would have thought the behavior suspicious even if they had scolded the couple to stop their displays of affection or told Knox to sit down and quit doing cartwheels in their police station.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

ls that I have not seen in the other articles I've read. For example, it has been suggested that Amanda's oddly inappropriate behavior was caused by the long interrogation and conditions in the police station. But what explains her behavior here (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/perugia200806?currentPage=2)?

So they went shopping, acted like a boyfriend and girlfriend, and talked about having sex? It's not particularly tasteful, but I'm not sure it is proof of anything.

What stuck out about the excerpt you posted was this:
A few days later, police retrieved the tape and handed it over to Perugia’s deceptively mild prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, whose position is roughly equivalent to that of a U.S. district attorney. Within days, the tape was released to the rest of the world. On television and Web sites everywhere, the couple’s passion over the thong underwear was played and replayed.

So the tape is turned over to the prosecutor, and a couple of days later, it is released all over the place. Quite a leak. Talk about poisoning the well.

[plumjam]

Newflash for PJ: cross nationality bigotry has been reported in the wild. It is possible for an Italian to just not like Americans, this "white" thing be damned.

DR

I know. But I'm interested to know what Skeptigirl means by it. And what leads her to believe that the jury were exhibiting that kind of bigotry.

[Fiona]

A young girl acting all kissy with a boyfriend and dressed in shorts was viewed by the Italian police as inappropriate. I'm not sure that many cops here would have thought the behavior suspicious even if they had scolded the couple to stop their displays of affection or told Knox to sit down and quit doing cartwheels in their police station.

You don't think the police would have found it odd? Ok then perhaps you are right and there is a cultural problem in play. I can safely say that such behaviour from anyone in the investigation of the murder of someone they knew, and indeed shared a home with, would cause surprise here.

It says nothing as to her guilt: but to my way of thinking it is very peculiar behaviour. It is also very disrespectful, and the police do tend not to like that, in my experience. This was not a wee child.

Has anyone explained why the victim's bedroom door was locked btw? That has been puzzling me a bit

[Skeptic Ginger]

There appears to have been some physical evidence, disputed by the defence (as one would expect) but nonetheless there was some presented in the trial. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8394110.stm This references computer records, DNA evidence and footprints.

I am still unclear on how cartwheels can be a cultural issue.The only physical evidence in your link has been discussed here.

They took a knife that had Knox's fingerprints out of her boyfriend's house and claimed it was the murder weapon despite the fact the forensics did not agree. There was a trace of Kercher's DNA and or blood on the tip, also not consistent with the crime scene and which was consistent with contamination of the evidence. There was a trace of the boyfriend's DNA on Kercher's bra clasp. Maybe he had an affair with her, maybe it got there as the bra lay around the apartment he was in for weeks, maybe it was contamination.

Neither of these two pieces of physical evidence should be enough to convict anyone of a murder.

[Agatha]

As I said, I wasn't in court so I don't have access to all the evidence. I don't know if that was all the evidence presented, and I suspect that you don't know for certain either.

I found this on digitalspy (http://www.digitalspy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=689801&page=23): General and circumstantial evidence:

- Alibis changed several times.
- Inconsistencies in alibis, which still remain.
- Alibis contradicted by 3 independent witnesses, and by analysis of computer hard drive.
- Witness saw them both outside cottage with knives that night.
- Cell phones switched off early in evening, contrary to normal habits.
- Break-in was faked, nobody but Knox and Sollecito had a motive.
- Washing machine was run on morning after murder, and cleanup attempted long after Guede had fled.
- Victim's injuries point to more than one attacker, as do footprints and witness hearing running feet.
- Highly improbable story of Knox showering in house on morning after murder, unworried by broken window, open door, blood stains, unflushed toilet.
- Lie by Sollecito about phone call from father that evening.
- Lie by Sollecito about Meredith being pricked with knife while cooking.
- Lie about what time they called the Carabanieri.
- Knox had knowledge about manner of victim's death even before the police knew.
- False accusation by Knox against Patrick Luamba. Knox told mother shortly afterwards that Luamba was innocent, but neither made any attempt to tell police or lawyers.
- Knox may have been on bad terms with victim.

Forensic evidence:

- Knife with victim's DNA in Sollecito's apartment.
- Sollectio's DNA on victims bra, possibly Knox's DNA on victim's bra.
- Knox's blood mixed with victim's blood: in bathroom (3 places), hallway, room with faked break-in.
- Footprints in blood compatible with Knox in hallway, cleaned after murder, revealed with luminol.
- Footprint in victim's blood compatible with Sollecito on bathmat.
- Print of woman's shoe compatible with Knox's shoe size (not victim's) under victim's body.
- A number of forensic experts called by the defence were unable to dent the prosecution case.

Background (not evidence in itself, but supports evidence):

- Knox: heavy marijuana and alcohol user, casually slept with many men. Fined for wild party in Seattle. Cold, abnormal behavior after murder: "She ***** bled to death". Laughing, kissing, making faces in police station soon after murder. Day after body discovered Knox shopped for sexy lingerie, kissed in public, talked about wild sex. Cartwheels in police station waiting room. Didn't attend memorial for victim, went for pizza instead.
- Sollecito: arrogant and spoiled, marijuana and cocaine user, collected knives and always carried a knife with him. Collected violent, pornographic comics. Collected besiality porn. Had poster of serial killer on his wall. Wanted 'extreme experiences'.

If all this is some kind of cultural bias by those "bigoted" Italians against Americans, why did they also convict an Italian and a man from Ivory Coast?

[Fiona]

How do you know the forensics did not agree? How do you know that the evidence about the knife, whatever its status, is important to the verdict? The forensic expert is reported as saying they had evidence which placed both knox and her boyfriend at the scene. I am not sure what that evidence was. What is mentioned is the mixing of knox's dna with kerchner's blood. I have no idea how to interpret that and it is not explained in any of the links so far posted

We are told that knox took a shower and that there was quite a lot of blood in the bathroom including on the basin taps. Did she not notice that? That can happen I suppose. But I am not convinced I would go ahead and take a shower if there was blood all over it. Not sure what I would do but I am fairly convinced it wouldn't be that.

That is not evidence of guilt either: but you are talking as if you know all the evidence and are certain it does not amount to enough for a conviction: I have not seen the evidence and I do not think you have either.

It is certainly true there was a media circus in Italy which is deeply regrettable: it seems to be true that there was a media circus in the USA for the other side too: and that is equally regrettable. I find it interesting that you present yourself as able to judge the facts from what is reported but presume Italians are not equally competent. I wish I could remember the name for that but the presumption that others are more influenced than one is oneself is not sustainable: and I do not care how much you believe you have studied about this. That kind of bias is of the same order as eyewitness statement bias: ie quite high.

ETA: a much better and more comprehensive post from Agatha renders this one redundant: thanks for that summary, Agatha

[The Central Scrutinizer]

:words:

Care to tell us where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal"?

Or would you prefer to continue humiliating yourself?

[Cicero]

The only physical evidence in your link has been discussed here.

They took a knife that had Knox's fingerprints out of her boyfriend's house and claimed it was the murder weapon despite the fact the forensics did not agree. There was a trace of Kercher's DNA and or blood on the tip, also not consistent with the crime scene and which was consistent with contamination of the evidence. There was a trace of the boyfriend's DNA on Kercher's bra clasp. Maybe he had an affair with her, maybe it got there as the bra lay around the apartment he was in for weeks, maybe it was contamination.

Neither of these two pieces of physical evidence should be enough to convict anyone of a murder.

"Either way, the end of this period saw Knox breaking down and claiming she had been in the flat the night of the murder. But she tried to deflect any blame by accusing Patrick Lumumba a Congolese man who owned a bar in Perugia, of being the assassin. Lumumba was jailed for two weeks but subsequently freed and absolved of any connection to the crime when forensic testing incriminated Guede. Knox still faces a civil slander suit as well as criminal charges for falsely accusing Lumumba."

Blaming the bartender was not a particularly bright idea by Amanda. The family's portrayal of Amanda as Mother Teressa didn't resonate with anyone here or abroad. Building her up as "Fort Knox," the impregnable chaste girl, was laughable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/prosecutors-called-her-conniving-and-callous-the-jury-believed-them-1834684.html

[Skeptic Ginger]

You don't think the police would have found it odd? Ok then perhaps you are right and there is a cultural problem in play. I can safely say that such behaviour from anyone in the investigation of the murder of someone they knew, and indeed shared a home with, would cause surprise here.

It says nothing as to her guilt: but to my way of thinking it is very peculiar behaviour. It is also very disrespectful, and the police do tend not to like that, in my experience. This was not a wee child. I think that kind of clueless behavior in a police station 3 days after the fact while they were waiting (I presume) not while they were being questioned would be pretty common among the youth in this country.

Has anyone explained why the victim's bedroom door was locked btw? That has been puzzling me a bitThis is from a 2007 news story: Meredith Kercher ‘killed after refusing orgy’ (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2821154.ece)The door to her bedroom in the cottage where her body was found was locked from the inside. The killer left by a window. Neither the key nor the murder weapon has been found.

And this: Diary of murdered student could hold clues to her killer, police say (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2811736.ece) Mr Sollecito, a computer-science student, had told a British Sunday newspaper last weekend that he and Ms Knox had been horrified to see Ms Kercher’s body after police broke down her door. He said that he and Ms Knox had reported an apparent burglary and had been concerned to find Ms Kercher’s door locked from the inside. “It was hard to tell it was Meredith at first but Amanda started crying and screaming. I dragged her away because I didn’t want her to see it, it was so horrible,” he said. The broken window according the the BBC news report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8394110.stm) Agatha posted was in a third room.

[gtc]

So the fact the Cartwheels made worldwide headlines had no significance?

Amanda Knox did cartwheels and splits at police station after Meredith Kercher murder (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/4863279/Amanda-Knox-did-cartwheels-and-splits-at-police-station-after-Meredith-Kercher-murder.html)
Police: Coed Slay Suspect Knox Did Cartwheels After Murder (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,501776,00.html)
Cops Cite Amanda Knox's 'Strange Attitude' After Roomie's Murder (http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6975061&page=1)
Meredith Kercher murder trial: Court hears how Arrested Amanda Knox did cartwheel in cell (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/02/28/meredith-kercher-murder-trial-court-hears-how-arrested-amanda-knox-did-cartwheel-in-cell-115875-21159052/)
Knox did 'splits after Meredith murder' (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2279075.ece)



Which just shows that her behaviour was viewed as odd enough to mention by media outlets 'worldwide'.

[Tailgater]

SG, There is no place in the world that doing cartwheels after being accused of murder is somehow "cultural".

Addressing that and moving on would do wonders for this thread.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Which just shows that her behaviour was viewed as odd enough to mention by media outlets 'worldwide'.

Don't you get it? Those are all cultural misunderstandings!

:dl:

[Skeptic Ginger]

As I said, I wasn't in court so I don't have access to all the evidence. I don't know if that was all the evidence presented, and I suspect that you don't know for certain either.I don't know for certain the Big Bang occurred either but I can draw a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence.

I found this on digitalspy (http://www.digitalspy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=689801&page=23):

If all this is some kind of cultural bias by those "bigoted" Italians against Americans, why did they also convict an Italian and a man from Ivory Coast?Most of that evidence listed in your source has been addressed in multiple sources here in the thread. For example, regarding the the bulk of the 'inconsistencies' and the confessions and accusations some other innocent person did it, all of that was during some 30 hour police interrogation. If the Innocence project has data that 25% of their DNA evidence exonerated convictions involved false confessions, such evidence in this case was very unconvincing.

The supposed motive Knox and her boyfriend had was pretty ludicrous. It began as a supposed Satanic Rite and changed over time to a supposed sex orgy/revenge killing. Sorry, just as ludicrous.

Knox had knowledge of victims death? That and some of the rest of your list are just unsupportable. All you have there is a forum post by a person named Apple_Crumble. He/she didn't post a single source of those declarations of fact.

[maxpower1227]

One thing I'd like to know is, if Knox was in fact involved in this murder, how does Guede fit in to all of this?

I also think one possibility that's not really being considered much is that Sollecito was involved but that Knox was not. I'm not sure if the evidence makes such a thing plausible, but it should at least be considered.

[Agatha]

I don't know for certain the Big Bang occurred either but I can draw a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. Do you have court transcripts, then? I have not suggested that Ms Knox is either guilty or innocent; I am not party to the court case. The jury found her guilty, she has an automatic right of appeal. You seem to have made up your mind based on media reports, as I presume you were not in the courtroom.

Are we any closer to establishing why cartwheels are of cultural significance and why the Italian justice system has misunderstood this?

[Skeptic Ginger]

SG, There is no place in the world that doing cartwheels after being accused of murder is somehow "cultural".

Addressing that and moving on would do wonders for this thread.

For the record, I have now addressed the cartwheel issue in at least 10 different posts including the OP:

1, 34, 37, 39, 42, 44, 99, 108, 111, and post #120.

If it still isn't clear, I have little else to add. But I also have to wonder if it is not clear, why those objecting that no explanation of my point about the cartwheels has been forthcoming, have yet to address any of the specific issues I pointed out related to the cartwheels.

There are those objecting to the Italian police and the American police viewing the behavior differently. I addressed that specifically in posts 42, 44, 99, 111 & 120.

There are those who don't see the relevance at all. I specifically addressed that with the slew of news articles not only making a big deal of the significance of the cartwheel behavior but also most of them actually put it in the headline. See post #108.

The rest of the objections seem to think I have not addressed the cartwheel point. Those objections are not worth further discussion beyond the 10 posts plus this one.


Edited to add regarding the cartwheels after being accused of murder, it is my understanding the cartwheels were before Knox was accused, not after.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Do you have court transcripts, then? I have not suggested that Ms Knox is either guilty or innocent; I am not party to the court case. The jury found her guilty, she has an automatic right of appeal. You seem to have made up your mind based on media reports, as I presume you were not in the courtroom.

Are we any closer to establishing why cartwheels are of cultural significance and why the Italian justice system has misunderstood this?You posted a forum list of claimed evidence without a single citation for the information. I and others here have posted a lot of information from various sources. Feel free to assign credibility to your source over the rest of the sources linked to here. I don't find it worth debating what someone listed in a forum post.

[Skeptic Ginger]

One thing I'd like to know is, if Knox was in fact involved in this murder, how does Guede fit in to all of this?

I also think one possibility that's not really being considered much is that Sollecito was involved but that Knox was not. I'm not sure if the evidence makes such a thing plausible, but it should at least be considered.There is no more credible evidence against Sollecito than there is evidence against Knox.

[David Wong]

So do you now regret saying she was guilty "all because of a cartwheel"? Because that statement has now been rendered utterly and completely ridiculous.

Lesson to all: it is really really hard to get a good thread out of a completely insane and idiotic thread title and opening post. Lots of people intentionally make inflammatory/false headlines to try to get attention to their thread, but you rarely get fruitful discussions that way.

[Fiona]

I think that kind of clueless behavior in a police station 3 days after the fact while they were waiting (I presume) not while they were being questioned would be pretty common among the youth in this country.

If that is true I think it is beyond odd: but there appear to be some americans here who do not agree with you. So far I have not seen anyone support your proposition.

This is from a 2007 news story: Meredith Kercher ‘killed after refusing orgy’ (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2821154.ece)

And this: Diary of murdered student could hold clues to her killer, police say (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2811736.ece)The broken window according the the BBC news report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8394110.stm) Agatha posted was in a third room.

I knew the broken window was in a third room.

So what we are asked to believe is: the perpetrator broke into the house through a window which faced on to a busy road and which he could not reach without a ladder. He was disturbed by the victim's return to the house while he was robbing it. He then decided to rape and kill her, so he went into her room and locked the bedroom door. When it was over he chose to leave through the window (which faced he same way, though I do not know if it was high or not) rather than the door (which was open even though he did not come through it? ); but he took the trouble to open the bedroom door and leave a bloody footprint in the hall. Then he went back into the bedroom and again locked the door and left through the window?

And the next day Ms Knox returned to the house by herself: found the door open and went in ( I have come back to my house and found the door open and the glass panel smashed: I did not go in, though of course I do not have flatmates and that makes a big difference, very likely. I would think it would still make you cautious) She then went straight to her room (fair enough) and changed for a shower. She found blood in the bathroom (having presumably missed the blood in the hall): and even with the open door she went on to have a shower.

To be honest I would not be surprised if the jury discarded most or all of the DNA infighting: and concentrated on this kind of evidence. It is not nothing and this is only part of it

It is true we have to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt: it is not true that we must suspend everything we know about people and render ourselves wholly credulous

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

SG, There is no place in the world that doing cartwheels after being accused of murder is somehow "cultural".

Addressing that and moving on would do wonders for this thread.


This is off topic but needs to be said. People who have been (rightly or wrongly) accused of crimes sometimes exhibit bizarre behavior because they are under an amazing and unimaginable amount of stress. Whether they did it or not, they are facing about the worst thing you can ever face and can't behave like rational human beings.

There's a scene in the documentary film Capturing the Friedmans - a film about two people falsely accused of mass child molestation - where one of the accused dances and mugs for the camera on the courthouse steps with his two older brothers...as he is being sentenced to more than a decade in prison. With the families of the alleged victims around.

The parents later said they saw this as proof of his arrogance, heartlessness and criminality. The reverse is true; the poor fellow was playing around as an outlet for his fear and desperation.

So just because someone exhibits vastly inappropriate behavior in court or at the police station or in private after being arrested doesn't mean they are guilty. Neither does it mean they are innocent. It doesn't necessarily mean anything.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Are we any closer to establishing why cartwheels are of cultural significance and why the Italian justice system has misunderstood this?

No. We never will be.

Which is kind of making the thread fun!

[The Central Scrutinizer]

So do you now regret saying she was guilty "all because of a cartwheel"? Because that statement has now been rendered utterly and completely ridiculous.

