10. The Meredith Kercher Case - The Answers in Florence

A Perugian Aquaduct. No Meredith. No Amanda. No Raffaele.

Today, the Appeal Court in Florence gave its verdict.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher. The Appeal Court has upheld the pair's original 2009 convictions. Knox has been sentenced to 28 years, Sollecito to 25.

Is this the end of a long, long legal battle? Well, yes, from a legal perspective it certainly seems so. Knox and Sollecito could request Italy's highest court, the Court of Cassation, to look at their case again, but that Court has already given a ruling. In fact, it was that ruling, handed down last year, that gave rise to today's decision by the Florence court.

In other words, were they to lodge such a request (and they probably will), it would in all likelihood not help them. In that sense, their convictions seem final.

________

Looking back over the last few months, I realise I have been remiss. I did not write about the Florence proceedings. I certainly speculated about them after the Court of Cassation's ruling of 2013, and at some length, but that was about it.

Why? Well, there was one simple reason. Very little happened in the Florence proceedings that changed the complexion of the case. There were, to be sure, quite a few things that needed to be looked at again - these aspects were all set out by the Court of Cassation - but there was very little new evidence that could be brought forth.

So, was their nothing new at all? Well, no, not really. On the basis of the Court of Cassation's ruling, the Florence court ordered that a "new" DNA sample found on the so-called double-DNA knife should be tested. That might have been a potential bombshell; after all, what if the new tests revealed the presence of Kercher's DNA, or even Guede's? Except, of course, that the bombshell turned out to be a damp squib; the DNA tested pointed to Knox and no-one else. As such, it didn't prove anything.

Effectively, that meant things were back to square one. We were left with the original 2009 decision and a first appeal ruling that had been struck down by the Court of Cassation. The defendants' appeal needed to be reassessed, and that is exactly what the Appeal Court in Florence has done. And in doing so, it has complied with the views expressed by the Court of Cassation.  

Could the Appeal Court have handled the case differently? Most certainly. Whilst the Court of Cassation's ruling was, in many ways, rather clear, it was by no means definitive. It allowed the appeal court sufficient room to manoeuvre. However, as the Florence court started to get to grips with its remit, it became clear that it would not steer the case away from the paths already set out by the original Perugian court (and, indeed, by the Court of Cassation itself). As, in other words, the case proceeded, it became more and more likely that the original ruling would be upheld.

So, is today's ruling a surprise? Not at all. Is it the end? Yes, it should be. There are further legal issues to resolve, the possibility of extradition being perhaps the most important one, but these issues will have no impact on the guilty verdicts as such. Also, it should be remembered that the Appeal Court's motivations - the actual reasoning behind the convictions - have yet to be set out. As always in Italy, this will happen within 90 days.

But basically, this it it. In law, Knox and Sollecito are guilty. The murder of Meredith Kercher was committed by them and by Rudy Guede. All three have been convicted.

________

I will write further on this case. After all, it has not formally ended. And besides, the way it has been conducted - both by the prosecution and, perhaps more importantly, by the defense - is rather extraordinary. For now, however, it is done. 

The die is cast.

9. The Meredith Kercher Case - Going Once, Going Twice (The Story of Undoubled Jeopardy)

It's no song and dance, you know.

Some words on what has gradually become a something of a topic in this case. 

Could Knox (and, if he were not there already, Sollecito) be extradited to Italy if the trial ends in the definite conviction of both?

My simple answer to this would be: why on earth not? I suppose, as often happens in high profile cases, there might well be complications due to political reasons, but I see no legal barriers here at all.

Let's focus for the moment on Knox. The Sollecito question, too, might at one point or another arise, but to answer that question, one would have to know where he would be staying when any extradition request is made. Since we don't know that, it's basically useless to ask the question in the first place.

In the case of Knox, though, it's safe to assume that she'll remain in Seattle (or at least the USA) for the time being.

So: what about extradition between the USA and Italy?

Well, as by now just about everyone knows, there is an extradition treaty in place between the USA and Italy. In sets out in which cases extradition will or will not be granted when one country (that is, in the terminology of the Treaty, the "Requesting Party") asks for the extradition of a person by the other country (the "Requested Party", as the treaty states).

So, if Italy were to request the extradition of Knox by the USA, Italy would be the Requesting Party; the USA would be the Requested Party. Simple, no?

Okay. Now let's look at what the treaty says.

Firstly, in Article 1, the general rule is given. It's this:

"Obligation to Extradite

The Contracting Parties agree to extradite to each other, pursuant to the provisions of this Treaty, persons whom the authorities of the Requesting Party have charged with or found guilty of an extraditable offense."

