Meredith Kercher murdered-Amanda Knox appeals conviction #13

[otto]

So which is it? The Italian jury was composed of geniuses (just like Italian cops) whose decision is infallible? Or they were a bunch of idiots who convicted a girl of murder because she wore a T-shirt?



Apparently, you've never smoked hash. Sleeping for 13 hours is not hard to believe. Apparently, you've never been 20-years-old and in a new relationship. Having sex for 13 hours isn't impossible. Put the two (sleep and sex) together and it's no big deal to account for the 13 hours.

But BTW, I don't believe the 9:10 PM time. That's just another one of ILE's "adjustments" (i.e., lies) to fit their round peg into a square hole.

Have girls been convicted of murder in Italy?

If they had sex for 13 hours, then that's the alibi they needed to provide. Lying to police is not an option during a murder investigation. They did not say that they had sex for 13 hours, they said that they watched a movie and had a late dinner to account from the time between 9 PM and midnight. That proved to be untrue.

 

[SkewedView]

My understanding is that stomach contents is not a reliable measure of time of death. What were Meredith's stomach contents? She had just eaten a meal of pizza plus dessert with friends shortly before arriving home at 9 PM, yet I only recall something about a mushroom.

Stomach (and intestinal) contents are reliable as a means of estimating ToD as long as the time of the last meal is well established (in this case, it was). The speed of the process is variable, but it can give you about a three hour window for the ToD, which is very respectable. There are other methods that could and should have been used on site, or which require measurements of the on site conditions, before anything else was done with the body, but from my understanding, this wasn't done (major mess up there). Please correct me (with links please) if that last bit was wrong.

For a succinct, simplified overview of means of estimating ToD, see here:
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00206/text_ta_time_since_death.htm
It's not a great reference, but it's not time consuming to get through. I can provide more detailed references as needed.

 

[otto]

I think this is more than reasonable. We all find in Otto a formidable opponent, but sometimes we think he spews nonsense, just as he often leads us to believe he thinks we are doing the same. Just part of opposing viewpoints; all just grist for the mill....

Someone's got to take the side of justice delivered! As someone once pointed out, it wouldn't be much fun if we all sat around posting "I agree".

 

[otto]

The problem with that is that completely innocent people have a hard time accounting for their activities on any given night - thus why every attorney worth his salt will tell you to never talk to cops (other than to ask if you are being detained, to refuse searches, and to clearly ask for your lawyer if you are detained of course). Even if you are totally innocent, if you talk to them long enough, they will trip you up on discrepancies that they will assume are lies. The fact that humans simply don't track average events in their memories like a computer does just doesn't come into LE's radar on this issue, and that's alright, to a degree, as they are trained to see everyone as a potential suspect. For them, contradiction=guilt. This is why the system in the US theoretically disallows such 'suspicious' discrepancies from being used to get warrants, indictments etc, because the simple truth is that they are an unreliable weathervane to use when attempting to ascertain guilt.

Simply put, if you asked me what I did last night, at what times, I would be at a total loss, and look guilty as hell if I tried to figure it out on the spot.

Some people might be confused about what they did last night, but if a friend was murdered and those people had to account for their whereabouts, I think they would all find markers like: someone that stopped by the house, a phone call after dinner, a water spill and ... within a few hours ... they would have pieced together an accurate timeline of events. For some reason, Amanda and Raffaele were unable to do that even 5 days later.

 

[SkewedView]

Someone's got to take the side of justice delivered! As someone once pointed out, it wouldn't be much fun if we all sat around posting "I agree".

LOL, as someone that has been the lone voice of dissent on other cases, I'll drink to that!

 

[otto]

I don't know that Rudy didn't make the print. But the investigation was so sloppy, we don't really know whether there was someone else in the cottage that night or not.

Experts that were accepted by the courts to testify about footprints have stated that the print did not belong to Rudy.

 

[SkewedView]

Some people might be confused about what they did last night, but if a friend was murdered and those people had to account for their whereabouts, I think they would all find markers like: someone that stopped by the house, a phone call after dinner, a water spill and ... within a few hours ... they would have pieced together an accurate timeline of events. For some reason, Amanda and Raffaele were unable to do that even 5 days later.

That would be the logical assumption, however, that is simply not the case. People make lousy witnesses, especially with regards to their own activities. This is why they are finding a huge number of false convictions where the prosecution heavily relied on witnesses that later turned out to be completely wrong (even though they weren't lying!), and on seemingly incriminating 'interviews' with suspects that quite simply were less than perfect. If you want, I will try to come up with a list of links to such occurrences and the studies regarding them over the weekend.

