Amanda Knox Is Innocent

[Sirena]

Hasn't the media outside of Italy and especially in the US already made some form of judgement? I got the distinct feeling the bias is that she is innocent?

I don't think she's innocent. Innocent people don't try to blame other people. It's a basic principle for me.

 

[phildwyer]

It is not as if it is third world fascist dictatorship? At some point she is going to be extradited unless she can prove she is innocent? Or is the US going to alienate/ignore international extradition agreements?

They ignore the UN when it suits them, so they can certainly ignore an extradition request.

 

[phildwyer]

I don't think she's innocent. Innocent people don't try to blame other people. It's a basic principle for me.

Have you ever been questioned by the police? Inexperienced people can be made to say anything in that setting.

 

[existentialist]

I don't think she's innocent. Innocent people don't try to blame other people. It's a basic principle for me.

I got the impression that this allegation she's supposed to have made happened during some pretty intensive police questioning.

I just don't get the feel that the authorities in Italy have done anything to give their investigation any credibility whatsoever, and that makes it pretty hard to judge anything that Knox did. Either way.

 

[Ranbay]

I was trying to show how easy it is to form an opinion from emotions without remembering that the only thing that counts is actual evidence... the whole media thing makes people think they can sit in their own armchair and judge.

Same, with less words

 

[Sirena]

I just don't get the feel that the authorities in Italy have done anything to give their investigation any credibility whatsoever.

Justify that for me please. It would seem to be an easy piece of US-style propaganda to claim that every other country is backward and stupid if they don't agree with them.

Give me your reasoning.

 

[Combustible]

It is not as if it is third world fascist dictatorship? At some point she is going to be extradited unless she can prove she is innocent? Or is the US going to alienate/ignore international extradition agreements?

I don't know, it depends on US extradition law and what happens in court. But that's not the point. If she was in Italy there would be nothing between her and prison but in the US there is another avenue. And you appeared to be reading something into the fact that she didn't voluntarily fly back to face a prison sentence as if the sensible thing for an innocent person to do is throw themselves at a legal system that has already locked them up.

I don't know if we will know what has happened but I don't see how the conviction could be at all safe with what was by all accounts a farcical police investigation and prosecution.

 

[Combustible]

I don't think she's innocent. Innocent people don't try to blame other people. It's a basic principle for me.

In which case I really hope you never have done/will do jury service.

 

[existentialist]

Justify that for me please. It would seem to be an easy piece of US-style propaganda to claim that every other country is backward and stupid if they don't agree with them.

Give me your reasoning.

It's all on the thread.

I might have felt a little more inclined to actually put together a good list of the examples, but I don't care much for your insinuation that my comment is no more than a "claim that every other country is backward and stupid", and I don't get the impression you're really interested in carefully-researched point-by-point explanations.

There are enough examples described on this thread to support my comment. If you're bothered, have a nip through and read some of them.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I don't think she's innocent. Innocent people don't try to blame other people. It's a basic principle for me.

Hold on, you seem to be blaming Knox here...

 

[Sirena]

It's all on the thread.

I might have felt a little more inclined to actually put together a good list of the examples, but I don't care much for your insinuation that my comment is no more than a "claim that every other country is backward and stupid", and I don't get the impression you're really interested in carefully-researched point-by-point explanations.

There are enough examples described on this thread to support my comment. If you're bothered, have a nip through and read some of them.

OK, I didn't mean to offend you. I was just asking.

 

[existentialist]

OK, I didn't mean to offend you. I was just asking.

Well, like I say, the subject has been explored quite extensively. However, a few of the things that have jumped out for me are...

Pretty much from the outset, the investigation seems to have been premised on the absolute assumption that Knox was guilty. The problem with that is, if you start your investigation with a mind that is closed to other possibilities, you won't see them even if they're there. As her lawyers put it, the investigation was a "ship that never changed its course". In all but the most open-and-shut cases, there are usually things that crop up in the course of an investigation that don't neatly fit the initial assumptions about what happened, but seemingly not here.

Secondly, the way in which - in particular - Knox was interrogated was asking for trouble. When you start doing all-night interrogations on people, don't be surprised when they start saying strange or stupid things. When that is added to a pretty brutal process of investigation of Knox, it doesn't seem unreasonable that she might be disorientated, confused, stressed, etc.

