Earlier
this year, authors Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez published their book Math
on Trial.
In it, they
discuss a number of cases where, they allege, mathematical errors were made in
court. One of the cases discussed is the case against Amanda Knox and
Raffaele Sollecito.
The authors
explain that, in this case, the Appeal Court's decision to not re-test the DNA
evidence found on the so-called double-DNA knife was flawed. In an article in
the New York Times, they summed up their position as follows:
"One of the major pieces of evidence was a knife collected from Mr. Sollecito’s apartment, which according to a forensic scientist contained a tiny trace of DNA from the victim. Even though the identification of the DNA sample with Ms. Kercher seemed clear, there was too little genetic material to obtain a fully reliable result — at least back in 2007.
By the time Ms. Knox’s appeal was decided in 2011, however, techniques had advanced sufficiently to make a retest of the knife possible, and the prosecution asked the judge to have one done. But he refused. His reasoning? If the scientific community recognizes that a test on so small a sample cannot establish identity beyond a reasonable doubt, he explained, then neither could a second test on an even smaller sample.
Whatever concerns the judge might have had regarding the reliability of DNA tests, he demonstrated a clear mathematical fallacy: assuming that repeating the test could tell us nothing about the reliability of the original results. In fact, doing a test twice and obtaining the same result would tell us something about the likely accuracy of the first result. Getting the same result after a third test would give yet more credence to the original finding."
Is this criticism fair? Did the Appeal Court flunk its math exam?
Well, to my mind the answer to this is yes and no. The Appeal Court ultimately did err in its assessment of probabilities, but, ironically, it did not err in the way the Schneps and Colmez seem to think.
Why is this? Well, for a very simply reason: the authors misrepresent the Appeal Court's reasoning. After all, when it comes to the question of whether a new test should be preformed, this is what the Appeal Court actually said:
"In fact, (the prosecution) argued that systems currently exist able to analyse such low quantities, albeit still at a developmental stage. This Court holds, however, that it is precisely the fact they are still under development, in practice in an experimental phase, which precludes us from basing a belief in guilt on the results obtained with the application of such systems: the Judge can do no else but base his or her opinions on the technical systems and established scientific knowledge from a particular time period – the period in which s/he is called to judge – and not on others still in an experimental phase. This, once again, to reach a decision of guilty beyond any reasonable doubt."
So what does this mean? Well, the Appeal Court is definitely not saying "the first test yielded an inconclusive result; the second test would yield another inclusive result, so let's not do the new test". What the court is saying, is that any new test (regardless of the outcome) would be irrelevant, simply because such a new test would have to be carried out by "systems" that are "still in development" and "experimental" and, therefore, inherently untrustworthy.
Schneps and Colmez seem to think that this a case where you could have had two single results, both of which might be quite acceptable, but both of which, when considered singularly, are inconclusive. They seem to think that the Appeal Court made the basic error of not considering that two such results might well prove to be much more relevant when taken together. However, that is clearly not what the Appeal Court has done.
So much, then, for Schneps's and Colmez's argument. They have simply misrepresented the Appeal Court's reasoning and, based on that misrepresentation, erroneously assumed the court made some sort of mathematical error.
The question remains, though - did the Appeal Court do its math properly? I would say not.
Why?
Well, Schneps and Colmez are right in one thing. The Appeal Court does seem to have muddled its understanding of the law of probabilities. However, what's in question is not the probability of just one or two DNA tests leading to a reliable result with regard to the knife; instead, it's the probability of the entire case. That is: of all the bits and pieces that, when fitted together, drew the original court to its conclusion that that Knox and Sollecito must be guilty.
What the Appeal Court has done is that it looks at all these bits and pieces separately. It then rejects them all. Not because they could not possibly lead to the conclusion that Knox and Sollecito are guilty, but rather because, seen singularly, they do not lead to that inevitable conclusion. And, the Appeal Court then reasons that, since there is not one single bit of evidence that would, in itself, prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, all the various bits and pieces taken together wouldn't either.
Now this is a clear error, and it can be simply demonstrated.
Let's look at this from a simple mathematical point of view and assume that there are various aspects of the case which could point to guilt and which might not, and let's assume that each aspect has a 50% to 50% ratio between the two.
For example: the break-in. There's a 50% chance it was real; there's a 50% chance it was staged. Kercher's DNA on the knife? A 50% chance it was there; a 50% chance it wasn't.
Now let's sum up a number of the most important factors, two of which I've just mentioned. Here's a somewhat simplified list:
Guilty Innocent
Break-in 50% 50%
DNA knife 50% 50%
DNA bra clasp 50% 50%
Luminol traces 50% 50%
Footprint on mat 50% 50%
DNA traces bathroom 50% 50%
Total 50% 50%
From this simple list, anyone would assume that there's a 50% chance that Knox and Sollecito are guilty, and a 50% chance that they are innocent. So that would clearly implicate that they should be cleared in court; the Appeal Court correctly acquitted them, right?
Well, not so. The thing is, of all these various factors, there is really only one that must be taken into consideration when assuming guilt. That's the break-in. As I've stated earlier, there is no way in which Knox and Sollecito might be guilty if the break-in actually occurred. To put it another way, if the apartment was actually broken into, one must assume their innocence.
Such an assumption need not in any way be made when it comes to any of the other factors, however. The assumption that Kercher's DNA was on not the knife, for example, does not in any way lead to conclusion that Knox and Sollecito must be innocent. The same applies to the DNA found on the bra clasp; the same applies to the Luminol traces, etc.
Conversely, if any of these factors did indeed conclusively point to Knox's or Sollecito's involvement, any single factor would be sufficient to establish their guilt. If, for example, it must be assumed that Sollecito's footprint was found on the mat in the small bathroom, it must be assumed that Knox and Sollecito are indeed guilty.
So let's do the math. Are Knox and Sollecito guilty? Well, there's a 50% startling chance. Does that get any lower? No; none of the factors mentioned in my list can decrease that. Can it get any higher? Certainly: if the chances of their innocence decrease, the chances of their guilt rise proportionally.
Are they innocent? Well, again you start with a 50% chance. Does that get any lower? Oh, yes. You start out with the break-in, which is where your initial 50% comes from. But next you'd have to assume that Kercher's DNA is not on the knife. So that's another 50%. You're left with 50% x 50% = 25%. Then you move to the bra clasp. Another 50%. That makes 12,5%. You move on through the remaining factors, and end up with a rather stunning 0,78% chance of them being innocent. Yes, that's right: less than 1%. Conversely, there's a higher than 99% chance that they're guilty.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not seriously suggesting that you could settle the whole case by simply doing a few sums. What I am suggesting, though, is that there is a basic error in the Appeal Court's reasoning.
The error is very simple. You can't look at this case and say that there's not a single piece of evidence that necessarily leads to Knox's and Sollecito's guilt, and then leave it at that. You have to look at all the pieces of evidence, and you have to look at all those pieces together. If you do, the picture becomes quite different, and it simply becomes rather difficult to assume their innocence.
Can that assumption still be made? Yes, I would say it can. Just not in the way in which the Appeal Court has attempted it. Its logic isn't very sound, and neither is its math.
82 comments:
The author himself makes a very basic error and also ignores Italian law. Hellman is not guilty of the fault alleged, namely of looking at each item of circumstantial evidence ('CE') in isolation from all the rest. That would indeed be wrong because CE works cumulatively. But before cumulating items of CE the items must deserve to be cumulated in the first place. As Galati put it in the prosecution appeal to the SC
Galati preface wrote:
With the enactment of C.P.P. Article 192, our legislature has set forth the rules for assessing evidence in a criminal trial. Circumstantial evidence is dealt with in the second paragraph of the Article, which specifies that “The existence of a fact cannot be inferred [desunta] from circumstantial evidence unless the latter is serious, precise, and consistent [gravi, precisi, e concordanti].”
So, if you take the bathmat print and want to use it as evidence against Raffaele, then you need to prove it's all three of the above: serious, precise and consistent. The meanings of these terms is also given in Galati:
serious = that is to say resistant to objection and therefore convincing
precise = not susceptible to differing interpretation that is at least as likely and
consistent = [concordanti] which is to say not in contrast with itself and with other evidence that is certain
The foot print is not 'serious' because it is not resistant to the objection that it's somebody else's. it is precise and consistent but it is required to be all three. Since it doesn't cross that threshold, it doesn't count, according to Italian law. Hellman explains this clearly:
H-Z conclusion wrote:
In the end, the first-level Corte di Assise, in order to reconstruct the case presented to it, concluded that it could coordinate factual elements (held to be certain in themselves, but whose meaning was not entirely unambiguous) into a unified picture [quadro] in which each one of the elements could be given [conseguire] a definitive explanation, and all of them, collectively, an unambiguous meaning, giving rise to proof of guilt.
Now, however, the “bricks” of this edifice [costruzione] have themselves collapsed; that is, this is not a question merely of a differing arrangement [una diversa ricollocazione] of these bricks, so as not to permit the realization of the planned architectural project, but rather of a lack of material necessary for the construction [in the first place]. And the collapse of the material elements of the prosecution case [il progetto accusatorio] obviously does not permit us to arrive at a verdict [pronuncia] of guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.
Personally, I have my doubts about Italy's statutory threshold test (especially the second limb) but it's the law and Hellman was not free to disregard it).
There's another massive error here: assuming there's a 50-50% chance the break-in was staged.
How was that number derived? Certainly by no normal methodology. One could take the number of break-ins compared to the number of staged break-ins and you'd get a damned low ratio, perhaps 1% staged. Then figure of those, just how many involved a known burglar. At this point how many are actually staged?
Or you start with how many rape murders involved three people who didn't know each other outside an introduction and a few sightings and didn't have a common language conspired to rape and murder someone for no discernible reason outside the one the burglar had.
Or you could go by what the odds are that the police who arrested three people by taking two college kids into the backroom in the middle of the night and got confused gibberish out of them and said it matched 'the facts we knew to be correct' but it would turn out none of those facts *were* correct and when the forensics came in it turned out all the evidence in the murder room pointed to another man. What then are the odds that by being completely wrong regarding just about everything they uncovered a criminal plot nearly unprecedented in known criminal history?
All of the evidence in this case (against Raffaele and Amanda) is actually evidence of a corrupt and.or incompetent police and prosecution. Hiding the TMB blood test negatives and lying about it counts *against* them, it doesn't add anything to the potential of Raffaele and Amanda's guilt! Advancing a knife as a murder weapon that doesn't match the wounds or the outline on the bed, tests negative for blood and the DNA test is considered unreliable also counts against the prosecution, it doesn't do anything but reduce the possibility Amanda and Raffaele were involved.
As does a bra-clasp filmed the day of discovery but somehow they failed to collect and six weeks later it's in a different spot and the DNA work is again deemed unreliable by the independent court experts does nothing more than reduce the credibility of the prosecution that advances such garbage as evidence.
Doing it your way you could find just about anyone guilty of any crime. The prosecution will always have evidence to present, otherwise there would be no trial. However just throwing enough junk at the defendants and hoping enough improbabilities add up is a damn poor substitute for logic and science.
I agree with Clive but would add that you have ignored the exculpatory evidence of which there is ample. For example, we have the usage and log data for the mobile phone of Meredith Kercher which shows to a very high degree of certainy (perhaps more than 99%) that her phone was long gone from the house at 10:13pm. We also have the fact that Meredith's stomach contents had not begun to empty into the duodenum which also suggests that the prosecution's 11:30pm time of death to be statistically impossible. Add in the fact that Knox/Sollecito did not know Guede well enough to even have a coffee together, never mind conspire to murder, and I think we find ourselves with a murder theory that is statistically less than 1%. You have basically made the same error that the Perugian prosecution made - their job is to look for evidence for and against the suspects. They entirely ignored evidence in their favour, and your model makes the same mistake.
Teddy.
I don't know if you are wise to talk maths. The basic argument you are making - an argument I agree with - is obscured by maths, not accentuated by.
The reality of this mess is that very few commentators have been exposed to Massei's coherent and powerful deductive reasoning.
Most people haven't ever had it properly laid out to them as it's dlaid out in his report, because they haven't honestly read it - and the few of us who have are even worse because we feel so emboldened and evangelical... thinking our pet arguments are that sound and can be like envoys.
