To ask if you think that Knox is guilty?

[superstarheartbreaker]

I have no idea but it seems that her kissing her boyfriend at the time was seen as suspicious whereas I don't think that this is suspicious at all. DNA is...kissing one's lover.no. It's not even that inappropriate to kiss ones lover in the face of tragedy.
Didn't she do cartwheels though?

you'd still leave it? what if you walk into a trap in the office - do you walk out and leave it hanging and just go into the one next to it? That's quite probably worse than leaving it there in the first place! Community spirit on this sort of thing!

(she admits being in that bathroom to dry her hair and having noticed the poo but left it. If that's not enough to convict etc etc)

"The Italian supreme court ruled that the interrogation of Amanda Knox was inadmissible in the trial. The court stated that the interrogation was illegal because Amanda did not have an attorney present. The civil trial was running at the same time as the murder trial so the same jury had the results of the illegal interrogation read to them anyway. "

yup - that's the interrogation that took place when she was a WITNESS, before she said she was in the property at the time, and when she did have a translator present. So yes, for the purposes of the murder trial, that part of the questioning is not part of the evidence.

Re the DNA on the knife

\link{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10423880/Rudy-Guede-insists-Meredith-Kercher-killer-is-still-free.html\Telegraph report from last November}

'On Friday DNA tests on the kitchen knife allegedly used to kill Miss Kercher showed that it belonged to Amanda Knox rather than the British student, raising doubts about whether the knife was the murder weapon.'

AK leaving or not leaving a Richard in the bog is neither here nor there as far as I can see.

Since you ask Easter, in the office, when I worked in one, I didn't flush other peoples', no. The less public toilet flush handles I touch, the better, IMO.

\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/a1983026-So-the-verdict-is-apparently-due-in-the-Meredith-Kercher-murder-trial-today?msgid=44757868#44757868\This is the thread from In the News} but it isn't coming up for me in Threads I'm On or under the In the News topic

Can the rest of you see it?

If I somehow hid it would that be why? How would I unhide it?

So yes, for the purposes of the murder trial, that part of the questioning is not part of the evidence

True but this highlights one of the differences between the UK and Italian systems. In the UK the jury would not have heard the inadmissible evidence from AK's interrogation so it should not have entered their deliberations at all. In Italy the jury was deciding the civil case at the same time so they heard the evidence from AK's interrogation but were supposed to ignore it when considering the murder. I think it is optimistic to assume the jury completely disregarded the inadmissible evidence.

Another difference is that the jury in the UK would probably have been sequestered. Italian cases can drag on for a long time so their juries are not sequestered. They would therefore have been exposed to all the press publicity about the case during the trial - something we try to avoid in the UK. It should be about considering the evidence, not who has the best PR team.

There are further differences related to the trial of RG. In the UK that would simply have produced a guilty/not guilty verdict. In Italy it resulted in a judgement giving the court's interpretation of the evidence and which found that AK and RS were also guilty of murder, despite the fact that they were not on trial with RG and hence could not challenge the evidence in the way they could in their own trial. As I understand it the verdict from RG's trial, including RG's evidence implicating AK, then automatically became part of the evidence against AK and RS.

YY prh - and RG refused to testify in their later trial, as was his right.

All these posts are highlighting is that there is reasonable doubt with this case, and that's all that matters. It doesn't matter if you think AK and RS are guilty or not, just whether there is reasonable doubt as to whether they are, and with the facts/evidence as they are there seems to be no way possible that there is not reasonable doubt. All the different theories that people are posting confirm this, if there was irrefutable evidence that they did it, then there would not be 101 different theories as to what happened.

It's amazing how people want to put other people away for murder with no proof because 'they have a feeling', 'something off with them' or that essentially they just don;t like them as a person or how they act.

And for everyone saying that they must be guilty as they have been found so by court, or because MK's family don't like them. I'd just like to point out that the jury and MK's family are all human too, and so can be influenced by the same biases which many seem to have on this post.

Indeed Sparkly. It was me that started the In The News Thread, and have followed this for years. After reading all sorts of stuff, pro and con, trial transcripts, several books etc - far too much to summarise here, I personally believe AK/RS to be innocent. I certainly 100% believe that there is sufficient reasonable doubt that they should not have been convicted.

It is really dispiriting to read post after post where SHE - and it always AK - must be guilty as she blamed it on an innocent man. The reasons why she might have done this have been gone over and over and all orginiated with the idea that (already known to be corrupt) Mignini came up with about the sex game wrong before the evidence had all been gathered. That "confession" was ILLEGAL and as phr states, would never have been put before a UK jury let alone published in all the newspapers alongside pictures of "bloody" bathrooms. AK was found guilty by the media long before the trial.

The thing that shocked me the most about the Death In Perugia book is that the prosecution were allowed to create a digital reconstruction of their version of events, showing three figures involved in the killing. That was one of their last pieces of "evidence".As far as I am aware the defence got no chance to make a film showing alternative scenarios.

Bridge - re the jury and being exposed to tv etc. is it true that Italian jurors are panels of professionals rather than random citizens? So would be better able to remain impartial?

I do do think "impartial" is hard these days.. I have read of jurors getting into to trouble for googling. Let a lone stuff all over the papers//news/internet,

is it true that Italian jurors are panels of professionals rather than random citizens

No.

They don't have a jury as such. They have a panel of judges consisting of two professional judges and six ordinary citizens who are classed as lay judges. The only qualifications for lay judges are that they must be between 30 and 65, and must have completed their education to the level of junior high school. Certain professions are excluded from serving as lay judges.

The lay judges serve for 3 months or until the case they are judging ends. As Italian trials can be very long winded they will continue to work as normal when the court is not setting.

