AMANDA KNOX AND RAFFAELE SOLLECITO: THE WHOLE WORLD IS WITH THEM. AND THE JUDGES?

Wrongful Conviction News Reporter Jan 14, 2014 Cases on Appeal, International Cases, Wrongful Convictions

They claim they can say this is a foot, and whose it is?

Peril in Florence

Florence, 14 January 2014

Writers, readers, scientists, lawyers, judges, experts… the whole world by now understands that against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito there’s nothing, and loves to supports the end of a miscarriage of justice. But what about that part of the world that is important, the judges who will have to say guilty or innocent?

The press reported with plenty of irony the accusation’s theories, based on a turd (for the public prosecution) or on the usual insults to Amanda and now even to the journalists (for the private prosecution). Those theories are so far-fetched (to be kind), those arguments are so irrelevant, that Amanda is even advertising them on her website. And whoever hears those theories instantly becomes her supporter.

As Amanda pointed out, they try to discredit her as a person because they have no proof against her. The whole of the media today kind of defend Amanda and Raffaele, since journalists who were on the case since its beginning can’t be deceived by that so-called “evidence,” which the Supreme Court suggests turning into “proof” thanks to conjecture. But judges specialize in conjecture, and you need a real strong personality to run against Supreme Court prescriptions. So, Amanda and Raffaele are living a concrete peril in Florence.

Amanda, saying that she was “psychologically tortured,” explained why she signed those statements that were an indirect accusation of Lumumba (indirect, because there’s not the sentence “Patrick Lumumba killed Meredith Kercher”) and made her main point, that that implicit accusation made no sense and was contradictory, that it was only the desire of the investigators, who indeed didn’t investigate Lumumba, but they ran to arrest him and they declared the case closed (if it was a real accusation they should have wiretapped him, followed him, checked his movements, his alibi, interrogated him, and then eventually arrested him).

Amanda’s lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova showed that the two DNA tests used to accuse Amanda and Raffaele made no sense, so it’s useless going to see if they are valid or not. Of course they are not valid, as two independent experts like Stefano Conti and Carla Vecchiotti easily figured out, but as the Supreme Court judges, not exactly scientists, didn’t. He and Luciano Ghirga socratically have shown they know that they don’t know. They don’t claim to know the mystery of that night. “Probably Meredith was attacked from the front,” Ghirga explained, “But I don’t know.” They don’t know the mystery of the DNA, they only know that those results are impossible. They don’t know the meaning of life, and they are not here to teach it to us, they only know that against Amanda and Raffaele there’s no proof. And, they underlined: “There’s no proof against Amanda and Raffaele,” not only “against Amanda,” making a main defense point of the fact that the two don’t accuse each other, as guilty co-defendants usually do.

At this point Giulia Bongiorno arrived. She attended this trial only at the beginning, thinking probably that it was useless to listen to the others, and that it would have been enough for her to come one day and with her greatness have Raffaele and Amanda acquitted.

Obviously things didn’t go as planned. Re-entering the trial with no knowledge of the sentiment of the jury, Bongiorno used a language perfectly comprehensible to us, but not at all to the judges.

She offered complicated theories, in reverse but very similar to the accusers’ ones, about why the cops blamed Amanda, and only by reflection Raffaele, who was “her half”…

She knows exactly what happened in that room: Meredith was attacked from behind, the opposite of what Amanda’s defense had suggested.

She swept away Amanda’s self-defense, having nothing to say on something like 36 cops over a girl, but blaming only one interpreter.

She turned herself into a DNA scientist, going into scientific details such as the relation between peaks –those that are real alleles and those that look like alleles but are instead stutters. Having not attended the trial, she indeed couldn’t know what was evident to us, that those judges have no idea of what peaks… alleles…. stutters… electropherograms… percentages of peaks… are, and that you only have to tell them whether those tests are possible in nature and in logic, or not.