Lesson to all: it is really really hard to get a good thread out of a completely insane and idiotic thread title and opening post. Lots of people intentionally make inflammatory/false headlines to try to get attention to their thread, but you rarely get fruitful discussions that way.

Agreed

[mbp]

This is off topic but needs to be said. People who have been (rightly or wrongly) accused of crimes sometimes exhibit bizarre behaviorBut didn't the cartwheeling occur while she was waiting to be questioned - and thus before she had been accused of anything?

[Brainster]

Care to tell us where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal"?

Or would you prefer to continue humiliating yourself?

False dichotomy.

[JihadJane]

So do you now regret saying she was guilty "all because of a cartwheel"? Because that statement has now been rendered utterly and completely ridiculous.

Lesson to all: it is really really hard to get a good thread out of a completely insane and idiotic thread title and opening post. Lots of people intentionally make inflammatory/false headlines to try to get attention to their thread, but you rarely get fruitful discussions that way.

Lesson to all 2: it is really really easy to get humans to act like dogs. Just ring the bell. The saliva flows.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So do you now regret saying she was guilty "all because of a cartwheel"? Because that statement has now been rendered utterly and completely ridiculous.I don't get the obsession with the cartwheel in this thread not being relevant. See post #127 if you need to review my position on this matter.

[Skeptic Ginger]

If that is true I think it is beyond odd: but there appear to be some americans here who do not agree with you. So far I have not seen anyone support your proposition. I'm not sure what your point is here. The cartwheels were brought up in the trial as evidence Knox was behaving oddly. I hear you to say you agree the cartwheels were such evidence of odd behavior.

But my argument has more context than just the cartwheels. The cartwheels were not unusual for a dumb young adult who was oblivious to the fact the police viewed her behavior as odd. I do think the false assessment of supposed suspicious behavior occurs in the US all the time. Some folks here seem to think I only think Italian police make such errors.

I do think that in context the Italian police did mis-read Knox's behavior in the police station. I also think at the time Knox was probably clueless her behavior was setting off alarm bells. And I think it only takes a little bit of a culture clash for behavior to be misinterpreted.


I knew the broken window was in a third room.

So what we are asked to believe is: the perpetrator broke into the house through a window which faced on to a busy road and which he could not reach without a ladder. He was disturbed by the victim's return to the house while he was robbing it. He then decided to rape and kill her, so he went into her room and locked the bedroom door. When it was over he chose to leave through the window (which faced he same way, though I do not know if it was high or not) rather than the door (which was open even though he did not come through it? ); but he took the trouble to open the bedroom door and leave a bloody footprint in the hall. Then he went back into the bedroom and again locked the door and left through the window?

And the next day Ms Knox returned to the house by herself: found the door open and went in ( I have come back to my house and found the door open and the glass panel smashed: I did not go in, though of course I do not have flatmates and that makes a big difference, very likely. I would think it would still make you cautious) She then went straight to her room (fair enough) and changed for a shower. She found blood in the bathroom (having presumably missed the blood in the hall): and even with the open door she went on to have a shower.

To be honest I would not be surprised if the jury discarded most or all of the DNA infighting: and concentrated on this kind of evidence. It is not nothing and this is only part of it

It is true we have to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt: it is not true that we must suspend everything we know about people and render ourselves wholly credulousI don't think the broken window proved anything one way or the other but it is my understanding the killer left via the window in Kercher's room. We don't know if he broke in or was let in or just came through an open door.

I see no reason why a killer wouldn't lock the body in the bedroom and leave out the window if that was the only way to leave the bedroom door locked. There was mention of a key being missing. Could be the killer locked the bedroom door with a key and left. We don't have the detail about why one report was a key was missing and one report was you could only lock the door from the inside.

In either case the same would apply to Knox as it would the the killer. Whichever questions the locked door and broken window bring up for you, how does one scenario fit Knox being involved and one scenario not?


As for entering the house, isn't it possible Knox was unaware the window was broken until she went in? And, she wasn't alone. Her boyfriend was with her. I think if I had two roommates and found my apartment door unlocked I would just assume someone was home. I'd probably go in before I found out they weren't.

[Skeptic Ginger]

But didn't the cartwheeling occur while she was waiting to be questioned - and thus before she had been accused of anything?
That is my understanding of the timeline.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...Lesson to all: it is really really hard to get a good thread out of a completely insane and idiotic thread title and opening post. Lots of people intentionally make inflammatory/false headlines to try to get attention to their thread, but you rarely get fruitful discussions that way.This is an utterly false accusation and it is unfortunate.

You don't have to agree the cartwheel had any relevance at all to the police in their assessment of Knox's guilt. And if you expected more out of the thread from the title than you got, that is your problem.

How disgustingly childish to make a false accusation of motive because you were disappointed in a thread title.

[jhunter1163]

Amanda Knox guilty - all because of a cartwheel

After reading post #116, I'd say she was convicted on the evidence. The cartwheel didn't help, but people have been convicted on much weaker evidence without doing cartwheels.

[newton3376]

I don't know for certain the Big Bang occurred either but I can draw a reasonable conclusion based on the evidence.

Please don't compare the scientific evidence for the Big Bang to your opinion that Knox isn't guilty or that cartwheels in police stations have some kind of "cultural significance".....it's pathetic.

Most of that evidence listed in your source has been addressed in multiple sources here in the thread. For example, regarding the bulk of the 'inconsistencies' and the confessions and accusations some other innocent person did it, all of that was during some 30 hour police interrogation. If the Innocence project has data that 25% of their DNA evidence exonerated convictions involved false confessions, such evidence in this case was very unconvincing.

The circumstantial evidence plus the behavior of Knox (and others) shortly after the murder would certainly be enough for me to give a "guilty" verdict. I haven't heard any other narratives with better evidence, circumstantial or otherwise.

The supposed motive Knox and her boyfriend had was pretty ludicrous. It began as a supposed Satanic Rite and changed over time to a supposed sex orgy/revenge killing. Sorry, just as ludicrous.

No one cares if YOU think a killers motive are ludicrous. This might come as a shock, but murder doesn't have to have some logical motive that "makes sense". Some people are freaking nutcases and are psycho....and they kill people.

If you honestly think that this girl is completely innocent then all I can say is that seems WAY more unlikely than her being involved based on her behavior.

[Tailgater]

[B]For the record, I have now addressed the cartwheel issue in at least 10 different posts including the OP

Yet you have shown no precedent to equate the individual arguments of bias.

Being American=bias yes

Odd behaviour=bias yes

Police in America seeing more odd behaviour than Italian police=huh? did I get that right?

Odd behaviour when nervous (or more specifically, cartwheels)=exclusive to Americans?

Maybe we are not following you, or is this what you are actually saying?

[Fiona]

I'm not sure what your point is here. The cartwheels were brought up in the trial as evidence Knox was behaving oddly. I hear you to say you agree the cartwheels were such evidence of odd behavior.

But my argument has more context than just the cartwheels. The cartwheels were not unusual for a dumb young adult who was oblivious to the fact the police viewed her behavior as odd. I do think the false assessment of supposed suspicious behavior occurs in the US all the time. Some folks here seem to think I only think Italian police make such errors.

I do think that in context the Italian police did mis-read Knox's behavior in the police station. I also think at the time Knox was probably clueless her behavior was setting off alarm bells. And I think it only takes a little bit of a culture clash for behavior to be misinterpreted.

So what are you saying?

Are you arguing that young adults are oblivious to context? That they have no behavioural repertoire and no understanding that there are different expectations of behaviour in different contexts? That is the only way I can make sense of your belief that this young woman had no idea her behaviour ws setting off alarm bells

Are you saying that young adults do have such an understanding, but that it is perfectly acceptable to turn cartwheels in police stations in America? That is the only way I can make sense of yet another reference to "cultural clash"

The fact is, skeptigirl, that no one here would disagree that there is potential for cultural misunderstandings: but for me at least this is not one of them

The different expectations for behaviour between Italy and the USA are not so great: Italy is not Mars. Young adults in Europe and in America are well able to understand that a murder investigation is a serious business. They know perfectly well that you don't turn cartwheels in police stations. And they know that a frivolous attitude in those circumstances will indeed "raise alarm bells".

It is perfectly possible to argue that she did not think the alarm bells would lead to suspicion of her complicity: but she was not oblivious to the fact that she was making an impact on the police. It is not evidence that she committed the crime and nobody is arguing that. But it is evidence of a peculiar attitude. That might be no more than anti authoritarian rebellion. It might be something much more serious. We don't know and you don't know. But the police here, and in the USA, and in Italy would be strange indeed if they did not notice it and consider it. After all, they see a lot of people in police stations. They kind of know the range of normal reaction better than you and I.


I don't think the broken window proved anything one way or the other

Not by itself it doesn't, no. But what you do not seem to understand is that this does not stand by itself. If you are looking for the one absolutely irrefutable piece of evidence and nothing less will do I think you have been watching too many movies.

but it is my understanding the killer left via the window in Kercher's room.

How do you know that?


We don't know if he broke in or was let in or just came through an open door.

If he did not break in then who broke the window? The prosecution says that Knox and her boyfriend did in order to fake a burglary. Do I take it you accept that? If you do then why did they do that?

I see no reason why a killer wouldn't lock the body in the bedroom and leave out the window if that was the only way to leave the bedroom door locked.

Might do that: might not. I have no idea why locking the door might seem important at the time. I have no idea why he would leave the bedroom and then return to lock the door and go out the window in full view of a busy street. If it happened that way he presumably had his reasons. You don't know and I don't know. I don't even know that the door was locked from the inside because I do not know what kind of lock it was: whether there was a key: whether it could only lock from the inside. Or anything much really. Neither do you. I presume it was a fact explored at the trial though.

In either case the same would apply to Knox as it would the the killer. Whichever questions the locked door and broken window bring up for you, how does one scenario fit Knox being involved and one scenario not?

Again you cannot take each piece of evidence in isolation. If the window was broken by the killer it is because he broke in: if it was broken by knox it is because she was trying to mislead the police. Since the window was too high to get in without a ladder, and no ladder was reportedly found, there is reason to doubt the killer broke in. And that means that someone else broke it: who, if not knox and/or her boyfriend? I suppose it might have been a second random burglar; or the evil Italian police. Could be anybody really. Anything could have happened: but some things are more likely than others.

As for entering the house, isn't it possible Knox was unaware the window was broken until she went in?

Of course it is possible. Who suggested otherwise? If the window was broken when Knox arrived I would imagine it very likely she did not notice unless the front door was on that side and I don't think it was

And, she wasn't alone. Her boyfriend was with her.

Unless I have misread she was alone and this is not disputed.


I think if I had two roommates and found my apartment door unlocked I would just assume someone was home. I'd probably go in before I found out they weren't.

Indeed and I said as much. But when I found they weren't I would certainly be uneasy. I think most people would. Would you not have a look around, presuming you had taken your brave pills? Or maybe call someone if you hadn't. You know, given that your door was open and there was no-one home and there was blood in the bathroom?

A lot of things are possible. All you are demonstrating is you do not know and that puts you in the same place as the rest of us. But you choose to deny a whole lot of circumstantial evidence which is quite clearly there and quite clearly important.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

The circumstantial evidence plus the behavior of Knox (and others) shortly after the murder would certainly be enough for me to give a "guilty" verdict. I haven't heard any other narratives with better evidence, circumstantial or otherwise.

I think the best other narrative is that Guede, and only Guede, did it. His DNA was all over the scene, including on the victim's body, toilet tissue, and tampon (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5033760.ece). His footprints and handprints were at the scene. There is no doubt he was there and had plenty of physical contact with the victim. By contrast, they had to stretch quite a bit to tie Knox or her boyfriend to the scene at all. The victim was supposedly held down, sexually assaulted, and stabbed in the throat, yet they found no DNA on her body from anyone but Guede, nor in the room itself, save for a tiny bit on a bra clasp that had been left at an active crime scene for 40+ days before being tested. And Guede had a history of burglary, including breaking and climbing in through a window higher than the one in this case. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,555980,00.html)

Certainly it is a much simpler and far more common crime: a man sexually assaulted and then murdered a young woman. It is definitely a simpler scenario when contrasted with the prosecution theories, which included a Satanic rite, a sex game gone wrong, and then no real theory at all.

I'm not going to claim that narrative is what happened. I have no idea if she is guilty or not. But, IMO, it seems like a reasonable narrative that fits the evidence.

[Ryokan]

Are we any closer to establishing why cartwheels are of cultural significance and why the Italian justice system has misunderstood this?

Yes, didn't you catch it?

I think that kind of clueless behavior in a police station 3 days after the fact while they were waiting (I presume) not while they were being questioned would be pretty common among the youth in this country.

'Clueless behavior' is, it seems, an American trait that the Italians missed. Terrible cultural misunderstanding.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Please don't compare the scientific evidence for the Big Bang to your opinion that Knox isn't guilty or that cartwheels in police stations have some kind of "cultural significance".....it's pathetic.Have people in this thread gone nuts? The point was only that scientific (aka rational thinking) is based on evidence, not on proof. The reply was to a post demanding I PROVE my conclusion.



The circumstantial evidence plus the behavior of Knox (and others) shortly after the murder would certainly be enough for me to give a "guilty" verdict. I haven't heard any other narratives with better evidence, circumstantial or otherwise.Wow.


No one cares if YOU think a killers motive are ludicrous. This might come as a shock, but murder doesn't have to have some logical motive that "makes sense". Some people are freaking nutcases and are psycho....and they kill people.

If you honestly think that this girl is completely innocent then all I can say is that seems WAY more unlikely than her being involved based on her behavior.Wow.

I'm am floored by this response. Oh well.

[Skeptic Ginger]

After reading post #116, I'd say she was convicted on the evidence. The cartwheel didn't help, but people have been convicted on much weaker evidence without doing cartwheels.Did you notice post #116 was nothing more than an echo of someone else's blog post? Completely unsubstantiated claims?

I'd be interested in reading a credible source for those claims. But in all the stuff I have read over the last couple years, I've not seen half that stuff mentioned, let alone validated.

OTOH, there are other links in this thread validating the fact both the circumstantial and the actual forensic evidence in this case is sorely lacking.

[JihadJane]

Yes, didn't you catch it?



'Clueless behavior' is, it seems, an American trait that the Italians missed. Terrible cultural misunderstanding.

Yawn.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yet you have shown no precedent to equate the individual arguments of bias.

Being American=bias yes

Odd behaviour=bias yes

Police in America seeing more odd behaviour than Italian police=huh? did I get that right?

Odd behaviour when nervous (or more specifically, cartwheels)=exclusive to Americans?

Maybe we are not following you, or is this what you are actually saying?You want a precedent Italians view the behavior of a young American from a cultural perspective that might taint that view?

OK, I'll look for more information on the difference in cultural norms.

[NewtonTrino]

I think the best other narrative is that Guede, and only Guede, did it. His DNA was all over the scene, including on the victim's body, toilet tissue, and tampon (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5033760.ece). His footprints and handprints were at the scene. There is no doubt he was there and had plenty of physical contact with the victim. By contrast, they had to stretch quite a bit to tie Knox or her boyfriend to the scene at all. The victim was supposedly held down, sexually assaulted, and stabbed in the throat, yet they found no DNA on her body from anyone but Guede, nor in the room itself, save for a tiny bit on a bra clasp that had been left at an active crime scene for 40+ days before being tested. And Guede had a history of burglary, including breaking and climbing in through a window higher than the one in this case. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,555980,00.html)

Certainly it is a much simpler and far more common crime: a man sexually assaulted and then murdered a young woman. It is definitely a simpler scenario when contrasted with the prosecution theories, which included a Satanic rite, a sex game gone wrong, and then no real theory at all.

I'm not going to claim that narrative is what happened. I have no idea if she is guilty or not. But, IMO, it seems like a reasonable narrative that fits the evidence.


This is how I see it as well. Give me a theory, any theory where all three of them are plausibly involved. It's got to be either him alone or them alone. Having the three of them work together doesn't make sense. Also, what's the motive? For murder. By a seemingly normal college student? Who also happens to be female (how many females murder people again?). The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Everyone here knows that the jury wasn't sequestered and could watch media coverage of the trial if they desired?

Also I heard one of Amanda's friends on CNN last night say that she literally says something like "I saw jurors sleeping in court every day when the defense was presenting their case". I have no idea if that's true but if so that should be a mistrial.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

If the NYPD or LAPD or any other police force in the entire United States brought in a suspect for questioning and that suspect- a human being over age 4- made a cartwheel in public and while awaiting investigation for murder, I can assure you they would think that individual a) insane, b) guilty, c) criminally heartless, d) all of the above. Whether said suspect was American or anything else.

In America, this would be considered as bizarre as it would anywhere else in the world, be it Italy or Uganda or India or Tibet.

[Undesired Walrus]

I had the strangest experience of seeing someone who looked just like Amanda Knox at Piccadilly Circus tonight. Very freaky.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So what are you saying?

Are you arguing that young adults are oblivious to context?No. You totally misread that part of my post. I said all of Knox's behavior should be looked at in context. I didn't say anything about young adults being oblivious to context.

My entire comment about the cartwheel has been so totally distorted by people in this thread it is hard to get back to the actual issues, but I'll try again.


The issues: The Italian police observed Knox in their police station.
Knox did not behave as they expected.
The cartwheel was a symbol (in my thread title) of the Italian police's observation of Knox which they felt was indicative of guilt.
I think a cross cultural divide contributed to the Italian police's conclusion the cartwheel was indicative of guilt.

Keep in mind here the Italian police didn't say the cartwheel was indicative of nervousness on Knox's part. They claimed it was evidence she was indifferent and depraved and involved in a Satanic ritual killing. They later changed that to claim Knox was involved in a revenge killing because Kercher was not participating in extremely sexually liberal behaviors.

