The Republican Gang, Part Two

My first posting on the Republican battle for the presidential nomination was over a month ago, on November 2nd.

It's now December 12th, and oh my, how things have changed.

Up to a few weeks ago, it was essentially a battle between Romney in the one corner, and the dwarfs in the other. And it was Romney who, in his rather stolid and unconvincing manner, managed to maintain the lead. Maintain it, or recapture it, as one dwarf or another would briefly and diminutively jump up and fall back down again.

All the dwarfs, that is, except for the one who blew himself up into a giant. That dwarf is the improbable - one might say, the fundamentally improbable - Newt "the Grinch" Gringrich.

Gringrich shouldn't be were he is today, proudly and condescendingly ahead of the pack and set to win the Iowa caucus comfortably in just a few weeks time. But he is.

How on earth did that happen?

I think the answer to that has to be Romney himself. For months now, Romney has been the heir apparent, the guy who would "inevitably" win the nomination. His poll numbers were always stuck at around 20 to 25%, but that was enough for him to be the de facto front-runner.

But 25% meant that 75% was not backing Romney, and I think that it's becoming much clearer now that of that 75%, quite a few aren't just sitting on the fence. They're not people who will come round to Romney eventually, if reluctantly - instead, they seem to be people who have, for some time, decided that just don't want Romney. Not now, and not on November 6th 2012 either.

Now we all knew that Romney was not liked by many Republicans. That, after all, was why the dwarfs were able to keep nipping at his heels, and why one after the other had his or her moment in the spotlight. What's becoming clear now, however, is the extent to which these people will go: it seems that many of them will, in all likelihood, vote for the single most controversial, potentially least trustworthy and least conservative member of the pack, just to keep Romney out of things.

I will not say a great deal about Gringrich here (there is, simply put, too much to say to do it succinctly and in passing, so that will be left for another time). I will, however, mention just one fact: $ 300,000.--. In 1997, Gringrich was fined this sum of money whilst he was Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was the first and only time a sitting Speaker had been reprimanded by the House, and the vote was 395 for and 28 against (not just the Democrats, but practically all Republicans voted for the fine). Why was it levied? For a convoluted and murky form of tax evasion. Gringrich had taught two college courses (designed, the House Ethics Committee stated, to further his own political ambitions) and funded them with donations he had received. Donations, of course, are tax-deductible, but only if they're actually used as donations. Financing college courses isn't what donations are meant for, and by appropriating the money in such a manner, Gringrich evaded the taxes he would otherwise have had to pay.

This was bad enough, but then, and perhaps more importantly, he lied about this to the House Ethics Committee. In a number of letters, his lawyers denied the funding, and these statements were found by the Committee to be an "intentional or reckless" disregard to House rules.

All this resulted in the fine of $ 300,000.--; all this resulted in, at the time, bipartisan and almost universal condemnation of his actions. In 1998, Gringrich stepped down as Speaker and left the House; the Republicans had just endured one of the worst mid-term elections results of any party that didn't hold the presidency. This wasn't all due to the events set out above by any means; in fact, the main reason for the poor Republican election result was the way in which they had used the Monica Lewinksy affair to try to rid themselves of Bill Clinton. But that, too, was an endeavour spearheaded by Newt Gringrich (who was, as an aside, having a rather more serious extra-marital affair of his own at the time).

This is one of the many reasons why I find Gringrich's rise to the top so very - so fundamentally - improbable. And it all becomes even more bewildering if one considers the advent of the Tea Party and the current mood of Republicans in general. The candidate they seem to be favouring is the very candidate they should find distasteful. In many ways, Gringrich is the insider's insider; in others, though, he is worse: he's the insider who managed to screw things up so badly that even the other insiders had had enough.

And yet, here he is, and whilst we're still in the land of would-be's and what-ifs (after all, not a single vote has actually been cast yet) he's poised to win Iowa. And South Carolina, and Florida. If that happens, he will effectively have reduced Romney to the same position Romney was in back in 2008. All the planning, all the endless (subtle and years-long) build-up will have been for naught; Romney will have to bow out of the race once more.

How on earth does such a thing happen? Yes, the answer is, in part, Romney himself; it is Bain Capital, it is Mormonism; it is the whir/click character of the man. But part of the answer must also be sought in the minds and hearts of Republicans. I fear that there's something rotten in the GOP, and it's showing.

The Conrad Murray trial - a brief comment

I’m not really all that interested in the trial of Conrad Murrray. I know a lot of people are; after all, we're talking about the death of Michael Jackson.