Dear Alex van den Bergh,
The judge of the Appeal Court did make the flawed argument that we criticized in our New York Times article; the points you raise just make his statements even more false. First of all, the new tests would not have been done by unreliable methods, nor even by methods that are still new and experimental. There are kits available now that can reliably treat samples even as small as the ones that were found on the knife during the second round of testing. Secondly, it isn't just a matter of saying "the test is not reliable and therefore it is not useful to do a second one". This depends on how unreliable the test really is. In fact, the results of the test already performed on the knife were quite reliable as the result is very easy to read and clearly identifies the victim. The only unreliability is a general one associated with low template DNA, that may lower the reliability from 99.9% to a somewhat lower figure. I estimated it as 80%, but the judge himself describes it in words as acceptable for orientation in an investigation, but not for obtaining a proof beyond every reasonable doubt.
If a test is only reliable to 80% and you do it twice and obtain the same result twice, the reliability goes up strongly. This is intuitively obvious. If you test the material from the knife once and find a profile that looks like Meredith, you may doubt that it is really hers, or that it really came from the knife and not from some particle floating around the lab. If you swab the knife again and test again, and supposing you again find Meredith's profile, you can be a lot surer that those facts were true in the original test as well. This is the point of our analysis.
Sincerely
Leila Schneps
Dear Leila,
First of all - thank for your comment!
I actually think we disagree less than you seem to think.
I am looking at this case primarily from a legal point of view. More specifically, I am looking at the two verdicts given in this case: that of the original court, and that of the Appeal Court.
Now, when it comes to the Appeal Court’s verdict, it seems to be a simple matter of fact that that court decided that any new test would be irrelevant, due to the fact that it would have to be carried out by new, “experimental” methods. The Appeal Court may well be wrong in this assessment (and I personally think it is), but that is a matter I did not discuss in this particular post.
In your response, however, you immediately point to the fact that, in your view, a new test need not be unreliable at all. Well, that might certainly be the case, but that’s not the point. The point is that you have argued that the Appeal Court makes a mathematical error. The Appeal Court, however, does not. Its decision with regard to the DNA may well be wrong, but it is not mathematically wrong.
Let me use your own argument: that of throwing a coin up in the air. Yes, you can do it ten times, and jot down the results. Those results wouldn’t be terribly reliable, though, simply because a series of ten throws isn’t enough. So would a further ten throws help? Most assuredly. The Appeal Court’s argument, however, is not that throwing up the coin another ten times wouldn’t help. Its argument is that attempting to decide any possible bias of the coin by other, and untrustworthy, means - such as giving the table the coin is lying on a good thump - wouldn’t mean anything at all. After all, you can thump away, but whilst the coin may move a bit, it won’t spontaneously flip over. And even if it did, it wouldn’t rise up in the air spinning sufficiently to make any outcome meaningful.
That, to use your own example, is the Appeal Court’s argument. Again, the argument may well be wrong. It is not, however, mathematically wrong.
I’d be interested in your further thoughts.
Chhers,
Alex van den Bergh
Dear Wismayer,
I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand your argument. You say that the Appeal Court is "not guilty of the fault alleged, namely of looking at each item of circumstantial evidence in isolation from all the rest".
Well, I believe that's exactly what the Appeal Court has done. And I believe, as I've tried to point out in this post, why such an approach is clearly wrong. I also believe that this could very well be one of the major reasons the Court of Cassation has annulled the acquittals.
I simply dodn't see the "basic error" I'm supposed to have made.
Dear Clive and Teddy,
You're responding to a post which deals with one specific issue in the case.
It's a theoretical one; the issue of maths.
For the questions you raise, you'll need to look at my other posts. In my original series ("The Verdict in Perugia", which I started in June, 2011), I address the original court's verdict.
In the second series, "Back to the Drawing Board" (which I started in March of this year), I look at the Appeal Court's verdict.
I believe you'll find the answers to your questions there.
I read part two of Back to the Drawing Board, and it seems to me that your understanding of low template DNA forensics is no better than incomplete, starting with your error in terminology in referring to the work that Ms. Stefanoni did as LCN (it is low template, not low copy number). You wrote, "It is not entirely clear (that is, it is not generally accepted by the scientific community at large) what precautions should be taken - what protocols should be followed - in carrying out this type of testing." True LCN work is done in a dedicated facility, one equipped with UV lighting and special air handing facilities. Clothing is changed as one proceeds from certain parts of the facility to others. The facts that the knife was repackaged at the police station and then tested in a facility not specially designed for this kind of work are serious problems. It is important to realize that these precautions are not designed to obtain a profile, they are designed not to obtain a profile (meaning, the precautions try to exclude DNA that arrived from contamination).
Equally appalling in this case is the lack of discovery. The defense repeatedly asked for the electronic data files but were refused. This flies against international norms. Whether or not the defense was willing and able to appoint experts to oversee the testing is irrelevant. Experts are unanimous in saying that having the EDFs is critical to a proper case review, If anything, that is more true for low template or mixed DNA samples than for other ones.
I have also read part 1, in which you discuss the break-in, and I find the reasoning to be open to serious question. True Massei spent much time on the subject, but photographic documentation of the glass supposedly on top of clothing was weak. Equally puzzling is that you ignored Rep. 199, which tested positive for blood by TMB, when you said that there was no trace of entry near the door. The fact that you failed to mention Sgt. Pasquali's demonstration is also troubling.
The error I detect in your article is in supposing that it is wrong to address items of CE in isolation from each other. Italian law requires that such evidence must be serious, precise and consistent before it may be combined with other items of CE. Hellman simply found that the evidence he looked at didn't make the grade. So, when you say this:
'What the Appeal Court has done is that it looks at all these bits and pieces separately. It then rejects them all. Not because they could not possibly lead to the conclusion that Knox and Sollecito are guilty, but rather because, seen singularly, they do not lead to that inevitable conclusion. And, the Appeal Court then reasons that, since there is not one single bit of evidence that would, in itself, prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, all the various bits and pieces taken together wouldn't either.'
you fall into error yourself because this is not what Hellman did. I agree what you describe would be an error if that's what happened.
Dear Wismayer,
Thanks for your clarification!
I must admit I'm not quite sure how to respond. As I said earlier, I do indeed feel that the Appeal Court has run afoul of the error of looking at the (circumstantial) evidence only piecemeal, of deciding that various bits and pieces of that evidence are, by themselves, not 100% decisive, and then deciding that all the pieces, taken together, are not sufficiently decisive either. (Which is effectively what the Appeal Court itself says in the section of its ruling you quote).
If you feel that the Appeal Court's judgement is nevertheless correct, you are of course perfectly free to do so. It seems to me to directly contradict Italian law, though.
Consider this section from the Cassation appeal request (the Galati request):
"According to the (jurisprudence of the Court of Cassation) in fact, 'In evaluating evidence, the court must take into consideration each individual fact and their totality, not in a parcelled-out way and detached from the general probative context, verifying if they, reconstructed in themselves and placed together in rapport, can be organised into a logical, harmonic and consonant construction which allows, by means of the unified evaluation of the context, to attain to procedural truth, that is the limited truth, humanly ascertainable and humanly acceptable and satisfactory in the actual case.'
The Perugia Court of Appeal has opted, instead, exactly for the parcelled-out evaluation of individual probative elements, as if each [14] one of them must have had an absolutely unambiguous meaning and as if the reasoning to be followed were of the deductive type."
So I'm sorry, but I just can't see how I somehow "ignore Italian law".
I'd be happy to discuss this further, though - it's an interesting point.
Dear Chris,
Thanks for your post.
You're right: I did say that, to my mind at least, it is not entirely clear what precautions should be taken when it comes to LCN testing. There is no clear-cut set of rules accepted by the scientific community at large. Nothing set in stone, if you will.
As far as I know, that statement is quite correct.
One might well argue if the testing carried out by the Scientific Police meet the criteria that should apply in this particular case, but it seems strange, as the Appeal Court has done, to imply that there are universally accepted rules (since there are not), that the Scientific Police did not adhere to them and that therefore the results arrived at are so unreliable that they should be totally dismissed.
To be frank, nothing in your post seems to contradict this.
Chris Halkides,
"True LCN work is done in a dedicated facility"
Do you have any documentation to support this claim?
There are at least a hundred uses of LCN DNA in the United States where the evidence was not processed at a dedicated facility.
With respect to the discovery you are just being dishonest. C&V stated that they had everything they needed. If C&V stated they had everything they needed why do you continue to claim on their behalf that anything necessary was withheld?
McCall, If you wish to keep yourself willfully ignorant of the woeful lack of discovery during the trial of first instance and the foot-dragging that hindered the independent review, there is nothing I can do about it. Everyone else can read what Carlo dalla Vedova said in 2011: “The experts asked the forensic police to hand over information essential to their report on the DNA. They still haven't received it and will therefore request a 40 days extension.” He added, “It's not the first time we've asked for the police to hand over this information,” He also said, “But they need the raw data they have asked for from the police to do so. We first asked for it in 2009 and it's still not been handed over.” IMO Conti and Vecchiotti meant that they had enough to determine that the lab work was not up to scratch, not that they had everything they wished for. Every single DNA forensic scientist I have asked has stressed the importance of reviewing everything, but especially the electronic data files.
I suggest reading "Making the invisible visible" in the New Zealand Herald, 28 October 2006. "The bogey is contamination. The very sensitivity of the technique which enables it to extract a DNA profile from the tiniest sample also makes it extremely vulnerable to contamination. Stringent measures are needed to minimise that risk." Portions of this article detail some of the precautions.
Chris,
I am glad you dropped the "dedicated facility" argument since it was clear you were making that up.
Now to address the issue of discovery. You have attempted to shift the claim quoting something a lawyer said in 2011 and discounting what the actual reviewers themselves said after that statement was made. At least you don't deny that the reviewers themselves stated that they had everything they needed. You just think you know better than they do despite having no experience.
As for the article I don't see the relevance. No one denies that contamination is a greater concern when dealing with LCN DNA but it is not the unmanageable risk that you attempt to imply it is. In this situation it isn't a concern in since laboratory contamination was ruled out by Vecchiotti in her testimony. As you are likely aware but now conveniently forgetting nothing related to the Meredith murder was tested in the facility for the six days prior to the the knife being tested. That was sufficient to have Vecchiotti rule out the possibility of contamination but you continue to raise it as if it was possible. You are not an expert and have demonstrated a rather weak understanding of DNA in the past so why should your position be given any consideration?
McCall,
Are you serious? Let me quote a little bit more of the article you were supposed to read but apparently did not: “The ESR has spent $1 million building special anti-contamination areas at its premises in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Protocols are being developed for crime scenes where the LCN technique is used and for the handling of samples from collection through to courtroom.”
In the Leskie case there was a two-day gap in between the two items between which there was contamination. Please try to keep up.
Even its strongest proponents understand the need for special facilities: “In 2004 an entire laboratory was renovated in New York and devoted solely to the OCME to further develop LCN DNA testing. In 2007 a brand new scientific facility was built in New York's OCME to accommodate the advances made in the area of LCN DNA testing.” And, “The FSS LCN test requires an ultra-clean laboratory and so is more expensive and less widely offered than the standard test.... The site of this bespoke laboratory is remote from other DNA Units, operates stringent entry requirements, is fitted with positive air pressure and specialist lighting and chemical treatments to minimize DNA contamination.”
Moreover, Theodore Mifflin wrote, about air handling and PCR: “For extremely high-performance PCR laboratories that will be involved with detecting very-low-prevalence DNA or RNA molecules (e.g., infectious disease agents in clinical samples), additional measures may be necessary to prevent contamination from the air being recirculated between the pre- and post-PCR laboratories. In this case, the air handlers need to be separate and the air pressure individually adjusted in each laboratory. In the pre-PCR laboratory, there should be a slight positive pressure compared to the air in the connecting hallway. The post-PCR laboratory, in contrast, should be at slightly reduced pressure to pull air in from the outside and thereby prevent escape of amplicons from the completed PCR samples being analyzed inside the lab (Fig. 2). Finally, the air handlers for the pre- and post-PCR laboratories need to be connected to separate air ducts, and each must lead to a separate location for exhaust."