If Knox were found guilty of murder (or of being the accessory to murder) that would clearly be "an extraditable offense". Article 2 deals with this; an extraditable offence is an offence "punishable under the laws of both Contracting Parties by deprivation of liberty for a period of more than one year or by a more severe penalty".

So, Article 1 would essentially mandate the USA to extradite Knox, if Italy requested her extradition.

What else does the Treaty say? Well, for example, Article 5 prohibits extradition when the request is made for "political or military" offences. This clearly does not apply here. Article 8 states that extradition will not be granted if the offence has become barred by lapse of time. Again, that does not apply. There are, looking through the Treaty in general, various rules that deal with such issues, and indeed various rules that deal with the question of how an extradition request should be made by the Requesting Party or dealt with by the Requested Party. None of these, however, have any impact on the possibility of the extradition of Knox in this case.

So what might nevertheless bar the USA from extraditing Knox? Well, the only provision in the Treaty that might seem to be of any real import would be Article 6, which states:

"Non Bis in Idem

Extradition shall not be granted when the person sought has been convicted, acquitted or pardoned, or has served the sentence imposed, by the Requested Party for the same acts for which extradition is requested."

There is, however, a simple reason why this provision doesn't offer Knox any solace. It's this:  Knox has not been "convicted, acquitted or pardoned" by any state in the USA; neither has she already served her sentence anywhere in the USA. (Remember, the USA is the Requested Party.)

And that's basically it: on the basis of the Treaty, there are no impediments to extraditing Knox, if she were to be definitely convicted in Italy. None at all.

Of course, things are never quite that simple, and one might wish to argue that extradition would nevertheless be barred for different reasons.

There are two that I can think of. The first is a little far-fetched, and deals with the idea that Knox was somehow "tortured" by the Italian police. The idea would imply that her conviction was arrived at by evidence gained through the use of torture, and that therefore that evidence would not be permissible by international (or US) laws, thereby making the conviction itself unsound.

I must admit that I have no idea at all how Knox could seriously try and make such an argument. I realise that she has claimed that she made statements after having been pressurised by the police, and indeed after one of the police officers slapped her on the back of her head, but besides the simple fact that the police have denied this adamantly (and that, even if true, the accusations hardly amount to "torture" in the first place),  it would seem that these accusations have, at most, a bearing on her conviction of "calunnia" (calumny; that is, of her false accusations of Patrick Lumumba) and not on the murder trial itself. This is an argument that holds no legal merit, I would say.

The second argument returns to the "double jeopardy" notion. The Treaty might, as explained above, not bar extradition for this reason, but perhaps international laws - or those of the USA -  might.

Do they?

Well, international laws certainly don't. Italy, like most European nations, has signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, and to Protocol 7 of that Conventions. Here's what's in Protocol 7:

"No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again in criminal proceedings under the jurisdiction of the same State for an offence for which he has already been finally acquitted or convicted in accordance with the law and penal procedure of that State."

The key word here is "finally". Any extradition request made by Italy will only be made if Knox has been "finally" convicted in Italy. The process - that is, her trial - is ongoing, and will reach an ending only after the appeal court in Florence (and, perhaps, the Court of Cassation) has dealt with the case. Only once this has happened will any conviction be final. In the meantime, she may have been acquitted by the Appeal Court in Perugia, but, as is very clear indeed, that acquittal is hardly "final' (and neither, one might add, is her earlier conviction by the original court).

In other words, an extradition request by Italy would be fine under European law. And indeed, it would not be barred by any other international law statute or treaty, since - simply put - there are none.*

What about the (federal) law of the USA? Well, the only possible obstacle might conceivably be the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that ".... nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb . . .".

I do not, however, see this as being any obstacle for an extradition of Knox. To put it simply, Knox hasn't been put in jeopardy "twice"; she's been in jeopardy once, in a process which, according to Italian law, takes up several stages. "Twice", in other words, is "finally", as expressed by the European Convention. They're the same thing.

Is there a simpler way of looking at the above? Yes, if you don't mind a more formal and legal approach. The Court of Cassation annulled the Appeal Court's acquittals. Therefore, those acquittals no longer exist. For that very simply reason alone, there can be no double jeopardy issues. 

In closing, two points. 

Firstly, the fact that the notion of double jeopardy is not an American invention. In fact, it was developed by the Romans.

