Desrtopa comments on Amanda Knox: post mortem - Less Wrong
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In this case, knowing that you persist in your assignment of a high likelihood of guilt for Knox and Sollecito given the data that's now available to you, I feel confident in saying that your ability to say oops is too poor.
After the advent of DNA testing, retrospective analysis of many crimes exonerated people who had previously been convicted. Had this case occurred before DNA testing was available, Knox and Sollecito would most likely have been convicted, but a DNA test should have been sufficient to exonerate them.
FWIW that assessment happens to be incorrect. I say "oops" regularly. And even in my professional life where there is a lot of money at stake, I occasionally have to withdraw a case and apologize. Or ask for leave to amend a paper.
Exactly what DNA evidence do you believe exonerates them? I am not aware of any, but I am happy to consider it in good faith. And yes, revise my probability estimates accordingly.
My understanding is that some doubt has been cast on the DNA evidence against the two. Which isn't the same thing as being exonerated. But I really would like to hear about such evidence.
The DNA evidence showing that Guede was the killer.
This is exactly the sort of thing that gets people exonerated under the Innocence Project. The only difference is, in most cases, the authorities don't usually go back to the scene desperately looking for new evidence to incriminate the original suspect.
Did you read the independent experts' report that Komponisto linked to?
(Er, not to sound vain, but my collaborator and I did a bit more than link to the report! ;-) )
No I did not. As noted above, the main new evidence I have is the fact that the convictions were thrown out.
Would you mind quoting the part of the report which talks about the exonerating DNA evidence?
Each component of the report in which they retested the samples (knife and bra clasp) for biological evidence of Knox and Sollecito returned negative results, as detailed in the conclusion. Having found specific reasons to doubt the results of the Italian crime labs' testing, the retest found no positive evidence associating Knox or Sollecito with the crime, and this is a case where absence of evidence is significant evidence of absence.
Let's make sure I understand your argument: You seem to be saying that the (apparent) lack of DNA evidence on the knife and bra clasp is convincing evidence that Knox and Sollecito were NOT involved in the murder.
Do I understand you correctly?
There was an abundance of physical evidence of Rudy Guede on the scene. If Knox and Sollecito had any physical involvement with the crime, they should have left biological evidence on a similar order, but in fact tests for evidence of their involvement did not return positive results except when corrupted by serious mishandling and poor testing procedures. The knife and bra clasp were major pieces of the prosecution's case because they alleged that they held genetic evidence implicating Knox and Sollecito, but in fact they did not, and even if they had carried evidence of Knox and Sollecito, it would have been a suspiciously small amount of evidence compared to what one would reasonably expect had they actually been involved.
Think of the allegation of Knox and Sollecito's involvement in the murder as a claim that there is an elephant in a room. Another party examines the room and finds...
X: Well, there does seem to be an elephantish sort of smell in the room, but it's otherwise devoid of large mammals.
Y: But you agree that it's a distinctly elephantish sort of smell?
X: Yes, it does smell much more like an elephant than anything else I can think of.
Y: In that case, the presence of an elephant makes it far more likely for you to observe this smell than the non-presence of an elephant, therefore it meets the bayesian definition of evidence, so you must revise your belief in the presence of an elephant upwards!
X: But hiding an elephant in a room is very difficult. If there were actually an elephant in this room, I would expect a lot more evidence than that. I can't think of any plausible way that you could get an elephant in here and hide every sign of its presence but its smell, only very implausible ones. Your claim was sufficient evidence to promote the hypothesis of an elephant in this room to my attention in the first place, so this is less evidence than I need to maintain my prior uncertainty. To maintain my prior uncertainty, I would need to observe evidence that gave significant reason for suspecting the presence of an elephant, such as this smell, while finding some sort of arrangement that could plausibly hide an elephant. This, on the other hand, is a small enough amount of evidence that I must revise my confidence to near certainty against.
It is reflective of a suspiciously poor case that the prosecution brought so little biological evidence against Knox and Sollecito compared to the one person we can be almost certain was actually involved. The pieces of evidence were mishandled, making them suspect to begin with. This provided an opportunity for us to make our beliefs pay rent. Given the state of the evidence against them, most of us on this site concluded that Knox and Sollecito were probably not involved in the murder, so the biological evidence brought forward by the police was probably not contingent on their presence at the crime, but due to subsequent corruption and mishandling of the evidence. Thus, we could predict that the independent experts' review of the evidence would find that when properly processed, it did not point to Knox and Sollecito's presence at the crime. If the evidence were contingent on their presence at the crime, we would not expect to observe this.
So do you concede that your high confidence in their involvement did not predict observations as well as our belief that they were probably not involved?
Well I'll consider this argument, but let's make sure we are on the same page about biological evidence. According to one web site I found, Guede's DNA was found (1) on a swab of Kercher's privates; (2) mixed with Kercher's blood on Kercher's handbag and the left cuff of her sweatshirt; and (3) on toilet paper in one of the bathrooms in the house.
Do you agree with that?
Not yet as I am skeptical of your argument that involvement by Knox or Sollecito would have most likely resulted in the same kind of biological evidence as there was implicating Guede. But I'm willing to consider your argument and I admit that I have not heard it before today.
Let's start by making sure we agree about the DNA evidence against Guede.
That reflects my understanding of the state of the DNA evidence against Guede.
Keep in mind that that does not imply that this is the sum of all DNA evidence Guede left on the scene; when you have already found this much biological evidence, there is no reason to continue searching in order to obtain a comprehensive inventory of every trace left by the suspect.
Well, I'm not an expert on DNA evidence but just based on common sense, it seems to me that if playing the primary role in a murder and sexual assault reasonably leaves 2 DNA traces in a person's blood stains a 1 trace in the person's privates, it's plausible that playing a secondary role might very well leave no DNA traces in the person's blood and none in their privates.
Of course the DNA traces in other parts of the house are far less interesting since Knox and Sollecito can be expected to have left DNA biological evidence there regardless of whether they played some role in the murder.
So I remain skeptical of your argument but I am happy to consider an authoritative source which says that even someone who plays a secondary role in a murder with a knife is very likely to leave biological traces behind. Do you have such an authority? Or are you just going by your own general knowledge and common sense?
I disagree. The authorities had every reason to continue searching for DNA evidence since they suspected others besides Guede.