Likewise you have willfully misrepresented my points about discovery. One, full discovery simply did not happen in the trial of first instance. Not only do we have Dalla Vedova’s statement to that effect, we also have Bonjuorno’s statements in Raffaele’s appeal. I have interviewed several of the consultants for the defense, such as Dan Krane, and they are crystal-clear that they asked for the electronic data files repeatedly, yet did not obtain them. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the thread covering the book “Math on Trial” at InjusticeAnywhere for additional information. If Leila Schneps can acknowledge these problems, maybe you can, too.
Two, the independent experts were initially stonewalled, as dalla Vedova indicated. Yes, Stefanoni released some information, and it was enough for everyone to see how problematic the data were. But that is not equivalent to full release, nor does it in any way, shape, or form excuse the prosecution for its refusal to release this and other forensic information for almost four years. I suggest everyone read the ABA’s model rules on DNA evidence for a tutorial on what discovery is supposed to look like. You can find more extensive discussions of the importance of the electronid data files at viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com. Even if Conti and Vecchiotti were satisfied with what they had, there is no reason whatsoever not to release everything to the defense. They certainly asked enough times.
Chris,
"In the Leskie case there was a two-day gap in between the two items between which there was contamination. Please try to keep up"
6 is greater than 2. Try to keep up. Further, my understanding is that it was 1 or 2 days not 2 days
There are two problems with your application of the Leskie case. The first is a lack of understanding with respect to probability and what would happen by increasing the number of days and thus the number of cleanings. If you assign the probability that DNA could escape a daily cleaning at a generous 2% after six days the odds that the DNA would still be present would be 15 billion to 1. With one day it would be 50 to 1 and two days 2500 to 1. I hope that explains why the two scenarios are not comparable.
The second issue is that in the Leskie case you have cross-investigation contamination which is what you'd expect in a contamination situation. The DNA presented itself on a random item unrelated to the original case that was tested either the following day or with a day between testing. In the case of the knife you'd have to almost assign sentient properties to the DNA as it managed to not only avoid cleaning efforts but also to not contaminate any of the other items tested in those six days. Then when the knife was tested the contamination jumped into action and contaminated an item related to the original case. This would be considered impossible.
I also noticed that you failed to answer the question posed. I'm not looking to debate your views on DNA contamination but rather to get at what the individuals at the trial actually said. So let me state it again for you. Vecchiotti said contamination was not possible after six days. Was she wrong to say that?
With respect to the dedicated facility you are apply faulty logic. Your reasoning is that if a dedicated facility is built then it must be a requirement. That is a obviously flawed argument. You also ignore the facts that LCN DNA not processed in a dedicated facility has been used in courts. How do you reconcile that with your claim that a dedicated facility is a requirement? I would suggest you contact all the lawyers in those cases. Consulting work pays well and if you could support any of these imaginary requirements they will be happy to hear from you.
As to discovery I did not mischaracterize what you said but rather you have changed what your claim. Originally you stated that C&V were denied documentation that they required despite them saying the exact opposite. Now you've moved from that to claiming that individuals with no standing told you they were denied access to documents they had no right to have. Well duh.
@Chris,
You wrote:
"I have interviewed several of the consultants for the defense, such as Dan Krane, and they are crystal-clear that they asked for the electronic data files repeatedly, yet did not obtain them."
Dan Krane wasn't officially listed as an consultant for the defence. He wasn't present when Conti and Vecchiotti attempted to carry out new tests on the bra clasp and the knife and he didn't testify in the courtroom. The Scientific Police were under no obligation whatsoever to provide him with any data.
Chris Halkides,
Your posts imply that defence lawyers were refused data - to which they had a right.
The issue has been debated at some length on the Injustice in Perugia forums. Essentially it is a matter of whether documentation was actually deliberately withheld, or were the defence grandstanding - trying to shed the prosecution in a bad light over the absence of some data, which they should have obtained themselves.
I personally do not know whether the EDFs or other documentation was refused, but I presume not. If access to relevant data had been denied C&V and the defence lawyers would have made everyone aware of this. You and the Injustice Site would have been shouting this out loud and clear - instead you are making veiled and vague references through Dan Krane and other third parties.
Hugh and Harry Rag,
I don’t know how Carlo dalla Vedova could possibly have been clearer about the lack of release. I suggest you reread what he said, and then read Sollecito’s appeal. There is, however, additional evidence, some of which I supplied to the thread at InjusticeAnywhere that you mentioned (please read my blog entries for more detail). Bob Graham wrote, "Chris Mellas, Knox's step-father who is currently in Perugia, said yesterday: "Our lawyers asked for everything, every file and record relating to the forensic testing. We were given some of the stuff, like what was on Meredith's shoes or a juice glass but not the full reports on the knife used or the bra-clasp." In interviews conducted in 2010, Greg Hampikian also mentioned the difficulty he was having in obtaining standard operating protocols in newpaper interviews in the spring of 2010. He reiterated his request for more forensic data, to Knox’s lawyers in the summer of 2010. It would be idiotic to say that he is not part of the defense.
Dan Krane was asked to consult on this case, and his requests for the EDFs went through the defense. It is bewildering to me why anyone would characterize him as a third party. I have been writing about the lack of discovery for several years, and recently an article about this subject appeared at Ground Report (Amanda Knox Case: What Are The Italian Authorities Hiding? by Pmause44 April 25, 2013). I don’t know how one could be more emphatic about this.
Chris,
Dan Krane was not an official consultant for the defence. The Scientific Police were under no obligation to provide him with any data. It really isn't difficult to understand.
Harry,
I have conversed with Chris Mellas, Dan Krane, and Jason Gilder (Dr. Krane's associate at Forensic Bioinformatics) about this matter. There is no doubt that Professor Krane consulted with the defense, and his requests were put through via the lawyers. Moreover, Dr. Pascali was also refused the data, as Raffaele's appeal details.
If you still want more evidence that you are wrong, I will oblige: Professor Hampikian was interviewed and he said, "It’s fairly routine in the US that I send a request and get what I want. But in the Knox case I haven’t been able to get a copy of the standard operating procedures of the lab and without that, it’s hard to see if they even followed their own guidelines." Professor Hampikian reiterated his needs to Ms. Knox's lawyers in the summer of 2010, yet as of the spring of 2011, still nothing, as Dalla Vedova indicated. It is sheer fecklessness to pretend that discovery happened in the trial of first instance or even by the start of the appeal.
Chris Halkides,
I am well aware you have been commenting on this issue for several years. What bothers me is during that time you have never been able to quote the defence stating publicily that they were categorically refused documentation. By this, I do not mean the absence of some paper work or postponement of proceedings from such, or the inference of lack of discovery. Grandstanding and the attempt to convey the prosecution as incompetent or corrupt was a feature of the trial - as of many cases.
If relevant data was deliberately refused and withheld, that information should come straight from Della Vedova and Buongiorno - not Krane or Hampikian. The reason is simple. You, I or any other blogger or poster can write or infer what we wish. The Italian lawyers cannot. They would be struck off and face proceedings for having deliberately stated a falsehood.
As I have said before, I personally do not know whether the EDFs were withheld. But I strongly presume they were not. The deliberate withholding of such data would have been major news. C&V would have made this public. The press agencies would have had a field day.
Incidentally, why are you surprised the authorities did not release confidential information to Krane and Hampikian? Do you envisage foreign bodies being granted such rights for cases within the USA?
My surname, by the way, is not Rag.
Dear Hugh,
My previous comment was addressed both to you and to Mr Harry Rag, because you covered similar grounds. I provided a quote from Mr. dalla Vedova in my comment on May 30 at 6:17 AM. Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me your interpretation of it.
Chris Halkides,
I do not cover similar grounds as Harry Rag. Harry Rag is a well known commenter with a firm pro guilt stance. My position is not entrenched either way.
To provide you with an interpretation of Della Vedova's statement, and it would only be my interpretation, I would obviously need to know the full context in which the statement was made. The date and place, and from what source the quote originated. Above all, the original Italian syntax. Della Vedova speaks of RAW data.(translated as such) Now, what is your interpretation of RAW. Has he not received copies? As I have said before, to my knowledge, Della Vedova or Buongiorno have never made a formal statement either publicly or in court stating that they have been deliberately denied documentation.
You must realize that this issue has been flogged to death on the Injustice Forums, and doubtless will not be resolved between us. The salient point remains that C&V never mentioned the withholding of the EDFs or any other relevant data. They in fact stated that they had everything they required.
Dear Hugh, Raffaele's appeal is available in the original Italian, and there is a discussion of the lack of discovery there. In addition if you scroll to the bottom of this link to a comment in the JREFF thread, you will find a pdf file of Bongiorno's address to the court in September of 2009. She discussed the lack of discovery and the raw data file. The comment itself is a machine translation, but perhaps you can provide us with a better one. Raw data in DNA forensics is generally understood to mean the electronic data files from which egrams may be constructed and analyzed.
Carlo dalla Vedova speaks English; therefore, I am not sure whether his statement to AFP is translated or not.
McCall, Here is one more citation on the issue of LCN and facilities from a review article on DNA forensics: "Very few laboratories perform low template DNA typing properly, because it requires dedicated facilities and great experience, although there are several published methods for the interpretation of such profiles [80-82]." p. 265 in “Past, Present, and Future of Forensic DNA Typing,” Nanomedicine (London) 2011, 6(2), pp. 257-270.
Alex
I am familiar with the Galati quote and with the principle that CE works cumulatively and in combination. However, before it can be cumulated and combined, it must be evidence. Curatolo, for example, has to satisfy a test of relabiliy before the circumstance that they were in the Piazza from 9.30 to 11.30/12.00 can be combined, say, with the bathmat print. His evidence does not acquire reliability from the print. I quoted the law in my initial post, a rare instance of an Italian law I agree with in this area :-)
Clive
Chris Halkides,
The PDF file you refer to is not available unless one is registered. I am, however, thoroughly familiar with the JREF forum, as well as all the other pro innocence and pro guilt sites. The issues raised on that post, I understand Buongiorno's request was granted, have been debated at length. You must be familiar with this. Essentially, pro defence insist on a complete withholding of relevant data - EDFs. Pro prosecution claim the defence lawyers were not interested in raw data files until 1979 - and for purely posturing and media coverage reasons, and insist that documentation was already held by the trial of first instance. Posters on both sides seem knowledgeable and deft, so posturing may not only be limited to the Italian courts. Only a few days ago the issue was again raised at JREF - check out the comments between Kaosium and Machiavelli.
I am aware of what electronic data files are. I was enquiring as to the context and connotation of the word RAW, which usually infers the first or original, and as to why the defence would specifically request this as opposed to a duplicate or copy.
Have not been able to trace or find a link to Sollecito's appeal.
Behind all the posturing and sophistry,the issue remains whether the EDFs were handed over or not. I believe they were, simply because we would have heard a lot more about it if they had not.
Perhaps you could give me your opinion. Do you think they are being withheld?
Dear Hugh,
With respect, you are using the word "raw" in a different manner than many spectroscopists would. For example, Bruker nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers refer to the free induction decay (FID) as "raw data" and to the spectrum after Fourier transform as "processed data." The analogy to NMR spectroscopy may be helpful. The data are acquired in the time domain as the FID, but then they are typically viewed after the transformation from time domain to frequency domain. Yet the Fourier transform is necessarily done with certain choices about how the data are processed. It would be understandable for a NMR spectroscopist to prefer to obtain an FID and process the data himself or herself if some fine point about a particular NMR spectrum were in doubt.
You can find the analogous point made about raw data made by an anonymous DNA forensic scientist at Viewfromwilmington.blogspot.com. Having raised this question with a number of people, I am 100% certain that the electronic data files were not released to the defense. As for not hearing more about this failure of discovery, what can I say? The popular media is easily distracted by trivialities. On the other hand, there is a fair amount of discussion of just this one point at VfW.
Raffaele's appeal in Italian is at InjusticeAnywhere, under the "appeal" subsection, along with summaries.
Chris Halkides,
Well this is exactly the point. What does RAW EDFs infer as opposed to EDFs. I would presume that RAW in this context means the originals and EDFs can be duplicates or copies. I'm raising the point since the issue here has always seemed to centre on the claim that RAW data had been withheld.