Secondly, the question of whether anyone should care deeply about whether Knox or Sollecito actually serve their sentences. If convicted, I daresay there are reasons why they should be imprisoned for a considerable amount of time. However, even if that does not happen, I would suspect that, in many ways, their lives would be shattered anyway.  

__________

* Well, there's the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of course. Does that help? No. Article 14 of the Convention states that "No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted or acquitted in accordance with the law and penal procedure of each country." Again, that dastardly word "finally".

7. The Meredith Kercher Case - Doing the Math

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.
   

V. The Verdict in Perugia: the Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Part Five)

This is the fifth and last part of a series. Please read the earlier parts to understand the entire article!


V. The Appeal

Both Amanda and Raffaele have appealed against their convictions. The appeal proceedings are currently under way. Up until now, the major aspects these proceedings have dealt with are the following:

- the testimony of one of the witnesses, a man called Antonio Curatolo;
- the testimony of five prisoners;
- the re-assessment of the DNA evidence, in particular the evidence pertaining to the bra clasp and the kitchen knife.

Antonio Curatolo

I have not yet mentioned the testimony given by Anatonio Curatolo. The reason for this is simple: it seems difficult to take this evidence too seriously. Curatolo is a homeless man who has testified that he saw Amanda and Raffaele in the night of November 1st at the Piazza Grimana (at a time, therefore, when Amanda has testified that the two of them were at Raffaele’s). The court considered this testimony reliable, but it is easy to understand why the defence would raise the issue of that reliability on appeal. They’re probably right to do so.

The Prisoners' Testimony

Here, the appeal proceedings take a turn towards the farcical. At the defence’s urging, five prisoners were heard in the appeal proceedings. One of them (a man called Mario Alessi) testified that he is serving a prison sentence in the same jail as Rudy, with whom he became friends. Rudy confessed to him that Amanda and Raffaele were, in fact, innocent. When Rudy declined to publicly announce their innocence, this prisoner became irate and decided to testify himself. According to his testimony, the crime was committed by Rudy and a friend of his.

Two other prisoners, again serving in the same jail as Rudy, have testified they heard Rudy state that Amanda and Raffaele were innocent, although they offered little further elaboration. A fourth prisoner, again from the same jail, stated that he knew nothing of the matter.

Then there is the testimony of the fifth prisoner, a man called Luciano Aviello. Aviello is imprisoned in the same prison where Raffaele is currently serving his sentence. Aviello testified that the murder of Meredith was actually committed by his brother, who happened to be out looking for a painting to rob and ended up at Meredith’s apartment by mistake. There, his brother (accompanied by another man) decided to take advantage of the situation and attacked and killed Meredith.

These testimonies can and no doubt should be discarded in evaluating the case. They are interesting only in that they diverge from the central argument made by the defence in the original case, i.e. that Rudy committed the crime by himself. They raise the issue that Rudy acted with one or more, as yet unknown, accomplices. In itself, such a supposition does tackle one or two of the problems discussed above, but it immediately raises new questions. Who could these others have been? Why were they in the apartment? How had they entered? Why did one of them leave (one should recall the shoeprints leading to the front door), whilst one or more others stayed to clean themselves up in the small bathroom?

The testimony of these witnesses caused the prosecution to call up a few of there own, amongst whom was Rudy Guede. If anyone thought his testimony might actually shed some light on the facts of the crime, they were to be disappointed. Guede testified that Alessi had lied under oath; he also testified that a letter he had written in 2010 to his lawyer was truthful. In it, he had written that the murder was committed by Amanda and Raffaele, without, however, giving any details. He refused to elaborate on the events of November 1st 2007. Two other prosecution witnesses (both prisoners as well) were also heard; both testified that Aviello had lied as well.

The Re-Assessment of the DNA evidence

Arguably the most important part of the appeal proceedings so far concerns the re-assessment of the DNA evidence. It should be understood, however, that the re-examination is restricted to just two pieces of the DNA evidence: the bra clasp and the kitchen knife. In both instances, there does seem at least some reason for the re-assessment. In the case of the bra clasp, for example, one remains rather unsure how reliable this might be, given its long sojourn in Meredith’s room before being secured (and given the fact that it was somehow moved at this time). When it comes to the knife, the problems are even greater: the DNA found was minuscule, the results of the testing were possibly unreliable, and the knife may not have been as compatible with the wounds inflicted as the prosecution made out. Besides, the question remains how this particular knife could have been used in the first place.