Thirdly, they had already identified Knox and Co as suspects before they even knew about Guede. But even when they'd found out about him, they carried on on the assumption that it must still have been them, only involving Guede as well. It would have been wise not simply to close one track of the inquiry after having discovered a completely new track, but it looks very much as if they simply tried to weave Guede's actions into the ones they had already surmised had taken place with Knox et al.

Fourthly, evidence seems to have been rather prone to mysteriously appearing: while the fact that the bra clip was missing for nearly seven weeks isn't itself particularly remarkable, its appearance at a remarkably opportune time does seem rather unusual, especially since...

Fifthly, the investigating magistrate and prosecutor in this case has a bit of previous for desperately weaving complex threads of evidence into this theories about crimes he's investigating.

Sixthly, the DNA evidence is uncompelling - there are claims that the victim's DNA was found on a knife belonging to Knox, but the traces were very small, and not entirely conclusive. Given the long history of contamination problems with DNA evidence, it's generally recognised that one of the biggest problems with it is the risk of contamination, either from police, or from cross-contamination with other evidence if not handled very carefully, or from circumstances unrelated to the crime. Given the sloppiness of so much of the police procedure - after all, they were pretty definite that Knox was guilty from the outset, so why worry too much about anything? - I don't think it is impossible that the DNA evidence might have been contaminated, either accidentally, or perhaps even to reinforce what the investigators already "knew".

Seventh, while plea-bargaining is by no means unusual, the way in which the authorities set out to do this with Guede seems strange. He, after all, had little to lose - he was in the frame for a nasty murder and looking at 30 years inside. You'd have to be a very moral person indeed not to consider the prospect of reducing that somewhat by putting someone else in the frame. And, from the sound of it, the investigation was sufficiently inept (or corrupt) that Guede was able to identify the people whom the police just happened to have as the main suspects as his co-conspirators.

None of this is to suggest that Knox is either guilty or innocent. But the investigation, in attempting from the outset to convict Knox and Sollecito, almost certainly failed to take opportunities to build up a solid, non-partisan body of evidence, and have effectively destroyed any chance that the full truth might be known. Guede, it seems, has been safely convicted, and it may even be that he was the sole party responsible. But, in conducting the investigation the way they did, the authorities in Italy have sown doubt that might possibly never need to have been sown, and eliminated any possibility of clearing up that doubt.

Everybody loses - the Kercher family, because they can never know exactly how their daughter died; Knox and Sollecito, because they can never prove their innocence, and the Italian authorities, for making such a public mess of a very high-profile case with international implications.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Good. You're warming to it. Excellent use of racism, too.

You do realise that you've just turned into the Dice Man.

Poor Mrs Loom.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I understand that. But I guess what I'm saying is, think about being this young guy, and for the sake of argument, you know that all you did that night was stare out your bedroom window looking at the stars. You also know that this massive case is being built against you, and you're panicked, knowing that there's no way to prove all you were doing is staring out the window all night.
Because staring out the window is almost a non-activity. So you make up something, anything, just to make it sound like you were doing something other than committing a crime, not thinking about the fact that they it's probably better to say you were just doing nothing whatsoever. Even though doing nothing, whatsoever leaves a lot of room for speculation. When in fact, most of us do have periods of time where we don't do much of anything at all.

Well, most interrogators are fairly au fait with the fact that people have "holes" where they're doing nothing, they expect them! Of course, it's also a standard interview technique to ask open-ended questions that encourage the interviewee to babble on - unexpected detail tends to be a red flag!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I got the impression that this allegation she's supposed to have made happened during some pretty intensive police questioning.

Just a quick point - according to police records, and to Ms. Knox's original recall, she wasn't "intensively questioned". That was only presented after she was charged, where her parents were touting her having been questioned for up to 14 hours (although they eventually went for "she was questioned for 9 hours solid"). Thing was, she was at the police station for around 9 hour, all told, but for much of that she was sitting in the waiting room or doing gymnastics in the hall, waiting for Mr. Solecito. It was only after Solecito indicated that she was involved, that she was requested to be interviewed, which (according to the interpreter) was around 2 hours, after which she was back in the waiting room.

I just don't get the feel that the authorities in Italy have done anything to give their investigation any credibility whatsoever, and that makes it pretty hard to judge anything that Knox did. Either way.

Thing is, we (as Brits and Yanks) are judging an inquisitorial criminal justice system through reference to our own adversarial system. They function differently.

