DU experts, Amanda KNOX: So the court said they're guilty but dismissed because of shoddiness?

[UTUSN]

*********QUOTE********

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/07/italian-court-explains-not-guilty-verdict-for-amanda-knox.html

[font size=5]Court Blames Shoddy Police Work For Amanda Knox Acquittal[/font]

.... "In the opinion of the Supreme Court, if it were not for the weak investigation and if the investigation had not been affected by guilty omissions, the court would, in all likelihood, be allowed right now to outline a framework, if not on absolute certainty at least of tranquil reliability, in view of the guilt of Knox and Sollecito for the charge of killing the British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia on Nov. 1, 2007.”

Instead, the court had no choice, it said, but to throw out the case in its entirety because of the marred investigations and the procedural mistakes in the many trials of the case which, it said, were so unsound they could not be considered just. In the reasoning, the high court pointed out a number of examples of procedural malpractice in both the courts that convicted and acquitted Knox and Sollecito, ruling that reasonable doubt prevailed under such circumstances.

The high court also largely blamed the media and international attention for effectively rushing the processes of both the investigators and the courts. ....

Those accusations, it said, were made under duress, but not to such an extent that they could be considered nullified in the eyes of the law. Their final word of the document is a line restating that guilty verdict and supporting the three years of prison handed down to Knox, which she served during her incarceration. That also means that she cannot sue Italy for more than one year of unlawful incarceration since the high court ruled that she had committed a crime.


The high court also wrote that the inability of the investigators to definitively put Knox and Sollecito in the murder room made it impossible to uphold the convictions, even with the ample circumstantial evidence that pointed to their presence in the house where the murder took place—and which was supported, according to the document, by Knox’s own admission, both verbally and in writing, to being there. ....

*************UNQUOTE*************

[MADem]

1. Italian justice....making it so clear why a SOFA is necessary for us to be based there. nt

[jberryhill]

4. Say, who is prime minister of Italy this month?

At least prior to Berlusconi, they had such an entertaining parade of leaders (I mean since Mussolini, of course) and including, if my memory serves, the only PM of any country of note to be kidnapped.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Aldo Moro was not Prime Minister when he was kidnapped and murdered by the Brigate Rosse

It's nice that you find that tragedy amusing, in any case.

[MADem]

21. Poor Aldo Moro, technically he was a former PM, but

he was murdered by Red Brigade.
They found him in the trunk of a car, IIRC.

[pnwmom]

14. This article was written by a long-term guilter and is slanted in that direction.

But Amanda is lucky that that the European Court of Human Rights is the ultimate place of appeal for Italy. This Court even noted in its report that the trial wouldn't have met the ECHR's standards.

[wyldwolf]

2. You forgot to mention this was the ITALIAN Supreme Court

[jberryhill]

3. Knox, knox

Who's there?

Amanda

Amanda who?

Amanda posts another thread about this goddamned Italian soap opera on DU is Amanda put on my ignore list.

[UTUSN]

6. *Deal!1* Wish I'd known long ago!1 n/t

[jberryhill]

7. Lol

[UTUSN]

8. Well, *that* was unexpected!1 n/t

[Fred Sanders]

5. Guilty verdict upheld, sentence reduced to three years jail. Already served. Fairly clear result.

"In the document is a line restating that guilty verdict and supporting the three years of prison handed down to Knox, which she served during her incarceration. That also means that she cannot sue Italy for more than one year of unlawful incarceration since the high court ruled that she had committed a crime."

[pnwmom]

11. That verdict, for slandering Lumumba, is being appealed to the European Court on Human Rights.

It is connected to Amanda's claim that the police were hitting her during the interrogation, and insisting that she tell them that she and Lumumba were in the cottage during the time of the murder. During an overnight interrogation, she finally broke down and signed a statement saying she "confusedly remembered" what the police were telling her she had to remember. A few hours later she asked for a paper and wrote out another statement saying that her previous statement seemed unreal to her. But they ignored her second statement and arrested him anyway.

The only verdict that is just and fair is the final one absolving her and Raffaele of the murder of Meredith Kercher.

[pnwmom]

9. This is a slanted piece written by a reporter, Barbie Nadeau, with a long-held bias toward guilt.

Remember, the Court in March gave an even stronger verdict than simply not-guilty.

It is true that since the investigation was so deeply flawed, the Court couldn't have found Amanda and Raffaele guilty EVEN IF they had been factually guilty.

But they aren't guilty. They couldn't have been the murderers because they weren't even in the room -- as the Court acknowledges the evidence shows.

The Court has no insider knowledge that they're guilty despite the lack of evidence; and the reporter has no basis for her claim that the case could have “easily gone the other way.” That is her opinion and only her opinion.

The evidence (or lack thereof) shows that Amanda and Raffaele were not even in the murder room. The Court acknowledges in its report that it is impossible to ONLY clean up from a murder room the DNA and fingerprints of two suspects while leaving behind the invisible DNA and fingerprints of a third. The fact that DNA and fingerprints were found belonging to Rudy Guede but not to Amanda and Raffaele shows that he was the only one present.