At the time of writing this article, the experts assigned by the appeals court to re-assess the DNA evidence have not yet publicised their findings; we’ll have to wait and see. (An intriguing thing about the re-examination of the knife is that the experts may, perhaps, be allowed to examine whether any DNA can be be found “inside” the knife, that is, where the blade enters the handle. For this, the knife would have to be taken apart, something that was not done during the original examination.)

(EDIT (July 1st, 2011): the re-assessment report has been submitted to the appeal court. I will not, however, make any comments until the contents become more clear than they are now.)

VI. Some Personal Thoughts on the Verdict

I find the court’s reasoning with regard to the break-in quite convincing. It is difficult to see how this could have been an actual burglary, let alone a burglary carried out by Rudy Guede. There are, nevertheless, a number of points to be made which, to a certain extent, make the court’s findings less conclusive than one might at first think.

For example, there is the way the break-in may have been staged. The court assumes that Amanda or Raffaele broke the window of Romanelli’s room from inside that room. They had drawn the outside shutters shut first, which would explain the fact that no glass shards were found outside. However, the court had heard the testimony of Romanelli, who had stated that when she left on November 1st, she had drawn the shutters shut, but that they were old and that the wood scraped against the sill. In short, fully closing the shutters would have been hard to do. Because of this, it seems there would still be the distinct possibility of broken glass ending up on the ground outside the house.

Furthermore, is should be noted that the defence have always argued that the distribution of the glass shards in Romanelli's room is only compatible with a rock having been tossed through the window from outside. This was rejected by the court, but the fact remains that there is some doubt as to where exactly the glass shards were before Romanelli and the Postal Police had entered the room and moved things around.

These are, however, relatively minor matters. The main arguments the court makes with regard to the (staging of the) break-in remain, to my mind, sound.

As for the wounds on Meredith’s body and her state of undress, I again think the court’s reasoning is basically strong; the crime was not committed by Rudy alone.

Once more, however, there are some doubts. It does seem odd, for example, that no evidence whatsoever was found inside Meredith’s room to point to the presence of Amanda and Raffaele (with the obvious exception of the bra clasp). There was, the court finds, blood on the floor, and in the court’s reasoning, Amanda and Raffaele must have been barefoot. There must also have been quite a scuffle. Nevertheless, no DNA traces were found in Meredith's room (especially mixed blood and DNA traces) that pointed to either Amanda or Raffaele. Their footprints weren’t found either.

Then there are the alibis presented by Amanda and Raffaele (or, to an extent, the lack of them). At first glance, they appear to be quite suspect. There are a great many reasons why one’s testimony might not quite be up to scratch, and there are many reasons why one would want to keep one’s mouth shut in the first place. None of these truly seem to apply here, though; the inconsistencies (in Amanda’s account) and the silence (on the part of Raffaele) are, to my view, relevant.

My thinking in the case, however, shifts subtly when it comes to the DNA evidence available. I am not fully convinced by the court’s reasoning on this matter. At the very least, the DNA on the bra clasp and (especially) on the kitchen knife seems shaky; the DNA discovered in the small bathroom, in Romanelli’s room and in the hallway does not entirely convince me either. To be more precise, it seems clear enough Meredith’s blood was found in the small bathroom, and that these traces were left by the killer(s), but I am not convinced much can be gathered from the presence of Amanda’s DNA. l realise that, in examining the apartment, choices had to be made, and that perhaps the simple necessity of these choices led to less perfect results than one might have hoped for. In any case, though, and regardless of the reason, the results do not seem totally conclusive.

What does all this mean, in the end? Well, it might well mean that the result of the appeal hangs in the balance. If the DNA evidence with regard to the bra clasp and the kitchen knife were to be thrown out, the prosecution would have lost the most damning evidence directly linking Amanda and Raffaele to the crime. There would still be quite a bit of other evidence, to be sure, but the question arises whether this would be enough for a conviction. Remember that whilst the testimonies of the five inmates in the appeal proceedings appear to be ridiculous, they do raise, in general, a possibility that has not fully been explored: that Rudy somehow committed the crime with one or more unknown accomplices, and that Amanda and Raffaele are, indeed, innocent.

At present, given the state of affairs, that doesn’t seem very likely, but one of the central tenets of criminal law should not be forgotten here: guilt must be established without a reasonable doubt. The defence does not have to prove how the crime was committed; it does not have to prove that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent. It is enough to establish that there is doubt that Amanda and Raffaele were involved, and that that doubt is reasonable.