 

[existentialist]

Just a quick point - according to police records, and to Ms. Knox's original recall, she wasn't "intensively questioned". That was only presented after she was charged, where her parents were touting her having been questioned for up to 14 hours (although they eventually went for "she was questioned for 9 hours solid"). Thing was, she was at the police station for around 9 hour, all told, but for much of that she was sitting in the waiting room or doing gymnastics in the hall, waiting for Mr. Solecito. It was only after Solecito indicated that she was involved, that she was requested to be interviewed, which (according to the interpreter) was around 2 hours, after which she was back in the waiting room.



Thing is, we (as Brits and Yanks) are judging an inquisitorial criminal justice system through reference to our own adversarial system. They function differently.

Yes, I appreciate the fact that there will be some fairly major cultural differences, and I'm also aware that I am judging the inquiry on the basis of news reports, not first-hand experience.

But the fundamentals - human interaction, etc - are the same, and it does seem to me that, from how it has been described, the investigation wasn't done in a way which comes over as particularly thorough or methodical.

Personally, I would have expected an inquisitorial system to be less prone to the mistakes of jumping to conclusions than our adversarial one, so that at least has been a lesson...

 

[Sirena]

Just a quick point - according to police records, and to Ms. Knox's original recall, she wasn't "intensively questioned". That was only presented after she was charged, where her parents were touting her having been questioned for up to 14 hours (although they eventually went for "she was questioned for 9 hours solid"). Thing was, she was at the police station for around 9 hour, all told, but for much of that she was sitting in the waiting room or doing gymnastics in the hall, waiting for Mr. Solecito. It was only after Solecito indicated that she was involved, that she was requested to be interviewed, which (according to the interpreter) was around 2 hours, after which she was back in the waiting room.

I had that impression too. In fact I had read some of the foregoing pages and this document (though I don't know how reliable it is). The section on Knox's interrogation and how she promptly accused Patrice Lumumba when the finger started to point at her struck me most forcibly.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Evidence#Amanda_Knox.27s_Interrogation

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes, I appreciate the fact that there will be some fairly major cultural differences, and I'm also aware that I am judging the inquiry on the basis of news reports, not first-hand experience.

But the fundamentals - human interaction, etc - are the same, and it does seem to me that, from how it has been described, the investigation wasn't done in a way which comes over as particularly thorough or methodical.

Personally, I would have expected an inquisitorial system to be less prone to the mistakes of jumping to conclusions than our adversarial one, so that at least has been a lesson...

I think that where people mainly get turned over by the difference is that an inquisitorial system attempt to establish the facts (the "complete story") of a case, as opposed to establishing absolute guilt or innocence. In our system we tend to work from broad sweeps (primary investigation) down to a targeted and refined focus before court, whereas inquisitorial systems don't tend to start the focus until court. It's not so much "jumping to conclusions" as (supposedly) "covering every angle".

 

[phildwyer]

Fifthly, the investigating magistrate and prosecutor in this case has a bit of previous for desperately weaving complex threads of evidence into this theories about crimes he's investigating.

Giuliano Mignini is a right nutter. He clearly has issues with female sexuality, and a weird credulity with regard to bizarre conspiracies. He's fixated on the idea that Knox was into ritualistic "sex games," despite the complete absence of any evidence from her earlier life. His next big case after Knox was a strange, obsessive persecution of a stripper. And before Knox there was the case of the "Monster of Florence:"

"In early 2002, Mignini had Narducci's body exhumed and examined. Mignini believed that the body was not decomposed enough to be Narducci's. A medical examination determined that the body was in fact Narducci's. Mignini then theorised that the body had been swapped twice.[14] Mignini alleged that Narducci had been involved in a secret society and killed to keep quiet and that his father, Ugo Narducci, a member of a masonic lodge, had masterminded the cover up.[18][19] Mignini's theory involved a complicated conspiracy of 20 people, including government officials and law enforcement officers. Mignini indicted 20 people and charged them with the concealment of Narducci's murder. The charges were eventually dismissed.[20] Narducci's family and colleagues believe that his death was a suicide."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuliano_Mignini

This is the guy who should be under investigation.

