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Amanda Knox Is Innocent

Casually Red said:
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<snip>
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Nobody have claimed to swell over with bucketloads of sympathy for this person, I think most of us just want to point out that the more sober approach to conundrums like this is to stick to hard evidence and that convicting people without sufficient evidence is not how the justice system should work. IMHO the downside of the minimalist "innocent until proven guilty" approach is that a lot of perpetrators will end up walking free exactly because one cannot and should not put people in prison based on circumstantial evidence and hearsay, but that's the price to pay to avoid miscarriages of justice. One psycho on the loose vs. a hundred innocent men in prison cells...

ETA: out of curiosity, why do you believe this woman to be a "rapist"?
 
Oh no, getting a strong sense of deja vu here. I got all pulled into this the last time it surfaced and had to do a bit of self-scrutiny - because like many here, I had quite strong opinions....but ultimately, I just got confused by it all and wandered off. Made the mistake of watching the US news and felt various unwanted opinions surfacing again.......but ultimately, I just don't know and this makes me feel very sad for the Kerchers and a bit ashamed to be doing the whole armchair detective thing again. Offski, I think.
 
because the crime shes been found guilty of twice involved bruising to the victims genital area as well as her throat being sliced open. I doubt either act was consensual.
 
campanula said:
Oh no, getting a strong sense of deja vu here. I got all pulled into this the last time it surfaced and had to do a bit of self-scrutiny - because like many here, I had quite strong opinions....but ultimately, I just got confused by it all and wandered off. Made the mistake of watching the US news and felt various unwanted opinions surfacing again.......but ultimately, I just don't know and this makes me feel very sad for the Kerchers and a bit ashamed to be doing the whole armchair detective thing again. Offski, I think.
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Yep, probably. There's times when armchair detectivery is fine, particularly when there's a clear miscarriage of justice. At the (should be) guilty end, OJ comes to mind, at the (should have been) not guilty the Birmingham 6 are an obvious example. It doesn't feel too bad discussing this one, but the impact of the case on the Kerchers will be agonising.
 
@Casually Red - Before we know the motive it's not that easy to conclude with whodunnit, though... I mean, the Knox woman could be involved less directly too, covering up for someone for example... There could be persons unknown who escaped the police investigation at the time... Anything is possible- and unless someone breaks down and confesses we'll probably never know for certain. I can't imagine how it must be for the poor family of the victim- never getting closure.
 
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The Pale King said:
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?
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Jesus Christ! You actually think a translator is going to intervene? Read what you put up yourself. This was police recorded when they thought he was the one they wanted.
 
The Pale King said:
Does anyone know when, if ever, she retracted her accusation of Patrick Lumumba
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This isn't a criticism of you, but this shows that you haven't followed the case closely.

My honest and distinct impression has been that those who haven't been following it tend to assume she's guilty, while those who have tend to think she's innocent.
 
phildwyer said:
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.
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And your proof of this is...? Wair for it... Wikipedia :facepalm:
 
ViolentPanda said:
You can single-handedly physically assault and murder a person quite easily. Restraining them while you rape and murder them is much more problematic, unless they're prone. Ms. Kercher wasn't prone when she was restrained and stabbed/slashed.
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She died from a mixture of strangling and bleeding out from the slashes to her throat. is there evidence she was standing throughout the assault?
 
ViolentPanda said:
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.
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Good post. For all the Italian police's many faults at least one can talk back to them unlike here (in my personal experience). Violent yes but no worse than UK police.
 
Anudder Oik said:
And your proof of this is...? Wair for it... Wikipedia :facepalm:
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Again, this tells me that you haven't looked into his history. He has a well-earned and widespread reputation as a loon. None of the facts are in dispute.

"The lead prosecutor in the case, Giuliano Mignini, at first argued that Kercher was killed by Knox and Sollecito as part of a Satanic ritual involving an orgy or sacrifice, but later decided to tone things down a bit and focus solely on the idea of extreme sexual perversion. Mignini has made similar accusations in the past, most notably in the Monster of Florence case. After American author Douglas Preston and Italian reporter Mario Spezi criticized him for blaming that unsolved series of murders on a shadowy group of devil worshippers, Mignini responded by accusing them of being part of this Satanic conspiracy. Spezi was imprisoned on suspicion of murder and Preston was driven out of Italy after being threatened with prosecution."

http://www.examiner.com/article/amanda-knox-s-prosecution-part-of-a-long-history-of-witch-hunts

"Mignini always included witch fear in his murder theory, and only reluctantly relinquished it. As late as October 2008, a year after the murder, he told a court that the murder “was premeditated and was in addition a ‘rite’ celebrated on the occasion of the night of Halloween. A sexual and sacrificial rite [that] in the intention of the organizers … should have occurred 24 hours earlier” — on Halloween itself — “but on account of a dinner at the house of horrors, organized by Meredith and Amanda’s Italian flatmates, it was postponed for one day.”

http://nypost.com/2011/10/02/how-occult-obsessed-prosecutor-turned-knox-trial-into-a-witch-hunt/
 
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Joe Reilly said:
She died from a mixture of strangling and bleeding out from the slashes to her throat. is there evidence she was standing throughout the assault?
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According to the forensics, the blood spatter doesn't support her being prone until she'd already bled heavily.
BTW, "strangulation was attributed because her hyoid bone was destroyed. However, her hyoid bone was cut in two with a a knife and was crushed, so there's some "chicken and egg" going on there, as to which did for her.
 
phildwyer said:
This isn't a criticism of you, but this shows that you haven't followed the case closely.

