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captcorajus comments on The Amanda Knox Test: How an Hour on the Internet Beats a Year in the Courtroom - Less Wrong
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Respectfully, it doesn't matter. You're missing the whole point... and I'm not trying to be flip. I apologize if it appears that way. Let's play devil's advocate and say there was unequivocal proof of staging/ alteration of the crime scene occurred. You must now prove that Knox or Sollecito were the ones that did it. Your suspicion that they did it is not evidence.I understand about "initially", but in order to conduct the investigation you must start with the obvious and work from there. I find it very difficult to START my investigation with Knox as a suspect based on what was found initially.
The further away you move from the point of origin of the event, the less accurate your observations will be.
Ok, fine.
I'm a little confused. I thought your point was that the initial physical evidence offered no reason to suspect Knox or Sollecito and therefore subsequent evidence developed against them should be discounted or even disregarded.
In that case, the question is not whether the evidence proves Knox is guilty but whether it provides a reasonable basis to suspect her.
Did I misunderstand you?
Here's exactly how Knox arrived on the radar as a suspect. You tell me if this sounds right:
"...Edgardo Giobbi, a police forensic scientist, told the court in Perugia how during a search at the house just hours after the murder, he handed Knox a pair of shoe covers to prevent contaminating the evidence.
"As she put them on she swiveled her hips, pulled a face and said 'hop la' - I thought it was very unusual behavior and my suspicions against her were raised," Mr. Giobbi told the court..."
My reaction to this statement was something along the lines of, "WTF?"
It is natural in ANY investigation to first look at the people who live at the house, but you can't let that give you tunnel vision to the physical evidence around you.
What about the knife wounds?
Were the wounds consistent with different knives or not?
If they were,
and if it is true that the bathmat print was Raff's, and other prints were wiped off the floor, then:
Is it theoretically possible that Raff walked into the room and stabbed a dying woman? - that would not lead to leaving DNA only on the floor and the knife - which may have been a different knife, from the one in the flat, and was discarded and never found?
Surely, if the jury convicted on the basis of the prosecution's story then they must have gone into detail like that in order to examine the plausability of the reasoning?
With all the uncertainty about the many disparate bits of evidence and/or red herrings, I don't see how one can judge the judgement without reading the whole proceedings.
Certainly I agree that there is no real evidence that Raff and Knox were tumbling around the room with Meredith. But I think what is on trial is how murders come about as much as the act itself. That may be a difference in Italian law.
I think some people feel that Knox and Raff may have been morally responsible, by their inconsiderate behaviour. Maybe they were bullying Meredith a bit and playing games that maybe Guede didn't understand.
By the way, as a point of information, do you have a cite for that? TIA.
(Of course my main question is whether I have understood you correctly. Are you saying that the initial physical evidence offered no reason to suspect Knox or Sollecito and therefore subsequent evidence developed against them should be discounted or even disregarded?)
I agree, but so what? The issue of whether the police developed tunnel vision is a different question.
Anyway, please tell me if I misunderstood you. Your point seems to be that the initial physical evidence offered no reason to suspect Knox or Sollecito and therefore subsequent evidence developed against them should be discounted or even disregarded.
Did I get you right? Or did I misunderstand?
The problem is there is no "subsequent evidence!!" Behavior is not evidence. You must prove that the accused were involved in a crime. Otherwise, lets burn witches.
Footprints in blood? No. Luminol reveal no blood, so footprints in the hallway of a person who lived there means nothing. Likewise, Knox's DNA mixed in droplets of Kercher's blood in the bathroom that they shared is hardly startling. DNA of people who cohabitate mixes all the time whether or not a crime is committed.
There are only TWO pieces of evidence that are said to connect Sollecito and Knox to this crime. The knife and the Bra clasp. An independent report done by the innocence project who directly examined the tester's reports clearly show this "evidence" is hardly proof of anything.
Some wonderful links, that include actual crime scene video shot by investigators and the DNA report compiled by the Innocence Project:
http://vvoice.vo.llnwd.net/e16/4193542.0.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHleYhBJy8k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLE4s3jXTVU&feature=player_embedded
http://www.thewrap.com/blog-entry/2354
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n71ZJPBq8uk&feature=player_embedded#
And a link that was requested by Braz:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523400,00.html
"The problem is there is no "subsequent evidence!!""
Of course there is subsequent evidence. For example the fact that Knox and Sollecito were unable to coherently, consistently, and reasonably account for their activities and whereabouts during the time period in question.
That's evidence. And by the way, by "evidence," I don't necessarily mean the same thing as "proof"
Ah, but you are under the FALSE assumption that their stories should match or even be cohesive! Investigators will tell you that people's recollections of same events, especially when they are under pressure often vary widely.
Eyewitness evidence is the most unreliable type. Thus, if their stories matched, that may indicate a rehearsal before hand. If they had been involved in the killing do you not think they would have tried to get their story straight? They had 5 days to talk about it.
