AP Reporting That Court Said They Did Not Commit the Crime - Better Than "Not Enough Evidence"

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

that is a strong exoneration

"In a rare decision, the supreme Court of Cassation overturned last year's convictions by a Florence appeals court and declined to order another trial. The judges declared that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding that there wasn't enough evidence to convict."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/018d6a0ba12845aba0dfa91adbef968e/lawyer-knoxs-ex-boyfriend-makes-final-court-appeal

The guilters must be going nuts!

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I'm not skyping with my older SIL

This weekend. She's outraged in Genoa!

But the thing that got lost in all of this -

If you are arrested over there - it is an assumption of guilt.

When you add in a corrupt prosecutor - things go wrong.

And they aren't all corrupt.

[Warpy]

2. At last

I was never impressed by their evidence and thought the whole scenario was preposterous.

A man from the Ivory Coast has been convicted of the crime and is serving a 16 year sentence.

I hope Kercher's family can content themselves with the fact that the man who murdered their daughter is behind bars and that there was no reason to punish her roommates.

They don't seem to be there, yet. They're still blaming Knox and her ex boyfriend for leading their little girl into a sinful lifestyle, even if they didn't kill her.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

5. When the realize that Amanda and Rafaelle

are really innocent, and the man who brutally murdered and sexually assaulted their daughter is already eligible for day release, I have a feeling they will go stark raving mad. In all their statements, Rudy Guede has been nothing but a footnote. I do not understand that kind of hatred, but grief can do strange things to a person.

[riderinthestorm]

3. Yeah, I'm waiting on the other threads for guilters to show up

looks like they're all suddenly too busy after a full day of trumpeting Knox and Sollecito's demise.

All those hours wasted on trying to convince us all she was going to be extradited...



And now they have the highest court saying they did not do this crime? Must be tough especially for DU's self-professed lawyer with their legal expertise (cough).

This is the highest court saying they are completely innocent which was obvious if you actually read the documents.

[Fumesucker]

4. I get curious about motivations on things like this..

This was such a presposterous case that you had to have quite a personal animus against the defendant to be that sure they were guilty.

[riderinthestorm]

6. Agreed. I can't understand DUers who fell for this, esp ostensible legal beagles

who insisted they read Everything one of them claiming to have read the court docs and reports in the original Italian no less...



Maybe they thought they were impressing people with some kind of twisted sense of objectivity? But their arguments felt like they had only read the British tabloids.

Bizarre.

Cheer up though. I'm pretty sure they're all in hiding tonight.

[Fumesucker]

8. I think the motivations were more basic than that

I'm not sure of the Italian phrase but in the original German I believe schadenfreude is the term..

[riderinthestorm]

12. Oh gauntlet thrown so I had to look it up. "Sadismo!"

"Compiacersi delle sventure altrui" was the other nearest equivalent which translates into "taking pleasure in others misfortunes". But of course our Italian speaking DU legal beagle knows that already.

I think I like "Sadismo" better...

[morningfog]

11. When one's arguments are, without exception, in defense of state power

over the people or the individual, there is no question as to motive.

[riderinthestorm]

13. Yes and when that's the case 100% of the time it becomes obvious nt

[hobbit709]

7. wouldn't be the first time around here.

Way too many people go into "Sentence first, trial afterwards" mode around here.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

9. Here's my condensed version

Last edited Fri Mar 27, 2015, 10:35 PM - Edit history (1)

1) A corrupt investigator.

2) A theory put forth too quickly before the public. A black man, and Rafaelle and Amanda committed a murder.

3) When they realized they got the wrong black man, they stuck with the original theory in front of the world wide press.

4) Crazy, crazy tabloid journalism in the U.K. and Italy that snowballed into a media frenzy.

5 Amanda was stupidly naive, and did change her stories (over 50+ hour of investigation over the course of 4 days).

6 Extremely inept handling and collecting of evidence, which would surely have been thrown out in a U.S. court.

Note: When the investigators saw a message from Amanda stating "See you later," to Patrick Lumumba, the owner of the bar where Amanda worked, the prosecutors then coerced her into framing Patrick as the killer. Amanda then signed a confession written in Italian, a language in which she was not yet fluent. A few hours later, in her own handwriting in English, I believe, Amanda retracted the story.

From this, Amanda has been legally charged and convicted with lying, and Patrick Lumumba has won a case of slander against her. Patrick also accused the police of physical mistreatment, but withdrew that charge.