I'm surprised you can claim the EDFs were withheld with such certainty. Have followed the forums dealing with this subject on the Injustice and JREF forums. The impression I get from the commenters, who are overwhelmingly pro innocence, is that although they are more than happy to postulate the EDFs were withheld, they genuinely don't really know. I get the feeling, pro guilt commenter, Machiavelli, does know. He insists the defence has them - but is he telling the truth? There is another poster called Thoughtful or Layla - author of the Math book. You probably seen her comments on the Injustice forums. Well, a couple of the more ungentlemanly members started beating up on her, so she done this damsel in distress call to her friend in the Perugia Murder File forum to come and help her out. But he said - No way, they're debating the EDFs over there, and I don't know anything about that. At least he was honest. I thought ain't that funny and weird - all this talk about the EDFs - but nobody knows nothing at the end of the day.
That's my whole issue with this point. Why do we have to refer to forums and sites. I cannot imagine such an issue skipping past serious journalists. C&V were happy to raise so many trivial points - yet they say nothing about the EDFs?
Dear everyone,
This is just to let everyone know that I have deleted three comments posted here.
The first is my own comment, directed towards Clive Wismayer. Rather stupidly, I'd addressed this to "Chris". Chris Halkides then mistakenly thought I was talking to him; his is the second post. The third is my apology to Chris.
The intention here is to avoid confusion, and nothing more. I will, of course, again answer Clive Wismayer.
Hugh, The only mainstream journalist who discussed it was Bob Graham, as I previously indicated; however, Hampkian and Johnson brought up the issue in their open letter in November of 2009. I emailed Dan Krane, Jason Gilder, and Chris Mellas about this issue to death in 2010, and I wrote several blog items about it in 2010-2011. As you may know I participate in discussions at JREFF and InjusticeAnywhere. If the defense had the EDFs, I would have them, and I do not. That is what makes me so certain.
There are journalists such as Barbie Nadeau and John Follain who have covered this case for a long time. They rarely write about the forensics in detail, and when they do, it is usually unclear or wrong. Each would benefit by putting his or her nose in a forensic textbook, and the coverage of the case might improve if each one did so. MOO.
@Chris,
You wrote,
"There are journalists such as Barbie Nadeau and John Follain who have covered this case for a long time. They rarely write about the forensics in detail, and when they do, it is usually unclear or wrong."
Would you care to support your claim with some actual proof e.g. a verbatim quote from Barbie Nadeau or John Follain about forensics that is factually incorrect?
Thanks in advance.
Nadeau, "Why were you bleeding? Your lawyers agree with the prosecution’s findings that at least one of the spots of Meredith’s blood found in the house where she was killed had your blood mixed with it." This is utter nonsense; there is no mixed blood according to the defense. Nadeau also indicated that there would not be mixed DNA in her own bathroom. I would bet dinner at Barbie's favorite restaurant in Florence (perhaps one she wrote about, that if we are talking about the Nadeau family residence, that would would find mixed DNA. It is a common finding.
Nadeau's report on the last court session from July 2009 neglected to include the details of just what the prosecution was allegedly witholding: "Saturday’s hearing ended with a dramatic exchange about whether the prosecution had given the defense key documents regarding the DNA on Kercher’s bra. The charge was seen as a blatant attempt by the prosecution to throw the defense’s witness, and it worked. The exchange ended with Sollecito’s lawyers accusing the prosecution with illegality—a move many thought was primarily to set the stage for an appeal if one or both are convicted."
On p. 198 of Death in Perugia, Follain wrote, Traces of Amanda’s and Raffaele’s blood were found on a dishcloth and a sponge." This claim may originate from a November 2007 report from Malcolm Moore, but nothing further has ever been reported, and I have never seen anything about it at the trial.
Dear Clive Wismayer,
My initial (now deleted) response to your post was very succinct. However, I feel that you deserve a fuller answer.
I have given the matter a bit of thought, and it seems to me that, in the end, our views are fundamentally different when it comes to the question of how to evaluate circumstantial evidence.
I think we can agree on the basic fact that circumstantial evidence (and yes, each item of circumstantial evidence) must ultimately be "serious, precise, and consistent" (the three criteria mentioned in section 2 of Article 192 of the Italian Criminal Code of Procedure).
Where we disagree, however, is how to determine this.
If I understand your assumption correctly - and please correct me if I do not! - you feel that each item of evidence must adhere to these criteria when viewed on its own, whilst my own point of view is that each item must be evaluated in relation with the other evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) available.
In my view, therefore, an item of circumstantial evidence, when viewed on its own, need not immediately have the "seriousness" (or "weight") required by Italian law; it may however acquire that seriousness when viewed in conjunction with other items of evidence. In your point of view, one would never get to that stage, since one would have viewed the item of evidence on its own and thereupon disregarded it.
If I have described your viewpoint correctly, I must admit I find it a rather strange one. It seems to me quite possible to have, for example, two items of circumstantial evidence, where each item in itself is not necessarily very convincing, but where the two together are quite compelling (in fact, this is not just possible, it happens all the time). It seems odd that you would believe that Italian law would nevertheless dictate that you would have to disregard both items, and thereby sacrifice the proof that the two items together offer.
I must also admit that I cannot find any substantiation for your views in the Galati appeal, or indeed in the Appeal Court's verdict. In fact, when it comes to the Galati appeal, that appeal (along with the Court of Cassation's jurisprudence, which it quotes) seems to support my view.
In the end, of course, we'll probably find out reasonably quickly who's right. It's only a few weeks till the Court of Cassation's ruling will be made public.
Alex
"It seems to me quite possible to have, for example, two items of circumstantial evidence, where each item in itself is not necessarily very convincing, but where the two together are quite compelling (in fact, this is not just possible, it happens all the time). It seems odd that you would believe that Italian law would nevertheless dictate that you would have to disregard both items, and thereby sacrifice the proof that the two items together offer."
Where this fails completely flat is there is NO circumstantial evidence at all. Just because the prosecution presents things that way doesn't make it so.
What we have her is a bunch of completely unfounded prosecution accusations, NOT circumstantial evidence. There are no pieces to add up to make a strong circumstantial case. Each and every accusation that the prosecution tried to present as circumstantial evidence failed. This is to me what Hellmann also is saying: there are NO bricks. They don't exist.
"Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon."
Dear Sarah
Please read the two verdicts. It's fine if you do not, but in that case, you might do better than post here.
Dear Alex,
If Sarah is who I think she is, I would strongly urge you to think twice.
Chirs,
"This is utter nonsense; there is no mixed blood according to the defense."
That is incorrect. I would direct you to the final days of Hellmann trial when the defence agreed that the mixed sample was Knox's blood. The defence argues independent deposit but they have agreed that it is blood.
Also I would advise you to be less critical of Nadeau and Follain given your history on discussing DNA. I have yet to see either of these journalists say anything incorrect but I have read posts by you that demonstrate a complete ignorance of the subject and you claim to be a scientist.
With respect to discovery you keep mentioning that people with no standing were denied requests. You have included that to not include yourself in that list. Have you ever considered the possibility that defence lawyers simply didn't care about your requests? The Knox family might have seen value in having an irrelevant group with scientific credentials to quote but that is for the publicity battle nor the legal case. The only individuals who can state that discovery was not met would be the defence lawyers and they have not made such a claim.
Sarah,
I'm fairly sure you don't know what circumstantial evidence is if you believe there is none in this case.
There is a lot of evidence and about a third of that large amount of evidence happens to be circumstantial evidence.
McCall,
Do you have a page number in the Hellmann-Zanetti report? I see you chose not to defend Follain’s pulling erroneous material out of an early story; that is the only wise choice you made. Many of Ms. Nadeau’s (mostly nonforensic) errors were discussed at ScienceSpheres and ViewfromWilmington years ago. Please try to keep up.
Professor Hampikian’s and Professor Krane’s requests went through the defense, and the police/prosecution refused them, as I have stated many times. You are also implicitly arguing that Professor Hampikian has no standing, a patently idiotic claim that discredits everything you wrote. Moreover, you are willfully ignoring statements made by both Bongiorno and dalla Vedova, linked elsewhere at this blog. That is feckless at best.
If you want to discuss DNA, then discuss it; don’t deal in innuendo.
Chris,
I don't remember saying it was in Hellmann. I said it was in the closing arguments.
I suspect you are more than aware that the defence accepted that it was blood but advanced independent deposit but since as far as I know this was never reported in the English media you've continued to pretend that it never happened.
If you truly were unaware of this I suggest looking at Sept 29th or Sept 30th 2011 news coverage. You'll have to search google.it news since most of the English news fixated on a different element of that day's proceedings.
I don't know what you mean be I did not defend Follain? My post names both of them. I'll assume you misread.
If I'm not mistaken you are the blogger behind ViewfromWilmington so that is not a valid source to direct me to since you don't understand DNA. So being both dishonest and incompetent what you have to say on this subject is irrelevant.
ScienceSpheres I am unfamiliar with. A quick check reveals it is maintained by a Knox shill. I'm not at all familiar with Mark Waterbury but I do remember seeing him speak on the case once. Based on that presentation his understanding of DNA is as lacking as yours. I don't see how he would be qualified to say anything on the subject.
"You are also implicitly arguing that Professor Hampikian has no standing, a patently idiotic claim that discredits everything you wrote"
I'm not implying it I am saying it explicitly. Hampikian has absolutely no right to request anything. If he asked the defence for material and it was not provided then that is on the defence choosing to not bother pursuing his request. The defence had DNA experts who testified at trial and none of them complained that they were missing anything they needed.
Do you see why your position makes no sense? The expert witnesses who actually testified at the trial had no problems with discovery only some guy in the States did. Keep beating that dead horse.
"If you want to discuss DNA, then discuss it; don’t deal in innuendo."
I'm not sure how to respond to that. You make DNA sound like it is equivalent to discussing the weather or the local sports team. There are multiple items of evidence that fall under the classification of DNA evidence. We were not discussing any of those so to spontaneously break-out into such a conversation would be offtopic.
First let’s review. You were shown to be incorrect about the facilities used for true LCN DNA forensics. Then you pretended that the lawyers had never complained about the lack of discovery, when the quotes and citations were in this very thread. Next was the absurd claim about mixed blood. Even Massei did not claim that there was mixed blood.
I asked for a citation from Hellmann for a reason: If some news report from late September of 2011 had reported that the prosecution claimed that there was mixed blood, that would have been pretty thin gruel. Reporters (especially Nadeau and Follain) get things wrong all of the time. Yet you cannot even provide that much and expect me to do your homework for you. It is your claim; support it, or withdraw it. Amanda’s blood on the tap was not mixed: “a sample was taken from the front part of the faucet of the sink, which yielded the genetic profile of Amanda Knox (Massei, p. 192, English translation). If you didn’t know it before (which I find unlikely), you know it now.
In your comments about me, you claim I have made erroneous statements about DNA forensics. Much of my reporting at VfW comes directly out of the forensic literature or is in the form of quotes from experts, such as Professor Lednev. If you actually believe that you have found one, let’s discuss it. It is not off-topic to ask you to put up or shut up: you are engaging in a rhetorical fallacy known as “poisoning the well,” and I am calling you on it. The same is true of what you said concerning Dr. Waterbury. I find it noteworthy that neither he or nor I hide our identities, but you do. Perhaps you would care to share your scientific expertise so that we can evaluate it.
It is your position on the lack of discovery that makes no sense. Not just Ms. Bongiorno and Mr. dalla Vedova, but also Chris Mellas discussed the lack of full disclosure. That made the trial of first instance unfair, regardless of anything involving the independent experts whatsoever. However, that Stefanoni also tried to stonewall them is also well known, not just from Mr. dalla Vedova’s comment, but also from Judge Hellmann’s note to her: “Dear Doctor Stefanoni, I received your faxed note dated April 20th and take note of the relevant content. I ask you, however, regarding the official experts to kindly give to them copies of your and my responses communicated at the same time, consigning directly to them what is of interest, useful to acquire with the goal of completing the investigations, subject to the clarification of the perplexity that you mention.”
(continued below)
(continued from above)
Let me remind you of what Professor Dan Krane said about electronic data files: “I believe that a defense expert cannot competently evaluate the results of an STR DNA test without having access to the test’s underlying electronic data. In my experience, review of electronic data has often led directly to the discovery of important problems or limitations in the STR testing, or to alternative theories of the evidence, that would not have been apparent based on a review of laboratory reports or other laboratory records… In my opinion, review of the electronic data is as important as review of the laboratory’s written notes…There is no legitimate reason for a laboratory to refuse a defendant’s request to examine the electronic data.” Moreover, you are deliberately twisting what Professors Conti and Vecchiotti said. They said in effect they had enough to discredit Ms. Stefanoni’s faulty work, not that they had all that had asked for.