 

[SMK]

Rudy didn't make the bloody barefoot print on the bathmat, so he didn't act alone. Who made that print, and who cleaned up the portion of the print that would have been on the floor?

Well, some think it was indeed Rudy's footprint.

 

[SkewedView]

Experts that were accepted by the courts to testify about footprints have stated that the print did not belong to Rudy.

Courts accept the testimony of paid hacks (on both sides) all the time. That is why there is a growing trend of attorneys asking such witnesses if they are being compensated for their testimony, how often they give it for prosecutors/defense attorneys (as the case may be), etc. I am not saying that is the case here, for the experts on either side (I need to do more research before making such a statement), I am simply stating that a court accepting the testimony of an 'expert' is meaningless, especially given the woeful ignorance of most Judges regarding scientific matters.

 

[SMK]

My understanding is that stomach contents is not a reliable measure of time of death. What were Meredith's stomach contents? She had just eaten a meal of pizza plus dessert with friends shortly before arriving home at 9 PM, yet I only recall something about a mushroom.

Yes, there was a mushroom in her esophegus. I would have to go back and review the research, but it amounted to if they finished dinner at 6, the contents would be past the deudemon at such and such a time......oh, it was clear to me at one time.....the end result was, TOD would be closer to 9:30-10 PM.

 

[sherlockh]

Some people might be confused about what they did last night, but if a friend was murdered and those people had to account for their whereabouts, I think they would all find markers like: someone that stopped by the house, a phone call after dinner, a water spill and ... within a few hours ... they would have pieced together an accurate timeline of events. For some reason, Amanda and Raffaele were unable to do that even 5 days later.

Especially since she was supposed to work all night. Most people would eat before, and so did they. She however changed the dinner time 3 times, her bf said he ate alone, they got busted by his fathers phone call, and the ping records of AK's phone. Who would not remember having dinner before going out to work all night? Seriously. And of course there are so many more things they just don't remember or where they contradict each other. It is not what convicted them by itself but it is all very telling.

 

[SMK]

Especially since she was supposed to work all night. Most people would eat before, and so did they. She however changed the dinner time 3 times, her bf said he ate alone, they got busted by his fathers phone call, and the ping records of AK's phone. Who would not remember having dinner before going out to work all night? Seriously. And of course there are so many more things they just don't remember or where they contradict each other. It is not what convicted them by itself but it is all very telling.

It seemed so to me, too, until the rest of the evidence and factors collapsed. Would that they had not.

 

[otto]

That would be the logical assumption, however, that is simply not the case. People make lousy witnesses, especially with regards to their own activities. This is why they are finding a huge number of false convictions where the prosecution heavily relied on witnesses that later turned out to be completely wrong (even though they weren't lying!), and on seemingly incriminating 'interviews' with suspects that quite simply were less than perfect. If you want, I will try to come up with a list of links to such occurrences and the studies regarding them over the weekend.

It's alright, I know that witness identification is known to be weak, and that people can be confused about what they did at certain times. Still, we have to accept that both Amanda and Raffaele were completely confused, in identical ways, about the timeline on the night of the murder. I can understand one person being confused about his or her solitary events, but two people completely confused about their joint events when a quick phone call to Raffaele's father would have pinpointed the 8:30-ish post-dinner phone call? They had certainly matched their alibis, but their alibis didn't fit any of the facts that could have been easily verified with a quick phone call to dad or the suitcase woman. A quick check of the computer would have verified that the movie ran out at 9:10. The pair had 4 days to check this information in this very important situation, yet they stuck to their matched and untrue story accounting for their time throughout the evening until midnight.

 

[SkewedView]

Especially since she was supposed to work all night. Most people would eat before, and so did they. She however changed the dinner time 3 times, her bf said he ate alone, they got busted by his fathers phone call, and the ping records of AK's phone. Who would not remember having dinner before going out to work all night? Seriously. And of course there are so many more things they just don't remember or where they contradict each other. It is not what convicted them by itself but it is all very telling.

The problem is that we don't know the context of those 'story changes'. When under the pressure of continuously being asked the same questions over and over, suspects (both guilty and innocent) will start to doubt themselves, and what they say will change over the length of an 'interview', sometimes wildly. In fact, often it's a bad sign when someone is too consistent during an interview, as that can mean that they heavily practiced their story ahead of time. This is why more and more states in the US are making taped interviews mandatory - too often, an interviewer will present the statements of a defendant in a manner that is factually true and yet completely misleading. This is, again, also why lawyers tell people to never talk to the cops, especially if you are innocent.

 

[otto]

Well, some think it was indeed Rudy's footprint.

No one in the courtroom thought it was Rudy's footprint.