The reason I’m not that interested is that, whichever way you look at it, the answer’s the same. Michael Jackson killed himself. It doesn’t much matter whether you feel his doctor was the one who actually gave Jackson a lethal dose of Propofol, or Lorazepam (or whatever drug in may have been); even if that were the case, it would still have been Jackson who hired that doctor and effectively told him what to do.

I will, however, make one comment on the trial. Today, both the prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments. The prosecution’s case was dealt with by David Walgren, who did what was expected of him. He presented a strong and convincing case, and that was about it.

The defense however, was another matter. The closing arguments were handled by Edward Chernoff, a lawyer from - of all places - Houston, Texas.

Throughout the case, Chernoff, ably helped by his associates, made more or less a mess of things. It was very difficult, at times, to even try and figure out where they were going.

Today, however, all that changed. Chernoff gave a blistering closing. It probably won’t wash - Murray will be convicted for involutary manslaughter (it’s Michael Jackson, after all) - but boy, did he do well.

“There is no perfect villain”, Chernoff said, “and there’s no perfect victim”. And that pretty much sums up the case. Murray was hardly a perfect doctor; but then, Jackson was hardly the ideal patient either.

As I said, Jackson killed himself. There is, in this trial, only the question to what extent Murray’s accessorial role is actually criminal. It makes the case, viewed from a broader perpective, more or less trivial, but watching Chernoff today, one has to admire what some lawyers can make of such trivialities.

Well done, Chernoff!

The Republican Gang

It’s time - past time, surely - to look at the Republican race. Will they come up with a viable nominee? Will they? Will they?! Oooh, it’s so exciting…

Actually, the first few months weren’t all that exciting at all. They were rather dull, in fact. The only thing we really had to work with were the candidates’ debates, and those debates weren’t anything to write home about. By and large, they all followed the same pattern: in one corner we had a cluster of Decidedly Small People (a.k.a. dwarfs), and, in the other, the whir/click Mormon Mechanism known as Mitt Romney. Throughout the debates, the dwarfs would try and aim their peashooters at Romney, and time and again, Romney simply dodged. And the dwarfs would miss, and Romney would emerge unscathed.

Inevitably, though, things started to change. The first reason for this was the entry of Rick Perry, the governor from Texas. Now I’m not quite sure who the Republicans’ coach is (I’ve a sneaky feeling it might be Newt “The Grinch” Gingrich, but don’t quote me on that), but swapping the ailing Tim Pawlenty with the much more interesting Texanator was a great decision on his part. Without actually opening his mouth once, Perry happily leapfrogged over Romney and, for a time, perched at the top of the heap. And then, of course, he did open his mouth, and went tumbling down again.

The second reason was the Black Walnut Guy. Unlike Perry, Herman (known to his friends as “Herb”) Cain was one of the original dwarfs, and at first his presence didn’t really register in one’s mind. But then - one might imagine the utter bewilderment of all the pundits - he won the Florida Straw Poll, a feat seldom accomplished by mere mortals. After all, this is a poll where hundreds (and I means hundreds) of people voted. And Herbie won! Suddenly, the old Walnut was thrust into the limelight, and it was all “Honeypie” and “Sweetiecheeks” and whatnot.

Except that that didn’t last all too long either. One of those honeypies had had a little fracas with Herb, and then it appeared another did too. And Sweetiecheeks didn’t seem to have liked old Herbie’s affectionate remarks either. Oh dear, oh dear.

So, it was back to the Texanator, then. Except that he’d unfortunately chosen just this pivotal moment to show what an incomprehensible ass he was, appearing before a New Hampshire Republican Clapper Society drunk. “No!” his staff quickly replied, he wasn’t drunk at all. “Nothing of the sort!”. Yikes! You mean, he was sober? You mean he's just that weird when he's not on anything at all? Oh yes, I sure want that guy somewhere in the vicinity of the nuclear button. “Hee hee, live free or die!”

Did I miss anyone? Except the remaining huddle of dwarfs, over there by the corner? Oh yes, wait, I can hear the distinct whir. I can discern a click-clack-clicking. The Mormon Mechanism is still in motion, much as you might have missed him lately. And how shall we describe him? Well, he’s still unscathed, for want of a better word. And he will remain so, until someone decides that the belief in a fraudulent imposter who decided to reinvent history and toss all logic to the wind is a little too weird to stomach.

One wonders how well Obama is sleeping, these days. Better than he should be, I’d warrant.

The Verdict in Perugia: The Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Epilogue, Part Two)

Monday, October 3rd, 2011:

Acquittal!

That was the simple and short verdict rendered by the appeal court. (That, and the conviction of Amanda Knox for defamation of the police; a sentence already served, given her four years or so in custody).