As for Follain, I provided a specific example of his faulty reporting, and neither you nor Harry Rag refuted or even challenged it; thus, you effectively conceded the point that his report about the sponge and dishcloth was nonsense. As for Professor Hampikian, he is head of the Idaho Innocence Project, and they took on Ms. Knox’s case, according to a message on their website, as well as articles from which I have quoted at VfW. I’ll say this much for you; when you set out to make a fool of yourself, you give it 110% effort. But in this case you are also a knave. I have repeated reported that the defense transmitted the request to the prosecution, and it was the prosecution who refused.
McCall Wrote:
I suspect you are more than aware that the defence accepted that it was blood but advanced independent deposit but since as far as I know this was never reported in the English media you've continued to pretend that it never happened.
The only thing I can imagine you could be talking about is the slight congealed blood smear on the tap. That was Amanda's blood, and was not mixed with anything, that's not just something the defense 'advanced,' that's fact. If you've read the Massei report you ought to know that. One of the reasons that and the rest of the 'mixed blood hypothesis' of the prosecution was not accepted by Massei is the following from page 280 of the PMF translation:
Amanda was not wounded; in the days following no one spoke of wounds that she might have had; the examination which was carried out on her when measures restricting her personal freedom were taken ruled out the presence of wounds.
Amanda was examined most thoroughly and there were no wounds, or evidence of healing wounds that could have produced blood.
McCall Wrote:
If you truly were unaware of this I suggest looking at Sept 29th or Sept 30th 2011 news coverage. You'll have to search google.it news since most of the English news fixated on a different element of that day's proceedings.
The prosecution advanced the 'mixed blood hypothesis' in the appeal, but being as it's pure sophistry it shouldn't trouble the cogent. Since there was an unconnected blood smear from Amanda's ear on the tap they say 'Amanda's and Meredith's blood was mixed in the sink' to imply that Amanda must have had blood on her from murdering Meredith and it mixed with Meredith's suggesting it was deposited at the same time. Of course even if that blood had mixed together it wouldn't have necessarily have mean a simultaneous deposit, but since it didn't and Amanda wasn't wounded at all it's simply evidence of a fundamentally dishonest prosecution.
Do you understand now?
If I'm not mistaken you are the blogger behind ViewfromWilmington so that is not a valid source to direct me to since you don't understand DNA. So being both dishonest and incompetent what you have to say on this subject is irrelevant.
If you actually understood DNA work you'd realize he most certainly does understand the subject, which isn't much of a stretch being as DNA analysis is basically applied biochemistry and he's a biochemist. With pretty papers with ribbons and everything to prove it!
Since you don't appear to understand DNA analysis it would be even better to read there as voraciously as you can to get a handle on the subject. Beware! Long and complicated words await!
ScienceSpheres I am unfamiliar with. A quick check reveals it is maintained by a Knox shill. I'm not at all familiar with Mark Waterbury but I do remember seeing him speak on the case once. Based on that presentation his understanding of DNA is as lacking as yours. I don't see how he would be qualified to say anything on the subject.
You'd learn something there too, I'd suggest his book as well. He knows something about this subject and whatever you may think about anything else that knowledge is necessary to converse on this topic.
McCall said:
I'm not implying it I am saying it explicitly. Hampikian has absolutely no right to request anything. If he asked the defence for material and it was not provided then that is on the defence choosing to not bother pursuing his request. The defence had DNA experts who testified at trial and none of them complained that they were missing anything they needed.
It's becoming apparent you're not familiar enough with the Massei report, from page 245 of the PMF translation regarding the documentation for the quantification of 36B:
The Public Prosecutor pointed out that all the tests had been carried out under Article 360 of the Criminal Procedure Code and a lawyer or a consultant for the defence was always present at every stage of these tests and no objection and/or request had been put forward in those stages. The quantification was also performed during these activities carried out in the laboratory. The Defence emphasised their demand to have it made available ("we want it, we want it", page 108) and requested that the proceedings should be suspended immediately in order to acquire the necessary [information], otherwise reserving the plea of invalidity because the proceedings whose existence they had been informed of today had not been deposited in the prescribed manner‛ (page 110). Amanda Knox’s defence also insisted that the documentation should be acquired, with a reservation to also review the conclusions of their own consultants (page 111). The Public Prosecutor declared that he did not oppose the defences’ requests, but specified that it was not a case of documents, but of data that normally are not recorded in the report.
The Court ordered the suspension and acquisition, setting a reasonable time limit, both for lodging *the document+ and for continuing with Professor Tagliabracci’s testimony.
They stopped court proceedings to resolve this issue, and as you'll see it was not completely resolved, continuing from where we left off on page 245:
At the hearing on September 14, 2009, Professor Tagliabracci’s testimony was resumed following the provision of further documentation in accordance with defences’ requests and as ordered by the Court. In that hearing two memos by Professor Tagliabracci were also produced, one dated July 15, 2009 and the other August 27, 2009, regarding the [262] documentation made available and the analyses of the Forensics report, respectively.
With reference to the documentation, Professor Tagliabracci complained that not all the logs/entries or index-cards relating to the composition of the amplification mix had been provided, so that it was not possible to know the reaction volumes and the amount of extract. He point out that, although [attention] had been called to the guidelines supplied by the manufacturing firms at the GUP [Giudice dell’Udienza Preliminare, Preliminary Hearing Court] hearing, Dr. Stefanoni had affirmed (page 179 of the transcripts) that she had also used different volumes.
From this, Professor Tagliabracci had deduced as a consequence that what had been affirmed did not correspond to the methods actually used in the laboratory and furthermore inferred that there was probably a record of these analytical activities that had not yet been produced.
He complained also that in the SAL *‚Stato Avanzamento Lavori‛, work status report] index cards the dates of quantification, amplification and electrophoresis run were never given, and with reference to numerous findings catalogued under [ = (finding) Nos.] 3.58, from 148 to 151; from 154 to 163; from 203 to 222, he advanced the hypothesis that not all material relative to these had been made available.
But wait! There's more!
From page 291:
Both Professor Tagliabracci and Dr. Gino had complained about the lack of certain documents, and had hypothesised the existence of others, and had argued [that there was] a certain contradictoriness/inconsistency between what Dr. Stefanoni had asserted and what had emerged from the documents, and in particular with regard to Exhibit 36B.
Note the 'partial'--the defense never did get everything that they'd expect, especially the Electronic Data Files, the .fsa files that would prove Stefanoni's work: the true definition of 'raw data' that those unfamiliar (like Amanda herself!) with this process might have mistaken for what they did receive. However that was still not the only thing that was denied if you're familiar with the terms above.
McCall Said
Do you see why your position makes no sense? The expert witnesses who actually testified at the trial had no problems with discovery only some guy in the States did. Keep beating that dead horse.
No, that's not it. The court-appointed independent experts were refused the data that Tagliabracci detailed above until they were to the judge and he ordered Stefanoni to release it, which she finally did the last day of Conti and Vecchiotti's commission, which required an additional 40 day extension so they could evaluate what they did receive. However the did not receive the EDFs, however they did say something to the effect of 'we have all that we need' which meant that at that juncture nothing in the EDFs could save Stefanoni's pseudo-science from the scathing dismissal it received as both DNA items were deemed 'unreliable' and the rest of the forensic case called into question by a review of their collection and processing.
Had there been anything in the EDFs that would have supported Stefanoni's work she'd have released them when called in to defend herself from the report that questioned almost everything about the bra clasp and knife blade samples. That she failed to indicates that were those files released she may well face professional discrediting if not jail time for fraud.
This is like selling someone a car but not letting you look under the hood or take it to a mechanic to see if it's actually in good operational condition. It may look good on the outside but that doesn't mean it's sound and reliable.
Dan Krane speaks English so it's real easy for non-Italians to talk to him, so that's why people who don't speak Italian get their information from him.
Chris,
You were shown to be incorrect about the facilities used for true LCN DNA forensics.”
That is incorrect. You found a comment in a journal that said that. That does not establish what you claim. Even if that scientist is correct that statement would only apply to the scientist’s jurisdiction and to that specific point in time. You have still not addressed the fact that LCN DNA was used in criminal cases in the United States that was not the product of a dedicated facility. In the last three years it appears that all the cases using LCN were processed at a facility with a dedicated LCN area but that doesn’t change the fact that the courts previously accepted LCN DNA evidence that was not processed in a dedicated facility. For your claim to be valid the cases where LCN DNA from a non-dedicated facility was used would all need to be reconsidered on the basis that unreliable evidence was allowed that shouldn’t have been used, That hasn’t happened.
With respect to the closing arguments I fail to see why you would bring up Nadeau and Follain when I directed you to the Italian version of Google and they are both English journalists. With respect to either of them being prone to errors I have only seen one error in Nadeau’s reporting and none in Follain. Granted I haven’t read the majority of what either has written on this subject but the probability that I’ve just been lucky in my sampling and the unread articles are full of errors is too low to be considered a possibility. Further there is at least one factually incorrect statement in Massei and at least eight in Hellmann which gives both documents a higher error rate. Lastly, you just referenced an article written on Ground Report where the typical article appears to be written during computer time at a sanitarium so I’m confused about what you considered the acceptable standard of accuracy for a source.
As to doing my homework I asked you to do no such thing. When I originally read material on this murder I has no reason to believe that I would ever need to use it for sourcing so made no effort to catalog it. I will now have to re-read a lot of material to catalog it as a source. My claim is that the defence stated something specific in closing arguments. Attempting to refute that with a quote from Massei is idiotic. Massei was written years before the closing arguments in Hellmann happened. Even if you could convince me that there is no mixed blood that has no bearing on the statement I made which is a factual claim about what someone said on a specific day.
“In your comments about me, you claim I have made erroneous statements about DNA forensics. Much of my reporting at VfW comes directly out of the forensic literature or is in the form of quotes from experts, such as Professor Lednev.”
Your use of forensic literature is sparse. For the post part you base all your arguments on “conversations” and “email exchanges” which basically allows you do say anything you want without anyone being able to verify it. That is not a valid form of sourcing. When you do source the literature you do it incorrectly. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that if you can find one item in the literature supporting your position then your position is valid despite the consensus in the literature being different then the position you advance. If this is how you do your research you have no hope of ever advancing your career past being an associate. As for examples of where you make a fool of yourself with respect to DNA I would direct you to roughly 60% of your posts on Maundry Gregory’s blog. For Waterbury I have already explained that my assessment of his knowledge is from the comically entertaining presentation he put on at that FOA gathering.
“It is your position on the lack of discovery that makes no sense."
Of course it makes sense. There is a proper procedure to address claims that discovery was not met. The lawyers did not pursue that so there is no issue with discovery. End of story.
Kaosium,
I fail to see how your first post addresses the issue of disclosure.
1. The defence was not provided with something they wanted so they requested it.
2. The prosecution did not oppose it. and explained that it was provided because typically it isn't.
3. The defence was given what they wanted plus additional time to review the material.
How exactly does this demonstrate a lack of disclosure?
"He complained also that in the SAL *‚Stato Avanzamento Lavori‛, work status report] index cards the dates of quantification, amplification and electrophoresis run were never given"
The problem with your argument is that the SAL is available. You have it online at IIP so I'm confused as to why Tagliabracci would claim to not have it.
"Stefanoni to release it, which she finally did the last day of Conti and Vecchiotti's commission, which required an additional 40 day extension so they could evaluate what they did receive."
That is incorrect. You seem to be discussing the debate over the negative controls. C&V originally thought that the negative controls were missing but they were wrong. The negative controls had been filed with the Massei court so why C&V originally thought they didn't exist is something only they can answer. On the final days of Hellmann this was discussed and confirmed.
I fail to see how your first post addresses the issue of disclosure.
That was a summary of the battle to get that which should have been provided at the outset. Mignini (or Comodi) was lying, that information is required to analyze the data, as can be seen by the further requirement to release more data at the behest of the independent experts.That's just part of what was required at the start, not even Conti and Vecciotti received all that was required, just 'all that they needed' to whip it out and water down Stefanoni's DNA work.
No, they never released the negative controls, that would mean they released the EDFs, where that data is stored. No one is interested in seeing Stefanoni's photocopies with checkmarks on them, they need to see the data.