Thus, in reality, this points more to a lack of guilt that an indicator of it. Here's a fun read:
http://truthinjustice.org/untrueconfession.htm
Anyone with a cursory knowledge of police interrogation techniques knows its just one big "gotcha" game. Confusing the suspect, and undermining their understanding of their reality is basic to "breaking" a suspect. It's a shame that we don't have a video of the interrogation (as required by Italian law). So we only have the police version of events to go by as to what transpired. As you might guess, that doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence as to the veracity of their statements.
And, hey, while we're on the subject of changing stories: the initial theory of the crime was a ritualistic rite to celebrate halloween, then it was a sex game gone bad, then it was an argument over Meredith's missing rent money, then it was revenge on the "smug," "prissy" girl, then it was "sometimes there is no reason.
Mignini changed his story more times than Amanda and Raffaele put together, but that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
It really bothers me.
You are shifting arguments yet again here.
Anyway, there is a distinction between the sorts of inconsistencies which result from typical human error and the sorts of evolution, tailoring, incoherency, convenient amnesia, etc. which result from prevarication.
Knox and Sollecito's stories pretty clearly fall into the latter category.
My arguments have remained consistent. You are the one that keeps inserting interpretative observations into this discussion rather than sticking with the objective level facts.
Your argument keeps changing. First you argued that there was no physical crime scene evidence which would cause one to suspect Knox or Sollecito. Then, when that turned out to be untrue, you argued that the police acted unprofessionally. Then, when I pointed out that was irrelevant you claimed that there was no subsequent evidence against Knox or Sollecito. Then, when I pointed out subsequent evidence you tried to explain it away.
Now you simply accuse me of "inserting interpretive observations" into the discussion. I'm not sure what that means. Maybe it's like the "leap" distinction which other posters tried to draw earlier.
Can you give me two examples of the "interpretive observations" I have been inserting into the discussion?
Whether to suspect her or not isn't the issue. By virtue of her being the victim's roommate, the police should look at her. That's CSI 101.
However, announcing that the case is closed, and that the murder was the result of a ritual sex game gone wrong before you've looked at the forensic evidence seem not only premature, but unprofessional. How can you even come up with such a theory on your interpretation of behavior alone? That says more about the observer than the observed, eh?
For example, much has been made about the "cartwheels" in the police station. Were you aware that Knox was a dancer and practiced yoga? Where you aware that she frequently used yoga positions to relieve stress? Where you aware on the night this was observed she had gone to the station with Sollecito who had himself been summoned by the police? She went voluntarily to the police station. That's not the behavior of a guilty person. No one that knew her was surprised that while she was waiting she would do yoga stretches to relieve tension. Yet the police took this behavior as odd, and that she wasn't properly grieving for her roommate, yet for Knox, this was normal. This is what I'm talking about... making premature assumptions with little corroborative evidence invariably heightens the odds of coming to the wrong conclusion.
I'm saying that the evidence they had on hand at the time does not add up to the conclusion they reached.
That's different from what you seemed to have been saying before.
Your position now seems to be that the police acted unprofessionally and focused on Knox without a reasonable basis. You are saying that they concluded Knox was guilty without a sufficient basis.
First of all, I am skeptical of your claim. I asked you to provide a cite for your claim about the source of initial suspicion of Knox and you failed to do so. I did my own search and found nothing backing up your claim.
But more importantly, your argument doesn't have much bearing on the ultimate question of guilt or innocence of Knox or Sollecito. If I were arguing that Knox and Sollecito are probably guilty because the authorities concluded they were guilty, then you might have a point, assuming you could substantiate your claims.
In that respect, it's a bit like the OJ Simpson case -- the police may very well have rushed to judgment against OJ. But even so, it seems very likely that he committed the crime he was accused of.
brazil84, I just don't think you have a grasp on how weak the case against Knox and Sollecito is. You've said that the two things that make you think they did it -- the changing stories and evidence of crime-scene-tampering -- contribute 3 or 4 bits of evidence against them. That's quite a small amount, which is easily overwhelmed by :
The prior improbability that people like K and S would be involved given that someone else was.
The lack of criminal history of K and S.
The lack of motive.
The lack of connection between K/S and G
The lack of any evidence that K and S themselves were at the scene.
I understand that you feel suspicious of Knox and Sollecito based on the reports you've read (the prosecution's narrative does sound like a good made-for-TV-movie), and have a great deal of faith in courts due to your background as a lawyer. In most trials, the defendants are probably guilty. But this isn't a typical case. There are times when you have to look at the object-level facts, and, frankly, do the math. Sometimes, police, prosecutors, and juries are just plain wrong -- stupidly so. This is one of those times.
Actually, the 3 or 4 bits was based on the assumption that there was no a priori reason to suspect Knox or Sollecito, such as an obvious motive.
Putting aside the issue of my faith in the courts, I have a decent amount of faith in my ability as an attorney to detect BS.
