As many of you probably know, in an Italian court early last weekend, two young students, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of killing another young student, Meredith Kercher, in a horrific way in November of 2007. (A third person, Rudy Guede, was convicted earlier.)
If you aren't familiar with the case, don't go reading about it just yet. Hang on for just a moment.
If you are familiar, that's fine too. This post is addressed to readers of all levels of acquaintance with the story.
What everyone should know right away is that the verdict has been extremely controversial. Strong feelings have emerged, even involving national tensions (Knox is American, Sollecito Italian, and Kercher British, and the crime and trial took place in Italy). The circumstances of the crime involve sex. In short, the potential for serious rationality failures in coming to an opinion on a case like this is enormous.
Now, as it happens, I myself have an opinion. A rather strong one, in fact. Strong enough that I caught myself thinking that this case -- given all the controversy surrounding it -- might serve as a decent litmus test in judging the rationality skills of other people. Like religion, or evolution -- except less clichéd (and cached) and more down-and-dirty.
Of course, thoughts like that can be dangerous, as I quickly recognized. The danger of in-group affective spirals looms large. So before writing up that Less Wrong post adding my-opinion-on-the-guilt-or-innocence-of-Amanda-Knox-and-Raffaele-Sollecito to the List of Things Every Rational Person Must Believe, I decided it might be useful to find out what conclusion(s) other aspiring rationalists would (or have) come to (without knowing my opinion).
So that's what this post is: a survey/experiment, with fairly specific yet flexible instructions (which differ slightly depending on how much you know about the case already).
For those whose familiarity with the case is low:
I'm going to give you two websites advocating a position, one strongly in favor of the verdict, the other strongly opposed. Your job will be to browse around these sites to learn info about the case, as much as you need to in order to arrive at a judgment. The order, manner, and quantity of browsing will be left up to you -- though I would of course like to know how much you read in your response.
1. Site arguing defendants are guilty.
2. Site arguing defendants are innocent.
I've chosen these particular sites because they seemed to contain the best combination of fierceness of advocacy and quantity of information on their respective sides that I could find.
If you find better summaries, or think that these choices reflect a bias or betray my own opinion, by all means let me know. I'm specifically avoiding referring you to media reports, however, for a couple of reasons. First, I've noticed that reports often contain factual inaccuracies (necessarily, because they contradict each other). Secondly, journalists don't usually have much of a stake, and I'd like to see how folks respond to passionate advocacy by people who care about the outcome, as in an actual trial, rather than attempts at neutral summarizing. Of course, it's fine if you want to read media reports linked to by the above sites.
(One potential problem is that the first site is organized like a blog or forum, and thus it is hard to find a quick summary of the case there. [EDIT: Be sure to look at the category links on the right side of the page to find the arguments.] If you think it necessary, refer to the ever-changing Wikipedia article, which at the moment of writing seems a bit more favorable to the prosecution. [EDIT: I'm no longer sure that's true.] [EDIT: Now I think it's true again, the article having apparently changed some more. So there's really no telling. Be warned.])
After you do this reading, I'd like to know:
1. Your probability estimate that Amanda Knox is guilty.
2. Your probability estimate that Raffaele Sollecito is guilty.
3. Your probability estimate that Rudy Guede is guilty.
4. How much you think your opinion will turn out to coincide with mine.
Feel free to elaborate on your reasoning to whatever degree you like.
One request: don't look at others' comments until you've done the experiment yourself!
For those whose familiarity with the case is moderate or high:
I'd like to know, as of right now:
1. Your probability estimate that Amanda Knox is guilty.
2. Your probability estimate that Raffaele Sollecito is guilty.
3. Your probability estimate that Rudy Guede is guilty.
4. How much you think your opinion will turn out to coincide with mine.
5. From what sources you've gotten the info you've used to arrive at these estimates.
Then, if possible, do the experiment described above for those with little familiarity, and report any shifts in your estimates.
Again, everyone should avoid looking at others' responses before giving their own feedback. Also, don't forget to identify your prior level of familiarity!
If the level of participation warrants it, I'll post my own thoughts (and reaction to the feedback here) in a later post. (Edit: That post can be found here.)
The facts as presented are not accurate so that is throwing off your calculation.
For example, when discounting Knox's statement to the police most people consider that it was after a length interrogation but the truth is the questioning lasted one hour. They accept that Knox was mistreated but all the evidence points to them treating her toughly but as expected for a murder suspect. What is never mentioned in the interrogation story is that Sollecito told the police Knox was not with him the night of the murder and that he lied at Knox's request. This information was in fact what led to Knox placing herself at the crime and accusing an innocent man. It should also be noted that this is the second innocent black man Knox had tried to implicate.
Also missing from consideration is the fact that Luminol revealed footprints matching both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s feet in the corridor between Knox’s room and the victim’s room and nowhere in the house. The prosecution advanced the theory that these were made by the accused in the victim’s blood while the defense presented the argument that these could have been made at a different time. When one of the footprints contained both Knox and victim’s DNA the expert argued independent deposit.
These are not equivalent explanations. The defense position requires that there be a reason for Knox and Sollecito to have blood on their feet. No such reason was ever given but since they had dated for less than two weeks if such an event had occurred it certainly would have been fresh in everyone’s memory. So not only does it require that there be an occurrence unrelated to the murder where these footprints were made but further both Meredith and Amanda had to deposit DNA presumably by spitting of some kind of nasal discharge in the exact same spot. We should also add a reason for why these prints only appear between the victim’s room and Knox’s room and not in the rest of the corridor. That or we accept the obvious that they were made the night of the murder in the victim’s blood.
Then there is a series of other evidence missing from the Wikipedia article. No mention of Knox lying to the police to delay the discovery of the body. No mention of Knox going from a state of joking around to hitting herself repeatedly when asked to provide her fingerprints for exclusionary purposes. No mention of Knox’s story not matching the evidence of what happened November 2. So yes if you remove all the evidence and change what you even bother to mention then Knox and Sollecito are innocent but that is not reality. If you want the real evidence I would suggest you read here http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/ everything is sourced to primary sources and there is next to no opinion. Just the facts. See if you still feel the calculation comes out as not guilty.