And ya gotta love this picture:

 

[sherlockh]

I watched that the other day. I think Elizabeth's testimony against Jens was critical. She kept a detailed diary about wanting to kill her parents and that was found when they were arrested for fraud in England. During questioning as a witness, without a lawyer (legal in the UK), Jens confessed but later claimed that it was out of love for Elizabeth and to keep her out of the electric chair. His confession was contested in the US courts because it was against US law to be questioned without a lawyer, but the judge kept the confession in. Elizabeth also confessed to her involvement, but said that she was only musing about murdering her parents and Jens took it to the level of murder without her agreement. She expected to get off by blaming Jens. During his trial, he said that he was innocent and she murdered her parents. The footprint was critical in his conviction, but there was also his confession, and Elizabeth's testimony.

BBM. I am not so sure about that. She pleaded guilty after all. Jens confessions were very detailed, he left his footprint and a drop of his blood in the house. He also left some lights on where the switches were hidden that Elizabeth since she lived there would have switched off, but since he wasn't familiar with the house left on. The blood drop was of his blood type and did not match Elizabeth or her parents. All in all very little evidence but together with the confessions and testimony of Elizabeth I think this was a fair trial.

However, the guy is German and would have gotten out a long time ago in his own country. That never seemed fair to me. Also Elizabeth got a very heavy sentence for not actively participating in the murder, but at least she will get out some day. All JMO and off topic

 

[otto]

Courts accept the testimony of paid hacks (on both sides) all the time. That is why there is a growing trend of attorneys asking such witnesses if they are being compensated for their testimony, how often they give it for prosecutors/defense attorneys (as the case may be), etc. I am not saying that is the case here, for the experts on either side (I need to do more research before making such a statement), I am simply stating that a court accepting the testimony of an 'expert' is meaningless, especially given the woeful ignorance of most Judges regarding scientific matters.

After hearing the testimony from all experts, the jury concluded that it was not Rudy's footprint.

 

[SMK]

BBM. I am not so sure about that. She pleaded guilty after all. Jens confessions were very detailed, he left his footprint and a drop of his blood in the house. He also left some lights on where the switches were hidden that Elizabeth since she lived there would have switched off, but since he wasn't familiar with the house left on. The blood drop was of his blood type and did not match Elizabeth or her parents. All in all very little evidence but together with the confessions and testimony of Elizabeth I think this was a fair trial.

However, the guy is German and would have gotten out a long time ago in his own country. That never seemed fair to me. Also Elizabeth got a very heavy sentence for not actively participating in the murder, but at least she will get out some day. All JMO and off topic

Right. Why does the U.S. have prison sentences that are much, much longer than many other countries? It baffles me and I do not grasp what is at the crux of it.

 

[SkewedView]

It's alright, I know that witness identification is known to be weak, and that people can be confused about what they did at certain times. Still, we have to accept that both Amanda and Raffaele were completely confused, in identical ways, about the timeline on the night of the murder. I can understand one person being confused about his or her solitary events, but two people completely confused about their joint events when a quick phone call to Raffaele's father would have pinpointed the 8:30-ish post-dinner phone call? They had certainly matched their alibis, but their alibis didn't fit any of the facts that could have been easily verified with a quick phone call to dad or the suitcase woman. A quick check of the computer would have verified that the movie ran out at 9:10. The pair had 4 days to check this information in this very important situation, yet they stuck to their matched and untrue story accounting for their time throughout the evening until midnight.

You should hear my wife and I trying to sequence the events of one of our days, it's like a badly written comedy! :crazy:

That said, I can understand your argument, however, didn't the pair of them spend most of their waking hours those four days at the police station (mostly waiting around from my understanding, but nevertheless)? If this is in fact true, that would seem to preclude them having the time or energy to fact check their recollection of things, especially given that the police had yet to inform them that they were suspects (and if you're not a suspect, why worry about whether the times of your alibi are accurate, right?). All of the above is based on my, at the moment, imperfect recollection of the time line of events during that week, so please correct me if I am mistaken.

 

[otto]

Yes, there was a mushroom in her esophegus. I would have to go back and review the research, but it amounted to if they finished dinner at 6, the contents would be past the deudemon at such and such a time......oh, it was clear to me at one time.....the end result was, TOD would be closer to 9:30-10 PM.

According to the motivation report; pg 37:

"She remembered that they had eaten pizza and an apple cake. She did not know when they had finished eating; perhaps an hour before leaving; and she indicated that they had left the house at around 20:45 pm."

That means they finished eating around 7:45. Would there be nothing in the stomach except a mushroom (which was not in the meal) if she died at 9:30?