[smirkymonkey]

12. I read quite a bit about this case while it was going on and even afterward.

Once I found out how ridiculous the outrageous story made up by the prosecutor was, I became obsessed by how "Kafkaesque" the whole trial was (I know, I usually think that word is pretentious, but in this case I really think it applied). I think she and Raffaele were probably higher than kites during the initial stages of the discovery of the murder and that would probably account for their "suspicious" and "inappropriate" behavior.

[mainer]

15. Barbie Nadeau has a stake in Knox being guilty

because all her articles have said she's guilty. She just can't give it up, despite the evidence.

[pnwmom]

17. Right. She also wrote a guilter-book that she had to revise after Amanda

was found not guilty.

That must have been galling.

[WinkyDink]

10. They've got to let it go.

[struggle4progress]

13. It was always a strange story, including Know turning cartwheel while awaiting police interview

or making a completely false report tying her black employer to the crime

I still don't need to have an opinion

[pnwmom]

18. She wasn't doing cartwheels; she was doing yoga.

And the police, who had found a black hair on the body, also found a text from Amanda's black employer on her telephone. During the overnight interrogation, they kept insisting Lumumba had been at the cottage and pressing Amanda to say that -- until she cracked and said she "confusedly remembered" Lumumba being there.

A few hours later, after finally getting a little sleep, she asked for paper and pen and wrote out a new statement saying that first statement they had her sign didn't seem real to her and they shouldn't rely on it.

Very early on the Courts had ruled both statements inadmissible, but they were used in the trials against her anyway.

It is true you don't need to have an opinion -- but you actually do, since it's your opinion that she made a "completely false report tying her black employer to the crime." She didn't willingly and freely make such a statement. They pushed her to implicate him -- and even hit her when they were telling her to try harder to remember. But she withdrew the statement within a few hours.

[struggle4progress]

23. A policewoman (Lorena Zugarini), and two inspectors (Rita Ficarra and Monica Napoleoni), said

they witnessed her doing cartwheels. It is, of course, possible something has been lost in translation

[pnwmom]

24. For someone with no opinion you seem to have surprisingly specific information.

I myself could never have remembered how to spell those names.

[struggle4progress]

26. Well, I've learned several things here at DU. One is: an issue, if worth discussing, deserves

some care and exactitude in discussion. Another is: I needn't form an opinion on everything

[pnwmom]

28. It's hard to imagine that someone could know so much about the case

that s/he could name the police who talked about cartwheels, and yet doesn't have an opinion after almost eight years.

Did the police testify about cartwheels in court? Or is this story just part of the larger media myth that never ended up in court?

[struggle4progress]

29. I suppose it might hard for you to imagine that

my reading of many press accounts and opinion pieces on the case didn't persuade me I knew the full story

Much of what I have learned by such reading, about many and varied stories over the years, is the unreliability of press accounts, the willingness of many people to form an opinion based on a sentence or two, and just how quickly people allow stereotypes to govern their thinking

I really don't know whether Amanda Knox was an immature innocent somehow caught up in a horrific nightmare or a cold-blooded psychopath with a cherubic face. I needn't form any opinion about that. It seems the case is now over, and it seems to have resolved itself without my help

[pnwmom]

30. So was the cartwheel story part of the courtroom evidence or just one of those media stories

that got hyped?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

19. The police screwed up, the courts screwed up,

and the Supreme Court thinks they're guilty, but they've not got any untainted evidence to hang their hats on.

In essence, they're Roger Goodell, wanting to punish Tom Brady, but not having any real proof that is trustworthy.

[pnwmom]

22. No, the High Court doesn't think they're guilty. Barbie Landeau thinks they're guilty --

she wrote a book about Amanda's supposed guilt -- and slanted this piece to make it appear that the Court agrees with her.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/07/amanda-knox-acquitted-because-of-stunning-flaws-in-investigation

From The Guardian:

The judges denounced the prosecutors’ argument that there was not more physical evidence linking Knox and Sollecito to the crime because they had selectively cleaned the crime scene as illogical. Such an act would have been impossible, they said.

Instead of being wary of the lack of evidence, the judges said the lower court in Perugia that initially found Knox and Sollecito guilty in 2009 had ignored experts who had “clearly demonstrated possible contamination”. The lower court had also misinterpreted evidence about the knife that prosecutors argued was the murder weapon.

They said evidence pointed to the guilt of one man – Rudy Guede, a drifter from Ivory Coast, who received a 16-year prison sentence for Kercher’s murder following a fast-track trial in 2008. At the time of his conviction, it was stated that he did not act alone. In their decision, the judges said Guede may have had accomplices but that prosecutors had not proven them to have been Knox or Sollecito.