You'll be hearing more about this if there's a new trial.
Kaosium,
Just out of interest, what do you mean by "if there's a new trial"?
Do you doubt there'll be one? If so, why?
Alex van den Bergh
It's not certain, as Hellmann pointed out someone is going to have to take that case into court again and all the 'evidence' (against Raffaele and Amanda) is garbage and this time around it has already been exposed as such. Although Costagliola was the official prosecutor for the appeal, Mignini and Comodi did virtually all the courtwork, they hung their reputations on this case, it's not certain anyone else will want to do that, especially in Florence where they have less of an incentive to try to vindicate Mignini's bizarre theory or the police in Perugia who so bungled this case in the beginning.
I suppose it depends on what grounds the SC quashed the acquittal. That might just be internal politics within the judiciary regarding the privilege of prosecutors in Italy, something Mignini abused in this case and Hellmann slapped him down down pretty hard for it which might not have gone over well for the SC which is partial to the prosecutor faction in Italian justice.
I guess we will see in less than a month now, but one possible 'resolution' for this debacle is that time just runs out on it, satisfying no one, but allowing Raffaele and Amanda their freedoms and the prosecution to save face. It's not like there's any pressing need to 'solve' the murder of Meredith Kercher, no one can really deny that was Rudy Guede and anything beyond that was pretty fantastic to begin with. Any additional exploration into it will just court further embarrassment for Italian justice and law enforcement.
Just a possibility, nothing certain, especially dealing with humans and their institutions which are so loathe to admit error no matter how many lives are destroyed.
"It's not certain, as Hellmann pointed out someone is going to have to take that case into court again and all the 'evidence' (against Raffaele and Amanda) is garbage and this time around it has already been exposed as such. Although Costagliola was the official prosecutor for the appeal, Mignini and Comodi did virtually all the courtwork, they hung their reputations on this case, it's not certain anyone else will want to do that, especially in Florence where they have less of an incentive to try to vindicate Mignini's bizarre theory or the police in Perugia who so bungled this case in the beginning."
Well clearly the judge and lay judges didn't think it was "garbage" and the Massei Report explains why.
"I suppose it depends on what grounds the SC quashed the acquittal. That might just be internal politics within the judiciary regarding the privilege of prosecutors in Italy, something Mignini abused in this case and Hellmann slapped him down down pretty hard for it which might not have gone over well for the SC which is partial to the prosecutor faction in Italian justice."
Considering how much the Hellmann report was "slapped down" by the Court of Cassation I don't think there's too much to worry about for the Prosecution.
"I guess we will see in less than a month now, but one possible 'resolution' for this debacle is that time just runs out on it, satisfying no one, but allowing Raffaele and Amanda their freedoms and the prosecution to save face. It's not like there's any pressing need to 'solve' the murder of Meredith "Kercher, no one can really deny that was Rudy Guede and anything beyond that was pretty fantastic to begin with. Any additional exploration into it will just court further embarrassment for Italian justice and law enforcement."
What's fantastic is that anyone believes that the break-in was anything other than staged. Spiderman has nothing on Guede apparently. With that in mind it kind of narrows things down a bit doesn't it. That's before we consider the wealth of other evidence and data points that clearly show Knox and Sollecito were most definitely involved.
"Just a possibility, nothing certain, especially dealing with humans and their institutions which are so loathe to admit error no matter how many lives are destroyed."
Sure, because the italian Justice system is all about "destroying lives" isn't it, as opposed to St Knox who clearly had nothing to do with Kerchers murder......give me a break....
McCall,
You are temporally challenged. Barbie Nadeau made her misleading claim in 2010, and you seem to think something that might have been said during the closing remarks in 2011 is relevant. Not unless Ms. Nadeau can see into the future. As far as Follain is concerned, besides repeating falsehoods about blood on a dishcloth and sponge, he also changed the gender of a character who commits a rape in a short story that Amanda wrote from male to female.
With respect to the lack of discovery Ms. Knox wrote, “Starting right after we were indicted, Raffaele’s and my lawyers had requested the raw data for Stefanoni’s forensic tests…Her response was ‘No..the ones you have will have to suffice.’
Then during pretrial, the defense lawyers pressed again, and this time Judge Micheli granted the request. Stefanoni gave us some documents—but not enough to interpret the data. When we objected, the judge shrugged and said, ‘Well, I asked her and she said those files aren’t important for you.’”
Ms. Knox continued, “Dr. Gino [in Micheli’s court] noted that Stefanoni hadn’t provided enough information about her investigation for our defense to be able to critique her conclusions.” (pp. 276-277)
(Ms. Knox uses the phrase “raw data” more broadly than I do.) Things had not improved much by 2009. Ann Wise of ABC news wrote, “In testifying for Knox, expert Sarah Gino, who has appeared in court before, called out the prosecution for providing amplified DNA samples with the dates missing.
The dates are important, Gino said, "because they would tell us what samples were tested together on the same day, which might indicate if some of them could have been contaminated."
With respect to VfW and Maundy Gregory, you lack of specifics is telling. I archived my email exchanges, and I suspect the forensic scientists I quoted also did. If you think one of them has been misquoted, I suggest contacting both of us. BTW I am a full professor, not an associate professor. I also find it telling that no one here addressed the substance of the comments made by Dr. Krane or Dr. Lednev. That, too, is telling--and chilling.
Tony,
Even Micheli acknowledged that it would not take Spiderman to make that climb. Sgt. Pasquali demonstrated how the window was broken. No one has even attempted to demonstrate Massei's odd hypothesis.
Well clearly the judge and lay judges didn't think it was "garbage" and the Massei Report explains why.
Yes, and the fact those 'explanations' are so convoluted, improbable, unscientific and non-incriminating that it took 400 pages of 'splaining to try to make a case against them is an excellent indication just why they are garbage.
Rudy's motivations report was something like just over 100 pages, and he had plenty of real evidence against him. It didn't take four hundred pages of illogical nonsense. When you read the Massei Report realize that he lays out the facts, then offers the defense version and since the verdict is guilty must try to make the prosecution scenario work or come up with his own. When he says the 'court holds' he (essentially) has to say that, and when his scenario is illogical, unscientific--if not ridiculous--that suggests to the next court the evidence isn't actually very good if it has to be twisted to that extent. Massei's 'holdings' (we'll call them) are irrelevant at this juncture, it's only the bare-bones facts that count, the rest is for entertainment purposes only.
Considering how much the Hellmann report was "slapped down" by the Court of Cassation I don't think there's too much to worry about for the Prosecution.
The Supreme Court doesn't rule on evidence, and we don't know yet what they'll find wrong. It will be a technicality and not to do with the evidence which is still garbage. Perhaps to do with Hellmann putting an end to the jailhouse conspiracy stuff Mignini wanted to explore, him allowing the independent experts but denying another review--something like that. The science stays the same, the evidence stays the same, and that's not beneficial to the prosecution.
Thinking that break-in had to be staged is really kinda weird, Tony. It wouldn't have taken him two minutes once he started up that wall, and he wouldn't have done it Kermit's way because he's better at it and doesn't have to be Spiderman. :)
Chris,
you're right, it would have need someone better than Spiderman, someone who's capable of leaving no trace whatsoever, on the ground below, or on the wall. They would also have needed to climb to open the shutters first, then climb back down, then throw the stone and still manage to leave no trace of glass below the window. All this in wet conditions, truly remarkable.
As for the defences attempt to prove this was so, they failed dismally, which is why the whole theory has been discredited.
Kaosium,
if you're prepared to believe Guede's miraculous arrival through the window, leaving no trace and not being spotted by anyone, or heard by kercher, his amazing ability to assault Kercher and kill her though she had virtually no real defensive wounds, on top of his leaving his DNA at the scene but then returning to move the body (but not remove his obvious presence) - then I guess you'll believe anything......
When we factor in Knox's lying and lack of a coherent alibi, Sollecito's lying and lack of a coherent alibi then I guess it is fair to say that anything is truly believable.....
Tell me, do you believe Scott Peterson is innocent?
Tony Wrote:
Kaosium,
if you're prepared to believe Guede's miraculous arrival through the window, leaving no trace and not being spotted by anyone, or heard by kercher, his amazing ability to assault Kercher and kill her though she had virtually no real defensive wounds, on top of his leaving his DNA at the scene but then returning to move the body (but not remove his obvious presence) - then I guess you'll believe anything......
How much DNA evidence do you think is left in the average burglary? Rudy was probably there already as per the CCTV camera capture, and on the 'throne' when Meredith arrived, as suggested by the unflushed toilet and his story (no reason to lie about that and it fits). A man with a knife can easily control someone and get inside their guard ('do what I saw or I'll hurt you!' often works wonders) thus defensive wounds are hardly mandatory, and there's no reason to believe the body was moved, that silliness was just conjecture that didn't survive court. What's that from, Micheli? All that nonsense is stuff he just made up that couldn't be proved likely or even a defensible possibility at trial.
When we factor in Knox's lying and lack of a coherent alibi, Sollecito's lying and lack of a coherent alibi then I guess it is fair to say that anything is truly believable.....
Their alibi was each other and outside their being bullied all night by police it never changed. There's no reason to think that has anything to do with the murder, which is already explained by Rudy Guede, and adding two people from a bungled previous arrest from that overnight interrogation is reason to cast suspicion on police and prosecutors, not their poor victims.
Tell me, do you believe Scott Peterson is innocent?
How the hell would I know? I don't follow this sort of thing generally, I bust conspiracy theorists and corrupt authorities and institutions. To me this was a puzzle I wanted to solve.
"How much DNA evidence do you think is left in the average burglary? Rudy was probably there already as per the CCTV camera capture, and on the 'throne' when Meredith arrived, as suggested by the unflushed toilet and his story (no reason to lie about that and it fits). A man with a knife can easily control someone and get inside their guard ('do what I saw or I'll hurt you!' often works wonders) thus defensive wounds are hardly mandatory, and there's no reason to believe the body was moved, that silliness was just conjecture that didn't survive court. What's that from, Micheli? All that nonsense is stuff he just made up that couldn't be proved likely or even a defensible possibility at trial."
Well not a lot by all accounts and DNA evidence isn't required for a conviction, it's a bonus if it's there but the absence of it doesn't mean someone wasn't there. All the physical evidence of the assault clearly indicates the presence of more than one person. As it happens the DNA evidence has not been disproven anyway. It certainly helped on a unanimous guilty verdict in the first trial. I think we can now safely dismiss the "acquittal".
Their alibi was each other and outside their being bullied all night by police it never changed. There's no reason to think that has anything to do with the murder, which is already explained by Rudy Guede, and adding two people from a bungled previous arrest from that overnight interrogation is reason to cast suspicion on police and prosecutors, not their poor victims.
Ah the "we were bullied guv" defence lol. Interesting that nobody else saw it, including the interpreters, but let me guess, we should believe both Knox and Sollecito who have both been discredited as liars. Why would you lie about stuff like that anyway? especially if you're innocent. Why did Sollecito lie about Kercher visiting his apartment and knicking herself on that knife? why would he do that? not another "fuzzy memory" story surely?
Tell me, do you believe Scott Peterson is innocent?
Well it's interesting in that there was no real physical evidence at all to convict him, just circumstantial evidence, but because he was a bit of a naughty boy an American court did convict him and no-one seems bothered. It's interesting then that Knox has far more compelling evidence against her and yet Americans are "outraged" at the terrible Italian Justice system. If Knox is innocent I have no idea how Peterson could ever have been rightly convicted.
Hmm, can I smell a strong whiff of hypocrisy drifting across the Atlantic?
How the hell would I know? I don't follow this sort of thing generally, I bust conspiracy theorists and corrupt authorities and institutions. To me this was a puzzle I wanted to solve.
Hmmm I wouldn't give up your day job just yet, and if it is your day job, I'd start looking for a new one, the only conspiracy theory is that Knox and Sollecito DIDN'T do it. You might want to look at the American justice system, it certainly seems like Petersons conviction was "corrupt" to me.
Tony,
Please give me your interpretations of Rep. 198 and Rep. 199. Thanks in advance
Chris,
I'm quite happy to if you could be more specific?
Both items of evidence were found near Filomena's window. Rep. 198 is a presumed hair follicle, and Rep. 199 tested positive by tetramethylbenzidine.