Amanda also faces other charges of lying in her book. Journalists have been threatened when the prosecutor didn't like what they wrote. At least one journalist was driven out of the country for fear of prison.

I will say this - there is a certain common sense in the theory of the Italian court system, but unfortunately, there are rules of procedure that make it difficult to mount a defense. Procedures that deny due process.

[Fumesucker]

10. Nice precis, you're a lot more familiar with the ins and the outs of it than I am..

All I know is from reading a fair number of threads about the case over the years and I was struck by the strength of the negative opinions versus the paucity of physical evidence.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

14. I used to...

I used to work in a hospital lab, so when I saw the video (edited and unedited) of the evidence collectors at the crime scene, that was all I needed to look more into the case. Seriously. Crime scene protocols and investigative lab protocols are much more stringent than most hospital labs, but even my untrained eye could see the multiple mistakes they were making.

This is a "biased" source, but just watch. If you want, turn off the volume and see if you can spot the mistakes re contamination. It's only four minutes, and would be highly entertaining in a Barney Fife sort of way if this evidence wasn't used to ruin the lives of two young people for eight years.

[tblue37]

16. Considering that an Italian court convicted geologists of manslaughter for not accurately predicting

an earthquake (a verdict also eventually overturned), I have little faith in the wisdom of their lower courts, though their higher courts do seem to sometimes step in to clean up the mess, as in the earthquake and the Knox cases.

[DanTex]

17. Ok, well I'm sort of a "guilter". Here's my opinion.

I think, based on nothing more than a day or two of googling, that she "probably" was involved. I don't have a lot of confidence in my opinion, but if I had to guess, the chances are over 50%.

I respect the court's opinion, they know more about it than me. There were a lot of problems with the evidence, and at least in my mind there is reasonable doubt -- "probably guilty" is not enough basis to imprison someone. If the decision had gone the other way, I would have respected that too, but that didn't happen.

I do think that ironically she benefited from the Italian incompetence that people were saying that she was a victim of. In the US, the mistakes during collection and examination of evidence wouldn't have been made, and I think the whole investigation would have been more thorough. Of course, maybe this means that she would have been cleared immediately, but I think that a better investigative team could have proven her guilt.

Anyway, in the end I think justice was served. She didn't get off scot-free, she served 4 years, but she didn't get a really lengthy life-destroying sentence. So I think in the end the bizarre Italian justice system worked out pretty well, even if it was just by coincidence.

[riderinthestorm]

18. I guess I'm glad you aren't a judge if you're going to base your opinion on so little

Last edited Sat Mar 28, 2015, 11:36 AM - Edit history (1)

The initial investigator decided, on no evidence, that Amanda Knox was part of a Satanic ring. Just going with his gut....that's wrong then and wrong now for any of us to adjudge a persons guilt or innocence.

I think people tried to give you answers to your questions on this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026411594

But you don't appear receptive to listening. I can't make you get up to speed on this but you're not making yourself look very good by judging her guilty and rejoicing that she lost four years of her life to an Italian prison after a day or so of googling.

You do realize this judge had access to ALL the evidence (finally) and declared them completely innocent right?

Regardless, I'm glad this has been a civil convo. As you now really do know, this case certainly elicits a lot of passion!

Peace!

[DanTex]

20. Well, obviously if I were a judge I would have a lot more knowledge about the case.

I'm not "judging" her guilty, I'm stating that my opinion is that she is "probably" guilty, based on what I have seen, and in my opinion justice seems like it was served, even though it took a long strange path to get there. Yes, I'm aware that I don't know everything about it, I thought I made that clear. And I'm not "rejoicing" about anything, not sure where I gave that impression.

Yes, I realize that the judge had access to all the evidence and declared her innocence, and I accept that decision. I said even before this verdict, that I would accept whatever decision the judge came to, because the judge knows a lot more than people on the internet on either side of the debate.

I found the people who were utterly convinced of her guilt just as unpersuasive as people who were utterly convinced of her innocence. The one thing that stood out to me is that it's a very strange case.

Also, when I click on that link, I get a 404 error. Maybe it's a problem on my side.

[riderinthestorm]

21. Sorry, I fixed the link. Nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. If that one is a lawyer, I'm the King of Prussia.

Criminal defense attorney?

[riderinthestorm]

22. I know right?

everyone's always guilty...

As morning fog says up thread, when one is always invested in the power of the state, it's hard to take them seriously.

[riderinthestorm]

15. am kick! nt