To my mind, the defence aren’t quite there yet; it is, however, conceivable that they may be moving closer. They may, perhaps, have made a mistake in trying to establish that Rudy was the sole perpetrator the first time round; in a somewhat roundabout manner, they may have started to make amends in the appeal proceedings.

As for the prosecution, they may well have made their own mistakes in trying to present their case as being stronger than it actually is. For example, they presented the court with a smoking gun - the kitchen knife - that now may, upon re-examination, go up in smoke. If that happens, it will be interesting to see how the case unfolds from there.

I started out by saying that the views on this matter have become increasingly polarised. I will end by stating more or less the opposite. This isn't a clear-cut case. On the basis of the verdict, one might very well believe that Amanda and Raffaele are guilty. On the other hand, it seems as if some aspects of the verdict may be flawed. Even if that were to be true, however, it doesn't mean that the verdict can simply be dismissed, and it doesn't mean that it is in any way clear that Amanda and Raffaele are innocent.

Justice isn’t represented by a pair of scales for nothing, I guess. At present, the balance has shifted in one direction; that it might yet shift in the other direction seems unlikely, but hardly impossible.

(This concludes - at least temporarily - this series.)

IV. The Verdict in Perugia: the Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Part Four)

This is the fourth part of a series. Please read the earlier parts to understand the entire article!

IV The Court's Reasoning Explained (continued)

As stated earlier, the basic reasoning behind the verdict is the following.

A. Guede is guilty of the murder;
B. Guede did not act alone;
C. the only possible accomplices of Guede are Knox and Sollecito;
D. that Knox and Sollecito are culpable of the murder is corroborated by the forensic evidence available;
E. and it is also corroborated by the fact that their stories don’t seem to be logical and do not constitute convincing alibis.

Points A through D were discussed in my earlier posts; this post will look at the final point: the alibis of Knox and Sollecito.


E. Knox's and Sollecito's Stories

Neither Knox nor Sollecito have strong alibis to disculpate them. By and large, their story seems to be that they spent the night together at Sollecito's apartment. In the morning, Knox testified, she went home (i.e. to the Via della Pergola) and took a shower. There, she noticed some blood stains in the small bathroom, and she felt that something was wrong. She returned to Sollecito's apartment; the two of them then decided to go back to the Via della Pergola.

There, they called the police (that is, the Carabinieri). Before they arrived, however, there were other visitors, in particular two representatives of the Postal Service, who had come because, by this time, Kercher's phones had been found and one of them was registered to Romanelli, who obviously lived at the Via della Pergola. At more or less the same time, Romanelli herself arrived (having been called by Knox), along with her fiancé and two friends. With all these people present - but still no Carabinieri to be found - Kercher’s door was forced open and her body was discovered.

The first thing that can be pointed out in this regard is that one might wonder why, if Knox’s account is basically accurate, there is no clear confirmation of it from Sollecito. For some reason, Sollecito did not take the stand during the trial.

Furthermore, Knox’s story does not sit well with what she had told the police earlier. During her first interrogation, she had stated that she was actually in the apartment when Kercher was killed and that her boss, Patrick Lumumba, was there too. This was an extraordinary statement to make, and one that may, to an extent, have been occasioned by the fact that she was under considerable pressure from the police at the time. However, it seems strange to imagine that she would have said anything of the kind if she had simply been with Sollecito the entire evening and had no knowledge whatsoever of the murder.

Then there is the issue of Kercher’s door being locked. As mentioned, that door had to be forced to enter Kercher’s bedroom on November 2nd. Someone, therefore, had locked it after killing Kercher. Knox’s statements on this are puzzling. On the one hand, she has pointed out that Kercher often locked her door (the fact that is was locked was therefore not at all exceptional); on the other hand, however, she wrote to friends in America that when she returned to the apartment on the morning of November 2nd, she discovered the door was locked and “panicked”. Sollecito attempted to force the door, she added, after they’d tried to peer inside the room by leaning out of a window nearby. These two versions obviously contradict one another, and it doesn’t seem likely that they can easily be explained by any mental confusion (such as she might have felt when first being interrogated).

Besides this, there is the problem of the telephone calls made by Knox in the early afternoon of November 2nd. According to police analysis, Knox first tried calling one of Kercher’s cell phones (the phone Kercher used to contact her family in the UK). That call was made at 12.07 o’clock and lasted 16 seconds; no one answered. Knox then called Romanelli (12.08 o’clock); shortly afterwards, she called both of Kercher’s phones. Again, of course, there was no answer. These last two calls lasted 3 and 4 seconds respectively.