The cartwheel in the police station was presented as evidence Knox was depraved and indifferent. It was not something I gratuitously claimed was relevant. It was not something I merely threw in the thread title as a lure to forum readers. The cartwheel was used by the police as evidence against Knox. That is the context one needs to look at here regarding the cartwheel. And it was not presented as evidence Knox was nervous. It was presented as evidence Knox was a crazed sex orgy/Satanist. That was the context which the Italian police placed the cartwheels in.


That they have no behavioural repertoire and no understanding that there are different expectations of behaviour in different contexts? That is the only way I can make sense of your belief that this young woman had no idea her behaviour ws setting off alarm bellsDumb immaturity is what I think a person doing cartwheels in a police station is expressing. I'm not sure what you are thinking it means. Do you think it meant sociopathic indifference?

Are you saying that young adults do have such an understanding, but that it is perfectly acceptable to turn cartwheels in police stations in America? That is the only way I can make sense of yet another reference to "cultural clash"

The fact is, skeptigirl, that no one here would disagree that there is potential for cultural misunderstandings: but for me at least this is not one of themI don't get your point here except as how I've replied to it above.

The different expectations for behaviour between Italy and the USA are not so great: Italy is not Mars. Young adults in Europe and in America are well able to understand that a murder investigation is a serious business. They know perfectly well that you don't turn cartwheels in police stations. And they know that a frivolous attitude in those circumstances will indeed "raise alarm bells". So are you saying the cartwheels in this case do indicate pathological behavior?

It is perfectly possible to argue that she did not think the alarm bells would lead to suspicion of her complicity: but she was not oblivious to the fact that she was making an impact on the police. It is not evidence that she committed the crime and nobody is arguing that. But it is evidence of a peculiar attitude. That might be no more than anti authoritarian rebellion. It might be something much more serious. We don't know and you don't know. But the police here, and in the USA, and in Italy would be strange indeed if they did not notice it and consider it. After all, they see a lot of people in police stations. They kind of know the range of normal reaction better than you and I. So are you arguing police in the US would have thought Knox's behavior indicated pathological behavior as well?

While I am in total agreement the police in the US are just as capable of such an ignorant behavioral assessment, I don't think on its face that negates the fact the cultural differences here affected the Italian police's assessment of Knox.



The rest of my reply to your post will follow.

[Puppycow]

So, was there ever any evidence that Knox was, in fact, a Satan worshiper (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/08/48hours/main4929950_page2.shtml)?

Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini had a theory: the day after Halloween, Meredith Kercher was murdered at the end of a drug-induced satanic orgy gone very, very wrong. In fact, at one point, investigators thought a bloody handprint on a wall at the crime scene was some sort of satanic symbol.

"Amanda and Raffaele were intrigued by sex and violence. They sort of hung themselves out to dry a little bit by their blogs, by their Web sites," says Pisa.

On her MySpace page, Amanda called herself "Foxy Knoxy" and bragged about having multiple sex partners. A picture of her on the site taken at a military museum became ammunition against her. On Raffaele’s page, he expressed a fascination with serial killers.

"I know the police have been looking at these Web sites and taking apart everything that these two have said," Pisa says. "To a certain degree, they haven’t done themselves any favors by putting this stuff on the Web for all to see."

Shades of old-fashioned witch trials.

[Ryokan]

The issues: The Italian police observed Knox in their police station.
Knox did not behave as they expected.
The cartwheel was a symbol (in my thread title) of the Italian police's observation of Knox which they felt was indicative of guilt.
I think a cross cultural divide contributed to the Italian police's conclusion the cartwheel was indicative of guilt.

I still don't get this 'cross cultural divide'. I doubt even the bigoted Italian police think it's indicative of guilt, but I'm sure the police of any country would think it suspicious enough to look into it.

Are you saying the US police would just ignore it totally? Is this really such common behavior that it's almost expected?

The only reason people are halfway making fun of you in this thread is because you label this a cultural misunderstanding, while it's obvious to most it really isn't - that someone acting contrary to what we would expect gets a closer look. You really need to either discard this, or better explain what you mean. Until you do, continuing to label this a cultural misunderstanding is just stupid.

[Fiona]

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C339/

This is a site which is dedicated to finding justice for Kerchner: but, acknowledging that, it seems to be serious in how it approaches things and there is a lot of good information there, including links to discussions of the DNA evidence and its status.

I do not know the qualifications of what they describe as their "DNA experts": the information may be there but I have not had time to read it all.

[volatile]

This is how I see it as well. Give me a theory, any theory where all three of them are plausibly involved. It's got to be either him alone or them alone. Having the three of them work together doesn't make sense. Also, what's the motive? For murder. By a seemingly normal college student? Who also happens to be female (how many females murder people again?). The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Everyone here knows that the jury wasn't sequestered and could watch media coverage of the trial if they desired?

Also I heard one of Amanda's friends on CNN last night say that she literally says something like "I saw jurors sleeping in court every day when the defense was presenting their case". I have no idea if that's true but if so that should be a mistrial.

With hazy knowledge of the case, I'd been convinced she was guilty... but seeing the post-trial analysis, I'm with Newton and Chicken on this. There's no way she did it.

[quadraginta]

<snip>

I don't think the broken window proved anything one way or the other but it is my understanding the killer left via the window in Kercher's room. We don't know if he broke in or was let in or just came through an open door.

<snip>


I'm only picking out this one comment as an example. I don't mean to single it out as a particular 'smoking gun'.

Here (http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C356/) is a site with an interesting discussion on the case and how it has been presented.

Among the things discussed is the apparent break-in into Filomena Romanelli's (the third roomate) room. This excerpt is interesting.


Filomena testifed that she found clothes strewn around her room the next day and that she had left the room tidy. She testified that glass from the window broken in her bedroom was on top of those strewn clothes. If the window was broken by someone entering the home who was intent on rape and/or robbery, then the glass would not be on top of the clothes as those clothes would not have been under the window then (Filomena also testified that she had valuables in plain view in her bedroom and that none were taken).


The evidence suggests that someone placed these clothes around the room and THEN broke the window to “stage a scene” (as there is no explanation for why anyone would have any motive to randomly take clothes and throw them around a room).
This is combined with many other aspects of the case that are not developed in recent U.S. news reports which provide a much less clear picture of railroading an innocent.

I had noted the case when it first broke, but have not followed it with great attention. When the media storm around the verdict blew up yesterday I was first dismayed, and then disgusted by the overwhelming and obvious spin being projected by U.S. sources. HLN was the worst, but all of them were guilty to some degree.

Understand that I approached this with no particular bias as to her guilt one way or the other, and no real study of the case as it has developed. If anything I would be inclined to hope that she was indeed innocent.

The presentation and vehemence of the media followup to the verdict, along with the style of approach used to spin a position set off alarm bells in my mind. There was virtually no effort to even contemplate the possibility that Knox was guilty. There was a definite aroma of "...doth protest too much." accompanied by a xenophobic stench.

I decided to start by taking a look at a true crime board I've found to be fairly even-handed. A quite large and well frequented one that generally manages good insights which usually prove correct. They started a thread (http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55843) on the case on 11/06/07, and developed an early consensus that there was a strong likelihood of Knox's guilt. That consensus did not change much over two years. It should be noted that most of the posters are American, even though there are many from overseas.

The more that I have reviewed different presentations of the story the less confident I have become that there is a slam-dunk case for prosecutorial misconduct. I won't list a string of links here. They're easily found if anyone wants to take the initiative to look. The thread I linked to offers many, and does so in the chronological order that the case developed, which allows for some additional insight all its own.

My suspicion, almost a certainty, is that if this tragedy had occurred in the U.S, and if Ms. Knox had been prosecuted in the U.S. with the evidence I have seen as available against her, even with all the extra protections of American jurisprudence, she would have been convicted, would not have been sentenced with less than LWOP, and would have been very fortunate not to ride a needle. Others have on far less.

If she's innocent then certainly that is much to be deplored, although it must be said that an erroneous conviction in Italy can bear much less .. fatal results than in the U.S.

If she is guilty then it might be that she should be grateful that she is guilty in Europe.

[stilicho]

This is how I see it as well.

Even though I live in Canada, I get a lot of cable coverage from the nearby Pacific Northwest. Needless to say, the case gets a lot more coverage here excepting the arrest and the recent conviction.

But this isn't the only guilty verdict against Ms Knox in this incident. She was also found guilty of defamation against Lumumba, a bartender who used to be her boss.

That's one part of this case that is seriously underreported. What would possess anyone to accuse their former employer of a crime--especially of rape and murder? That isn't just 'confusion'; it's utter irresponsibility. Even kids, when asked who broke the lamp, will simply reply "not me" out of habit. It takes a very special type of person to speculate wildly without any evidence whatsoever.

Her family and friends have sought to characterise Ms Knox as a faultless victim whereas the truth is that she'd already had a criminal conviction for hosting an out-of-control party near the University of Washington the same year she departed for Italy.

The cartwheels don't seem out of character for this woman. In fact, I was a little disturbed at the asides about her playing Sharon Stone earlier in this thread. From her past, it's apparent that's precisely what she was trying to do only it doesn't work in real life like it does in the movies.

The appeal should be interesting since it's been reported here that her broken family will have to mortgage themselves to the hilt.

-------------

Here's a sobering blog by someone in the Seattle region who covers crime stories:

http://www.seattlecrimeblog.com/tags/meredith_kercher/

That's got all the issues discussed here, and more, with frequent cites.

[quadraginta]

<snip>

So are you arguing police in the US would have thought Knox's behavior indicated pathological behavior as well?

While I am in total agreement the police in the US are just as capable of such an ignorant behavioral assessment, I don't think on its face that negates the fact the cultural differences here affected the Italian police's assessment of Knox.

<snip>


The demeanor of the accused is routinely used by both police and prosecution in the U.S. as clues suggesting guilt and as evidence presented to a jury.

I find the latter to be a seriously flawed technique which can often lead to egregious error.

I feel fairly confident that many D.A.s in the U.S. would have seized upon such behavior in exactly the same fashion. They have tried to make much more out of much less.

I don't see this as some peculiarly European or Italian expression of America bashing.

I'm uncertain exactly how much weight the Italian prosecution tried to attach to Knox's demeanor as opposed to other evidence during the trial itself. Do you have any sources which have addressed that in particular?

From what I have reviewed I don't consider the floor exercise episode to be a major part of their case, just one more detail.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not by itself [the broken window] doesn't, no. But what you do not seem to understand is that this does not stand by itself. If you are looking for the one absolutely irrefutable piece of evidence and nothing less will do I think you have been watching too many movies.I asked you to explain how the broken window fits with "Knox did it" better than it fits with "the lone murderer did it". You have not addressed my question.

How do you know that [the killer left via the window in Kercher's room]?I don't. But whether he left by the door or the window doesn't implicate Knox or her boyfriend.

If he [the murderer] did not break in then who broke the window? The prosecution says that Knox and her boyfriend did in order to fake a burglary. Do I take it you accept that? If you do then why did they do that?The broken window does nothing to implicate Knox or her boyfriend. It is more likely the murderer broke in via the broken window but regardless the broken window is not evidence that necessarily implicates Knox.

Might do that: might not. I have no idea why locking the door might seem important at the time. I have no idea why he would leave the bedroom and then return to lock the door and go out the window in full view of a busy street. If it happened that way he presumably had his reasons. You don't know and I don't know. I don't even know that the door was locked from the inside because I do not know what kind of lock it was: whether there was a key: whether it could only lock from the inside. Or anything much really. Neither do you. I presume it was a fact explored at the trial though.Again there is no evidence here that implicates Knox.

Again you cannot take each piece of evidence in isolation. If the window was broken by the killer it is because he broke in: if it was broken by knox it is because she was trying to mislead the police. Since the window was too high to get in without a ladder, and no ladder was reportedly found, there is reason to doubt the killer broke in. And that means that someone else broke it: who, if not knox and/or her boyfriend? I suppose it might have been a second random burglar; or the evil Italian police. Could be anybody really. Anything could have happened: but some things are more likely than others.Where is your source the window was too high to get in and how do you explain the fact the window was reportedly broken from the outside?

Of course it is possible. Who suggested otherwise? If the window was broken when Knox arrived I would imagine it very likely she did not notice unless the front door was on that side and I don't think it wasI thought you said Knox would not have reasonably entered the apartment if she arrived and found the door unlocked?

Unless I have misread she was alone and this is not disputed.There are various versions in the news accounts of Knox being alone when she went home and being with her boyfriend. Again, the issue you raised was that it was somehow suspicious Knox would have entered her apartment if she arrived to find the door unlocked. How is the fact she did enter evidence of anything unusual or in particular of her guilt?


Indeed and I said as much. But when I found they weren't I would certainly be uneasy. I think most people would. Would you not have a look around, presuming you had taken your brave pills? Or maybe call someone if you hadn't. You know, given that your door was open and there was no-one home and there was blood in the bathroom?Depends on how much blood and many other issues. I don't find the evidence of how Knox acted after coming home to be remarkable.


A lot of things are possible. All you are demonstrating is you do not know and that puts you in the same place as the rest of us. But you choose to deny a whole lot of circumstantial evidence which is quite clearly there and quite clearly important.Again with the claims I know nothing about this case when in fact, I know a lot. This has been a very public case from the get go. How is it you assume I know so little? Is it because you know so little therefore I must know an equally 'little' amount?

[Skeptic Ginger]

The demeanor of the accused is routinely used by both police and prosecution in the U.S. as clues suggesting guilt and as evidence presented to a jury.

I find the latter to be a seriously flawed technique which can often lead to egregious error.

I feel fairly confident that many D.A.s in the U.S. would have seized upon such behavior in exactly the same fashion. They have tried to make much more out of much less.

I don't see this as some peculiarly European or Italian expression of America bashing.

I'm uncertain exactly how much weight the Italian prosecution tried to attach to Knox's demeanor as opposed to other evidence during the trial itself. Do you have any sources which have addressed that in particular?

From what I have reviewed I don't consider the floor exercise episode to be a major part of their case, just one more detail.Except for your statement the cartwheel was not a major part of the case, I agree with you.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Even though I live in Canada, I get a lot of cable coverage from the nearby Pacific Northwest. Needless to say, the case gets a lot more coverage here excepting the arrest and the recent conviction.

But this isn't the only guilty verdict against Ms Knox in this incident. She was also found guilty of defamation against Lumumba, a bartender who used to be her boss.

That's one part of this case that is seriously underreported. What would possess anyone to accuse their former employer of a crime--especially of rape and murder? That isn't just 'confusion'; it's utter irresponsibility. Even kids, when asked who broke the lamp, will simply reply "not me" out of habit. It takes a very special type of person to speculate wildly without any evidence whatsoever.

Her family and friends have sought to characterise Ms Knox as a faultless victim whereas the truth is that she'd already had a criminal conviction for hosting an out-of-control party near the University of Washington the same year she departed for Italy.

The cartwheels don't seem out of character for this woman. In fact, I was a little disturbed at the asides about her playing Sharon Stone earlier in this thread. From her past, it's apparent that's precisely what she was trying to do only it doesn't work in real life like it does in the movies.

The appeal should be interesting since it's been reported here that her broken family will have to mortgage themselves to the hilt.Do you have any source for your claim Knox was accused of a crime before departing for Italy? This is the first I have heard such an accusation.

As for incriminating an innocent person in the murder, that has been addressed.

[Fiona]

No skeptigirl: it is not because I know little that I assume you know little as well: it is because you are apparently closing your eyes to a great deal of what is known: and you do not seem to realise that hearing the evidence which is actually presented at a trial is crucial to deciding whether there is a conviction beyond reasonable doubt.

I linked a site above: it covers the trial and it examines much of what is said. It confirms that Agatha's link of the blog post which you dismiss is based on credible sources and summarises the actual evidence which is in play here.

You have now shown twice that you cannot understand the points which I and others are putting to you. But no matter.

The site I have linked is very interesting. In particular the account it gives of the judge's reasons for committing Knox and her boyfriend for trial is informative. It does assume some prior knowledge but you will have that. So what comment have you to make on these issues?

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/understanding_micheli_2_why_judge_micheli_rejected _the_lone_wolf_theory/

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm only picking out this one comment as an example. I don't mean to single it out as a particular 'smoking gun'.

Here (http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C356/) is a site with an interesting discussion on the case and how it has been presented.

Among the things discussed is the apparent break-in into Filomena Romanelli's (the third roomate) room. This excerpt is interesting.

This is combined with many other aspects of the case that are not developed in recent U.S. news reports which provide a much less clear picture of railroading an innocent.

I had noted the case when it first broke, but have not followed it with great attention. When the media storm around the verdict blew up yesterday I was first dismayed, and then disgusted by the overwhelming and obvious spin being projected by U.S. sources. HLN was the worst, but all of them were guilty to some degree.

Understand that I approached this with no particular bias as to her guilt one way or the other, and no real study of the case as it has developed. If anything I would be inclined to hope that she was indeed innocent.

The presentation and vehemence of the media followup to the verdict, along with the style of approach used to spin a position set off alarm bells in my mind. There was virtually no effort to even contemplate the possibility that Knox was guilty. There was a definite aroma of "...doth protest too much." accompanied by a xenophobic stench.

I decided to start by taking a look at a true crime board I've found to be fairly even-handed. A quite large and well frequented one that generally manages good insights which usually prove correct. They started a thread (http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55843) on the case on 11/06/07, and developed an early consensus that there was a strong likelihood of Knox's guilt. That consensus did not change much over two years. It should be noted that most of the posters are American, even though there are many from overseas.

The more that I have reviewed different presentations of the story the less confident I have become that there is a slam-dunk case for prosecutorial misconduct. I won't list a string of links here. They're easily found if anyone wants to take the initiative to look. The thread I linked to offers many, and does so in the chronological order that the case developed, which allows for some additional insight all its own.

My suspicion, almost a certainty, is that if this tragedy had occurred in the U.S, and if Ms. Knox had been prosecuted in the U.S. with the evidence I have seen as available against her, even with all the extra protections of American jurisprudence, she would have been convicted, would not have been sentenced with less than LWOP, and would have been very fortunate not to ride a needle. Others have on far less.