My honest and distinct impression has been that those who haven't been following it tend to assume she's guilty, while those who have tend to think she's innocent.
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The fact is it's the other way round. You presumed she was innocent from the start because she's pretty. The defence campaign in the USA deliberately avoided talking about the "evidence". All people on here who have tended to believe she is guilty have tried reasonable argument and looked at the events, even questioning themselves. The pro Knox camp have been more emotional than rational throughout the entire thread.
 
phildwyer said:
This isn't a criticism of you, but this shows that you haven't followed the case closely.

My honest and distinct impression has been that those who haven't been following it tend to assume she's guilty, while those who have tend to think she's innocent.
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What have I missed? I'm not assuming she's guilty, I've come to that conclusion from reading the evidence, but I don't claim any special authority, and you may well be better informed about the case than I am.

When did she retract her statement to the police?

My impression is that to believe in Knox and Sollecito's innocence, one ends up in conspiracy territory pretty quickly, with vindictive prosecutors and incredibly corrupt police, who are apparently useless at everything except planting evidence and securing confessions, which they are incredibly brilliant at.
I don't mean that as any criticism of you either by the way :)
 
Anudder Oik said:
The fact is it's the other way round. You presumed she was innocent from the start because she's pretty.
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Now you're just getting angry. No need.

Be honest. You didn't know about Mignini's history did you?

"The Prosecutor of Perugia is a balding, portly Italian who has a thing for conspiracy theories involving Satanic sects. Giuliano Mignini, the 60-year-old magistrate who oversaw the failed Amanda Knox prosecution, has put forth wild and bizarre hypotheses about the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher. His actions, according to many observers, not only laid the groundwork for Knox's Monday acquittal by an Italian appeals court-but were outright unprofessional and bordering on the criminal. He was even censured last year for abusing his office. "Why are people afraid to stop him?" author Mario Spezi once asked on CBS News. "Why was he allowed to work on the Amanda Knox case and present his crazy ideas?"


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...inal-observers-article-1.959606#ixzz2s69iPGwS
 
One of Mignini's previous cases.

"Even though all the Monster's victims were shot with the same gun, Mignini told a court that it wasn't the work of a single serial killer. Rather, Mignini described an elaborate conspiracy of 20 people, including government officials and law enforcement officers, who made up a secret society behind the Monster killings. Mignini indicted the 20 people and charged them with the concealment of Narducci's murder, and laid out a hard-to-follow plot that included body doubles and featured Narducci's body being swapped - not once, but twice! If all of this sounds hard to believe, it is. Tuesday, in a preliminary hearing, Perugia Judge Paolo Micheli threw out the case against the 20. The judge found there was no solid evidence to back up Mignini's claim that Narducci was murdered, let alone the victim of a satanic sect. "Mignini's malicious and completely unwarranted accusations ruined many lives and impoverished the defendants and their families," Douglas Preston, the author of "The Monster of Florence," told Crimesider. Added Mario Spezi, Preston's co-author in Italy, "The great question is: How was it possible that Mignini was able to pursue a case that everyone knew was crazy?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster...osecutors-satanic-theories-rejected-by-judge/
 
Joe Reilly said:
Jesus Christ! You actually think a translator is going to intervene? Read what you put up yourself. This was police recorded when they thought he was the one they wanted.
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My point was that if it is true that the police forced Knox to accuse Lumumba, and she was not, in fact, accusing an innocent man of her own volition, it must also be true that the translator who was present at the time perjured herself when she testified to this effect:

  • Donnino was repeatedly asked about mistreatment of Amanda Knox.
    • To the multiple questions of was Amanda Knox hit Donnino answered no and added that she never left the room.
    • Asked if Knox was told she would spend 30 years in jail and never see her family Donnino testified that it was never said.
    • Asked if Knox was told there was evidence against her again Donnino testified that it was never said.
    • Asked if Knox was told getting a lawyer would make things worse again Donnino testified that this was never said. In fact Donnino stated Knox was asked if she wanted a lawyer and she said no. Donnino's version of events are supported by an intercepted conversation between Knox and her mother where Knox stated that she didn't feel like she needed a lawyer.
    • Asked if they Knox was mistreated in any way, Donnino said no and that the SCO Ivano went out of his way to show compassion for Knox.
    • Donnino also testified that at one point one of the officers went to get drinks for the group including Knox.
  • Donnino did testify that before Knox confessed she was told that Raffaele Sollecito was no longer supporting her alibi. Sollecito had changed his story and was now telling the police that he was home alone and that he had lied because Amanda Knox had asked him to.
  • Donnino was also asked about the claim that she told Amanda Knox to imagine what happened. Donnino unequivocally denied that she said to imagine. Donnino explained that she told Knox a personal story about a traumatic event that happened to her and that the trauma affected her memory and that Knox should try to remember. Donnino denies ever telling Knox to imagine what might have happened.
  • Bongiorno seized on Donnino saying that she was attempting to create a personal connection to Amanda Knox as a criticism of Donnino's role as interpreter. Donnino explains that she views herself as both an interpreter and a mediator.
 
To sum up: Mignini is out-of-control, and widely-known to be out-of-control, but the Italian justice system lacks any mechanism for bringing out-of-control prosecutors to account.
 
Just in case anyone wants to claim it's only the American media who think Mignini's a nutcase, here's the Independent:

"Prosecutors in Italy enjoy a degree of power and discretion unthinkable in Britain. Mr Mignini, the father of three young girls, a portly, avuncular figure in his robes, was already well known in Perugia for his conservative Catholic faith, and the ferocity with which he descended on people he regarded as embodying decadent, godless modern behaviour.

He prosecuted an English couple because the garden of their Umbrian cottage had wild poppies growing in it – he claimed they were growing them for the opium seeds. He arrested a foreign stripper in a local club for going too far. He reopened a notorious serial murder case in Florence, not on the basis of new evidence but on the theory that the crimes were committed on behalf of deviant freemasons, a theory inspired by a spiritualist blogger in Rome who said she received information from a long-dead priest. The same blogger, Gabriella Carlizzi, now herself deceased, was the first person to float the idea that Ms Kercher may have died at the culmination of a satanic rite involving Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito.

To some people, the behaviour of Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito was that of two nicely brought-up middle-class kids who had never tangled with the law and still believed that policemen could be trusted to protect you. But Mr Mignini didn't see them like that. He saw a sexy, promiscuous, drug-taking foreign vamp, canoodling with her new Italian boyfriend, showing no conventional signs of grief, identified by Ms Kercher's friends as having had a difficult relationship with the victim, and sitting on her boyfriend's lap in the police station. When the police investigation revealed the hair of a black person in the victim's hand, and it was revealed that Ms Knox had sent a text to her part-time employer, the Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba, saying "see you later" – interpreted by the police as an assignation – Mr Mignini had his eureka moment. Caso chiuso, said the police chief. Case closed."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ng-mysteries-of-the-kercher-case-2367804.html
 
Anudder Oik said:
The fact is it's the other way round. You presumed she was innocent from the start because she's pretty. The defence campaign in the USA deliberately avoided talking about the "evidence". All people on here who have tended to believe she is guilty have tried reasonable argument and looked at the events, even questioning themselves. The pro Knox camp have been more emotional than rational throughout the entire thread.
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TBF though, from what we know of high-publicity cases in the US, "emotional argument" garners more sympathy than "just the facts, ma'am".
 
phildwyer said:
One of Mignini's previous cases.

"Even though all the Monster's victims were shot with the same gun, Mignini told a court that it wasn't the work of a single serial killer. Rather, Mignini described an elaborate conspiracy of 20 people, including government officials and law enforcement officers, who made up a secret society behind the Monster killings. Mignini indicted the 20 people and charged them with the concealment of Narducci's murder, and laid out a hard-to-follow plot that included body doubles and featured Narducci's body being swapped - not once, but twice! If all of this sounds hard to believe, it is. Tuesday, in a preliminary hearing, Perugia Judge Paolo Micheli threw out the case against the 20. The judge found there was no solid evidence to back up Mignini's claim that Narducci was murdered, let alone the victim of a satanic sect. "Mignini's malicious and completely unwarranted accusations ruined many lives and impoverished the defendants and their families," Douglas Preston, the author of "The Monster of Florence," told Crimesider. Added Mario Spezi, Preston's co-author in Italy, "The great question is: How was it possible that Mignini was able to pursue a case that everyone knew was crazy?"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/monster...osecutors-satanic-theories-rejected-by-judge/
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Of course, you've investigated Preston and Spezi's credentials, right? Their professional backgrounds are unimpeachable?

Because it seems like this guy Spezi has his own legal troubles in Italy, for interfering in murder investigations.
 
The Pale King said:
Because it seems like this guy Spezi has his own legal troubles in Italy, for interfering in murder investigations.
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OK, you're picking this case up as you go along. Nothing wrong with that.

You seem like an intelligent guy. I'll be interested to see whether your opinion will change after you've read up on it a bit.
 
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