Now, Knox has testified that she called Romanelli because she was worried about what she had seen in the apartment. She stated that Romanelli shared her concern and that she responded by saying that she would try to call Kercher. Nowhere in this conversation (according to the testimony of both Romanelli and Knox) is any mention made of Knox having already tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Kercher. In itself, this seems odd enough. To this can be added, however, that the two calls to Kercher’s phones after the Romanelli call were of such short duration that one wonders whether any real attempt to reach Kercher was made. The court, in looking at these facts, finds that it reasonable to assume that the first call to Kercher’s phone was made to ascertain that no-one had found it (the phones having been thrown away after the murder by Knox and Sollecito); then Romanelli was called, and the two subsequent calls to Kercher were made.

The court also notes that, when Kercher's door was forced open, Knox and Sollecito were some way away (in the living room area); they did not seem particularly interested in what would be found in Kercher's room.

As an aside, and returning, for a moment, to the subject of mobile phones, the court also takes into consideration that, according to police evidence, neither Knox's or Sollecito's phones recorded any activity on the night of November 1st (at least not between the crucial period of, roughly, 9.00 o'clock at night and 6 o'clock in the morning). In the case of Knox's phone, an explanation was provided by Knox herself: she had switched off her phone to spend the evening with Sollecito. In the case of Sollecito's phone, one would have to guess (Sollecito has not given any explanation), but a similar explanation would certainly be possible. The question remains, though, if such explanations explain anything; in today's age, turning off two mobile phones for a considerable number of hours seems odd. (To this can be added that, during the time when Kercher was presumably killed, there was no activity on Sollecito's computer either.)

(This series will be concluded in Part V, which deals with the appeal proceedings and closes with some personal thoughts.)

III. The Verdict in Perugia: the Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Part Three)

This is the third part in a series. Please read the earlier parts to understand the entire article!

IV The Court's Reasoning Explained (continued)

As stated earlier, the basic reasoning behind the verdict is the following.

A. Guede is guilty of the murder;
B. Guede did not act alone;
C. the only possible accomplices of Guede are Knox and Sollecito;
D. that Knox and Sollecito are culpable of the murder is corroborated by the forensic evidence available;
E. and it is also corroborated by the fact that their stories don’t seem to be logical and do not constitute convincing alibis.

The first two points (Guede's guilty, and the notion that he did not act alone) have been adressed in Part II of the series. Points C and D (Guede's accomplices and the corroborating evidence of their guilt) are discussed here. Part IV of the series will look at Knox's and Sollecito's alibis. The fifth and final part of the series will discuss the appeal proceedings and contain some closing thoughts.


C. The accomplices were Amanda and Raffaele

The court considers that only Knox (and Sollecito) could have any real motive for staging the break-in. The reason for this is almost self-explanatory. Staging the break-in must have been an attempt to divert attention towards one or more hypothetical “outsiders”. It must, therefore, have been done by one or more “insiders”. The only insider that can possibly be taken into consideration is Knox. I point out that, in theory, one might also consider the two Italian girls living in the apartment on the first floor, or, indeed, the four boys living downstairs. All of these seem to have had, however, watertight alibis (they simply weren’t there), and no evidence whatsoever was found to even remotely implicate any of them.

Simply by a process of elimination, therefore, the only “insider” remaining is Knox.

D. The corroborating evidence regarding Amanda and Raffaele

The following biological evidence was discovered linking Knox and Sollecito to the crime:

– Sollecito's DNA was found on Kercher’s bra clasp;
– Kercher’s DNA was found on the blade of a kitchen knife found in Sollecito’s kitchen;
– blood and mixed DNA traces were found in the small bathroom;
– further mixed DNA traces were discovered elsewhere in the apartment.

The Bra Clasp

As stated, Kercher’s bra had been cut loose. One of the bra clasps (the metal and a small bit of cloth) had been cut from the rest of the bra. The clasp was not initially secured as evidence when the forensic team examined the apartment on November 2nd and 3rd; in fact, it was only secured on December 18th, during a further search of the apartment. It was then taken and examined for DNA, and a trace of Sollecito’s DNA was found.

When it comes to the clasp, there is, I believe, little discussion with regard to the DNA testing itself. The problem that does exist, however, is related to the question of how that DNA actually got on the clasp. Because of the very late securement of the clasp, there is a threat of contamination. Such contamination may have happened sometime during the weeks between the murder and the securement; it could also, perhaps, have happened on December 18th (when the clasp was secured).