If she's innocent then certainly that is much to be deplored, although it must be said that an erroneous conviction in Italy can bear much less .. fatal results than in the U.S.

If she is guilty then it might be that she should be grateful that she is guilty in Europe.Wow. You cite a web source titled, "True Justice for Meredith Kurcher" as your main source of evidence and a forum discussion as the clincher.

I'll take a closer look later at your sources but at the moment I am really saddened by the claims sources such as these are evidence of someone's guilt.

[Skeptic Ginger]

No skeptigirl: it is not because I know little that I assume you know little as well: it is because you are apparently closing your eyes to a great deal of what is known: and you do not seem to realise that hearing the evidence which is actually presented at a trial is crucial to deciding whether there is a conviction beyond reasonable doubt.

I linked a site above: it covers the trial and it examines much of what is said. It confirms that Agatha's link of the blog post which you dismiss is based on credible sources and summarises the actual evidence which is in play here.

You have now shown twice that you cannot understand the points which I and others are putting to you. But no matter.

The site I have linked is very interesting. In particular the account it gives of the judge's reasons for committing Knox and her boyfriend for trial is informative. It does assume some prior knowledge but you will have that. So what comment have you to make on these issues?

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/understanding_micheli_2_why_judge_micheli_rejected _the_lone_wolf_theory/Now you are citing the same source as quadraginta, "True Justice for Meredith Kurcher" as evidence Knox is guilty. Any chance you could investigate the sources that web site is citing?

You do know the web site uses itself as citations for the evidence I hope?

[quadraginta]

Wow. You cite a web source titled, "True Justice for Meredith Kurcher" as your main source of evidence and a forum discussion as the clincher.

I'll take a closer look later at your sources but at the moment I am really saddened by the claims sources such as these are evidence of someone's guilt.


No. I didn't.

I didn't do anything of the sort, as a matter of fact.

I explicitly said,
"Here (http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C356/) is a site with an interesting discussion on the case and how it has been presented."
I made no mention of it being a "main source". Nor did I imply in any fashion that it was a "clincher" of any sort at all.

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking a confrontational position in regards to anything you have said. I have been doing my own research into the episode, and have not yet arrived at any firm conclusions of my own. I am continuing that study.

It should have been quite clear from my post that my major concern was the large degree of single perspective bias that I was observing. That link was simply an example of a different perspective.

That is how I presented it.

I am more than willing to consider more than one perspective. The tenor of your response makes me less inclined to take yours seriously. It is very reminiscent of the sort of one-sided media frenzy on HLN and other networks that caused me to become suspicious of the whole 'poor, innocent, little American girl' caricature in the first place.

[Fiona]

Now you are citing the same source as quadraginta, "True Justice for Meredith Kurcher" as evidence Knox is guilty. Any chance you could investigate the sources that web site is citing?

You do know the web site uses itself as citations for the evidence I hope?
Today 04:11 AM

Nope. I cited it before. Please note that like quadraginta, I specifically mentioned the nature of the site and some reservations.


http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C339/

This is a site which is dedicated to finding justice for Kerchner: but, acknowledging that, it seems to be serious in how it approaches things and there is a lot of good information there, including links to discussions of the DNA evidence and its status.

I do not know the qualifications of what they describe as their "DNA experts": the information may be there but I have not had time to read it all.

Now do you have anything actually relevant to say in response to their arguments?

[Skeptic Ginger]

No. I didn't.

I didn't do anything of the sort, as a matter of fact.

I explicitly said,
"Here (http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C356/) is a site with an interesting discussion on the case and how it has been presented."
I made no mention of it being a "main source". Nor did I imply in any fashion that it was a "clincher" of any sort at all.

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking a confrontational position in regards to anything you have said. I have been doing my own research into the episode, and have not yet arrived at any firm conclusions of my own. I am continuing that study.

It should have been quite clear from my post that my major concern was the large degree of single perspective bias that I was observing. That link was simply an example of a different perspective.

That is how I presented it.

I am more than willing to consider more than one perspective. The tenor of your response makes me less inclined to take yours seriously. It is very reminiscent of the sort of one-sided media frenzy on HLN and other networks that caused me to become suspicious of the whole 'poor, innocent, little American girl' caricature in the first place.So the web site is interesting. What then is your source that you have used to draw your conclusions?

[Kestrel]

Her family and friends have sought to characterise Ms Knox as a faultless victim whereas the truth is that she'd already had a criminal conviction for hosting an out-of-control party near the University of Washington the same year she departed for Italy.

I don't really understand the relevance of a loud party to a murder case.

Can you explain your reason for posting this bit of trivia?

[Skeptic Ginger]

....Now do you have anything actually relevant to say in response to their arguments?In response to unsupported arguments from a source titled, "Justice for Meredith Kurcher"?

I'm happy to reply to valid sources. And if there is something specific in a less than credible source, I'll attempt to reply. But I'm not going to write an essay in reply to multiple claims in a source titled, "Justice for Meredith Kurcher" or someone's 30+ or - facts posted in a list in a forum post without a single citation. There is Google to answer such challenges to the citations linked to here that support the conclusion Knox is not guilty.

[quadraginta]

<snip>

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking a confrontational position in regards to anything you have said. I have been doing my own research into the episode, and have not yet arrived at any firm conclusions of my own. I am continuing that study.

<snip>


So the web site is interesting. What then is your source that you have used to draw your conclusions?


There appears to be a problem here.

Perhaps it is my writing skills. Perhaps it is your reading skills.

Which do you think it is?

[newton3376]

Have people in this thread gone nuts? The point was only that scientific (aka rational thinking) is based on evidence, not on proof. The reply was to a post demanding I PROVE my conclusion.

The example was idiotic in my opinion....


Wow.

You can say "wow" all you like...as if what I said is somehow "shocking" or scandalous....but I have a feeling that if I was sitting that jury I would have returned a verdict of guilty.

JUST AS THE ACTUAL JURY DID.


Wow.

I'm am floored by this response. Oh well.

Floored? Really?

Once again you seem to imply my statements are shocking or worthy of such a dramatic reaction...I'm afraid the reality of what I said is much more mundane though.

If you have read all the comments in this thread and still believe the jury convicted her IN SPITE of the evidence or lack thereof then I don't know what to tell ya. It seems your mind is made up and nothing would sway it.

[Doghouse Reilly]

I'm American, and doing cartwheels in a police station after you've been brought in for questioning in a murder case is quite bizarre behavior IMHO.

I personally become very physically agitated when stressed, and could easily imagine doing a cartwheel if left alone in a police interrogation room, just to release physical tension and adrenalin.

I said before in a thread about the O.J. Simpson case that anyone who read Vincent Bugliosi's book "Outrage" could not come to any other conclusion than that Simpson was guilty.

In this case, I have to say that anyone who has read Douglas Preston's book "The Monster of Florence" can come to no other conclusion than that the prosecutor in Amanda Knox's case is completely insane and living in a total fantasy world.

It was a clear cut case of an intruder murdering the woman he found in the house. He was clearly linked to the crime and there was absolutely no reason to assume that anyone else was involved. The evidence against Knox is non-existent or flimsy.

[newton3376]

I think the best other narrative is that Guede, and only Guede, did it. His DNA was all over the scene, including on the victim's body, toilet tissue, and tampon (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5033760.ece). His footprints and handprints were at the scene. There is no doubt he was there and had plenty of physical contact with the victim. By contrast, they had to stretch quite a bit to tie Knox or her boyfriend to the scene at all. The victim was supposedly held down, sexually assaulted, and stabbed in the throat, yet they found no DNA on her body from anyone but Guede, nor in the room itself, save for a tiny bit on a bra clasp that had been left at an active crime scene for 40+ days before being tested. And Guede had a history of burglary, including breaking and climbing in through a window higher than the one in this case. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,555980,00.html)

Certainly it is a much simpler and far more common crime: a man sexually assaulted and then murdered a young woman. It is definitely a simpler scenario when contrasted with the prosecution theories, which included a Satanic rite, a sex game gone wrong, and then no real theory at all.

I'm not going to claim that narrative is what happened. I have no idea if she is guilty or not. But, IMO, it seems like a reasonable narrative that fits the evidence.

Is it simpler? Sure.....
More common? Yep....

But from what I have read of the case the circumstances and subsequent actions/reactions would cause me to doubt this. I believe the other two are involved.

Of course to be honest I actually don't care either way...if they are guilty then they should go to prison...if not then no. I have no ax to grind here...but for me (so far at least) I just don't buy that they weren't involved.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I don't get the obsession with the cartwheel in this thread not being relevant. See post #127 if you need to review my position on this matter.

Does post #127 address where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal"?

Or does the humiliation continue?

[newton3376]

While I am in total agreement the police in the US are just as capable of such an ignorant behavioral assessment, I don't think on its face that negates the fact the cultural differences here affected the Italian police's assessment of Knox.

I find it fascinating and somewhat comical that you believe it is "an ignorant behavioral assessment".....

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

With hazy knowledge of the case, I'd been convinced she was guilty... but seeing the post-trial analysis, I'm with Newton and Chicken on this. There's no way she did it.

To be clear, I haven't stated that I think she is definitely innocent. I am more like 50-50 on the whole thing. There is ample reason to be suspicious that she was involved. It's just that there are also enough red flags to give me pause (heck, that the prosecution actually attempted to present the case as a Satanic ritual killing is... well, it doesn't do much for their credibility in my book).

It's also quite possible the prosecutor is a complete, conspiracy-theorist nut, and that Knox is guilty. I'm pretty much on the fence.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

I personally become very physically agitated when stressed, and could easily imagine doing a cartwheel if left alone in a police interrogation room, just to release physical tension and adrenalin.



Oh, that reminds me.

I was once in a very stressful and awful situation which left me frantic. When I was left alone, I dropped down to the floor and did several yoga positions I remembered from high school gym class and some jumping jacks and stretches.

I never, ever do that stuff. Ever. I hadn't done that stuff since high school gym class. I've never done that since.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I had the strangest experience of seeing someone who looked just like Amanda Knox at Piccadilly Circus tonight. Very freaky.

Was she turning a cartwheel?

Are you culturally biased?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The only reason people are halfway making fun of you in this thread is because you label this a cultural misunderstanding, while it's obvious to most it really isn't - that someone acting contrary to what we would expect gets a closer look. You really need to either discard this, or better explain what you mean. Until you do, continuing to label this a cultural misunderstanding is just stupid.

Halfway? :)

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Was she turning a cartwheel?

Are you culturally biased?

I was just curious if he asked her out. Really, what's the worst that could happen?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C339/

This is a site which is dedicated to finding justice for Kerchner: but, acknowledging that, it seems to be serious in how it approaches things and there is a lot of good information there, including links to discussions of the DNA evidence and its status.

I do not know the qualifications of what they describe as their "DNA experts": the information may be there but I have not had time to read it all.

Wait...you mean there's an opposing viewpoint? Such arrogance! Haven't you read the thread? "Skepti"-girl has informed us that there is no doubt Knox is innocent. How dare you suggest otherwise!

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I was just curious if he asked her out. Really, what's the worst that could happen?

Well, obviously she wouldn't kill you, because she has never killed anyone. Apparently we know that as a fact, with no room for doubt. :rolleyes:

[Skeptic Ginger]

I find it fascinating and somewhat comical that you believe it is "an ignorant behavioral assessment".....OK, give us your premise then as to just how the behavior was evidence of guilt. Was doing cartwheels a sign of nervousness, or, was it a sign of total sociopathic depravity concerning the murder? Or is it that acting weird must mean a person is guilty just on that basis alone?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

OK, give us your premise then as to just how the behavior was evidence of guilt. Was doing cartwheels a sign of nervousness, or, was it a sign of total sociopathic depravity concerning the murder?

Or was it a cultural misunderstanding?

[stilicho]

Do you have any source for your claim Knox was accused of a crime before departing for Italy? This is the first I have heard such an accusation.

It's mentioned in several articles including this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091204/wl_time/08599194543000

It isn't an "accusation" either. It's a fact.

As for incriminating an innocent person in the murder, that has been addressed.

Again, all I'm discussing is the character of Ms Knox. You're not in a place where you have access to the Seattle media. It's as though Ms Knox was about to ascend to heaven as Elijah or something.

My take on it is that if the motive appears to be missing and the evidence scant in the trial itself (both things under dispute here) then the character of the criminal is certainly missing here.

----------

By the way, the defence witness claiming that the window was broken from the outside admitted during cross-examination that his theory (which was proposed through a video recreation) did not take into account the shutters.

And that's another piece speaking to character. Not only accusing an innocent man who she obviously knew (he had been her employer) but deliberately staging a break-in to throw police off the trail.

I doubt we'd even be talking about this case if it weren't an attractive American woman in a foreign country but instead a fat bald man slitting the throat of his roommate in Wisconsin and setting it up to look like his boss did it.

[Doghouse Reilly]

Doug Preston's book in which he covers the circumstances of the insane prosecutor attempting to accuse innocent people of crimes they had nothing to do with was written well before the Amanda Knox case.

The Amanda Knox case is exactly the sort of case you would expect to happen after reading about this man. He sees conspiracies everywhere and is obsessed with Satanic cult murders, to the point that he views everyone through that lens of suspicion.

I've been following Knox's case since the very beginning and it has always been clear to anyone willing to assess the evidence objectively that the only things linking her to the crime are imagination and inference. The physical evidence makes it abundantly clear that it was a sadly typical murder performed by a single male intruder.

And the comments about trusting judges and juries more than yourself are scary. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the remarkable miscarriages of justice that have occurred in this country, let alone a country like Italy where the justice system is based in archaic notions of the supremacy of the prosecution and the inferiority and lowly position of the accused, would know that juries and judges can accomplish remarkable and unbelievable feats of stupidity.

As far as her false accusation of the innocent bartender, any shock at that reveals a profound ignorance of the behavior of people being falsely accused and held in isolation and questioned under extreme duress.

[stilicho]

Is it simpler? Sure.....
More common? Yep....

But from what I have read of the case the circumstances and subsequent actions/reactions would cause me to doubt this. I believe the other two are involved.

Of course to be honest I actually don't care either way...if they are guilty then they should go to prison...if not then no. I have no ax to grind here...but for me (so far at least) I just don't buy that they weren't involved.

That's the weird part, isn't it?

The supporters of Ms Knox are trying to paint the Italian justice system (police, investigators, jurors, prosecutors, judges) as incompetent and unable to 'properly' assess a case.

But then, having Guede in prison for the crime already, why not just fudge the rest of the evidence and stamp the file "Case Closed"? Why go through the expense and possible embarrassment of ensnaring two other innocent people? Heck, if they were incompetent clowns, why even go as far as getting Guede? They already had Lumumba and, if entirely loopy and reckless, could have just hit him with hoses until he confessed.

Instead, and contrary to the Seattle media accounts, the Italians worked tirelessly to obtain justice for the Kercher family and to get the evidence right.

(Note, too, that the Italians will be unable to allow Ms Knox to serve her sentence in the USA, closer to her family and supporters, because that country still puts people to death for capital crimes. So much for the uncivilised Italians theory!)

[stilicho]

The Amanda Knox case is exactly the sort of case you would expect to happen after reading about this man. He sees conspiracies everywhere and is obsessed with Satanic cult murders, to the point that he views everyone through that lens of suspicion.

And so did the police? The investigators? Heck, didn't an Italian write The Divine Comedy? Obviously their justice system doesn't work. :boggled:

I've been following Knox's case since the very beginning and it has always been clear to anyone willing to assess the evidence objectively that the only things linking her to the crime are imagination and inference. The physical evidence makes it abundantly clear that it was a sadly typical murder performed by a single male intruder.

Except for the jurors, I suppose. Are they in on it too?

As far as her false accusation of the innocent bartender, any shock at that reveals a profound ignorance of the behavior of people being falsely accused and held in isolation and questioned under extreme duress.

Yes. This is what Ms Knox' uncritical defenders call him.

He wasn't any old bartender or some random individual she picked out of a line-up. No. Ms Knox tried to frame someone whom she knew and had worked for. She will still be in prison or indebted for the remainder of her life for that alone.

You just don't get it, do you?

[Doghouse Reilly]

It's mentioned in several articles including this one:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091204/wl_time/08599194543000

It isn't an "accusation" either. It's a fact.


What, the thing about throwing a noisy party? Am I missing something?

Also from the article:



"Their behavior at the police station seemed to me really inappropriate ... They sat opposite each other, Amanda put her feet up on Raffaele's legs and made faces at him. Everyone cried except Amanda and Raffaele. I never saw them crying. They were kissing each other."

These types of comments irritate me to no end. I can't believe the degree to which human beings lack the understanding of just how pathetic their abilities are to assess the inner emotions and thoughts of others based on absolutely ridiculous factors like whether or not they were crying.

I didn't cry at my little sister's funeral, because that's just not me, even though it was ripping me apart inside beyond anything I'd experienced. Someone came up to me and said "you don't seem very bothered by the fact that your sister died." I couldn't believe someone was that callous and clueless. It seemed like something a child would say, just as all of the similar statements about Amanda's behavior seem to be.

[NewtonTrino]

I continue to be astounded at how willing people are to put a 22 year old girl in jail for 26 years on the flimsiest of evidence. Doesn't anyone else believe in protecting the innocent? I would rather that a few killers go free than one innocent person have their life chucked away in an italian prison.

I would be completely in favor of jailing her is there was any evidence AT ALL that she was violent criminal. Anyone who hasn't looked into the prosectuor (who btw is under indictment for misconduct) should look at this issue more closely.

1) We already have a guy tied by the physical evidence to the crime.
2) no motive
3) crazed prosecutor who sees conspiracy theories about satanists everywhere
4) 30 hour police interrogation with no lawyer present (and people wonder where the odd behavior and accusations against others come from)

Come on people, if she commited this crime it was almost perfect!

