Not really mitigating circumstances... he got 30 years then it was reduced because of the 'fast track' trial and time already served. Mitigating circumstances is what got RS an extra year and AK two extra.
What mitigating circumstances?
ther_beatingA_Dead
Uhhh no. They are CONVICTED murderers it seems.
Thanks Salem.
OK Tizzle I got you now. 6 years mitigating for young age/no criminal history/etc... sorry for not getting what y'all were saying there.
No need to be snarky about my reply in caps if you are going to post that they are innocent... which we all have seen is not what the court decided.
Maybe you should have posted 'wrongly convicted' then. :angel:
I believe they are innocent though. I can post it any way I choose to post it, innocent, not guilty, wrongfully accused, railroaded, victims of a witch hunt. It all means the same to me, WRONGFULLY CONVICTED, and I've never been shy about voicing my concerns with 2 innocent people being held hostage in an Italian prison.
Snarkiness not intended. I guess I'm just a "snark" by nature. :angel:
Thanks for that - what I'm wondering, though, is what was actually brought up in court about someone returning to the scene and moving the body. Was this a part of the prosecution case, or just something that was raised earlier on and then not mentioned in court? The only thing I've been able to find on it is this article on TJMK, and it seems to be based on the Micheli report rather than what was brought up during the trial. As I understand it, for the pre-trial report the prosecution present their strongest possible case to the judge, and the judge decides whether it could be true; at that stage they don't need to provide the same proof they would during the actual trial. So I'm dubious about TJMK using the Micheli report as a source, rather than what was discussed in court.The pooling of the blood to one side of MK's bra showed that her bra was on,
and laying sort of on her side during/after severe bleeding. There was also no blood below her pant's waistline. It was obvious to investigators that the bra and pants had been removed at a later time and the body moved... how long I do not know.
You, me, jurors, judges and the investigators thought it strange also to stage a sexual assault (or bring more attention to it) when one already happened.
***This is an important part of the case!!!
The trouble here is that the TJMK people are being very non-specific and just saying 'for some time'. Are we talking 5 minutes? 10? An hour? Eight hours? Blood clots quickly by its nature, on a small cut probably within seconds. Even if a larger amount would take longer, isn't it possible it could have started to clot within, say five or ten minutes - at least enough to leave an imprint? I don't know for certain - and if it was important, I'm assuming it was discussed in more detail at trial - but just based on the above, I'm not convinced that proves she was moved hours later, rather than, say, 10 or 20 minutes after the attack. Particularly since I suspect that if Micheli had indicated she'd lain in that position for hours, TJMK would probably be a lot more specific than just saying 'for some time'.Micheli said that evidence showed that Meredith had lain on one shoulder near the wardrobe. She lay in that position long enough for the imprint of her shoulder and bra strap to remain fixed in the pool of blood after she was moved to the position in which her body was finally found. Photographs of blood on her shoulder matched the imprint by the wardrobe and her shoulder itself also showed signs that she had remained in that position for some time.
I didn't see anything about the trousers on the TJMK article, so can't really comment on that till I know more about it. But if Guede's DNA was found inside Meredith, wouldn't he have needed to remove her pants/underwear himself?Well I don't know about the exact time period before the moving, but you also have to consider the cut bra (showing it was done after much bleeding) while showing she had been laying in a certain position for a period of time before it was cut. Also since she didn't have blood on her lower portions... it was believed that her pants had been removed around this time after death.
[Continued from above, replying to the cut bra issue dgfred mentions!]
The second thing the prosecution talk about in the Micheli report is the bra clasp being cut, and they argue that there were blood spots on her bra which showed she was wearing it when the attack happened. The defence said that since there were spots of blood on her chest underneath where the bra would have been, she couldn't have been wearing it; Micheli concluded that this just meant her bra had moved around during the attack.
Now, that last bit seemed quite important to me: if her bra was moving around to the extent that it wasn't even covering her, wouldn't that suggest that by that point, the clasp had already been cut? A fastened bra wouldn't usually move around that much (not a properly fitting one, anyway!). Surely the simple answer to the bra clasp issue is that although the attacker cut the clasp off, the bra was still hooked over her arms and shoulders and held on by her sweatshirt, so it didn't suddenly fly off to the other side of the room as the prosecution (and even the defence, to be fair) seem to think? It most likely came off completely either when she fell on to her side, or when she was moved onto her back. With the way her sweatshirt was pulled up, it seems likely the attacker was trying to remove her bra after he cut the clasp, and perhaps it was during that struggle that she was stabbed.
I almost feel like I must be missing something here, because that seems like such an obvious explanation for how she could still have been wearing her bra even though the clasp had been cut. It seems odd that the judges and prosecution would have assumed that her bra would immediately ping off to the other side of the room somewhere as soon as the clasp was cut off. Is it just that they're all men who don't understand the mechanics of women's underwear (or, y'know, basic physics) or what?
For the record, I'm still on the fence and it's not a place I'm used to being or that's very comfortable. Lots of chafing being on that fence. I can't remember the last time I was on the fence, in fact; I've always had such strong opinions on a defendent's guilt or innocence. :waitasec:
But would you agree that she could have been wearing her bra, but with the clasp cut? The positioning of the blood spots and so on would be very similar, but the bra would be more likely to move around, which seems to be what happened from Micheli's report.I believe the blood flow on one side of the bra and the marks in the pooling of her shoulder was the best evidence that she was wearing the bra during the attack. I believe it may have been moved about somewhat during the attack (because of some spots under where it would have been) but the flow from the neck wounds showed it was on during the attack.
There would be no reason imo for RG to move the body around after any period of time after death.
Guede's skin cells were in both vaginal/anal areas, so just unzipped wouldn't have worked. The skin cells could also be consistent with sex without ejaculation as well as digital assault, so maybe Guede's story of 'unsuccessful sex' (or however he termed it) could've been true.No. I believe the assault was digital, they might have been unbuttoned/unzipped but not removed or down.
Watch that chafing SG :yow: ... we need your balanced view around here.
LOL. I can't promise anything. It occurred to me that whenever I read a post that has the words, "I believe that..." or "I think they said..." it reaffirms how little I know about this case from an official standpoint. Without official documents to work from or something better than media reports, it's kind of useless.
Compare, if you will, trying to eek out details of this case and the very little that we are privy to in an official capacity to the voluminous reports that have already come out so far in the Casey Anthony case--the Sunshine laws of FL allow us to see what the police have amassed, the reports, the forensic reports, the printouts from cell phone records, the transcripts from interviews, etc., etc.
In contrast, we're essentially using the rumor mill and tabloids as source material and that's just not good enough for the average Websleuther who knows what it's like to be able to get their hands on better information. And yes, I understand it's the best we can get in this case, but how can I come to what I feel is a good/fair conclusion without actual/real information? Answer: I can't.
I absolutely do believe there is a problem with Mignini and his ethics both in general and in this case. I also have questions about the way (at least some of) the evidence was processed right from the time it was picked up. As you pointed out earlier, that doesn't mean AK & RS are innocent, but it does make me distrust the motives of the prosecution and wonder at their tactics. And I'm usually a pro-prosecution kinda gal! So for me to feel this level of distrust and uncertainty means that there is no way I can render my own 'verdict' on the case with the little information I have.
Clear as mud?