Acquittal, then, for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Acquittal for both Amanda and Raffaele.

Why?

Well, we don’t yet know. We’ll have to wait a while (just as we did in the original trial), for the judge to offer the court’s reasoning.

In the meantime, though, there are a few remarks to be made.

Firstly, the appeal court obviously dismissed the DNA evidence with regard to the kitchen knife and the bra clasp. This was not unexpected, given the fact that the experts appointed by the court urged to do just that.

What is, however, less clear, is what the appeal court may have decided next. What did it think of the infamous break-in (which was, according to the prosecution, clearly staged)? What were the court’s thoughts on the forensic evidence found in the small bathroom and in the corridor (the mixed DNA and/or blood stains; the bloody footprint on the bathroom mat; the bloody shoeprints leading to the exit), which, taken together, seem to indicate that more than a single perpetrator had been involved? What of the wounds on Meredith’s body, which again would point to multiple attackers? What of Amanda’s (and, to a lesser extent, Raffaele’s) statements, which were contradictory and seemed to implicate at least Amanda’s involvement?

There are, basically, two ways of looking at this case. The first is to look primarily at the (forensic) evidence; to consider it carefully and then to decide whether or not that evidence is, in and of itself, sufficient for a conviction (which means that the evidence must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt). Taken this way, once the DNA evidence with regard to the knife and the bra clasp is dismissed, it is relatively easy to conclude that an acquittal is in order. The bra clasp was really the only convincing “hard” - scientific - evidence that tied Raffaele to the crime; without it, surely, he should be aquitted. When it comes to Amanda, the knife is more important; again though, dismiss this evidence and the link between the murder and Amanda becomes tenuous (even if there is rather more evidence available).

The second way of looking at the case is different. It takes a more holistic (and perhaps more reasoned) approach. Who committed the murder? Well, we already know Rudy Guede did; he’s been convicted by three courts and the evidence against him stands. The question then becomes: did Rudy act alone, or did he have accomplices? If he had accomplices, could those have been Amanda and Raffaele? Or could these accomplices have been, perhaps, one or more people hitherto unknown?

Taken this way, the case becomes relatively easy to digest. The idea of Rudy committing the murder with unknown accomplices is, frankly, not to be taken seriously. There’s no evidence, no motivation, no means; there’s nothing in the world to assume this could have been the case. I find it almost impossible to point out how farfetched this notion actually is; it is, truly, grasping at straws.

What we are then left with is the idea of Rudy having committed the murder on his own. Is this possible? Yes, I would assume it is. To believe this theory, however, one must believe that a host of improbabilities was stacked up; one on top of the other. And one would have to believe that all these improbablilities would ultimately account for Rudy perpetrating a crime he in all likelihood never wanted to commit in the first place and yet did not avoid, even though he could readily have done so.

You would, for example, have to accept the fact that Rudy broke into the apartment at an odd time and in a strange manner; that he would have started to ransack Romanelli’s room but then decided to use the bathroom; that Meredith returned right when Rudy was in the bathroom and never noticed the break-in; that Rudy would then have decide to attack Meredith instead of simply leaving the apartment. You would have to believe that somehow, having decided to burgle an empty apartment, he turned into a vicious murderer on a whim and ended up not stealing anything of note. And, as stated above, you would have to accept all this whilst disregarding the simple forensic evidence that more than one person committed the crime.

It’s possible, I’ll grant you. It just seems rather unlikely.

_______

Two further thoughts.

The first: the possibility of an appeal to the Italian Supreme Court. As I understand it, quite a few people who think Amanda and Raffaele are guilty feel that the Supreme Court will set things right. They point to the fact that this court has already ruled in Rudy Guede's case, and, in doing so, stated that the crime was committed not by Rudy alone, but by three people.

For what it’s worth: such a view seems to misrepresent the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Guede case and, indeed, it misrepresents the Supreme Court’s authority. The Supreme Court deals with matters of law, not of fact. Therefore, the Supreme Court never ruled that the murder of Meredith Kercher was perpetrated by three people (let alone that Amanda and Raffele were two of those three); it simply accepted the earlier courts’ factual findings on this matter, as it was obligated to do. I suspect that the appeal court’s reasoning - once it emerges - will be dominated by factual considerations, rather than legal ones; I therefore suspect that the Supreme Court will offer little to solace those who long for Amanda’s and Raffaele’s imprisonment. At best, the Supreme Court may annul the appeal court’s ruling on technical grounds; even then, the case would have to be referred to another (factual) court to be tried again.