Can anyone expain the motive in this case? Can anyone show me any evidence she has ever commited violence against anyone?

Acting odd while under the pressure of a murder investigation is simply not evidence of anything.

IMHO we should be bending over backwards to get these types of cases correct. The italian system of justice seems extremely crappy looking in from outside. I fully admit the US has it's problems as well but the algorithm that the italian system uses is just plan broken.

[stilicho]

I didn't cry at my little sister's funeral, because that's just not me...

Close to being a strawman.

We're talking about a rape and murder of a roommate and your subsequent framing of your boss. I'll bet you've never experienced any of that and that your behaviour at your sister's funeral would have had no bearing on it either.

Again, the "thing about throwing a noisy party" wasn't to you but to SG, who'd never heard about it before. I threw wild parties when I was in university, too, but never got a citation. Maybe I was just lucky.

Just remember that it's not the Italian justice system that was on trial. It was a young woman who had tried to frame her boss for the rape and murder of her roommate. And the issue of her character is only one of the things clearly glossed over in the Seattle media.

If you want to talk about personal experiences, why not offer up any anecdotes you have about being in police custody, or even being falsely accused of a crime by an ex-employee? That would have more weight in the discussion.

[stilicho]

I continue to be astounded at how willing people are to put a 22 year old girl in jail for 26 years on the flimsiest of evidence. Doesn't anyone else believe in protecting the innocent?

There will be an appeal. I don't have the cite but I believe it's actually automatic in Italy or close to it. Perhaps we have a legal beagle here or someone familiar with the Italian justice system.

I fully admit the US has it's problems as well but the algorithm that the italian system uses is just plan broken.

This is where you go off track. You do know, don't you, that the US still sentences people to death. Italy doesn't.

The sentence is in line with those in the US such as the recent one involving record producer Phil Spector.

----------------

It sounds as though there are two issues here: (1) Is Ms Knox guilty? (2) Is the Italian justice system too primitive to properly handle rape-murder cases?

On the first, we have to agree with the judgement without any better evidence than what was presented and examined. On the second, we really need a legal expert or someone better acquainted with it. We cannot judge it on the basis of a single case or someone's book.

[NewtonTrino]

I'm judging the Italian system as being broken because the algorithm they use for running the court seems like it would tend to convict innocent people. See my description above in the thread re: how the jury works for example.

The system seems biased towards the prosecution due to the way the jury decides punishment and votes. I would expect it to generate sentences less than a place like the US but to more often convict innocent people.

Also again I'm not saying that the US system is perfect. The US has more peope in prison than any other first world country. It's not IMHO because of a corrupt court system but because of the nanny state crap we pull as well as tendency towards harsh punishment by the right wingers.

[Philip]

Well, obviously she wouldn't kill you, because she has never killed anyone. Apparently we know that as a fact, with no room for doubt. :rolleyes:

I don't think anyone is saying there is no doubt that she is innocent.

But at least in the US, the burden of proof is not on the defendant. There is certainly very much reasonable doubt that she is guilty.

There is no physical evidence placing Knox in the victim's room even though there plentiful physical evidence and Guede's own testimony placing Guede in the room.

The only physical evidence placing Solecito in the room is DNA on Kercher's bra clasp which was recovered from the flat 46 days after the murder after the place had been greatly disturbed.

The knife that the prosecution claims was the murder weapon was found in Solecito's apartment so supposedly Knox and Solecito brought the weapon back to Solecito's apartment after murdering Kercher with Guede.

The prosecution supposedly found Kercher's DNA on the tip of the knife, but the sample was too small for the DNA test to be repeated by analysts for the defense and the knife tested negative for blood.

Defense experts testified the bloody footprint elsewhere in the flat was more consistent with Guede's foot than Solecito's.

The existence of stains of Kercher's and Knox's blood in the bathroom while there was none of Knox's DNA in the murder room is more consistent with two menstruating women sharing a bathroom than Knox being injured in the scuffle in the bedroom and then leaving her own blood and Kercher's blood in the bathroom.

The blog post quoted by Agatha makes many unsubstantiated claims. Any statement made by Knox or Solecito that is not verified by the prosecution is claimed to be lie rather than a mistake or confusion from a night in which they admittedly smoked pot. It assumes the broken window in the other flatmate's bedroom was due to a faked break-in and that Knox was the person that faked the break-in.

That the apartment could be broken into without neighbors noticing is proven by the fact that the empty apartment has been broken into at least twice since the murder and the mattress from Kercher's bedroom has been stolen.

The blog post makes extraordinary claims about Knox's and Solecito's characters that are contradicted by their friends and families and academic records. It even places significance on the nickname Foxy Knoxy which according to friends and family dates back to her childhood and described her soccer skill at the time, not sexual prowess.

What the hell is with that anyway? Are there a lot of Puritans here? Even if Knox had sex with multiple men, that's not evidence she'd murder someone in a drug and sex game.

Some people seem to be assuming the Perugia jury must have been reliable and no more prone to bias than a US jury.

The Perugia jury was selected from the general Perugia population with no attempt being made to screen the jury member for biases or prior influences as would have been done in a US jury trial.

The jury was not sequestered from news reports and outside discussion of the case during the months long trial.

Apparently the burden of proof is far weaker in the Italian courts, bacause only a majority of jurors is required - not unanimity.

I could go on, but I'd be repeating more of what I put in my long previous post that was apparently ignored by those who have cited evidence that has been repeatedly discredited earlier in the thread.

I could maybe understand how some posters from countries with a far weaker burden of proof by state in their legal system might say they're suspicious of the defendants hence the posters would convict the defendants, but I don't see how any US poster could say "The defendants had inconsistent stories and behaved in a manner I wouldn't have, so I would declare them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

And yes, you can find cases in the US where juries have convicted persons based on flimsy evidence too. Those convictions were also travesties of justice just as the conviction of Knox and Solecito is a travesty of justice.

[KoihimeNakamura]

stillicho: IIRC, Skeptigirl lives (or did until recently) in and around Seattle, WA.

[Philip]

It was a young woman who had tried to frame her boss for the rape and murder of her roommate.

The accusation of Luhumba came at the end of what was 30 hour interrogation (a 41 hour interrogation according to her father) with no food, no sleep, and no lawyer and with some physical abuse. According to Knox, the police suggested she include Luhumba. If, as you say, she was trying to "frame" Luhumba, why didn't she mention him earlier and save herself 30 to 41 hours of abuse.

Even if the broken window and scattered belongings in the other bedroom was a faked breakin, there's no reason to ascribe it to Knox instead of Guede, and it makes no sense to claim that Knox did all this with plans to implicate Luhumba after a day-and-a-half-long interrogation.

As I mention previously, I've said crazy things too under the influence of extreme sleep deprivation.

If you want to talk about personal experiences, why not offer up any anecdotes you have about being in police custody, or even being falsely accused of a crime by an ex-employee? That would have more weight in the discussion.

I have been falsely accused of a crime outside of the legal system where the accuser didn't even have the excuse of extreme duress, but I didn't assume my accuser committed the crime of which I was accused.

Tell me, do you really think the evidence against Knox reaches the US standard of proving her "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

She wasn't convicted of not being an angel; she was convicted of murder.

[GreyICE]

After thirty hours with no sleep, food, and under constant harsh questioning, you'd probably blurt out whatever came to mind just to make it stop so you could eat and sleep and stop the suffering.

It's well known you can get people to say virtually anything under enough stress (one of the reasons torture is so dramatically ineffective).

[stilicho]

The accusation of Luhumba came at the end of what was 30 hour interrogation (a 41 hour interrogation according to her father) with no food, no sleep, and no lawyer and with some physical abuse. According to Knox, the police suggested she include Luhumba. If, as you say, she was trying to "frame" Luhumba, why didn't she mention him earlier and save herself 30 to 41 hours of abuse.

You do realise, I hope, that the Perugia police have filed a defamation suit over the allegations of abuse levelled by the Knox family. Assuming I was beaten, threatened, deprived of amenities, and isolated from assistance, I would likely confess to any crime myself. The last thing I could ever contemplate is to create a fictional account and naming someone that I knew or worked for.

Maybe we're made of different stuff.

I would have to dig for cites but people falsely accused and subjected to physical and mental abuse will almost always confess to doing the crime themselves rather than to implicate someone else. That's how people are. They accept responsibility, often, even when they know they are innocent.

Anecdotally, didn't KSM confess to additional crimes he couldn't possibly have committed after being abused?

I have been falsely accused of a crime outside of the legal system where the accuser didn't even have the excuse of extreme duress, but I didn't assume my accuser committed the crime of which I was accused.

I sure hope you sued after overcoming your shock.

Tell me, do you really think the evidence against Knox reaches the US standard of proving her "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".

It certainly appears to. I don't have expertise on how much DNA is supposed to be conclusive. Ms Knox' defense team merely argued that it was too little. If that position was rejected then it was probably indefensible.

[stilicho]

After thirty hours with no sleep, food, and under constant harsh questioning, you'd probably blurt out whatever came to mind just to make it stop so you could eat and sleep and stop the suffering.

The length of the interrogation by Perugia police is certainly disputed. I have seen it, in the sympathetic Seattle press, variously set at six, fourteen, and more than 24 hours. Which was it? I've noticed that her defenders nearly always set it as long as possible. Why?

We're certainly painting the Italian police as kind of a Keystone Kops crew who, finding the victim's roommate, beat her into providing Lumumba's name and then let him go after he spends two weeks in prison for lack of evidence that they apparently don't need to convict someone anyways. If they wanted to investigate, prosecute, convict and sentence someone carelessly, then why wouldn't they just take Ms Knox' allegations on their face? Why continue to see if the story about the broken window fits the evidence? Why worry about whether anything was stolen? Why pursue Guede after they already had one to three culprits in hand? (The list goes on and on.)

They certainly went to elaborate lengths after the initial interrogation to disprove the "confession" they'd already extracted.

[Elaedith]

<snip>It certainly appears to. I don't have expertise on how much DNA is supposed to be conclusive. Ms Knox' defense team merely argued that it was too little. If that position was rejected then it was probably indefensible.

No, they argued that the only DNA from Knox was on a knife which wasn't even the murder weapon.

[Matthew Best]

One of the most worrying aspects of the case is the prosecutor, Mignini, whose theory of how the murder happened seemed unsupported even by the evidence he himself presented.

And then there's this:

Why? For years, Mignini has followed the dark satanic conspiracy theories of an Italian blogger named Gabriella Carlizzi who feels she knows what happened the night Meredith Kercher was murdered.

"They had decided that to re-enact one of the many rituals in literature that are performed during Halloween," she says.

Carlizzi posted her satanic ritual murder theory on her blog. Mignini later presented it as fact during Rudy Guede's trial.

"He used her as a very important witness in the Monster of Florence case and now it appears that he's using her as a source for the Amanda Knox case," says Preston. "Now, where does this woman get her evidence? She speaks to a deceased priest named Father Gabriele."

I don't know how true this is, but it sounds worrying.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/08/48hours/main4929950_page4.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBod y

[Policenaut]

What of their whereabouts the night of the murder? Is it not correct that their alibi had been shown to be false by multiple witnesses?

[Matthew Best]

I guess that depends on what you mean by "shown to be false".

[Philip]

You do realise, I hope, that the Perugia police have filed a defamation suit over the allegations of abuse levelled by the Knox family.

We can't know for sure because the Perugia police didn't make an audio recording of the interrogation as normally would have been done in the US.

Assuming I was beaten, threatened, deprived of amenities, and isolated from assistance, I would likely confess to any crime myself. The last thing I could ever contemplate is to create a fictional account and naming someone that I knew or worked for.

Here is a transcript of Knox's statement that she signed after her interrogation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html

Clearly she was being lied to by the police about the strength of their evidence and what Solecito was saying. Her mention of Patrice Lumumba is only to refer to statments she made the previous night. She said that her vision which included Lumumba seemed unreal like her dreams that she was at the house hearing screams. We just have the police's word to what degree she implicated Lumumba. Exactly what she said about Lumumba, how badly she implicated him, and how much she was coached to implicate others was not recorded.

The evidence of wrongdoing by the interrogators was enough that a higher court declared the jury was not supposed to consider Knox's statement in determing her guilt of murder, but, because of the vagaries of the Italian court system, the same jury was supposed to consider her statement in deciding whether Lumumba was defamed, and I don't see how they could not have also had her interrogation influence their murder verdict.

Anyway, that's not evidence Knox murdered Kercher and I don't think an allegation made under duress by the police would be successful grounds for winning a defamation lawsuit in the US.

I would have to dig for cites but people falsely accused and subjected to physical and mental abuse will almost always confess to doing the crime themselves rather than to implicate someone else. That's how people are. They accept responsibility, often, even when they know they are innocent.

Please find some cites. I would think that more people would implicate others to end the questioning and lessen their own punishment under duress.

The Salem witch trials are a historical case of young women who might have been hanged as witches themselves if they hadn't implicated others.

In the McCarthy era, people were successfully pressured to name names of alleged communists under threat of being punished by the HCUAA and losing their careers.

A more recent shameful case in the US is that of the West Memphis 3 ( wm3.org ) where a young man falsely implicated himself and two friends under a long harsh interrogation only snippets of which was recorded.

I thought that a standard tactic totalitarian regimes use is torture not only to extract confession but also implicate others.

I know that I heard an interview with an Iranian dissident who was harshly interrogated after the post-election protests and was asked both to confess to absurd crimes and to name other members of the pro-democracy movement.

Anecdotally, didn't KSM confess to additional crimes he couldn't possibly have committed after being abused?

Yes, and since recordings of his interrogation weren't made public, I'll bet he also named names.

I sure hope you sued after overcoming your shock.

The Streisand effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect) and lack of money and people willing to testify discourage me from doing so.


It certainly appears to. I don't have expertise on how much DNA is supposed to be conclusive. Ms Knox' defense team merely argued that it was too little. If that position was rejected then it was probably indefensible.

Which DNA evidence? Have you read any of the repeated posts about the inadequacy of the DNA evidence?

There was no DNA of Knox in the murder room even though she was supposed to be part of a brutal rape and murder and there was plenty of Guede's DNA in the room. How did she manage to leave no hair, saliva, skin flakes, or blood in the room? Do you believe she could have removed all her evidence without disturbing the DNA evidence of Guede?

The only evidence linking Solecito to the scene was a bit of DNA on Kercher's bra clasp which was left at the crime scene for 46 days of trampling by the police before being recovered and tested. Why was there no DNA of Solecito recovered from the murder room at the time of the original investigation of the scene?

Are you referring to the DNA on the alleged murder weapon? First of all defense experts showed the knife was inconsistent with the wounds on Kircher. The knife was in Solecito's apartment so supposedly Knox and Solecito took it back from the murder scene and put it in the kitchen drawer. Knox frequented the apartment so it's undestandable that her DNA was on the handle.

The knife tested negative for blood. The alleged bit of biological material on the tip of the knife that the prosecution claimed contained Kercher's DNA was so small that no independent lab could repeat the prosecution's test. You do realize the importance of repeatability in science in general and especially in forensics where someone freedom is at stake.

Why do you assume that the only reason a biased jury would reject independent experts' claims is that the claims are indefensible.

Skeptigirl has provided links to sites listing people wrongfully convicted in the US. Are you going to assume that all those cases were correctly decided in spite of evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, false testimony, and jury bias?

[JihadJane]

Here are a couple of articles touching on cultural aspects of the case:

She-devil of family's nightmares or Amelie of Seattle: the two faces of Amanda Knox (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/04/two-faces-of-amanda-knox)


Meredith Kercher murder: guilty verdicts put spotlight on Italian justice
Were the judges in the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito influenced by factors beyond the investigation? (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/06/amanda-knox-meredith-kercher-trial-perugia)


Some of the cultural-divide aspects of this trial are mirrored in this thread by the flavor of idiotic posts such as this (addressing the OP writer):

And the prosecutors, police, jury and judge all say she's guilty.

Fancy that. To think that you might*** be wrong. :rolleyes:


***Are

Childish trust in authority can lead to all kinds of travesties and can enable prosecutors, police, jury and judge to close ranks simply to save face and to preserve their authority.

Here are the words of an Italian reporter (see second link, above):

"Sentencing to life imprisonment two young people, aged 22 and 25, would mean destroying their lives forever," ... "but letting them off would mean gainsaying not only the entire investigation, but also the judges who have reached decisions before them."



Does post #127 address where exactly in America turning cartwheels in a police station after being arrested for murder is considered "normal"?

Or does the humiliation continue?

I have found your behavior on this thread, The Central Scrutinizer, to be rather weird, not to say immature.

Do you realize that publically advertizing the pleasure you creepily gain from witnessing humiliation could one day get you put away for murder?

;)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As other posters have mentioned, I, too, could easily imagine doing the equivalent of cartwheels in such a stressful context. It may also be that Knox is mildly autistic. Her gauche social behavior suggests this.

That anyone believes that such a behavior is reason to suspect that someone is a murderer is mind-boggling.

However, her hosting a loud party has done it for me. She definitely dunnit! ;)

[Philip]

The length of the interrogation by Perugia police is certainly disputed. I have seen it, in the sympathetic Seattle press, variously set at six, fourteen, and more than 24 hours. Which was it? I've noticed that her defenders nearly always set it as long as possible. Why?
See my previous post about the interrogation. I've heard conflicting reports about the length of the interrogation too. The shortest length I've heard is fourteen hours. It is clear from Knox's written statement that it was a minimum of overnight and long enough that she was sleep-deprived and confused. If the police had actually made an audio recording we'd know more.