 

[existentialist]

Giuliano Mignini is a right nutter. He clearly has issues with female sexuality, and a weird credulity with regard to bizarre conspiracies. He's fixated on the idea that Knox was into ritualistic "sex games," despite the complete absence of any evidence from her earlier life. His next big case after Knox was a strange, obsessive persecution of a stripper. And before Knox there was the case of the "Monster of Florence:"

"In early 2002, Mignini had Narducci's body exhumed and examined. Mignini believed that the body was not decomposed enough to be Narducci's. A medical examination determined that the body was in fact Narducci's. Mignini then theorised that the body had been swapped twice.[14] Mignini alleged that Narducci had been involved in a secret society and killed to keep quiet and that his father, Ugo Narducci, a member of a masonic lodge, had masterminded the cover up.[18][19] Mignini's theory involved a complicated conspiracy of 20 people, including government officials and law enforcement officers. Mignini indicted 20 people and charged them with the concealment of Narducci's murder. The charges were eventually dismissed.[20] Narducci's family and colleagues believe that his death was a suicide."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuliano_Mignini

This is the guy who should be under investigation.

He was. He was prosecuted and convicted of "abuse of office". He's appealing. The irony is strong in this one.

 

[The Pale King]

Dershowitz dishes:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2...anda-knox-retrial-verdict-dershowitz.cnn.html

"If this case is decided under the law, she'll be extradited. If it's decided by politics, perhaps not."

 

[Joe Reilly]

I don't think she's innocent. Innocent people don't try to blame other people. It's a basic principle for me.

She didn't blame other people. It was the police who decided the bar owner was involved based on going through her texts and reading his texts to her. As it happens she had deleted her reply. So when they recovered it it said something like 'see you tonight'. They went HA! As we thought proof of an assignation on the night. At that stage she was regarded as his facilitator. He was lifted. When it turned out he had an alibi - which they hadn't checked - they claimed that she culpable.

 

[Joe Reilly]

He got 30 years for a crime where the maximum tariff is life without parole, which says one of two things;
1) that he got a reduction for opting for a "fast track" trial

He got 30 years after opting for the fast track trial. Lets not confuse this anymore than it is.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He got 30 years after opting for the fast track trial. Lets not confuse this anymore than it is.

Joe, if you think what I said "confuses this", you've got a low confusion threshold.

 

[The Pale King]

She didn't blame other people. It was the police who decided the bar owner was involved based on going through her texts and reading his texts to her. As it happens she had deleted her reply. So when they recovered it it said something like 'see you tonight'. They went HA! As we thought proof of an assignation on the night. At that stage she was regarded as his facilitator. He was lifted. When it turned out he had an alibi - which they hadn't checked - they claimed that she culpable.

It was the police who made her accuse an innocent man?
The wiki posted above has the questioning (she was a witness at this stage, not a suspect) going down like this:

"Around 11:30 pm Monica Napoleoni, the head of the homicide department at the police station, approached Amanda Knox in the public area. She asked Knox if she'd be willing to answer a few questions. Anna Donnino was called to come to the police station to act as an interpreter and it took her a little under an hour to arrive. The interrogation started at around 12:30am.
The questioning started with a text message exchange between Amanda Knox and her boss Patrick Lumumba. Amanda had previously told the police that she had not responded to Patrick's text, but her phone records showed she had. The police were also interested in why she deleted this text message. The text message, written in Italian as Ci vediamo più tardi ("See you later"), could be interpreted as Amanda committing to seeing Patrick later that night, and the police wanted to know about this.
At this point Knox was also informed that Raffaele was no longer corroborating her alibi. Knox was told that Raffaele had changed his story to one in which Knox left at 9 pm and did not return until 1 am. Hearing that was the trigger, which led to Knox falsely accusing Patrick. According to Officer Ficarra, Knox "started crying and wrapping her hands around her head, she started shaking it, and then she said: "It was him... Patrick killed her."