[smirkymonkey]

25. Yes, but didn't they offer Rudy Guede a reduced sentence if he implicated Knox and

Sollecito? So why wouldn't he? His testimony is worthless and his DNA was the only DNA that showed up in the crime scene. It would have been impossible for Amanda and Raffaele to have scrubbed only their DNA from the scene and only left his. I think Guede, and Guede alone was responsible for her murder and because the idiot Italian prosecutors were so determined to convict Knox they gave him a reduced sentence and now this rapist and murderer will be out in another year.

What a total shitshow this whole debacle was from the start.

[pnwmom]

31. He did implicate them. But there is a law in Italy that says convicted criminals

can't be forced to testify in further proceedings. So his statement (which stated that he had two accomplices, and named them in another section) was offered into evidence against Amanda and Raffaele at their trial, but their lawyers weren't allowed to question him.

So they were found guilty based in part on the testimony in Rudy's fast-track trial -- which they were never allowed to dispute.

[pnwmom]

20. That reporter has a long-held bias, which is probably why she omitted two key words: "or innocence."

That reporter wrote her own book about Amanda's supposed guilt, and she's stubbornly clinging to her theories.

According to USA today, "Had the investigation not been so shaky, "in all probability" the defendants' guilt or innocence could have been determined from the earliest stages, the panel said."

In Barbie's translation, it is only Amanda's guilt that would have been determined with better evidence. What a difference a couple of words make.

Here is a piece from The Guardian, a British paper that was among the most fair during the trials.

And below that, one from USA Today.


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/07/amanda-knox-acquitted-because-of-stunning-flaws-in-investigation

The judges denounced the prosecutors’ argument that there was not more physical evidence linking Knox and Sollecito to the crime because they had selectively cleaned the crime scene as illogical. Such an act would have been impossible, they said.

Instead of being wary of the lack of evidence, the judges said the lower court in Perugia that initially found Knox and Sollecito guilty in 2009 had ignored experts who had “clearly demonstrated possible contamination”. The lower court had also misinterpreted evidence about the knife that prosecutors argued was the murder weapon.

They said evidence pointed to the guilt of one man – Rudy Guede, a drifter from Ivory Coast, who received a 16-year prison sentence for Kercher’s murder following a fast-track trial in 2008. At the time of his conviction, it was stated that he did not act alone. In their decision, the judges said Guede may have had accomplices but that prosecutors had not proven them to have been Knox or Sollecito.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/09/07/italy-top-court-amanda-knox-conviction-based-poor-case/71844786/

ROME (AP) — Italy's top criminal court has scathingly faulted prosecutors for presenting a flawed and hastily constructed case against Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, saying Monday it threw out their convictions for the 2007 murder of her British roommate in part because there was no proof they were in the bedroom where the woman was fatally stabbed.

The Court of Cassation issued its formal written explanation, as required by Italian law, for its March ruling — vindicating the pair once and for all in the murder of Meredith Kercher in the apartment the two women shared while students in Perugia, Italy.

It wrote there was an "absolute lack of biological traces" of Knox, an American, or of co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito in the room or on the victim's body. It slammed the quality of the prosecution's case from the start.

The path of the case took was "objectively wavering, whose oscillations are … the result also of stunning weakness or investigative bouts of amnesia and of blameworthy omissions of investigative activity," the court wrote. Had the investigation not been so shaky, "in all probability" the defendants' guilt or innocence could have been determined from the earliest stages, the panel said.

[davidn3600]

27. The case Italy can't let go

[eridani]

32. Italy's High Court Slams Evidence, Prosecution Against Amanda Knox

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/32265-italys-high-court-slams-evidence-prosecution-against-amanda-knox

Italy's top criminal court has scathingly faulted prosecutors for presenting a flawed and hastily constructed case against Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, saying Monday it threw out their convictions for the 2007 murder of her British roommate in part because there was no proof they were in the bedroom where the woman was fatally stabbed.

The Court of Cassation issued its formal written explanation, as required by Italian law, for its March ruling — vindicating the pair once and for all in the murder of Meredith Kercher in the apartment the two women shared while students in Perugia, Italy.

It wrote there was an "absolute lack of biological traces" of Knox, an American, or of co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito in the room or on the victim's body. It slammed the quality of the prosecution's case from the start.

The path of the case took was "objectively wavering, whose oscillations are ... the result also of stunning weakness or investigative bouts of amnesia and of blameworthy omissions of investigative activity," the court wrote. Had the investigation not been so shaky, "in all probability" the defendants' guilt or innocence could have been determined from the earliest stages, the panel said.

Media clamor was also a factor in what was ultimately a flawed case, the high court concluded. "The international spotlight on the case in fact resulted in the investigation undergoing a sudden acceleration," the judges wrote.

In March, the high court declared that Knox, now 28, and Sollecito, now 31, didn't murder 21-year-old Kercher, a stronger exoneration than merely finding there was insufficient evidence to convict.

[CBGLuthier]

33. Isn't that more or less what Americans think happened in OJ Simpson's murder trial?