Secondly, a more abstract matter.

There is something known as Blackstone’s formula. Or Blackstone’s law, if you will. Generally put, this is how it reads: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.

Now, Blackstone lived in the 18th century, when men (and women) were regularly put to death for the most innocuous crimes. His formula seems a bit odd when considered against the backdrop of his time. It seems even odder if one considers that his idea had been around long, long before the Enlightenment: God himself, according to the Bible, was persuaded by Abraham to not destroy an entire city because, amongst its inhabitants, there migt be ten that were “righteous”. And yet God killed everyone in the whole wide world (excluding Noah and his family) when he felt like it.

Nevertheless, throughout all this time, the idea has persisted: it is better to acquit ten quilty people than convict a single innocent man.

It is an abstract notion, as history (and God) has often shown. And yet, I believe in it.

VI. The Verdict in Perugia: The Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Epilogue, Part One)

A while back, I posted a five part series dealing with the case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

At the time, the appeal trial was well under way, but by no means at an end. There was one bit of business in particular that had yet to be brought to a close: the re-assessment of the DNA evidence with regard to the bra clasp and the so-called “double DNA” knife.

Well, the two experts appointed by the appeal court have submitted their report in this matter. In fact, they did so some time ago, and I’ve still to comment on it. That isn’t due to any lapse of interest on my part; rather, it is caused by - simply put - my inability to truly understand its contents.

It is, of course, clear what the experts’ conclusions are: they regard the evidence of both the clasp and the knife as unreliable and they have advised the appeal court to disregard it.

So far, so good. However, the reasoning behind this conclusion is somewhat less clear. The experts, for example, have stated that the methods originally used by the police in examining the evidence fall short of “international standards”. I am not at all sure what they mean by this. What standards are the experts referring to? Remember that, when it came to the knife, the amount of Meredith’s DNA found was so small that the police had to resort to Low Copy Number testing; such a method could in itself be considered controversial (and therefore “falling short of standards”); alternatively, one might recall that LCN testing has been accepted by various countries (such as the UK), where it is used fairly regularly. Does the experts’ report mean that they do not acknowledge the validity of LCN testing? Or are they saying that LCN is reliable enough, but that the police weren’t applying the proper procedures when carrying out their tests? Or are they saying that they cannot ascertain whether the proper procedures were applied, for example because the available documentation is insufficient to reach such a conclusion?

In short, whilst the report’s conclusions are clear enough, it is not clear how strong the experts’ reasoning is.

Does this matter? Well, yes. And then again, probably not. Not, that is to say, in the current appeal court’s verdict. Regardless of one’s analysis of the report’s reasoning, I have come to feel it’s highly unlikely that the appeal court would decide not to follow its own experts’ advice. In other words, I’m pretty sure the court will toss out both the bra clasp and the knife on the basis of the report, regardless of how convincing that report really is. That, after all, is why a court appoints experts such as these; they’re there to answer questions the court can’t answer itself. (Alternatively, the report’s strengths or weaknesses could be important if the case where ever to be submitted to the Italian supreme court.)

So let’s work on that assumption for the moment: the bra clasp and the knife are out of the picture. Where does that leave the case? On - err - a knife edge, I’d say.

The bra clasp was the one bit of evidence that directly linked Raffaele to the crime. There is one other piece of physical evidence (a not totally clear footprint found in the small bedroom of the apartment), but that’s about all. Without the bra clasp, there seems very little left to convict Raffaele. Very little, that is, except circumstantial evidence. His alibi (such as it is) does not convince. Then there’s the strange fact that he seems to have turned off his phone and the peculiar use (or lack of use) of his laptop on the night of the murder.

When it comes to Amanda, the knife seems the more important item. After all, on it was found not just Meredith’s DNA, but Amanda’s as well. The knife, therefore, provides a direct link between Amanda and the crime. Nevertheless, if the knife is dismissed, the case against Amanda remains much stronger than the case against Raffaele. First of all, there is a lot more forensic evidence remaining implicating her (including the mixed DNA samples found in various locations in the apartment). Besides, if one were to assume the break-in was staged, Amanda seems to be the only one with any reason to stage it.

In short, to my mind, the bra clasp has always been crucially important when it comes to establishing Raffaele’s guilt, but the knife is not necessarily crucial in establishing Amanda’s. Ignoring both pieces of evidence could, therefore, lead to a rather unexpected result. It remains, of course possible (and even likely) that the court would either convict or acquit both of them, but there now also seems to be a possibility that the court might acquit Raffaele, turn around, and then affirm Amanda’s guilt.