We're certainly painting the Italian police as kind of a Keystone Kops crew who, finding the victim's roommate, beat her into providing Lumumba's name and then let him go after he spends two weeks in prison for lack of evidence that they apparently don't need to convict someone anyways. If they wanted to investigate, prosecute, convict and sentence someone carelessly, then why wouldn't they just take Ms Knox' allegations on their face? Why continue to see if the story about the broken window fits the evidence? Why worry about whether anything was stolen? Why pursue Guede after they already had one to three culprits in hand? (The list goes on and on.)

The physical part of the duress was being cupped on the head some according to Knox. The duress was mostly provided by sleep and food deprivation, accusation, lies about the strength of the evidence the police had, and emotional bludgeoning.

Read Knox's statement linked in my previous post. The police declared it a "partial confession". The implication of Lumumba was in a dream which she said seemed unreal like her vision that she was at the house at the time of the murder outside of Kercher's bedroom and heard screaming. Lumumba was released because he had an ironclad alibi. If he didn't have one the prosecutor probably would have charged him too.

They certainly went to elaborate lengths after the initial interrogation to disprove the "confession" they'd already extracted.

You've got it backward. The police went to elaborate lengths to confirm their interpretation of Knox's statements under interrogation. Every bit of evidence was interpreted as confirming Knox and Solecito's guilt. Just as everyone in this thread who is convinced of Knox guilt assumes, the police assumed that not only was the broken window evidence of a faked breakin, but that Knox faked the breakin.

Any inconsistency in Knox and Solecito's testimony was interpreted as deception rather than confusion. Knox's behavior and Myspace page was interpreted as showing that she was a cold she-devil.

The prosecution accepted testimony of witnesses who came forward months after the murder with stories they had made no mention of immediately after the murder. A store owner, who had been questioned by the police immediately after the murder and made no mention of having seen Knox and Solecito at that time, came forward months later and testified that he had seen the defendants together the morning after the murder. A homeless man who wasn't questioned until months later testified at trial that he saw the defendants together one night but couldn't even remember when. His initial claim of when he saw the defendants together was before Knox and Solecito had even met.

As suggested previously in this thread and in a linked NY Times column, the prosecutor, who had a previous record of doggedly pursuing outrageous allegations, had to save face and was determined to get a conviction of Knox and Solecito regardless of the lack of evidence.

Most importantly, you've got the burden of proof all wrong. The prosecution made the extraordinary claim that Knox and Solecito, who had only met a couple of weeks earlier, had tried to force Kercher into a sex game with them and Guede of whom Knox and Solecito had only a passing awareness.

The prosecution claims that Knox slashed Kercher's throat while Guede and Solecito held her down. The prosecution also expects us to believe that even though Guede's DNA was found in Kercher's room in abundance, it's not surprising that none of Knox's DNA was found in the murder room and that the only DNA from Solecito was on Kercher's bra clasp recovered from a contaminated scene 46 days later.

The prosecution also expects us to dismiss the more rational claim by the defense that Guede acted alone even though only Guede had a criminal record, only Guede had been previously arrested with a knife in his hand after a breakin, only Guede admitted to having actually been in Kercher's room the night of the murder, only Guede's DNA was found in the murder room and on Kercher's body, only Guede's bloody handprint was found in Kercher's room, and only Guede fled the country even though Knox's mother had asked her to come home after the murder.

There are far more holes in the prosecution's case then the defense's.

According to standard US judge's instructions, when two equally plausible explanations for item of evidence are presented to a jury, the jury is supposed to give preference to the explanation favoring the defendant.

Those convinced of Knox's guilt seem to be saying that we should prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Knox is innocent. That's bass-ackward.

It has been repeatedly shown that there is more than reasonable doubt that Knox and Solecito are guilty.

[Fiona]

Ok. It is clear that the top of skeptigirl's game is poisoning the well of anything that disagrees with her predetermined conclusion. It is clear that she believe that her sources are more objective than other sources, though I do not see that has been established. But let us look at what the other side say about those matters which she believes prove the case is a miscarriage of justice

1. The quality of the DNA evidence.

a.The knife.
The prosecution states that the knife found in Sollecito's home had traces of Knox's dna on the handle.That is not disputed and is explained by the fact that she regularly cooked in his apartment. Fair enough.

The prosecution states that a small trace of Kerchner's DNA was found on the knife. This was established by tests done in the lab and under the supervision of Dr Stefanoni, who is an internationally respected forensic scientist based in Rome. In July

Both Dr. Renato Biondo, the head of the DNA Unit of the scientific police, and the Kerchers’ own DNA expert, Professor Francesca Torricelli, provided independent confirmation that this forensic finding is accurate and reliable.

They did not dispute the DNA was on the knife: they did not dispute it was Kerchner's. Socellito, when told of the finding, said that the reason the DNA was there was because on one occasion, while Kerchber was cooking at his home, he accidentally pricked her with the knife. But Kerchner had never been to his flat so that was really not very helpful.

There are two parts to the defence case:

There was not a big enough sample to allow for a re-test. That is certainly a problem, but it is not enough to overturn the finding. Dr Stefanano is an internationally respected forensic scientist who led the forensic team.She is based in Rome. She is experienced and so is her team, who also came from Rome. There is no reason whatsoever to presume that she had any bias against Knox, and none to indicate that she perjured herself. One may regret the lack of a retest but it does not seem that the defence are arguing that the dna was not there at all. And indeed that would need quite a conspiracy with no obvious motive. Dr Stefanoni found odd marks on the knife which she considers indicate that the knife was vigorously cleaned. If this is the case then the small sample size is not that surprising: are we to ignore evidence in these circumstances? If it is all we have then perhaps: but it isn't

The second part rests on the possibility that the knife was contaminated. That is, on the face of it, more plausible. It could have been contaminated in the course of the investigation or it could have been contaminated in the lab.

The testimony shows that the investigators who found the knife were a different team from the one that searched the cottage: the knife was found and put in a plastic bag, which was then put into a box. There does not seem to be any possibility of contamination at that stage

Dr Stefanoni denies that contamination happened in her lab. "Well she would, wouldn't she" might be in play. And this is possible. She has a reputation to defend and it is plausible that she would wish to state that the procedures and precautions taken were of a high standard. Dr Stefanoni addressed this in her testimony. She said that there has been no instance of contamination of this sort in her lab in the last 7 years. She pointed to the fact that no DNA from any of her team was found on any of the objects tested: if contamination was a problem it would be curious that only Kerchner's DNA was transferred: sloppy procedures would be more believable if there were other contaminants from lab staff, for example: but there weren't.

The defence case rests on a possibility which exists in every case of forensic evidence of this kind: and for which there is no evidence at all. Anything can happen. The jury has to judge whether it did happen. That necessarily rests on the case presented and the credibility of the witnesses presenting it. That is true in any court in the world. There is nothing flawed in it.

b. The bra clasp.

The prosecution say that Socellito's DNA was found on Kerchner's bra clasp. Once again this is not disputed. The sample was larger and firmly attached to the clasp. The defence case rests on the fact that the clasp was not collected till a long time after the event: that in the meantime it lay about in the room where the murder happened: and that it was contaminated during that period; or later, in the laboratory.

Once again the question of contamination in the laboratory depends on the view one takes of the competence of Dr Stefanoni and her team: so naturally the defence have questioned that and the witness has testified as to the procedures adopted etc. Again this comes down to competence and, aside from this case, there does not seem to be anyone who is denying that Dr Stefanoni is respected in her field.

The time delay is important. But it is only important if one can show a source for contamination during that period: by itself it is not enough. The prosecution point out that dna is often collected long after the events it relates to and is regularly accepted as evidence: so the defence need to show that this delay led to contamination: not just that it was there

According to testimony the only source for Socellito's DNA in that house was a cigarette butt in the kitchen. So it seems that in order for contamination to occur before it got to the lab it would have to have been transferred from that; but again, no biological traces from any of the investigating team were found. If passive transfer of DNA were easy and the procedures sloppy it seems reasonable to suppose that other contamination would be in evidence. Perhaps there is a reason why that is not the case and someone will explain that. If it is true then I presume the defence will have shown that in spades to the jury, because it is rather important

Again, anything can happen: and it is the defence's job to try to show that things helpful to their case did happen. As it is the prosecution's job to show that they did not. It is for the jury to decide on the basis of the evidence presented and their judgement of the credibility of the witnesses. That is how courts work. If the jury was to accept uncritically every possible explanation which tended to exonerate the defendant we would never get any convictions at all. The test is "beyond reasonable doubt": but that does not mean beyond any possible doubt and the jury is not expected to suspend their critical faculties. They are expected to use them.

As it happens the DNA evidence on the knife and the bra clasp were not the main bits of evidence which led the judge to commit Knox and Socellito for trial. This is shown in the part of his detailed judgement after Guede's conviction which I linked above. A major plank underpinning that decision was the footprint evidence. The judge could not ignore that and neither should we.

I will come back to that if no-one else does but I have no time at present

[volatile]

Guardian Analysis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/06/amanda-knox-meredith-kercher-trial-perugia

Not that what they heard in court was all fact. The presiding judge, Giancarlo Massei, made a broad interpretation of what constituted evidence. Witnesses were allowed to repeat hearsay and to give their subjective assessment of people's attitudes and emotions. This was particularly important for Amanda Knox, because a key element of the prosecution's case was that her apparent lack of emotion after the discovery of her flatmate's corpse was an indication of her hatred of Kercher, and that her hatred of the British student had led her to murder her.

Yet very little evidence was produced to sustain that argument.

[Philip]

1. The quality of the DNA evidence.

a.The knife.
The prosecution states that the knife found in Sollecito's home had traces of Knox's dna on the handle.That is not disputed and is explained by the fact that she regularly cooked in his apartment. Fair enough.

The prosecution states that a small trace of Kerchner's DNA was found on the knife. This was established by tests done in the lab and under the supervision of Dr Stefanoni, who is an internationally respected forensic scientist based in Rome. In July

They did not dispute the DNA was on the knife: they did not dispute it was Kerchner's. Socellito, when told of the finding, said that the reason the DNA was there was because on one occasion, while Kerchber was cooking at his home, he accidentally pricked her with the knife. But Kerchner had never been to his flat so that was really not very helpful.

There are two parts to the defence case:

There was not a big enough sample to allow for a re-test. That is certainly a problem, but it is not enough to overturn the finding. Dr Stefanano is an internationally respected forensic scientist who led the forensic team.She is based in Rome. She is experienced and so is her team, who also came from Rome. There is no reason whatsoever to presume that she had any bias against Knox, and none to indicate that she perjured herself. One may regret the lack of a retest but it does not seem that the defence are arguing that the dna was not there at all. And indeed that would need quite a conspiracy with no obvious motive. Dr Stefanoni found odd marks on the knife which she considers indicate that the knife was vigorously cleaned. If this is the case then the small sample size is not that surprising: are we to ignore evidence in these circumstances? If it is all we have then perhaps: but it isn't

The second part rests on the possibility that the knife was contaminated. That is, on the face of it, more plausible. It could have been contaminated in the course of the investigation or it could have been contaminated in the lab.

The testimony shows that the investigators who found the knife were a different team from the one that searched the cottage: the knife was found and put in a plastic bag, which was then put into a box. There does not seem to be any possibility of contamination at that stage

Dr Stefanoni denies that contamination happened in her lab. "Well she would, wouldn't she" might be in play. And this is possible. She has a reputation to defend and it is plausible that she would wish to state that the procedures and precautions taken were of a high standard. Dr Stefanoni addressed this in her testimony. She said that there has been no instance of contamination of this sort in her lab in the last 7 years. She pointed to the fact that no DNA from any of her team was found on any of the objects tested: if contamination was a problem it would be curious that only Kerchner's DNA was transferred: sloppy procedures would be more believable if there were other contaminants from lab staff, for example: but there weren't.

The defence case rests on a possibility which exists in every case of forensic evidence of this kind: and for which there is no evidence at all. Anything can happen. The jury has to judge whether it did happen. That necessarily rests on the case presented and the credibility of the witnesses presenting it. That is true in any court in the world. There is nothing flawed in it.

b. The bra clasp.

The prosecution say that Socellito's DNA was found on Kerchner's bra clasp. Once again this is not disputed. The sample was larger and firmly attached to the clasp. The defence case rests on the fact that the clasp was not collected till a long time after the event: that in the meantime it lay about in the room where the murder happened: and that it was contaminated during that period; or later, in the laboratory.

Once again the question of contamination in the laboratory depends on the view one takes of the competence of Dr Stefanoni and her team: so naturally the defence have questioned that and the witness has testified as to the procedures adopted etc. Again this comes down to competence and, aside from this case, there does not seem to be anyone who is denying that Dr Stefanoni is respected in her field.

The time delay is important. But it is only important if one can show a source for contamination during that period: by itself it is not enough. The prosecution point out that dna is often collected long after the events it relates to and is regularly accepted as evidence: so the defence need to show that this delay led to contamination: not just that it was there

According to testimony the only source for Socellito's DNA in that house was a cigarette butt in the kitchen. So it seems that in order for contamination to occur before it got to the lab it would have to have been transferred from that; but again, no biological traces from any of the investigating team were found. If passive transfer of DNA were easy and the procedures sloppy it seems reasonable to suppose that other contamination would be in evidence. Perhaps there is a reason why that is not the case and someone will explain that. If it is true then I presume the defence will have shown that in spades to the jury, because it is rather important

Again, anything can happen: and it is the defence's job to try to show that things helpful to their case did happen. As it is the prosecution's job to show that they did not. It is for the jury to decide on the basis of the evidence presented and their judgement of the credibility of the witnesses. That is how courts work. If the jury was to accept uncritically every possible explanation which tended to exonerate the defendant we would never get any convictions at all. The test is "beyond reasonable doubt": but that does not mean beyond any possible doubt and the jury is not expected to suspend their critical faculties. They are expected to use them.

As it happens the DNA evidence on the knife and the bra clasp were not the main bits of evidence which led the judge to commit Knox and Socellito for trial. This is shown in the part of his detailed judgement after Guede's conviction which I linked above. A major plank underpinning that decision was the footprint evidence. The judge could not ignore that and neither should we.

I will come back to that if no-one else does but I have no time at present

Thank you for your post, Fiona. Yours is the only post with more substantial arguments for the prosecution's case. I've read so many things published in more sensationalist media that were full of misstatements about the testimony of the defendants, overstatements of the physical evidence, failure to point out unreliability of witnesses that came forward long after the murder, salacious claims about the defendants, and always the worst interpretations of the significance of the defendants behavior.

Please post a link to where you got your information. I'd like to read it too.

Your post reduces my suspicion of a false match in the DNA test of the material on the knife. I would still like to know the probabilty of a false positive of the test used by Dr. Stefanoni.

The fourth paragraph about the bra clasp should read "According to testimony the only identified source for Socellito's DNA in that house was a cigarette butt in the kitchen." The investigators couldn't have swabbed the entire house. I haven't heard whether the nature of the material on the bra clasp has been identified. Is it likely that material could have been transferred by shoe. What other things were touched by the investigator before retrieving the clasp? Was the clasp touched in the 46 days before it was retrieved? There's also the possibility that Solecito touched the bra clasp sometime prior to the day of the murder.

Even if there was no contamination in the lab or at the crime scene or Solecito's apartment, that does not eliminate the possibility of contamination during the chain of custody of the knife, clasp, and other DNA sources.

How secure were the containers between the time they left the crime scene, I've seen a picture of an officer taking the knife out of the box to show reporters. Did other policemen go through the evidence for curiosity or show and tell? Also, what about willful contamination? The prosecutor has a history of obsessive unjust prosecution and the police demonstrated misconduct in their interrogation of Knox. The far more plentiful evidence in the OJ Simpson case was dismissed by the that jury, in part, because of suspicion of deliberate contamination of the evidence, and there was no credible evidence of police misconduct.

It wouldn't take a massive conspiracy for one overzealous evidence room guard or other person in the chain of custody to contaminate the knife and clasp.

You've addressed the quality of the DNA evidence, but what about the quantity. Could you address the fact that substantial quantities of Guede's DNA were found in the murder room and on Kercher's body but none of Knox's DNA was found in the murder room and the only bit of Solecito's DNA was that on the clasp even though this was a violent rape and murder?

Personally I think there's a not insignificant likelihood of contamination of the knife and bra during the chain of custody and there's quite an improbabilty that Knox and Solecito would murder Kercher with the knife and take it back to Solecito's apartment, scrub it, and return it to his kitchen rather than disposing of it.

The Perugia jury would have more trust in their local and national police than I do.

I'll check your previous link to see which footprint you were referring to.

I look forward to your comment about it.

ETA. I see your post's content is from the truejustice site supporting the conviction of Knox and Solecito which gives short shrift to the defense's rebuttal and witnesses and appears to overly state the credibility of the DNA evidence. If i have time, I'll look for an independent source that unbiasedly tells both sides.

[GreyICE]

The length of the interrogation by Perugia police is certainly disputed. I have seen it, in the sympathetic Seattle press, variously set at six, fourteen, and more than 24 hours. Which was it? I've noticed that her defenders nearly always set it as long as possible. Why?
Her father puts it at 41. So first off, you're already failing on basic premise.

She was kept overnight, so 30 hours seems very reasonable. It seems like a logical number, while 6 and 14 do not.

[newton3376]

OK, give us your premise then as to just how the behavior was evidence of guilt. Was doing cartwheels a sign of nervousness, or, was it a sign of total sociopathic depravity concerning the murder? Or is it that acting weird must mean a person is guilty just on that basis alone?

A "sign of nervousness"? C’mon....don't be so completely ridiculous...to even suggest her actions were because she was "nervous" is idiotic.

Obviously the jurors weren't completely moronic and disagreed with your "assessment"....

Was it a sign of guilt? Not necessarily…..but it certainly “raises suspicions”…..to simply discount it is really, REALLY stupid. People who are nutcases and sociopaths often act….well nutty and sociopathic.

Honestly….it’s not like we are trying to figure out some complex electromagnetic problem here…this isn’t that difficult to figure out.

[newton3376]

Or was it a cultural misunderstanding?

