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brazil84 comments on The Amanda Knox Test: How an Hour on the Internet Beats a Year in the Courtroom - Less Wrong
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Well that's an important point. As others and I have mentioned, there is a small universe of people who would have had much incentive to stage a burglary. And that universe includes Amanda Knox and her boyfriend.
(Further, without knowing anything more, Kercher's roommate(s) would be the strongest suspects of such a staging. Because (1) only a roommate wouldn't have to worry about another resident showing up and discovering him or her; and (2) a roommate would have the strongest incentive to try to point the police somewhere else. For example, if a casual acquaintance broke in through the window and murdered Kercher, what would that person have to gain by staging a burglary? In effect, they've already engaged in a burglary anyway.)
Anyway, if somebody from that limited universe of suspects is hiding something and can't account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder, it's pretty likely that they were involved in the staging/murder.
The universe of people who would have incentive to stage a burglary consists of just about everyone but actual burglars. If the police think that the murder is part of a botched burglary that throws them off the scent of stalkers, sex criminals and people romantically connected to Kercher (along with anyone who lived there or could plausibly have been invited in). Guede, in particular doesn't appear to be the brightest guy around. It seems more that plausible to me that he thought staging a break-in would help his case. He left physical evidence everywhere so on the fly he came up with the story of an anonymous attacker entering while he was in the bathroom. Then he breaks the window to try and create evidence consistent with his story. He doesn't flush the toilet for the same reason.
Or maybe the intruder went through Kercher's belonging looking for incriminating evidence-- love letters say-- and then made a mess of the roommates room to cover the search up.
Obviously I don't have any particular reason to privilege those scenarios but they seem to me about as plausible as two students without criminal experience or evident motive committing a rape-murder and not leaving any physical evidence behind. Remember, a rationale for staging a break-in doesn't have to be flawless. It just has to have enough surface sensibility that it would seem worth doing to Kercher's murderer/s.
"The universe of people who would have incentive to stage a burglary consists of just about everyone but actual burglars."
It seems to me there is a distinction between having any incentive at all and having much incentive. To be sure, it's possible to dream up lots of scenarios where someone who is a stranger or near stranger would stage a burglary, but that's just not realistic in my opinion.
Anyway, earlier I asked you the following question:
Do you agree that if a break-in was staged, the likely perpetrator (of the staged break-in) was somebody who had lawful access to the residence?
Am I correct in assuming that your answer to this question is "no"?
I'm distinguishing between a break-in and a burglary. Someone could have broken-in and then staged the burglary or someone with lawful access to the house (they lived there or were invited in) could have staged the break-in and burglary. If the break-in was staged the person(s) who did it almost certainly came in through the front door (there is no other way in if they didn't come in through the door or the broken window!).
Yeah, I realize that I'm just inventing scenarios. But someone also invented the scenario in which Amanda Knox a twenty-one year old upper middle class college student with no criminal recrord, Raphael Sallecito, and Rudy Guede plan an evening of group sex/ satanic rites without ever communicating by cell phone, coerce Meredith Kercher into participating and when she refuses Guede rapes her and then the men hold her down while Knox stabs her several times and slits her throat. At some point during this period Guede goes to the bathroom and doesn't flush for no particular reason. Later, Sallecito and Knox return, toss the other roommates clothing around the room, throw a rock through the window. They also manage to remove every significant piece of physical evidence they left in Kercher's room, bleach and wash every one of their bloody footprints while not touching any of the evidence implicating Guede.
I'm not sure why my first scenario, where Guede fakes the break-in is any less probable than the one above.
"I'm distinguishing between a break-in and a burglary."
I'm not sure where you are posting from but to me, "burglary" entails breaking in to a place. Are you using the word "burglary" to mean "theft"?
"evening of group sex/ satanic rites without ever communicating by cell phone, coerce Meredith Kercher into participating and when she refuses Guede rapes her and then the men hold her down while Knox stabs her several times and slits her throat."
FWIW I am skeptical of the prosecution's scenario. I think they cooked it up to address a big weak point in their case, which is that they don't have a clear motive. My position is more limited: Simply I'm reasonably confident that Knox and her boyfriend were involved in the murder.
Burglary entails breaking-in + theft. Breaking-in does not entail theft and therefore does not entail burglary. But I might have made that up myself. My point is just that someone could have broken the window and entered the house with intentions other than stealing something and then tossed some things about to make it look like the reason they entered was to steal something.
"Burglary entails breaking-in + theft."
Technically, burglary also includes breaking in + intent to commit a certain other crimes. For example,if you break into somebody's residence in order to commit rape (with no intent to steal anything), that would be considered burglary under the traditional definition.
But anyway, putting aside semantic issues, it seems you basically concede the reasonable point that staging a crime scene was likely to have been done by somebody with a significant connection to the victim.
The idea of a staged burglary came from Mignini and was unsubstantiated. Since then, it has been debunked. He claimed it was staged due to two shards of glass on clothing. Those shards close up were revealed to be polka dots.
Well do you agree that one of the bedrooms had clothing and such strewn around it while the owner of the room testified that the room had been left orderly?
Logically, items strewn around the room does not implicate Amanda. The connection of the messy room and Amanda was invented by the prosecution. It could be explained by various means, namely, during the struggle with the perpetrator and Meredith, or more likely, the perpetrator looking for something to steal.
I'm not sure what your point is. I thought you were claiming that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that somebody staged a burglary or break-in.
Now it seems you admit that there is such evidence but believe it could be explained away.
I don't think there is evidence of a staged break-in. I think there is evidence of a break-in.
Well do you agree that the room's occupant testified that there had been valuable items in plain view, none of which were taken?
I think he was looking for money. It was the 1st of the month and rent was due. Meredith had dated casually a guy downstairs and Rudy had hung out there. Also, I think it is likely he didn't expect to find anyone home and was interrupted when Meredith came home early, for an early night. I don't think he was planning to take objects, though might have if uninterrupted.
Also, Meredith's $300 was missing, and somehow he had the money to ride a train the next day to Germany.
I don't understand what point you are trying to make. There is a difference between saying that evidence can be explained away and saying that the evidence does not exist.
To have evidence of a break-in is different than having evidence of a staged break-in. Since there is evidence of a break-in, but not any that would say it was staged, there is evidence of an invented idea of a staged break-in. I'm not saying that a lack of evidence of something being staged means it wasn't. But going the rules in the post, there is nothing that would indicate it was staged from the evidence itself. That part is fallacious. It exists in the mind of Mignini, not in the evidence.
Does that clarify what I mean?
The claim was that there was essentially no evidence which reasonably supports the hypothesis that the burglary was staged.
Ok, so again my question:
"do you agree that one of the bedrooms had clothing and such strewn around it while the owner of the room testified that the room had been left orderly?"
And yes, I am well aware that there are other possible explanations for this evidence besides staging.
This is a relevant question. It is not evidence that I weigh particularly highly given what I know about witness testimonies, particularly those under motivated prompting. But it is evidence.
The only evidence was a broken window. He provided the unbased theoretical narrative (as usual).