We will know soon enough: the court has indicated it will give its ruling in just a few days.

Some Thoughts on Wilful Injustice

Today, the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMK, took an extraordinary nose-dive.

Strauss-Kahn (or, as many call him, DSK) was arrested by the police on May 14th of this year on the suspicion of having sexually assaulted a cleaning-woman in a hotel suite in New York.

Shortly after, he was paraded before the judge in an unshaved, handcuffed state; his bail was set at a total of $ 6 million; and he was required to wear an ankle bracelet and remain in a New York apartment under guard (the costs of which he had to pay for himself).

Today, however, the bail conditions were suddenly waived. Strauss-Kahn was released on his own recognisance, which means that he need only promise to appear in court at further hearings. The bail was dropped; the bracelet is gone; the guard dismissed. One thing remaining: his passport will stay in police hands, for now, so he cannot leave the USA.

All this was brought about by the serious doubts the prosecution now has regarding the credibility of the accusations of the cleaning-woman, who is a 32 year old woman from Guinea.

In a letter sent by the prosecutors to the defense lawyers, the prosecutors explain their change of heart. This, according to The New York Times, was what the prosecutors have learned:

"The housekeeper admitted to prosecutors that she lied about what happened after the episode on the 28th floor of the hotel. She had initially said that after being attacked, she had waited in a hallway until Mr. Strauss-Kahn left the room; she now admits that after the episode, she cleaned a nearby room, then returned to Mr. Strauss-Kahn's suite to clean there. Only after that did she report to her supervisor that she had been attacked.

Prosecutors disclosed that the woman had admitted lying in her application for asylum from Guinea; according to the letter, she "fabricated the statement with the assistance of a male who provided her with a cassette recording" that she memorized. She also said that her claim that she had been the victim of a gang rape in Guinea was also a lie.

The woman also acknowledged that she had misrepresented her income to qualify for her housing, and had declared a friend's child - in addition to her own daughter - as a dependent on tax returns to increase her tax refund."

Furthermore, The Times notes, there seem to be issues not addressed in the letter:

"According to two law enforcement officials familiar with the prosecutors' inquiry, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman's bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

The investigators also learned that she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends."

In other words, taking all this in and coming up with a simple (if, at the time, still somewhat premature) conclusion, it seems that the cleaning woman might well turn out to be a fraud. As for Strauss-Kahn, well, whatever the exact context might be, he did have sex with her, which is morally rather questionable and surely very, very stupid, but it now seems quite possible that his digressions may have ended there.

In the meantime, however, he is a ruined man. He has lost his position in the IMF; his chances of running for president of France are all but gone (in spite of the curious fact that, just for the moment, the current events seem to have actually increased his popularity amongst Les Bleus).

Now why am I bringing this up?

It's simple: I find it interesting how, time and time again, those that support Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito bring up the notion that the Italian judicial system is clearly flawed, or corrupt, or in some other way just downright untrustworthy. They point to the "fact" that the Italian prosecutors "clearly" had branded Amanda and Raffaele as guilty "without any evidence at all". And then they seem, time and again, to infer that such a thing could really only happen in a country such as Italy, and that anything prosecutors or judges say over there really can't be taken at all seriously. It would certainly never, ever happen in the USA, they seem to imply.

But in a way. the DSK episode proves them quite wrong. Quite a few of the things considered to be so odd and unsavoury in the Italian legal system have just been evinced by the prosecutors in New York, And whilst one may argue that the prosecutors in this case recanted, so to speak, relatively quickly, it should be remembered that the damage was already done and that it is irreparable. 

One of the problems of law is the problem of likeabilty. Prosecutors want - and need - to be liked by the public. Judges find it necessary to be at the very least respected by that public. As a result, there is a constant force at work, a force that threatens to suck both groups away from what it is that they should actually be focusing on, that pulls them towards the the uncertain miasma of the ever-changeable popular opinion.

This is true, no doubt, for the Italian judiciary. And it is certainly true, as has been shown here, of the American one.

____________________


A postscript:

On The Daily Beast, a chap called Bernard-Henri Lévi posted an article. In it, he states that "The Strauss-Kahn affair is not over." For it to be over, he continues, Strauss-Kahn "must be granted not only his freedom, but—even more importantly—restoration of his honor."

Restoration of honour? The guy had questionable sex with a Guinean cleaning-woman half his age in a hotel room on a whim. He may have attacked her to get what he wanted; he may not and just have exploited an opportunity. But for God's sake, what honour do you want restored?

Who's this Lévi, you might ask? Well, he's a philosopher.

Sometimes life just wants to make you laugh, I guess.

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.)