In addressing these issues, the court relies heavily on the testimony of the police and the forensic experts involved. Its reasoning boils down to the assumption that no contamination could have taken place before December 18th, because the clasp was in Kercher’s room all this time and was not handled by anyone. No contamination took place on December 18th, because the forensic experts took the precaution of donning clean gloves before handling the clasp. One fact remains, however: sometime during November 2nd (or 3rd) and December 18th, the clasp was moved; it was found in December one and a half meters or so from the place where it was filmed on November.

The Kitchen Knife

With regard to the kitchen knife, other problems arise. The DNA found on the blade was minute; in fact, it was used up during the DNA testing. There was and is no way of repeating the test. Furthermore, the amount of DNA was so small that a method of testing had to be used (known as “low copy number”, or LCN testing) that could be considered less reliable. In other words, the results of the test itself are a matter of debate. In particular, the defence argued that it was unclear whether it was actually Kercher’s DNA that was found, and that even if it were, this could readily be explained by some form of contamination within the laboratory that conducted the testing.

Again, the court rejected the defence claims. Again, it relied heavily on the testimony of the DNA experts, in particular the statements made by dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, who worked with the Scientific Police (the Polizia Scientifica) in Rome and lead the DNA investigations. Dr Stefanoni explained how the tests were conducted, pointing out that no contamination could have resulted from the method used.

It should be noted that there are further issues concerning the knife. These have to do with the wounds inflicted on Kercher’s body. The court finds that some of these wounds (in particular, the wounds on the right side of the neck) could not have been made by the kitchen knife; it was just too big. With regard to the wounds on the right side, the court finds that the wounds are compatible with a knife of this side, but one has to assume that the knife was not used with great force. The kitchen knife had a blade some 17.5 cm long; the most grievous wound was, however, just 8 cm deep. The court explains this by looking at what it assumes was the rationale behind the attack on Kercher: the perpetrators did not, according to the court, at first wish to kill her; they wished instead to force her into complying with their sexual intentions.

Moreover, there is the simple question of how the knife came to be used in the attack against Kercher in the first place. If this was a kitchen knife belonging to Sollecito, how did it end up at the Via della Pergola? The court considers this question, but only briefly: it decides that Sollecito may very well have given the knife to Knox as protection, in which case she was carrying it around in her handbag.

The Blood and Mixed DNA Traces in the Small Bathroom

In various places in the small bathroom (the bathroom used by Knox and Kercher) blood traces were found, and it was determined that the blood belonged to Kercher. This was true, for example, with regard to a trace found on the lightswitch and a trace found on the door; it was true also of a bloody footprint (made by a naked foot) found on a mat in the bathroom. This means that (at least) one person entered the bathroom covered in Kercher’s blood, and at least one person entered who was barefoot.

The first thing to remark is that this again rules out the single-perpetrator scenario. It should be recalled that there is another set of footprints (shoeprints) which led directly from Kercher’s room to the front door; it is impossible to imagine that just one person managed to leave both those shoeprints and the traces found in the bathroom.

The second thing to consider is that whoever entered the bathroom obviously did so after having killed (or assisted in killing) Kercher and did so in order to clean himself (or herself).

Besides these blood traces, there were mixed DNA traces found in the bathroom (in particular: on a box of Q-Tips, and in the bidet and the sink). “Mixed” in this case means that the traces provided, upon testing, both the DNA of Knox and Kercher. It should be noted that whilst the traces did contain blood, that blood came from Kercher, and not (necessarily) from Knox as well. However, the traces did also contain the DNA of Knox, and this, the court decides, is most readily explained when one assumes that Knox had entered the bathroom to clean Kercher’s blood from her body.

As to the footprint, a different conclusion is reached: the evidence with regard to the size and shape of the foot that led to the print leads the court to assume that it was made by Sollecito.

It is pointed out that the defence did not contest the mixed samples; they simply stated that the existence of Knox’s DNA was to be expected when the samples are taken from a bathroom used by her. As to the footprint, the defence argued that, depending on how the print was analysed, one might also conclude that it had been made by Guede.

Further Mixed DNA Traces

Various further traces were found elsewhere in the apartment. This was done after the use of Luminol, a substance that can reveal the presence of blood traces invisible to the naked eye. Two of these are of particular interest: a trace taken in Romanelli’s room, and a trace taken in the hallway in front of Knox’s room. Both traces again contained the mixed DNA of Knox and Kercher.