Chris,
I'm busy ploughing through the Massei Report so when I come to it I'll let you know my thoughts on it, no problem.
Tony Wrote:Well not a lot by all accounts and DNA evidence isn't required for a conviction.
No, but it strongly suggests no one else was, especially considering the nature of the crime and that little room. The murder room was swept by the full Polizia Scientifica in the first days of the investigation, and then again six weeks later and absolutely nothing was ever found of Amanda Knox and only the dubious bra clasp for Raffaele Sollecito which was contaminated on camera for all the world to see.
On the other hand they found Rudy Guede's traces all over that scene.
That is strongly suggestive that Raffaele and Amanda were not involved in physical activity in the murder room. Had they not looked as hard, or had other conditions inhibited any findings it might not be as compelling evidence, but they did and it was. That murder room was a fishbowl, easy to process.
All the physical evidence of the assault clearly indicates the presence of more than one person.
No, it doesn't. From Massei p. 368 of the PMF translation:
The consultants and forensic scientists have asserted that from the point of view of forensic science, it cannot be ruled out that the author of the injuries could have been a single attacker, because the bruises and the wounds from a pointed and cutting weapon are not in themselves incompatible with the action of a single person.
With regard to this, it is nevertheless observed that the contribution of each discipline is specifically in the domain of the specific competence of that discipline, and in fact the consultants and forensic experts concentrated their attention on the aspects specifically belonging to forensic science: time of death, cause of death, elements indicating sexual violence, the injuries present on the body of the victim, and the causes and descriptions of these. The answer given above concerning the possibility of their being inflicted by the action of a single person or by more than one was given in relation to these specific duties and questions, which belong precisely to the domain of forensic science, and the meaning of this answer was thus that there are no scientific elements arising directly from forensic science which could rule out the injuries having been caused by the action of a single person.
That's both the prosecution and defense specialists, there's nothing about the murder that requires more than one attacker. The attempt to suggest otherwise amounts to trying to say an athletic man armed with a knife could not subdue and rape a college girl, which is part and partial of what I was getting at before regarding ridiculous 'holdings' of the Massei Court that the next court looks at and rolls their eyes. Massei doesn't have much to work with though, because the contention made by the prosecution was silly and unsupportable.
As it happens the DNA evidence has not been disproven anyway..
Raffaele and Amanda weren't convicted on the evidence presented in court in the Trial of the First Instance, they were convicted on the 'evidence' presented in the press which was often nothing but outright lies by police and prosecution. There were two years of that, it's tough for people to keep those separate over that long a time period, and it's not like they voted on each piece of evidence either.
The paucity of evidence was revealed by the Massei Report and the embarrassing lengths he had to go to in order to attempt establish such specious 'facts' and piece together such an unlikely conclusion so poorly supported by real evidence.
The DNA 'evidence' is more evidence against the prosecution. Science is science and this was trash and revealed as such. That won't change, it can only get worse as they attempt to keep hidden the files that may expose fraud.
Ah the "we were bullied guv" defence
Ana Domino described Amanda as exhausted, visibly shocked, frightened, crying, prostrate and dejected. Giobbi heard her screaming from another room. That neither of them had any problem with this gives you an idea of how things go in those little back rooms in Perugia when they sic the mafioso breakers on an exhausted college girl.
but let me guess, we should believe both Knox and Sollecito who have both been discredited as liars.
The police and prosecution has told so many more lies in this case than anything false Raffaele and Amanda said it's literally ridiculous to pretend otherwise.
Why would you lie about stuff like that anyway? especially if you're innocent. Why did Sollecito lie about Kercher visiting his apartment and knicking herself on that knife? why would he do that? not another "fuzzy memory" story surely?
He didn't lie to anybody, he wrote it in his diary trying to figure out how that anomalous DNA was found on his knife. His lawyer had suggested it might have been taken down to the cottage by Amanda to cook with, I don't know where you ever got the impression he wrote Meredith had come to his apartment. (but I can guess!)
It wasn't even Raffaele's knife, he may never have used it, might not have been able to recognize it for sure. He remembered something that had happened at the cottage while cooking and figured that must be the answer, it's not like he told police or the courts any of this, he was just writing in his diary.
Well it's interesting in that there was no real physical evidence at all to convict him, just circumstantial evidence
I really don't know much about that case, but did it take place in a little room where there was every reason to expect evidence to be found? Was there an obvious explanation for the death like Rudy Guede who no one thinks is innocent? That's what I don't think you understand, there's no mystery how Meredith Kercher died. They're trying to convict two others from the original wrongful arrests after it was determined there was only evidence of one man in the room and not look like the moronic thugs they were for coming up with such an idiot-ass theory.
Hmmm I wouldn't give up your day job just yet, and if it is your day job, I'd start looking for a new one, the only conspiracy theory is that Knox and Sollecito DIDN'T do it.
You don't understand the nature of conspiracy theories. This is like the Apollo Hoax stuff, bogus science, misleading pictures, character defamation and sophistic logic. Facts don't stand examination and the ones that do don't lead to the conclusions claimed.
That's because the whole case was put together by Mignini, and he most definitely is a conspiracy theorist and he leads a bunch of corrupt lying thugs who really screwed the pooch and thought they could get away with blaming their victim--'cause that works most the time. In Italy, and in the United States too, and it's an "appalling vista" no matter where it happens...
....nothing was ever found of Amanda Knox and only the dubious bra clasp for Raffaele Sollecito which was contaminated on camera for all the world to see."
Unfortunately the contamination argument just doesn't stack up though does it. Considering his DNA was only found in one other place in the house, then to suggest it magically found it's way from a cigarette butt to the bra clasp just doesn't work. It's also interesting that you're happy with all the DNA evidence against Guede but not happy when it doesn't suit your argument in the case of Knox and Sollecito.
"On the other hand they found Rudy Guede's traces all over that scene."
Well no it was't "all over the scene" was it though. Four places of which two were very weak. On the subject of DNA it's also a case "shutting the door after the horse has bolted" isn't it. The defence were invited to the testing but declined, hmm there wouldn't be a reason for that would there?
........Tfindings it might not be as compelling evidence, but they did and it was. That murder room was a fishbowl, easy to process.
Erm except that there was an attempted crime scene clean up and Sollecito's DNA IS on that bra clasp.
"All the physical evidence of the assault clearly indicates the presence of more than one person."
Well thats not what the pathologist indicated as well as being quite clear that the body had been moved so we have to believe that Guede came back to move the body but forgot he took a dump and didn't flush? I really don't think so.
No, it doesn't. From Massei p. 368 of the PMF translation:
.............there are no scientific elements arising directly from forensic science which could rule out the injuries having been caused by the action of a single person.
So we're talking about the injuries but not the attack in it's entirety.
That's both the prosecution and defense specialists, there's nothing about the murder that requires more than one attacker. The attempt to suggest otherwise amounts to trying to say an athletic man armed with a knife could not subdue and rape a college girl, which is part and partial of what I was getting at before regarding ridiculous 'holdings' of the Massei Court that the next court looks at and rolls their eyes. Massei doesn't have much to work with though, because the contention made by the prosecution was silly and unsupportable.
Except that at Guede's trial they fully accepted he was assisted, or did you forget that little point?
As it happens the DNA evidence has not been disproven anyway..
Raffaele and Amanda weren't convicted on the evidence presented in court in the Trial of the First Instance, they were convicted on the 'evidence' presented in the press which was often nothing but outright lies by police and prosecution. There were two years of that, it's tough for people to keep those separate over that long a time period, and it's not like they voted on each piece of evidence either.
Oh please, so you're saying the Italian Police were against her, the judges and Jury were against her, the interpreters were against her, the witnesses were against her etc etc. It's just too ridiculous considering all the elements of evidence.
The paucity of evidence was revealed by the Massei Report and the embarrassing lengths he had to go to in order to attempt establish such specious 'facts' and piece together such an unlikely conclusion so poorly supported by real evidence.
Clearly, thats why they're facing another trial review.
The DNA 'evidence' is more evidence against the prosecution. Science is science and this was trash and revealed as such. That won't change, it can only get worse as they attempt to keep hidden the files that may expose fraud.
Well I guess if the defence had actually attended the DNA testing then they wouldn't be furiously back pedalling like they are now would they.
Ah the "we were bullied guv" defence
......how things go in those little back rooms in Perugia when they sic the mafioso breakers on an exhausted college girl.
Ah bless, sorry but there were no witnesses to corroborate her story and she never made a formal complaint so no, not credible at all. I have no doubt they put her under pressure, that's BAU in these situations but hitting, no evidence whatsoever.
but let me guess, we should believe both Knox and Sollecito who have both been discredited as liars.
The police and prosecution has told so many more lies in this case than anything false Raffaele and Amanda said it's literally ridiculous to pretend otherwise.
And your evidence for that is? But lets not forget if you're innocent then it's easy, you never suffer from "fuzzy memories" especially if you're looking at a murder charge, I'm damn sure I wouldn't.
Why would you lie about stuff like that anyway? especially if you're innocent. Why did Sollecito lie about Kercher visiting his apartment and knicking herself on that knife? why would he do that? not another "fuzzy memory" story surely?
He didn't lie to anybody, he wrote it in his diary trying to figure out how that anomalous DNA was found on his knife. His lawyer had suggested it might have been taken down to the cottage by Amanda to cook with, I don't know where you ever got the impression he wrote Meredith had come to his apartment. (but I can guess!)
That was his explanation for the DNA on the knife.
It wasn't even Raffaele's knife, he may never have used it, might not have been able to recognize it for sure. He remembered something that had happened at the cottage while cooking and figured that must be the answer, it's not like he told police or the courts any of this, he was just writing in his diary.
Sure, just another unfortunate co-incidence in a huge long list of unfortunate co-incidences.
Well it's interesting in that there was no real physical evidence at all to convict him, just circumstantial evidence
I really don't know much about that case, but did it take place in a little room where there was every reason to expect evidence to be found? Was there an obvious explanation for the death like Rudy Guede who no one thinks is innocent? That's what I don't think you understand, there's no mystery how Meredith Kercher died. They're trying to convict two others from the original wrongful arrests after it was determined there was only evidence of one man in the room and not look like the moronic thugs they were for coming up with such an idiot-ass theory.
Sure, because when it's so evident it could only have been one man the justice system is just so determined to make things really difficult for themselves by wrongly implicating a foreign national right? It just makes total sense. Meanwhile, back on earth, a lot of people want to see ALL of the culprits jailed for the sake of the Kerchers.
Hmmm I wouldn't give up your day job just yet, and if it is your day job, I'd start looking for a new one, the only conspiracy theory is that Knox and Sollecito DIDN'T do it.
You don't understand the nature of conspiracy theories. This is like the Apollo Hoax stuff, bogus science, misleading pictures, character defamation and sophistic logic. Facts don't stand examination and the ones that do don't lead to the conclusions claimed.
That's because the whole case was put together by Mignini, and he most definitely is a conspiracy theorist and he leads a bunch of corrupt lying thugs who really screwed the pooch and thought they could get away with blaming their victim--'cause that works most the time. In Italy, and in the United States too, and it's an "appalling vista" no matter where it happens...
No, I don't believe in conspiracy theories or a series of extremely unlucky co-incidences either because they're never proven right, there's a good reason for that, they just don't happen.
Unfortunately the contamination argument just doesn't stack up though does it.
That's...not how it works, Tony. Do you think they turned on their tricorders and scanned the entire cottage and all that was there was the cigarette butt? :)
They swabbed over the most likely places to find murder evidence, there was nothing of Raffaele and Amanda found, strongly suggesting they weren't involved in the murder, but both of them had DNA elsewhere in the cottage and without doubt places they didn't swab. The door Raffaele tried to break down is one place the cops that were fondling that bra clasp freely might have gotten it.
However the most likely place for that DNA to have been transferred is the lab. There were about five contributors to that clasp, that's prima facie evidence of contamination for an item that wouldn't normally be handled, (covered by fabric) otherwise you must explain why Raffaele's DNA proves he handled it in the commission of the murder and the other three or so guys who contributed to that mixed sample didn't--or you can add three guys to this already ridiculous scenario--you're call!
It's also interesting that you're happy with all the DNA evidence against Guede but not happy when it doesn't suit your argument in the case of Knox and Sollecito.