:newlol

Stop it....you are killing me...

[Silly Green Monkey]

For Scrut and others, there is no such thing as 'normal' behavior in a police station. Cops and detectives can behave normally, but anyone who doesn't work there is outside their experience when they enter.

[newton3376]

That's the weird part, isn't it?

The supporters of Ms Knox are trying to paint the Italian justice system (police, investigators, jurors, prosecutors, judges) as incompetent and unable to 'properly' assess a case.

But then, having Guede in prison for the crime already, why not just fudge the rest of the evidence and stamp the file "Case Closed"? Why go through the expense and possible embarrassment of ensnaring two other innocent people? Heck, if they were incompetent clowns, why even go as far as getting Guede? They already had Lumumba and, if entirely loopy and reckless, could have just hit him with hoses until he confessed.

Instead, and contrary to the Seattle media accounts, the Italians worked tirelessly to obtain justice for the Kercher family and to get the evidence right.

(Note, too, that the Italians will be unable to allow Ms Knox to serve her sentence in the USA, closer to her family and supporters, because that country still puts people to death for capital crimes. So much for the uncivilised Italians theory!)

All very valid points....but you aren't considering the "totally awesome cartwheel theory".....

They are going through all this trouble based on their "anti-cartwheel" bias

;)

[newton3376]

As other posters have mentioned, I, too, could easily imagine doing the equivalent of cartwheels in such a stressful context. It may also be that Knox is mildly autistic. Her gauche social behavior suggests this.

It appears your incompetence isn’t just limited to 9/11 conspiracy theories….so do you think Knoxs conviction was an “inside job?”

Do you really think this is all about a cartwheel?

That anyone believes that such a behavior is reason to suspect that someone is a murderer is mind-boggling.

No it’s actually quite normal and common to suggest such behavior raises suspicions.

Are you a “truther” about Knox now too?

It’s an inside jobby-job I tell ya!!!

[Silly Green Monkey]

No it’s actually quite normal and common to suggest such behavior raises suspicions.

If you'll look just above your multiposting, you'll see my post. It's not normal, and it's not right.

[newton3376]

If you'll look just above your multiposting, you'll see my post. It's not normal, and it's not right.

"Multiposting"?

I don't post on debate forums much anymore....so the few times I log onto JREF and actually post, I often have to play catch up.

My "multiposting" is not some conspiracy or inside job....

And you are wrong about it not being normal for a cartwheel in such circumstances to raises suspicions.

For most people it would.....and IT DID IN THE ACTUAL REAL LIFE EXAMPLE.

So your protests are almost completely worthless....it SHOULD have raised suspicions and it DID.

Did that convict her? No.
Did it raise suspicions, as it should? Yep.

She is going to jail...end of story.

[Brainster]

Another thing struck me as odd about Knox's behavior when buying the thong the next day. Think about this for a moment; your roommate has been horribly murdered and raped; wouldn't there at least be a little fear that the killer was still on the loose? Wouldn't the possibility that you were the intended victim put a damper on your sex drive?

Note as well that nobody has addressed Fiona's point about the broken glass from the window being found atop the ransacked clothes in the other roommate's room. If this is true it strikes me as a vital piece of evidence. Guede would have no reason to fake a break-in; indeed, the only reason for faking a break-in would be to provide cover for someone who was ordinarily in the house.

Another oddity is the reluctance of the Italian boyfriend to completely back up Knox's story that she was at his place that night. He was on the computer, he was smoking a lot of pot, he just doesn't quite remember? I find that extremely odd. Wouldn't they both have been talking about it the next day, after learning about the murder? You know, something like "Gee, Amanda, it's a good thing you spent the night with me or you might have been killed, too!"

[JihadJane]

...

1. The quality of the DNA evidence.

a.The knife.

The prosecution states that the knife found in Sollecito's home had traces of Knox's dna on the handle.That is not disputed and is explained by the fact that she regularly cooked in his apartment. Fair enough.

The prosecution states that a small trace of Kerchner's DNA was found on the knife. This was established by tests done in the lab and under the supervision of Dr Stefanoni, who is an internationally respected forensic scientist based in Rome. In July

...


b. The bra clasp.

The prosecution say that Socellito's DNA was found on Kerchner's bra clasp. Once again this is not disputed. The sample was larger and firmly attached to the clasp. The defence case rests on the fact that the clasp was not collected till a long time after the event: that in the meantime it lay about in the room where the murder happened: and that it was contaminated during that period; or later, in the laboratory.

...



Forensic expert, Dr Elizabeth Johnson, says the knife DNA means nothing, and could not have come from blood.

In the video interview, below, she states that the DNA sample on the knife, that appeared to be Meredith Kercher's, consisted of "20 or fewer human cells". Chemical tests for blood, which are more sensitive than DNA tests, were negative therefore the DNA cells "cannot come from blood". (If cleaning the knife was thorough enough to remove detectable traces of blood , DNA would also have been destroyed.)

The bra clasp was found 47 days after the murder without a known chain of custody. Dr Johnson says there are many, mostly innocent ways that the "very small amount" of DNA could have got onto on the clasp, such as Raffaele Sollecito having used the bathroom at the apartment or by the mixing of clothes in the laundry.

"These DNA results could have been obtained even if no crime had occurred."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf5PmwUhjEw

rf5PmwUhjEw

[tyr_13]

One would think that huh? Again, that in and of itself isn't Damning Evidence, but it certainly does raise suspicion.

EDIT: In response to Brainster's good points.

[JihadJane]

Another thing struck me as odd about Knox's behavior when buying the thong the next day. Think about this for a moment; your roommate has been horribly murdered and raped; wouldn't there at least be a little fear that the killer was still on the loose? Wouldn't the possibility that you were the intended victim put a damper on your sex drive?




Speculative cod psychology.

Since when were sex and fear incompatible?

The proximity of death and extreme violence is consciousness altering.

[quadraginta]

Is there not some contradiction inherent in these two objections?

"According to testimony the only identified source for Socellito's DNA in that house was a cigarette butt in the kitchen." The investigators couldn't have swabbed the entire house.


Could you address the fact that substantial quantities of Guede's DNA were found in the murder room and on Kercher's body but none of Knox's DNA was found in the murder room and the only bit of Solecito's DNA was that on the clasp


It seems that on one hand the objection is that the investigators couldn't have found everything, and then later the objection is that they didn't. This is a good technique for obfuscation, but it doesn't lend itself well to rational review of the data.

Even if there was no contamination in the lab or at the crime scene or Solecito's apartment, that does not eliminate the possibility of contamination during the chain of custody of the knife, clasp, and other DNA sources.

How secure were the containers between the time they left the crime scene, I've seen a picture of an officer taking the knife out of the box to show reporters. Did other policemen go through the evidence for curiosity or show and tell? Also, what about willful contamination?


Are we quite certain that alien space lizards didn't transmute all the evidence from gold into base metals? Any number of things are possible and defenders of the accused will attempt to plead them as possible. For there to be any merit to the pleadings there should be at least a test of likely. Is there some data beyond "Well. It could have happened." that we have not had shared with us?

The prosecutor has a history of obsessive unjust prosecution


Leaving aside discussion of the merits of that accusation how is it of significance unless some demonstration of evidence tampering is forthcoming? Does that accusation include demonstration of prior evidence tampering?

Can you think of any case where an allegation of the possibility of evidence tampering could not be brought up? How would you weigh the value of such assertions as a general defense?

The far more plentiful evidence in the OJ Simpson case was dismissed by the that jury, in part, because of suspicion of deliberate contamination of the evidence, and there was no credible evidence of police misconduct.


It is not clear what you are trying to say here. You point out that the O.J. jury disregarded a wealth of valid evidence because of the possibility that some of it might have been tampered with and found him not guilty.

I don't understand how that applies to Knox's conviction. Are you saying that the Italian jury demonstrated error because they did not arrive at the same flawed conclusion as the O.J. jury for the same flawed reasons?

[Aepervius]

In the video interview, below, she states that the DNA sample on the knife, that appeared to be Meredith Kercher's, consisted of "20 or fewer human cells". Chemical tests for blood, which are more sensitive than DNA tests, were negative therefore the DNA cells "cannot come from blood". (If cleaning the knife was thorough enough to remove detectable traces of blood , DNA would also have been destroyed.)

If the DNA came from less than 20 cells, the chance that you detect it with a chemical seem slim to me. Assuming tehy are togetehr 10 micrometer size, in a disk of 4 blood cell of diameter would be 0,04 millimeter in diameter. Can even forensic chemical detection even detect that ? DNA analysis OTH multiply the sample so don't need as much. I know the article put her as a forensic expert but it looks to me that a direct detection of blood has less chance even with a good photodetector(*) to find blood, rather than anotehr method which clearly enhance the sample...

Does anyone has a reference data on the minimum blood quantity a chemical anylsis can detect ? I found nothing with a quick googling.

(*) I am assuming blood is associated with a fluorescing marker then a photo detector detect the fluorescence at a specific wavelength

[Fiona]

ETA. I see your post's content is from the truejustice site supporting the conviction of Knox and Solecito which gives short shrift to the defense's rebuttal and witnesses and appears to overly state the credibility of the DNA evidence. If i have time, I'll look for an independent source that unbiasedly tells both sides.

Well, as I said, I was having a look at what the other side say: and I have already expressed the fact there are reservations about the site. However the fact that this site wants justice for a victim does NOT of itself mean they wish a false conviction nor that they are reckless about that.

I do not agree that it gives short shrift to the defence: the site follows the course of the evidence given: the prosecution case came first (although the sequence is disordered to bring various points about the same thing together). But you will judge that for yourself, because all that they have to say is there for us

Another site would be great if you can find it and I look forward to reading anything you can find.

Meantime I will continue to have a look at what they are saying, though that might be wasted effort given it is there for all to see

[GreyICE]

Hey, it beats the hell out of the prosecutors. Satanic rites? Honestly, group 'psychopathic ritual' killing is rare. When these crimes are committed, the individuals tend to have a very twisted relationship. The two boys who killed the kid because they were 'supermen,' the Washington sniper, etc.

This seems like a teenager and her boyfriend.

My problem is this - no credible motive has been put forward (the theory that her boyfriend and her wanted someone to participate in their drug-fueled satanic ritual sex and killed her when she said no isn't a theory. It's a bad joke). The evidence was mishandled and mostly circumstantial (person who lives in house has trace DNA in places). The 'evidence' is a moving target and does not appear to be looked at skeptically. For instance, the prosecution claimed that the traces of Knox and Kercher's blood indicates Knox cleaned her own blood and Knox's off in the bathroom. This obviously calls for self-defense wounds on Knox, which... weren't present. Looked at with a skeptical eye, an explanation for how traces of blood could be possibly found in a bathroom two girls share presents itself...

Moreover, what defenders of the Italian justice system are failing to note is that the police are already in hot water. Guilty or innocent, the interrogation was a complete farce. Any time you manage to get your interrogation thrown out by a judge, you've managed to fail completely and utterly. Guilty or innocent, losing crucial evidence for over 40 days makes your police force a complete joke. Guilty or innocent, having a team that can't even properly identify if a knife has blood on it makes your police force a complete joke.

So, regardless of Knox's guilt or innocence the police are obvious incompetents. That's the only conclusion. At that point, we simply are too frequently relying on the word of documented incompetents.

[quadraginta]

Her father puts it at 41. So first off, you're already failing on basic premise.

She was kept overnight, so 30 hours seems very reasonable. It seems like a logical number, while 6 and 14 do not.


I'm not sure that the father's statements can be assumed to be unbiased.

If you are not equating being in custody with interrogation in your second sentence then I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest. If you are I would point out that the two are not necessarily the same. We seem to be in agreement that at least some part of that time in custody was spent by Knox doing floor exercises. I'm pretty sure you're not suggesting that was part of the interrogation.

Do we have some way of verifying what part of her detention was actually spent being questioned beyond partisan statements to the media?

[quadraginta]

Another thing struck me as odd about Knox's behavior when buying the thong the next day. Think about this for a moment; your roommate has been horribly murdered and raped; wouldn't there at least be a little fear that the killer was still on the loose? Wouldn't the possibility that you were the intended victim put a damper on your sex drive?

Note as well that nobody has addressed Fiona's point about the broken glass from the window being found atop the ransacked clothes in the other roommate's room. If this is true it strikes me as a vital piece of evidence. Guede would have no reason to fake a break-in; indeed, the only reason for faking a break-in would be to provide cover for someone who was ordinarily in the house.

Another oddity is the reluctance of the Italian boyfriend to completely back up Knox's story that she was at his place that night. He was on the computer, he was smoking a lot of pot, he just doesn't quite remember? I find that extremely odd. Wouldn't they both have been talking about it the next day, after learning about the murder? You know, something like "Gee, Amanda, it's a good thing you spent the night with me or you might have been killed, too!"

A computer which, it seems, showed no evidence of having been in use during the time period he claimed to be using it.

[Brainster]

Another odd bit: the claim that there was only one trace of Sollecito's DNA in the house. That doesn't quite jibe with this (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/perugia200806):

But the American girl was spending her time with far too many peculiar people, in the opinion of her three housemates, who didn’t appreciate running into these conquests at breakfast.

And yes, it appears that he was not an uncommon visitor to the house:

Later that same month, Amanda attracted a new admirer: 23-year-old Raffaele Sollecito, a computer-science student she met at a classical-music concert and slept with that very night. Tense and anxious, he always carried a penknife and smoked hashish and pot with great frequency. He was presumably not very popular with Amanda’s housemates. He would later observe that, whenever he showed up at the house on Via Pergola, Meredith appeared “quiet” and “exchanged few words” with him.

On November 1, All Saints’ Day, a religious holiday in Italy, Meredith spotted Raffaele and Amanda in the kitchen around four p.m. and went off without a word to the couple about her destination or plans. She joined some English friends for pizza and ice cream, then left at nine p.m., saying she was exhausted.

Also, on the claims of marathon interrogation sessions, note this from the Vanity Fair piece (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/06/perugia200806?currentPage=4):

Simultaneously, in a separate room, Raffaele, too, was questioned by police. Like Amanda’s, his version of events seemed to change whenever things got rough. And judging by his second interrogation, which lasted from 10 one night till 4 the next morning, the grilling was pretty exhausting.

So a six-hour session was exhausting, but the writer fails to mention the 41-hour grilling? Sounds like that excuse came up after this article.

[NewtonTrino]

Hey, it beats the hell out of the prosecutors. Satanic rites? Honestly, group 'psychopathic ritual' killing is rare. When these crimes are committed, the individuals tend to have a very twisted relationship. The two boys who killed the kid because they were 'supermen,' the Washington sniper, etc.

This seems like a teenager and her boyfriend.

My problem is this - no credible motive has been put forward (the theory that her boyfriend and her wanted someone to participate in their drug-fueled satanic ritual sex and killed her when she said no isn't a theory. It's a bad joke). The evidence was mishandled and mostly circumstantial (person who lives in house has trace DNA in places). The 'evidence' is a moving target and does not appear to be looked at skeptically. For instance, the prosecution claimed that the traces of Knox and Kercher's blood indicates Knox cleaned her own blood and Knox's off in the bathroom. This obviously calls for self-defense wounds on Knox, which... weren't present. Looked at with a skeptical eye, an explanation for how traces of blood could be possibly found in a bathroom two girls share presents itself...

Moreover, what defenders of the Italian justice system are failing to note is that the police are already in hot water. Guilty or innocent, the interrogation was a complete farce. Any time you manage to get your interrogation thrown out by a judge, you've managed to fail completely and utterly. Guilty or innocent, losing crucial evidence for over 40 days makes your police force a complete joke. Guilty or innocent, having a team that can't even properly identify if a knife has blood on it makes your police force a complete joke.

So, regardless of Knox's guilt or innocence the police are obvious incompetents. That's the only conclusion. At that point, we simply are too frequently relying on the word of documented incompetents.

I would really like to see a response to this from the pro conviction tribe. The police completely bungled this case. Does anyone dispute that?

Does anyone dispute that this prosecutor should have been removed from the case after bringing up crazy satanist theories?

Does anyone dispute that the jury wasn't sequestered and that they was tried in the media to a great extent?

Does anyone dispute that the DNA evidence is anything but flimsy?

Does anyone dispute that there is solid physical evidence typing Rudy to the scene? Does anyone think he wasn't involved? Can anyone account for why he would work together with Knox to kill Kercher? Can anyone come up with a good motive for Amanda or her boyfriend to want to kill Kercher?

There's just no there there people.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Or was it a cultural misunderstanding?You have to take it one step further than that.

Did you note the original police hypothesis? A Satanist ritual killing. Knox acted "suspiciously" in the police station because she was sitting in her boyfriend's lap inappropriately, kissing, doing cartwheels and the splits.

Does that behavior strike you as indicative of depraved indifference?
Or a dumb kid clueless the police suspected her?


If it were just the police that made the accusations against Knox, I'd say it was the police culture or an individual like the bizarre prosecutor. And, the bizarre prosecutor certainly had a role in this.

But the case for 2 years has been portrayed completely differently in the Italian press vs in the US press. Many in the Italian public see Knox as an evil sociopath. That is not the case in the US, despite the opinions expressed in this thread. One of the newsworthy aspects of this case is that very fact, it is being reported very differently in each of the 2 countries.

I brought this issue up in the thread because it is a fact the two countries have different views of Knox. I didn't bring it up, as many here wrongly assumed, because I think Italians are [fill in the blank]. If the tables were reversed, Americans are just as likely to misjudge the behavior of someone from a foreign culture. We judge people based on expectations. If they don't act as we expect, we are likely to assign meaning to that behavior that may or may not be valid.

[Skeptic Ginger]

... You're not in a place where you have access to the Seattle media. ...Really? I live in Bellevue, the city next door to Seattle and I went to the U of WA where Knox also went before going to Italy.

As for your link, it says: But Knox did have another run-in with police when she received a public-disturbance citation for throwing a noisy party in June 2007 - she paid a $269 fine.