One should realise that the use of Luminol and the DNA samples subsequently found should be taken in context. Luminol causes a chemical reaction when applied to blood, but it reacts equally to various other substances, such as fruit juice. DNA will provide the genetic profile of individuals, but it is often difficult to establish from what source (blood, exfoliated cells, sweat etc.) that genetic material has come from. When taken together, however, the two can clearly be important.

When it comes to the two samples found in Romanelli’s room and the hallway, the court acknowledges the relevance of the combination. In particular, the court finds that in both cases, a reasonable supposition is that the traces consisted of the blood of Kercher, mixed with the DNA of Knox. Again, the court concludes that this attests to Knox’s presence in the apartment on the night of the murder, and that Kercher’s blood was on her body.

Once more, the defence did not specifically contest the DNA testing or the mixed DNA; it again only pointed out that the presence of Knox’s DNA was to be expected in the apartment where she lived. However, it should be noted that the DNA found was again very small and required LCN testing; in that sense, the objections raised by the defense with regard to Kercher's DNA on the knife apply equally here.

(The court's verdict will be discussed further in Part IV of this series.)

I. The Verdict in Perugia: the Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Part I)

Please note that this is the first part in a five part series. The series was first written as a single article, and the various parts posted here reflect this.

Contents

I. Introduction
II. The Background of the Case
III. The Massei Report: Basic Reasoning
IV. The Court's Reasoning Explained
V. The Appeal
VI. Some Personal Thoughts on the Verdict


I. Introduction

A great deal has been said about the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

For many, the trial was, in effect, a travesty. The proceedings, they stated, were instigated by a mentally unstable Italian prosecutor; any reasonable person could see that there is no real evidence against either Knox or Sollecito. The guilty verdict that was eventually given was the result of the Italian media having gone viral once details of the murder emerged, coupled with the fact that the "jury" was not sequestered and therefore susceptible to influence from such sources.

For others, the verdict presented a satisfying (if only a temporary) conclusion to the murder case. The culprits, these people argued, had been brought to justice, in spite of a plethora of lies and dumbfounding disorientation.

A great deal has been said about the trial of Knox and Sollecito. A lot of it has been exaggerated, misleading, or simply untrue. Views on the trial have become so polarised that it has become quite difficult to grasp the major aspects of the case.

This article doesn’t pretend to reveal the truth about the guilt or innocence of either Knox or Sollecito. What it does set out to do is to provide some understanding of the reasoning of the court when it handed down its verdict. Because of this, the article focuses, almost exclusively, on the verdict itself.

II. The Background of the Case

Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, was murdered sometime during the night of November 1st 2007, in the city of Perugia. Within days, the police had picked up Amanda Knox, her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, and her boss, Patrick Lumumba (Lumumba owned a bar in Perugia where Amanda worked). Lumumba was later released, at which time the (German) police had arrested Rudy Guede as the third suspect.

In a trial that did not include either Knox or Sollecito, Guede was convicted of the murder. Not because he had confessed (indeed, Guede has always maintained his innocence), but because the evidence against him was incontrovertible. It was, for example, clear that Guede had been present in the apartment where Kercher lived when the murder was committed (a fact he himself admitted); his DNA was found on her body. A bloody handprint clearly left by Guede had been discovered. His alibi, such as it was (he had been in the bathroom when others entered the apartment and attacked Kercher, whom he attempted to help after the attack) was considered unbelievable.

When it came to Knox and Sollecito, however, the case was not quite so clear cut. First, neither admitted to being in the apartment at the time concerned. Second, there was much less forensic evidence linking them to the murder. Third, they seemed rather more determined than Guede to establish their innocence, hiring a fairly hefty contingent of lawyers and experts in the process.

Nevertheless, on December 9th, 2009, both were convicted by the Court of Assizes of Perugia. In a long and detailed explanation of the verdict, the chief justice of the court, dr. Giancarlo Massei, set out the court’s findings and provided the motivations for the court’s verdict. This explanation is known as “the Massei report”.

(As an side, I point out that the Court consisted of two professional judges and six lay judges; there was, in short, no jury, as in there would have been in an American trial.)

III. The Massei Report: Basic Reasoning

The basic reasoning behind the verdict is the following.

A. Rudy Guede is guilty of the murder;
B. Rudy did not act alone;
C. the only possible accomplices of Rudy are Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito;
D. that Amanda and Raffaele are culpable of the murder is corroborated by the forensic evidence available;
E. and it is also corroborated by the fact that their stories don’t seem to be logical and do not constitute convincing alibis.

These issues will all be adressed in parts II through IV of this series. The fifth and final part will contain some thoughts on the appeal proceedings, and a few closing remarks.