That looks to me like once Sollecito told the police that she had left the flat the night before and asked him to lie for her, she tried desperately to divert suspicion away from herself. When she said "It was him, Patrick killed her", she absolutely blamed another person.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Giuliano Mignini is a right nutter. He clearly has issues with female sexuality, and a weird credulity with regard to bizarre conspiracies. He's fixated on the idea that Knox was into ritualistic "sex games," despite the complete absence of any evidence from her earlier life. His next big case after Knox was a strange, obsessive persecution of a stripper. And before Knox there was the case of the "Monster of Florence:"

"In early 2002, Mignini had Narducci's body exhumed and examined. Mignini believed that the body was not decomposed enough to be Narducci's. A medical examination determined that the body was in fact Narducci's. Mignini then theorised that the body had been swapped twice.[14] Mignini alleged that Narducci had been involved in a secret society and killed to keep quiet and that his father, Ugo Narducci, a member of a masonic lodge, had masterminded the cover up.[18][19] Mignini's theory involved a complicated conspiracy of 20 people, including government officials and law enforcement officers. Mignini indicted 20 people and charged them with the concealment of Narducci's murder. The charges were eventually dismissed.[20] Narducci's family and colleagues believe that his death was a suicide."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuliano_Mignini


This is the guy who should be under investigation.

A writer, American I think, researching a book on the case was arrested and accused by the same nutter of being an accomplice!

 

[Belushi]

How many pages until we solve this crime?

 

[Casually Red]

Personally I believe her to be guilty , primarily due to the fact she deliberately tried to stitch an innocent man up for an horrific crime while simultaneously lying about her alibi.

its striking the amount of sympathy , understanding and benefit of doubt she, a twice convicted murderer and rapist, gets on this site, especially when compared to Julian Assange. Whos accused of a much more minor offence and hasnt been found guilty of anything . At least outside U75.

 

[Joe Reilly]

It was the police who made her accuse an innocent man?
The wiki posted above has the questioning (she was a witness at this stage, not a suspect) going down like this:

"Around 11:30 pm Monica Napoleoni, the head of the homicide department at the police station, approached Amanda Knox in the public area. She asked Knox if she'd be willing to answer a few questions. Anna Donnino was called to come to the police station to act as an interpreter and it took her a little under an hour to arrive. The interrogation started at around 12:30am.
The questioning started with a text message exchange between Amanda Knox and her boss Patrick Lumumba. Amanda had previously told the police that she had not responded to Patrick's text, but her phone records showed she had. The police were also interested in why she deleted this text message. The text message, written in Italian as Ci vediamo più tardi ("See you later"), could be interpreted as Amanda committing to seeing Patrick later that night, and the police wanted to know about this.
At this point Knox was also informed that Raffaele was no longer corroborating her alibi. Knox was told that Raffaele had changed his story to one in which Knox left at 9 pm and did not return until 1 am. Hearing that was the trigger, which led to Knox falsely accusing Patrick. According to Officer Ficarra, Knox "started crying and wrapping her hands around her head, she started shaking it, and then she said: "It was him... Patrick killed her."

That looks to me like once Sollecito told the police that she had left the flat the night before and asked him to lie for her, she tried desperately to divert suspicion away from herself. When she said "It was him, Patrick killed her", she absolutely blamed another person.

She absolutely blamed another person according to police. I'm guessing interviews were neither in camera or recorded. Most people who have had any dealings at all with the police know how it works. And have healthy scepticism with regard to any police statement that is not corroborated. Those that know nothing of interrogation regard the changing of accounts of events as critical when all it is frightened witnesses giving police what they think they want. Almost ever miscarriage of justice case in this country has vulnerable people or people who are made to feel vulnerable being intimidated into accusing others prior to admitting their own involvement. Guildford Four/Birmingham 6/Cardiff 3 are all classics in this regard.

Ps It is even obvious from the section you quoted that it was the police that were steering her toward Lumumba. Not her steering the police.

 

[The Pale King]

She absolutely blamed another person according to police. I'm guessing interviews were neither in camera or recorded. Most people who have had any dealings at all with the police know how it works. And have healthy scepticism with regard to any police statement that is not corroborated. Those that know nothing of interrogation regard the changing of accounts of events as critical when all it is frightened witnesses giving police what they think they want. Almost ever miscarriage of justice case in this country has vulnerable people or people who are made to feel vulnerable being intimidated into accusing others prior to admitting their own involvement. Guildford Four/Birmingham 6/Cardiff 3 are all classics in this regard.

Ps It is even obvious from the section you quoted that it was the police that were steering her toward Lumumba. Not her steering the police.

There was also a translator present. If you want to say that they made her accuse Patrick Lumumba, you have to impugn the translator's integrity as well as that of the police.

Does anyone know when, if ever, she retracted her accusation of Patrick Lumumba and the written statement she signed? I note that she has not paid him what she owes him, does she still accuse him of the crime or of involvement in the crime?