Believe it or not, I have people calling me day in and day out, lying to me and trying to convince me to take their case. For the past few years, I have worked mainly on contingency, so if a prospective client succesfully snows me it's a complete waste of my time and money. As a result, I've gotten pretty good at assessing cases based on limited evidence.
I'm analagous to a professional oddsmaker and most of the folks in this thread are analogous to amateurs telling me I've got my odds wrong. Which is of course possible. It happens all the time that the so-called experts are caught up by amateurs.
Still, while I've never been involved in a murder case, I have heard literally hundreds of stories of people who have denied wrongdoing, evaluated their cases, and then had the opportunity to learn more through discovery and trial.
In this case, it's pretty clear to me that Knox and Sollecito are hiding something important. I've interviewed and cross-examined dozens if not hundreds of witnesses whose stories evolved in a similar fashion to meet evidence against them, often ultimately turning into "I don't remembers" when faced with important contradictions. When further evidence is available, it almost always goes against the stories offered by such folks.
7 or 10 years ago, I would have been a lot less confident that Knox and Sollecito were involved in the murder. But after the experience of having seen hundreds of people lie and attempt to cover up their misconduct, I'm pretty confident that they were involved.
I'm beginning to wonder what evidence could possibly ever convince you that a defendant was innocent. DNA incriminating someone else? We've got it here -- the DNA shows it was Guede. Prosecutorial irrationality and misconduct? Cornucopias full of it: they came up with their theory before knowing about Guede, and didn't drop it once he'd been caught; furthermore, Mignini is under indictment for misbehavior in another case, and is notorious for bizarre conspiracy theories. Et cetera.
All those people exonerated via the Innocence Project? Well, there must have been something suspicious about them, or they wouldn't have been prosecuted and convicted. Why should we be so quick to jump to the conclusion that they weren't involved, just because the DNA points to someone else?
(The irony here is that, were it not for the fact that Guede has already been nabbed, this case would itself be a perfect candidate for the Innocence Project. Given what was used to convict Knox and Sollecito, we may as well still not know about Guede. In which case, the DNA tests showing that it was someone other than Knox or Sollecito would be considered exculpatory, rather than indicative of a three-way conspiracy.)
Write it out. Write out the evidentiary value of each piece of incriminating evidence, together with the values of the various pieces of exculpatory evidence I listed, and do the addition. Make your assumptions transparent for all to see.
"My lawyer's intuition tells me" isn't an argument. Beliefs have to be based on evidence. Until you can unpack your intuition and show specifically how the evidence leads to your belief, you might as well be saying you looked into a crystal ball.
I'm satisfied that the defendants in the Duke lacrosse case were innocent. And I was reasonably confident of that long before the state prosecutor announced his belief they were innocent.
You are attacking a strawman here. I have refrained arguing that Knox and Sollecito are probably guilty simply because they were charged and ultimately convicted.
I will if I can find a block of free time in which I have the motivation to do so.
Again you are strawmanning me. I am saying that as an attorney, I have heard hundreds of people give statements or testify. In situations where (1) peoples' stories have been incoherent/inconsistent in a manner similar to that of Knox; and (2) further evidence became available, that further evidence has virtually always gone against the person's story. Sometimes dramatically so.
This is stupid. The reason the further evidence turns out to go against them is because they're guilty, not because their stories were incoherent. Don't you think that the vast majority of criminal cases coming to your attention are, by the prosecutor's discretion and incentive, ones where a strong case for the defendant's guilt can be made? That's all the explanation you should need of the phenomena you recount.
No, that's not it. Their stories are incoherent because they are guilty AND the further evidence goes against them because they are guilty.
No -- I don't practice criminal law. I practice civil (administrative) law. Perhaps 40-60% of my clients are innocent of the charges against them and I win more than half the time.
I didn't say that's what you argued. I said that if you were to look into the cases of those defendants later considered to be exonerated by DNA evidence, you would likely find grounds for being suspicious of them similar to the grounds on which you are suspicious of Knox and Sollecito. (In fact, I am given to understand that 25% of them actually confessed to the crime.)
Meaning that they were browbeaten by police into speculating on how their understanding of the situation might have been wrong?
I'm honestly not sure what you're talking about here. One keeps hearing these claims that Knox was "inconsistent", "changed her story", and the like. But the account given at Friends of Amanda seems perfectly convincing to me. From the beginning, Knox insisted she was at Sollecito's. But she was told (falsely) that there was solid physical evidence placing her at the crime scene. This was understandably confusing to her. So after hours of being berated by interrogators, she finally gave in to their pressure by speculating -- upon their prompting! -- about Patrick Lumumba. This doesn't sound like evidence of guilt to me. You say that it does to you because of your experience as an attorney, but you're going to have to do a better job of explaining why -- and more importantly, why it comes anywhere near to trumping the other evidence.
At a minimum, you responded to the argument as if somebody had made it. Since you were responding to my post, it's reasonable to infer that you were attributing that argument to me.
No.
During what time period? From approximately what hour to approximately what hour?