Can you believe 7 impossible things before breakfast?

[pnwmom]

Last edited Sat May 10, 2014, 11:43 AM - Edit history (1)

After 7 years, including 4 in prison, and an “innocent” verdict in their first appeals trial, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are still facing the possibility of a final “guilty” verdict and, for Amanda Knox, the possibility of extradition from the US.

Recently, along with the release of the second appeals court's official and bizarre "motivation" report, there has been a new development in the media campaign against her: the widespread release of a blurry video of a human, wearing a long coat and pants, in a parking garage. This video was considered and rejected by the prosecution many years ago, because the figure in the grainy video doesn’t look like Amanda and was walking in the wrong direction at the wrong time. But it is being promoted as “new” evidence in an effort to re-convince the public that Amanda Knox is guilty of the murder of her new friend.

To believe Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecitio were guilty of Meredith Kercher’s murder, you must be like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, who could believe in 6 impossible things before breakfast.

Except you must believe at least 7 impossible things.

You must believe that it’s possible to clean up all your invisible DNA from a crime scene, while purposely leaving DNA belonging to someone else.

You must believe that it’s possible to clean up all your invisible fingerprints from a crime scene, while purposely leaving fingerprints belonging to someone else.

You must believe it’s possible to do all this cleaning without leaving any evidence that you did so.

You must believe that you can clean a knife used in a stabbing so thoroughly that no trace of blood remains – but that a few cells of what might be the victim’s non-blood DNA could remain.

You must believe that breadcrumbs could survive a cleaning that removed all traces of blood from a knife used in a murder.

You must believe that more than three hours after eating dinner, none of the healthy murder victim’s meal had traveled from her stomach to her duodenum.

You must believe that a heroin addict’s testimony implicates two defendants in a murder – even though he claimed he saw them on a different day than the murder; and he claimed he witnessed them for several hours outside of the murder room, during the period of the time when the murder must have taken place, not inside it.

[Vogon_Glory]

1. If I Could Believe In Seven Impossible Things

If I could believe in 7 impossible things before breakfast, I'd not only believe Amanda Knox was guilty, I'd be a Tea Party Republican.

[IDemo]

2. Idaho DNA Expert Shocked That Amanda Knox Faces A New Trial

Italy's highest criminal court Tuesday overturned Amanda Knox’s acquittal in the slaying of her British roommate and ordered a new trial. An appeals court in Florence must re-hear the case against the American student and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

That case was originally overturned, in part because of DNA analysis done by Greg Hampikian. The Boise State professor and director of the Idaho Innocence Project says he was surprised and disappointed when he heard the verdict. “I was sick to my stomach. We were listening, actually just sitting up in bed with the Italian TV on the internet and then CNN up and a feed from her family and really hoped it would be over, that they would uphold her release and I think we were all really shocked.”

>

Q. You have said in the past that you know who killed Meredith Kercher. Who do you think committed the crime?

A. Well, it’s not think. His DNA spells out his identity to an assurance of one in quadrillions. We know who did it. It’s Rudy Guede. He’s serving in prison presently. He was never released. He was convicted before Amanda and Raffaele were tried, there’s no question about who did this.

The only question facing the court was did he have accomplices and I think it’s a very complex story that the prosecutors came up with to try and involved Amanda and Raffaele, it doesn’t make any sense. They didn’t know this guy. It looks like it was a break in, there was a broken window. It all seems pretty typical, if there is a typical, murder situation like this. To create this elaborate myth that Raffaele and Amanda were involved, without any substantial evidence, is a stretch. I didn’t think it would be revisited, but apparently it will be.

http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post/idaho-dna-expert-shocked-amanda-knox-faces-new-trial

[pnwmom]

3. Thanks, IDemo. Most well-informed people were. And this recent "Motivation" report

was pretty shocking, too, for those who read it.

The reasoning behind the verdict involved using non-existent evidence, along with "facts" drawn from Rudy Guede's fast-track trial -- in which he was required to stipulate to all the prosecution's claims in order to get his reduced sentence. Those included claims that Amanda and Raffaele had been accomplices in the murder. Amanda and Raffaele weren't part of Guede's trial and their lawyers weren't allowed to question him when he gave a statement against them -- yet his statements were considered "fact" in their trial because his verdict had already been fully ratified by the high court.

[IDemo]

4. I've lost a lot of regard for the US judicial system over the past decade

But the facts that you've outlined here make for a pretty chilling case that Italy's is well ahead of us in its unjustness.

[pnwmom]

5. Our problems are break-downs in our system. Their system has built-in flaws.

Last edited Sat May 10, 2014, 12:53 PM - Edit history (1)

Their "fast-track" trial is similar to a no-contest plea here, except it involves the defendant stipulating to a series of prosecution claims about the case -- which then become judicially determined truth. And in Italy those truths are set in stone; the defendant is protected from ever having to testify again. In the US, by contrast, the defendant who pleas "no-contest" can be required to testify in future trials -- and charged with perjury if he changes his testimony.

Very few US observers realized that Rudy Guede's guilty verdict could come back to haunt Amanda and Raffaele -- including, I'm afraid, their own lawyers. The fast-track system is a relatively new development and I don't know whether there has been a previous case like this, where one defendant agrees not to contest the prosecution's claims in exchange for a reduced sentence -- and the record of that trial (including claims of the guilt of 3rd parties) is then considered "fact" in subsequent full trials of other defendants.

If Amanda and Raffaele are found guilty by the high court, I'm sure they will appeal to the European Court on Human Rights. If there ever was a case that demanded intervention, this one does. The European Convention, like our own Constitution, gives all defendants the right to question witnesses against them. Amanda and Raffaele were denied this right.

The real hero in all of this is Raffaele. All this time he could have lied, saying Amanda wasn't with him, and he would have been off the hook. He went to prison for four years because he wouldn't lie about her -- and he's facing more decades in prison.

Meanwhile, the real murderer is already out on day-release.