Thank you! That's sort of what I meant
Complicated.

No one can say if she is innocent. However on all the evidence I can't see how she is guilty beyond all readonable doubt. If the case was in the UK she would not be found guilty.
She is however notva very nice person, I don't like how every interview starts and ends with her and she never mentions the victim. Having said this she was treated awfuly by the Italian police.

Well that depends on what you read doesn't it? In the follaine book she is brought endless snacks and tea and has an interpreter and is treated well.
I think there are too many accepted truths out there now. Certainly this thread has shown me that lots of people believe as fact things that I don't and vice versa.

In the follaine book she is brought endless snacks and tea and has an interpreter and is treated well

We don't know for sure. Her account of the interview is significantly different from that of the police. The claims she makes are similar to those we used to get in the UK before the police started recording interviews. The evidence available suggests at least some such claims were true. It is certainly true that there was a dramatic drop in the incidence of suspects making incriminating statements in police stations once interviews were recorded. Such statements now tend to be made while the suspect is in the back of a police car or in some other location where the conversation is not recorded. Cynical? Me?

I believe such claims are still fairly common in Italy. The Italian police do not record interviews. The one thing we do know is that the Italian courts ruled that the interview was not admissible as evidence. That suggests they didn't fully accept the police/Follaine view of the interviews.

Is that true about evidence from the interviews not being admissible? I think it's more complicated than that.

It wasn't admissible in the murder trial, but it was admissible in the slander trial, heard at the same time by the same jurors. They were supposed to wipe their brains when considering the murder, apparently

It's a ludicrous system

Just realised there is a fair bit about the knife up thread. Some clarification on this issue:

The knife was recovered from RS' flat. It was not the only knife in the flat. It was chosen because the police thought it looked cleaner than the other knives in the drawer. The prosecution claim it is the murder weapon. However, it is too large for most of the wounds and does not match the imprint of a knife found on the bedding. This has led to the prosecution theory of two knives. The defence experts maintain that the smaller knife that made the imprint on the bedding is the right size to have caused all the wounds.

At the original trial the prosecution expert (Patrizia Stefanoni) reported that she found AK's DNA on the handle. This is not surprising as it is common ground that AK prepared meals at RS' apartment. She then tested the blade using a new technique known as Low Copy Number DNA profiling. She told the court she had found Meredith Kercher's DNA on the blade.

If true that is damning evidence. However, the appeal court had the knife re-examined by independent experts. Note that these were independent experts, not defence experts. They agreed that AK's DNA was on the handle. However they found no DNA on the blade at all. Looking at Stefanoni's report they said:

• no tests were performed to detect biological material other than blood. Conducting such tests may have prevented evidence being destroyed
• Stefanoni's conclusion that there was biological material on the handle and blade was not supported by any scientific evidence
• Stefanoni's report of the tests she conducted to quantify the subjects does not reflect what she actually did
• Stefanoni's statement as to the quantity of DNA recovered from the blade is not supported by the records of the tests
• the documentation regarding possible contamination of the knife is inadequate
• Stefanoni did not follow any of the international standards for the DNA testing she conducted
• Stefanoni's conclusion that Kercher's DNA was on the blade was not supported by any scientific analysis of the evidence
• even if Kercher's DNA was on the blade it is not possible to rule out contamination

On that basis they said that Stefanoni's conclusion that Kercher's DNA was on the blade could not be accepted.

It is worth noting that Stefanoni withheld detailed information about her testing from the defence. Indeed, she refused to release it to the independent experts until ordered to do so by a judge.

If we take away Stefanoni's bogus evidence there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the knife found in RS' apartment was the murder weapon.

For what it is worth, in the UK Stefanoni would have been forced to hand over all her notes to the defence before any trial. Her refusal to do so would not have been tolerated. Armed with those notes the defence would have been able to consult their own experts who would have given them everything they needed to tear Stefanoni to shreds in the same way the court-appointed independent experts eventually did in Italy.

I was reading this before dashing off to work this morning which ties in with what prh says above....directly taken from an interview with the judge who found them innocent at the 2nd trial.

"Wasn't the DNA of the accused on the weapon and on Meredith's underwear a proof (of their guilt)?" (journalist's question)

"No, and I'll explain why. The first grade judge decided it wasn't necessary to have an expert witness look at it (the knife) The forensic service's findings were enough for him. For the prosecutor that was enough to cement the accusations, but when the defence team of the accused, at the second trial, highlighted their issues about the incongruencies found in that examination (of the forensic service) we decided to have an impartial expert witness look at it. The experts, in our opinion, the best we could get, completing demolished the biological proof"

"Wasn;t there any DNA from the accused?"

Yes, but the traces on the blade of the knife were so tiny that the genetic map of the DNA signalling to whom they could be ascribed was too broad a spectrum. Those traces, apart from to Knox and Sollecito, could also be traced back to me, what I'm saying is, they could even show a level of compatibility with the president of the court"

(I actually started reading this interview because it struck me as a bit that everyone (including the Italian council of judges) is humphing about the latest judge giving a very brief non-committal interview to the press, whereas the 2nd level judge gave a much more informative and less objective one.

When asked

"Are Knox and Sollecito innocent"

He replied

"That's not the point". (Going on to say that legal procedure had been followed and could not, beyond all reasonable doubt, say that they were guilty, ergo, they had been absolved)

When asked about the famous bra strap he confirmed there was RS on it, and 3 other men. Presumed to be the police/scientists who were seen on video picking it up and putting it down etc.

So has all the other DNA evidence been discredited but RS's DNA is still thought to be on the bra strap?