It's not "interesting", it's forensics. It was all found on or around the body and her purse, done before they'd identified any suspects and were doing objective police work. However you can throw all the DNA against Rudy out and you still have his admission he was at the scene and his handprint in the victim's blood by the body.
Well no it was't "all over the scene" was it though. Four places of which two were very weak. On the subject of DNA it's also a case "shutting the door after the horse has bolted" isn't it.
You're correct they went down to the picogram with some of that DNA work, which just shows how little chance there is they missed anything of Amanda or Raffaele who were excluded from all those samples.
The defence were invited to the testing but declined, hmm there wouldn't be a reason for that would there?
Urban legend, but some basis in fact. Raffaele's lawyers sent Dr. Potenza to observe, you can read his report here. You won't find him pleased with the knife tests. Amanda's lawyers was still trying to put a team of experts and weren't give enough notice to observe the tests, but that hardly matters as much as getting access to the results which everyone is still fighting for.
Erm except that there was an attempted crime scene clean up and Sollecito's DNA IS on that bra clasp.
What 'attempted' crime scene clean-up are you talking about? What was cleaned? Have you viewed the videos and pictures of the scene?
Well thats not what the pathologist indicated as well as being quite clear that the body had been moved so we have to believe that Guede came back to move the body but forgot he took a dump and didn't flush? I really don't think so.
Is that from Michele? At any rate it was just a contention that couldn't be supported. There's no need for anyone to come back to the scene, and who cares about Rudy's dump?
Except that at Guede's trial they fully accepted he was assisted, or did you forget that little point?
It has nothing to do with the trial of Raffaele and Amanda and both parties had in interest in seeing Raffaele and Amanda being blamed for some of it. Because Mignini did that, Rudy will be eligible to walk the streets in a couple years on release. Does that please you?
As it happens the DNA evidence has not been disproven anyway..
Trash is trash, it won't get better with age, and if they attempt to use it as evidence again they will have to explain to another judge why they won't release the required data, this time with the judge knowing the last independent court experts that analyzed it wrote a scathing review without even being able to see where the most damning data would be found.
Oh please, so you're saying the Italian Police were against her, the judges and Jury were against her, the interpreters were against her, the witnesses were against her etc etc. It's just too ridiculous considering all the elements of evidence.
Well obviously the last panel of judges weren't! They dismissed the 'evidence' as garbage, something apparent to every cogent reader of the Massei Report.
Clearly, thats why they're facing another trial review.
Which has nothing to do with the evidence, just points of law. The best result for Amanda and Raffaele would be to be able to cross-examine that 'evidence' again, this time with foreknowledge.
Ah the "we were bullied guv" defence Ah bless, sorry but there were no witnesses to corroborate her story and she never made a formal complaint so no, not credible at all. I have no doubt they put her under pressure, that's BAU in these situations but hitting, no evidence whatsoever.
There was just the two whups on her head by Thugette Ficarra. Dunno what you mean by 'formal complaint' Mignini was bound by law to investigate it when he received her note. The Statements, the note, the fact they arrested Patrick on the basis of them and that they've been so desperate to quash criticism they filed charges on Amanda and Amanda's parents for even mentioning it are all evidence of the malfeasance and they will probably be answering for it to the ECHR which might want to know what happened to those interrogation tapes.
but let me guess, we should believe both Knox and Sollecito who have both been discredited as liars.
No, they've not been discredited as liars, the police and prosecution told lies to courts about Amanda's Sweatshirt, her Harry Potter book and her having a handprint on Meredith's face. These are all things that were not true and there's every reason to think they knew better, being as all of them are obviously untrue from viewing the crime scene videos. They also told lies to the press about having bleach receipts, a "Clear cut" video of Amanda entering the cottage around the murder time and they lied in the Massei court about the TMB tests. All they've done is lie, so any accusation they make against anyone else you can assume they're probably lying about that too--that's their pattern.
Sure, just another unfortunate co-incidence in a huge long list of unfortunate co-incidences.
No coincidence at all, it's irrelevant. What does it matter what he wrote in his diary trying to figure out how DNA got on a knife that couldn't have been used in the murder?
Oh, and that knife is the biggest lie in this case.
Sure, because when it's so evident it could only have been one man the justice system is just so determined to make things really difficult for themselves by wrongly implicating a foreign national right? It just makes total sense. Meanwhile, back on earth, a lot of people want to see ALL of the culprits jailed for the sake of the Kerchers.
Then take down Maresca who's been sucking them dry with lies when he should have been working for them, not Mignini.
No, I don't believe in conspiracy theories or a series of extremely unlucky co-incidences either because they're never proven right, there's a good reason for that, they just don't happen.
Precisely why thinking three people that barely know each other would spontaneously conspire to murder someone with no discernible motive other than what one would get from a purse snatching.
A burglar with his traces on the victim, her clothes, her wall her purse and her pillow is caught when there's a broken window, and the police claim instead it's this bizarro plot which would be almost unprecedented in the known annals of crime--and the break-in was 'staged?' How stupid is that?
No, businesses, governments, political parties, churches, militaries and basically every institution known to man scapegoats and covers things up, the police and prosecution in Perugia are no different.
However, most of those institutions are quite as obvious about it!
Kaosium
we could go around the houses again on this but I feel there isn't much point. You're not going to change my mind and I'm clearly not going to change yours.
I approached this case with an open mind, not accepting Knox was guilty until I'd read plenty on the case. I've seen both sides of the argument, both which can be overzealous at times. However, the more I read the more I came to the conclusion that there is no way Knox could not have been involved (with Sollecito). There are just too many "unfortunate co-incidences". That being said I am reading the Massei report and don't feel I have the whole picture until I have read it.
I do feel that the defence has been entirely based on trying to discredit the staged break-in and DNA evidence, for obvious reasons. To me the key is the break-in and I cannot see how or why anyone would attempt that particular window, and even if they did, leave no trace, but I reserve my own final judgement on that until I have finished the report.
I am also reading her book which is freely available on the internet (I would not pay for it). I have to say that it reads like a book of excuses and lies. For instance, expecting the reader to believe that a Police Officer asked her to do the splits during a murder enquiry. Nothing is ever her fault and it is not a very convincing account.
Lastly, Knox ticks all the boxes to put her high on the Sociopathy scale - a plausible liar, glib and superficial, empathy challenged, a risk taker, time limited friendships, manipulative, narcissistic, egotistical and an inflated view of her own abilities. Now this doesn't make her guilty but it sure as hell is a big red flag on top of everything else.
So, I'll carry on with the Massei report and once I've finished I'll have a much better idea of who's telling the truth and who isn't.
Chris Halkides said: Please give me your interpretations of Rep. 198 and Rep. 199. Thanks in advance.
Where can Rep. 198 and 199 be found?
Was there a species test performed on the presumed blood sample?
Anonymous, A confirmatory test that was performed several months later and was found to be negative. Joseph Neff and Mandy Locke wrote, "The FBI's written policy directed the analyst first to report the positive presumptive test results. If the confirmatory test is negative, the analyst would write, 'Further testing could not confirm the presence of human blood.' It's a pity they waited so long to run the confirmatory test; the hemoglobin might have denatured in the interim. It is also worthwhile to contrast this with the luminol-positive work. I suppose Ms. Stefanoni should have reported "Further testing to confirm the presence of blood was not attempted."
I hope you eventually figure it out, Tony. Good luck to you! A utter absence in the murder room where they did take samples assiduously and processed them is telling, the lack of such near the break-in window where they didn't take many and failed to process them in a timely fashion sounds more like your Scott Peterson analogy.
Anyway it's not actually all that tough to figure out, just start at the beginning and ask yourself what an amazing coincidence it would be if the cops wrongfully arresting three people on one set of evidence that turned out to mistaken or coincidence could have led to them uncovering a bizzare murder plot virtually unknown in the annals of crime, or if they just stuffed it up totally and wouldn't admit to it when they caught a burglar who'd broken into other second-story targets. Have you seen how easy it is to get up there climbing up the bars on the window below?
Oh, and the FBI agents Steve Moore and the legendary father of the FBI's criminal profiling John Douglas both determined that there's no evidence of sociopathy in Amanda or Raffaele, the totality of their naughtiness is nothing they don't share with plenty of college students who have parties and smoke stinky substances.
Sarah, Alex does not agree with you, but Italian crime journalist Meo Ponte does: "Meo Ponte, an Italian journalist who covered the case for La Repubblica, said that many Italians thought Knox was guilty only because they did not know the details of the case. He described the original trial 'shameful' for convicting Knox.
'To sentence someone for murder, you have to have proof," Ponte told USA TODAY.'"
To everyone:
Today, the Court of Cassation has released its ruling in the case.
Because of this, it would seem appropriate to desist from commenting further here.
In due course, I'll follow on with an appraisal of the Court of Cassation's decision; we can all carry on from there.
someone here mentioned the 2 did not know the guy enough for a coffee to conspire with him yet an eye witness has testified that he saw the four together taking a stroll so they definitely knew him well
there are a couple of things that are obvious to me
that the crazy couple are guilty cause everything says so
that the german guy knows the truth so I dont understand why dont they just have some deal with him like reduce his sentence if he admits everything
the so called weak evidence against those 2
for much much less evidence lots were executed in many cases
the DNA of Raffaele Sollecito on Meredith’s bra-clasp in her locked bedroom;
the almost-entire naked footprint of Raffaele on a bathmat that in *no way* fits that of the other male in this case – Rudy Guede;
the fact that Raffaele’s own father blew their alibi that they were together in Raffaele’s flat at the time of the killing with indisputable telephone records;
the DNA of Meredith Kercher on the knife in Raffaele’s flat which Raffaele himself sought to explain as having been from accidentally “pricking” Meredith’s hand in his written diary despite the fact Meredith had never been to his flat (confirmed by Amanda Knox);
the correlation of where Meredith’s phones were found to the location of Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guedes’s flats;
the computer records which show that no-one was at Raffaele’s computer during the time of the murder despite him claiming he was using that computer;
Amanda’s DNA mixed with Meredith Kercher’s in five different places just feet from Meredith’s body;
the utterly inexplicable computer records the morning after the murder starting at 5.32 am and including multiple file creations and interactions thereafter all during a time that Raffaele and Amanda insist they were asleep until 10.30am;
the separate witnesses who testified on oath that Amanda and Raffaele were at the square 40 metres from the girls’ cottage on the evening of the murder and the fact that Amanda was seen at a convenience store at 7.45am the next morning, again while she said she was in bed;
the accusation of a completely innocent man by Amanda Knox;
the fact that when Amanda Knox rang Meredith’s mobile telephones, ostensibly to check on the “missing” Meredith, she did so for just three seconds - registering the call but making no effort to allow the phone to be answered in the real world
the knife-fetish of Raffaele Sollecito and his formal disciplinary punishment for watching animal porn at his university – so far from the wholesome image portrayed;
the fact that claimed multi-year kick-boxer Raffaele apparently couldn’t break down a flimsy door to Meredith’s room when he and Amanda were at the flat the morning after the murder but the first people in the flat with the police who weren’t martial artists could;
the extensive hard drug use of Sollecito as told on by Amanda Knox;
the fact that Amanda knew details of the body and the wounds despite not being in line of sight of the body when it was discovered;
the lies of Knox on the witness stand in July 2009 about how their drug intake that night (“one joint”) is totally contradicted by Sollecito’s own contemporaneous diary;
the fact that after a late evening’s questioning, Knox wrote a 2,900 word email home which painstakingly details what she said happened that evening and the morning after that looks *highly* like someone committing to memory, at 3.30 in the morning, an extensive alibi;
the fact that both Amanda and Raffaele both said they would give up smoking dope for life in their prison diaries despite having apparently nothing to regret;
the fact that when Rudy Guede was arrested, Raffaele Sollecito didn’t celebrate the “true” perpetrator being arrested (which surely would have seen him released) but worried in his diary that a man whom he said he didn’t know would “make up strange things” about him despite him just being one person in a city of over 160,000 people;
the fact that both an occupant of the cottage and the police instantly recognised the cottage had not been burgled but had been the subject of a staged break-in where glass was *on top* of apparently disturbed clothes;
that Knox and Sollecito both suggested each other might have committed the crime and Sollecito TO THIS DATE does not agree Knox stayed in his flat all the night in question;
Anon. at 6:41 AM, If Raffaele and Amanda had told as many untruths as you just did, I might concluded that they were actually guilty.
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