That's not how the conviction was portrayed earlier. You said:But this isn't the only guilty verdict against Ms Knox in this incident. She was also found guilty of defamation against Lumumba, a bartender who used to be her boss.Lumumba is the accusation that was addressed earlier in the thread, like I said. Knox was coerced into saying a lot of stuff. From your link: "It was a complicated situation."
- Explaining at her trial why she originally confessed she was in the cottage the night of the murder when police asked her to imagine what might have happened that night. A higher court later ruled the confession couldn't be used as evidence because she made the statement without an attorney or translator present (TIME, June 12, 2009)


Fox News; December 02, 2009 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578716,00.html)Knox is also being tried on charges of defamation for allegedly accusing Diya "Patrick" Lumumba — a Congolese man who owns a pub in Perugia where she worked — of being the killer. Because of her accusation, Lumumba was briefly jailed. He was later cleared and is seeking damages from Knox. The American testified last June that she was beaten by police and confused when she was questioned and that the pressure led her to accuse Lumumba.

And I posted a link to the Innocence Project statistics indicating 25% of the cases where they proved exoneration via physical evidence, false confessions were involved.


You need to get your facts straight.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Doug Preston's book in which he covers the circumstances of the insane prosecutor attempting to accuse innocent people of crimes they had nothing to do with was written well before the Amanda Knox case.

The Amanda Knox case is exactly the sort of case you would expect to happen after reading about this man. He sees conspiracies everywhere and is obsessed with Satanic cult murders, to the point that he views everyone through that lens of suspicion.

I've been following Knox's case since the very beginning and it has always been clear to anyone willing to assess the evidence objectively that the only things linking her to the crime are imagination and inference. The physical evidence makes it abundantly clear that it was a sadly typical murder performed by a single male intruder.

And the comments about trusting judges and juries more than yourself are scary. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the remarkable miscarriages of justice that have occurred in this country, let alone a country like Italy where the justice system is based in archaic notions of the supremacy of the prosecution and the inferiority and lowly position of the accused, would know that juries and judges can accomplish remarkable and unbelievable feats of stupidity.

As far as her false accusation of the innocent bartender, any shock at that reveals a profound ignorance of the behavior of people being falsely accused and held in isolation and questioned under extreme duress.Nice summary of the issues in the case and in the thread. Thanks.

[quadraginta]

<snip>

I brought this issue up in the thread because it is a fact the two countries have different views of Knox. I didn't bring it up, as many here wrongly assumed, because I think Italians are [fill in the blank]. If the tables were reversed, Americans are just as likely to misjudge the behavior of someone from a foreign culture. We judge people based on expectations. If they don't act as we expect, we are likely to assign meaning to that behavior that may or may not be valid.


This is all very well and good except that I have not seen one iota of evidence to suggest that Knox's behavior would have been perceived or stressed in any fashion at all differently in the U.S. than it was in Italy. My expectation from other cases here that I have followed in more detail is that our cops would have been equally bemused and alerted, and our prosecutors would have seized upon such behavior as indicative of mood and attitude, and done their level best to have it introduced to the jury. They are routinely successful in such efforts.


Keep in mind that we are not talking about only the floor exercise episode. We are not talking about only the underwear shopping episode. We are not talking about only the kissy face antics in the police station. We are not talking only about any of the other reports of Knox's attitude which are not normal in someone who has just discovered a friend brutally raped and murdered. We are not taking each separate demonstration of incongruous behavior in isolation and judging the entire trial on the merits of that one point.

At least we shouldn't be.

I'm among the first to condemn criticism of demeanor as some sort of magic window into the secret soul of a defendant. I made that clear in my first post in this thread. Even an overall trend of such is not sufficient in my mind to constitute a kind of a priori proof. This does not mean that such considerations are utterly without merit, or that the sum total of a protracted demonstration of such incongruity has zero relevance to an investigation.

Your contentions appear to be that this single episode of floor exercises constitutes the entirety of the case presented against Knox, and that this resulted solely from some sort of cultural bias by the Italians which would not have taken place in the states.

You have not proven either contention.

Absent that the entire line of reasoning is nothing but blatant misdirection.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

For Scrut and others, there is no such thing as 'normal' behavior in a police station. Cops and detectives can behave normally, but anyone who doesn't work there is outside their experience when they enter.

No one ever claimed otherwise.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

You have to take it one step further than that.

Did you note the original police hypothesis? A Satanist ritual killing. Knox acted "suspiciously" in the police station because she was sitting in her boyfriend's lap inappropriately, kissing, doing cartwheels and the splits.

Does that behavior strike you as indicative of depraved indifference?
Or a dumb kid clueless the police suspected her?


If it were just the police that made the accusations against Knox, I'd say it was the police culture or an individual like the bizarre prosecutor. And, the bizarre prosecutor certainly had a role in this.

But the case for 2 years has been portrayed completely differently in the Italian press vs in the US press. Many in the Italian public see Knox as an evil sociopath. That is not the case in the US, despite the opinions expressed in this thread. One of the newsworthy aspects of this case is that very fact, it is being reported very differently in each of the 2 countries.

I brought this issue up in the thread because it is a fact the two countries have different views of Knox. I didn't bring it up, as many here wrongly assumed, because I think Italians are [fill in the blank]. If the tables were reversed, Americans are just as likely to misjudge the behavior of someone from a foreign culture. We judge people based on expectations. If they don't act as we expect, we are likely to assign meaning to that behavior that may or may not be valid.

Interesting to note that you still refuse to answer the question. :rolleyes:

[The Central Scrutinizer]

This is all very well and good except that I have not seen one iota of evidence to suggest that Knox's behavior would have been perceived or stressed in any fashion at all differently in the U.S. than it was in Italy. My expectation from other cases here that I have followed in more detail is that our cops would have been equally bemused and alerted, and our prosecutors would have seized upon such behavior as indicative of mood and attitude, and done their level best to have it introduced to the jury. They are routinely successful in such efforts.

Highlighted for the OP's benefit.

[Skeptic Ginger]

....The supporters of Ms Knox are trying to paint the Italian justice system (police, investigators, jurors, prosecutors, judges) as incompetent and unable to 'properly' assess a case.For the record, I view the Italian justice system as about the same as I view the US justice system. It probably mostly gets it right, but there are blatant cases where that isn't true and this is one of them.


....Instead, and contrary to the Seattle media accounts, the Italians worked tirelessly to obtain justice for the Kercher family and to get the evidence right. ....Or not. They more likely worked tirelessly to save face. Prosecutors in the US have a long history of just such behavior, going so far as to appeal overturned convictions where DNA evidence has exonerated falsely convicted persons. Just recently Texas executed a man for arson and murder despite every indication it was an accidental fire. Yet when evidence surfaced the fire was accidental the prosecutor stuck with his original belief the fire was arson.


Expert Hits Arson Finding in Case that Led to Defendant’s Execution (http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/expert_hits_arson_finding_in_case_that_led_to_defe ndants_execution/)A nationally known expert has concluded that a fire was not arson, a finding that contradicted trial testimony that led to the conviction and execution of a Texas man.

The expert, Craig Beyler, reviewed the case of Cameron Todd Willingham for the Texas Forensic Science Commission, created to investigate allegations of forensic mistakes, the Chicago Tribune reports. The newspaper obtained a copy of his report.

Willingham was convicted of murder for the deaths of his three children who perished in the fire. Beyler is one of nine top fire scientists who have reviewed the case and found that the original investigators relied on outdated theories and folklore, the story says.
One of the prosecutors interviewed on Nightline and transcribed here (http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/presumed-guilty) replied:Moran: They say the conclusions reached by these [arson] investigators are not warranted by modern fire science and are based on primitive old wives' tales and folklore.

Jackson: That's not to say that they're not correct, though.

Moran: You sent a man to death on that.

Jackson: I'm comfortable with that.


This is human nature at its worst. And I have no reason to think it is any less true for Italian prosecutors than it is true for US prosecutors or Canadian prosecutors. Our brains are programmed not to back down. Just as I suspect people in this thread who were convinced Knox was guilty before looking at the facts are unlikely to change their view after looking at the facts.

You, yourself, are basing your conclusion for the most part on the underlying assumption, 'only guilty people get convicted'. I read that same theme running through this thread. It would seem to be leading more than a few people to discount the fact there is no convincing credible evidence against Knox or her boyfriend. It's not that people are saying [x] is the evidence that is convincing. They are saying the jury must have made an informed decision. The basis is not the evidence, it is an assumption. An assumption easily proved to not always be true.

Those of us arguing Knox is not guilty are saying, the only evidence presented was unconvincing and the rest was all prosecutor fantasy, a suggested but unsupported scenario of what occurred.

[Philip]

I originally tried to submit this about an hour ago, but either the website didn't respond or my DSL was out a while:

Is there not some contradiction inherent in these two objections?

It seems that on one hand the objection is that the investigators couldn't have found everything, and then later the objection is that they didn't. This is a good technique for obfuscation, but it doesn't lend itself well to rational review of the data.

I'm sorry if I expressed myself poorly.

The witness for the prosecution mentioned in Fiona's quote said that the only other source of Solecito's DNA in the flat besides the bra clap was the cigarette butt. This was offered by the witness to support the contention that it was unlikely that the bra clasp could have been contaminated with Solecito's DNA from having been left in the apartment for 46 days.

I added the word identified to the quote because, as JihadJane source pointed out, there could have been more of Solecito's DNA in the apartment besides what was on the cigarette butt. I thought that biological matter could have been tracked onto the clasp after the murder, but JihadJane's source stated that DNA on the bra clasp could have been left before the murder from Solecito's presence such as his use of the bathroom.


Are we quite certain that alien space lizards didn't transmute all the evidence from gold into base metals? Any number of things are possible and defenders of the accused will attempt to plead them as possible. For there to be any merit to the pleadings there should be at least a test of likely. Is there some data beyond "Well. It could have happened." that we have not had shared with us?

Leaving aside discussion of the merits of that accusation how is it of significance unless some demonstration of evidence tampering is forthcoming? Does that accusation include demonstration of prior evidence tampering?

Can you think of any case where an allegation of the possibility of evidence tampering could not be brought up? How would you weigh the value of such assertions as a general defense?


I was speculating on alternate possibilities to the the prosecution's claim that the DNA on the knife and bra clasp was placed on them during the murder. You feel those possibilities are as remote as alien space lizards. I think they're far more likely. Even in the past couple of years in the US there have been scandals in US forensics labs and cases of DNA sample switching and evidence lost from storage.

In a trial, it comes down to how much the jury trusted the involved police force, chain of custody of evidence, and forensics lab.

Given the prosecutor's zealotry in this and previous cases, the poor handling of the crime scene, and the Perugia police's abusive interrogation, I think reasonable doubt is raised by the possibility of DNA contamination when weighed against the absurdity of the prosecutions claimed motive and the improbabilty that Knox and Solecito would have carried the murder weapon back to Solecito's apartment and put it in his kitchen. Were they really so in need of keeping kitchen knives that they wouldn't have just disposed of it?

It is not clear what you are trying to say here. You point out that the O.J. jury disregarded a wealth of valid evidence because of the possibility that some of it might have been tampered with and found him not guilty.

I don't understand how that applies to Knox's conviction. Are you saying that the Italian jury demonstrated error because they did not arrive at the same flawed conclusion as the O.J. jury for the same flawed reasons?

Comparing the Knox case to the OJ case was probably a mistake because there are so many cases of some juries disregarding overwhelming evidence of guilt and other juries convicting when the evidence is so weak that there clearly was reasonable doubt.

What I do feel is that the DNA evidence is so sparse in the Knox case and that the evidence of a conviction-obsessed prosecutor and police so strong in the case that a jury would be justified in feeling that the existing DNA evidence could have resulted from willful or careless contamination.

However, the forensics expert shown by JihadJane said that the DNA evidence is so weak that contamination by the police may not have even been necessary to explain it as not being due to the crime.

For either reason, I would consider there to be reasonable doubt that the DNA evidence indicates Knox's and Solecito's guilt.

[Ryokan]

Our brains are programmed not to back down. Just as I suspect people in this thread who were convinced Knox was guilty before looking at the facts are unlikely to change their view after looking at the facts.

Those of us arguing Knox is not guilty....

Take a look in the mirror. You don't know anything more than most of us do, you have no idea if she's guilty or not.

[Darth Rotor]

Lesson to all: it is really really hard to get a good thread out of a completely insane and idiotic thread title and opening post. Lots of people intentionally make inflammatory/false headlines to try to get attention to their thread, but you rarely get fruitful discussions that way.
Yes.
Please don't compare the scientific evidence for the Big Bang to your opinion that Knox isn't guilty or that cartwheels in police stations have some kind of "cultural significance".....it's pathetic.

No one cares if YOU think a killers motive are ludicrous. This might come as a shock, but murder doesn't have to have some logical motive that "makes sense". Some people are freaking nutcases and are psycho....and they kill people.
What I have seen no evidence of, though it may be available somewhere, is that Amanda Knox is a psycho, or a nut case.
I had the strangest experience of seeing someone who looked just like Amanda Knox at Piccadilly Circus tonight. Very freaky.
Was she doing tumbling maneuvers? Were you afraid? ;);)
With hazy knowledge of the case, I'd been convinced she was guilty... but seeing the post-trial analysis, I'm with Newton and Chicken on this. There's no way she did it.
There sure are some questions raised in re the Italian justice system, and the possibility that Amanda was railroaded here. Since the way they deal with evidence, and other stuff, in Italy appears to differ from how we are supposed to do it in the US, the only cross cultural matter is ... the cases are handled differently in technical detail.

The cartwheels are a red herring.

DR

[Jaggy Bunnet]

What I do feel is that the DNA evidence is so sparse in the Knox case and that the evidence of a conviction-obsessed prosecutor and police so strong in the case that a jury would be justified in feeling that the existing DNA evidence could have resulted from willful or careless contamination.

I assume that the reason you include the prosecutor in this statement is that there was an opportunity for the prosecutor to have contaminated the evidence. As this would appear to be extremely unusual (the prosecutor would not as far as I am aware be involved in the chain of custody at all), I assume there is some evidence that such an opportunity existed. Could you let me know what this is?

If there is no such evidence, then what possible relevance does whether the prosecutor was "conviction-obsessed" or not have to the question of contamination?

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
We're talking about a rape and murder of a roommate and your subsequent framing of your boss. You keep repeating this despite the fact it has been addressed. The police interrogation wasn't even valid under Italian law and the accusation of character defamation lawsuit you claim was concluded has only been charged. No trial on this has occurred.

Not to mention, the interview in question was after the behavior that was observed by the police, not before.

Amanda Knox performed a cartwheel and did the splits before being questioned by Italian police about the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, a court has heard. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/4863279/Amanda-Knox-did-cartwheels-and-splits-at-police-station-after-Meredith-Kercher-murder.html)


You don't have the facts in the case correct yet you repeat your errors as evidence supporting your conclusions.



...Again, the "thing about throwing a noisy party" wasn't to you but to SG, who'd never heard about it before. I threw wild parties when I was in university, too, but never got a citation. Maybe I was just lucky.Talk about unrelated information. A noisy party is what? Evidence of a Satanist cult or sex orgy inclined young woman? :rolleyes:

[JihadJane]

Keep in mind that we are not talking about only the floor exercise episode. We are not talking about only the underwear shopping episode. We are not talking about only the kissy face antics in the police station. We are not talking only about any of the other reports of Knox's attitude which are not normal in someone who has just discovered a friend brutally raped and murdered. We are not taking each separate demonstration of incongruous behavior in isolation and judging the entire trial on the merits of that one point.



Yes, but what is it about these supposedly incongruous behaviors, taken as a whole (or separately), that supports the particular theory that she has just murdered/raped her friend?

[Eyeron]

You know, I read the Wiki and it doesn't say anything about these kinds of things happening.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
It sounds as though there are two issues here: (1) Is Ms Knox guilty? The issue is about how cultural expectations may have contributed to a false conclusion about the meaning of a person's behavior. The issue is about convicting a person because once it is clear the prosecutor had no case, face saving, a natural human reaction, took over and the prosecutor could not back down from his original bizarre beliefs he concocted about the case.


... (2) Is the Italian justice system too primitive to properly handle rape-murder cases?...Absolute utter straw man.

[quadraginta]

<snip>

...and the improbabilty that Knox and Solecito would have carried the murder weapon back to Solecito's apartment and put it in his kitchen. Were they really so in need of keeping kitchen knives that they wouldn't have just disposed of it?

<snip>


I think that it is improbable that someone who had almost singlehandedly conceived and executed the largest and most deadly terrorist truck bombing in the history of the U.S. would flee the scene in a car with no license plates and keep an illegal, unregistered firearm with him while he was doing it.

But there you are.

There are entire careers based on listing the mind-numbingly stupid things that criminals do. Examples are easy to find. I won't start a recitation here.

[Skeptic Ginger]

stillicho: IIRC, Skeptigirl lives (or did until recently) in and around Seattle, WA.And has since 1982. And I lived in Seattle until ~ 1988. :D

[quadraginta]

<snip>

The cartwheels are a red herring.

DR


Say it loud, DR. I'm not sure that the idea is getting across.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Talk about unrelated information. A noisy party is what? Evidence of a Satanist cult or sex orgy inclined young woman? :rolleyes:

Unrelated information that YOU requested a source for. Why did you do that if it was of no relevance?

A noisy party has only been claimed as evidence that Ms Knox may not live up to the alleged portrayal in the US media.

[Skeptic Ginger]

What of their whereabouts the night of the murder? Is it not correct that their alibi had been shown to be false by multiple witnesses?So far all I've seen on that was the unsourced list of evidence in a forum post that was linked to.

Knox gave conflicting statements about her whereabouts the night of the murder. Outside of the police interrogation I'm pretty sure she and her boyfriend consistently reported being at his flat.