Bongiorno attributed the presence of possible Raffaele’s DNA on the bra clasp to the mess that was made in the house during the 46 days, forgetting that that kind of contamination, in the opinion of the Supreme Court (and Nencini has in full regard the opinion of the SC [he said that!]), can explain other clues, such as the DNA of Amanda in Filomena’s room, but not Raffaele’s DNA on the bra clasp, which for Conti & Vecchiotti too, comes mainly from wrong interpretation, and only hypothetically from a contamination.

She assumed that the judges already knew that someone had climbed the wall, so it would have been enough to mention that and show a picture. Having not attended the trial, indeed, she didn’t notice what we had noticed: that judges are aware only of the arguments brought by the prosecution and relaunched by the Supreme Court but, for some reason, they seem not to know anything of the confutation of all those arguments by the defense.

We weren’t shocked, indeed, when we saw that Nencini didn’t know that the wall was climbable (as he didn’t know that Amanda was diagnosed with HIV…. as he didn’t know that it had been already ascertained that Amanda and Raffaele called 112 before the police arrived… etc.).. Bongiorno, instead, was caught by surprise, and that paralyzed her.

She insisted that “Raffaele is innocent,” rather than “Amanda and Raffaele are innocent.”

She had also made a mistake in the appeal document, when she explained why it wasn’t possible that Capezzali, Monacchia and the Dramis sisters had heard the scream at 11:30. But the Dramis sister never claimed to have heard a scream, and writing that four witnesses (and not two, as sustained by the prosecution) had heard that scream makes it really difficult to overturn it! We were expecting Bongiorno to amend her little but important error in her speech, but no mention of it.

In other words, Bongiorno’s defense, almost in conflict with Knox’s defense, was not fully comprehensible to the judges, and it had the effect of making them nervous. On the other hand, it was really useful since it confirmed the feeling we have had that the judges, by reading the case file, have for some reason not memorized the defense arguments, but have given full value only to the Prosecution/Supreme Court ones.

As we remember, the verdict was set up for today. Thanks to Bongiorno, we understood that today Amanda and Raffaele would have been convicted.

So, the defense strategy hasn’t paid off so far. But they have time to change it. Something happened indeed; it looks as if the judge is maybe starting to have some doubts, he took more time to study the case, and moved the verdict day to January 30.

So, now that they know their strategy was ineffective, they know what to do. Simple –how about supporting Amanda and Raffaele?

—Amanda didn’t say “an interpreter convinced me,” Amanda said, “They slapped me, threatened and psychologically tortured me.” Indeed it came out that it wasn’t true that Patrick had killed Meredith. Raffaele and Patrick, then, didn’t say, “How strange, with me they were so kind, they kept asking if I wanted to have a lawyer!” No, Raffaele and Patrick said similar things, even more grave. And today the Perugia prosecutor is, coincidentally, seeking jail just for three of those cops. A circumstance that lawyers are keeping secret from Nencini, along with Amanda’s appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Amanda indeed has appealed her calumny conviction, which one day can be overturned, so we can’t say that she was definitely convicted for calumny. But let’s not tell Nencini… let’s tell him that the cops are perfect and Amanda is a slanderer….

—This courtroom is not a convention about DNA. The only argument to propose to these judges –who quickly comprehended this case from the papers– is that those two DNA results on knife and bra clasp are IMPOSSIBLE and, given that those tests are not repeatable, they don’t exist, they can’t be considered, then we are not allowed to say if they are true or not. That the so-called DNA of Amanda and Meredith in Filomena’s room was mixed, therefore not reliable. What is important, though, is that it was collected on December 18, so that one yes: it clearly comes from contamination caused by the tens of people who stepped into that house in 46 days.

—It’s useless spending hours to show how Raffaele’s toes touch or don’t touch the floor. The only effective argument is that the footprint on the bath carpet can’t be attributed to anyone, so we are not allowed to compare it with Raffaele or Rudy’s foot. You barely understand that it’s a footprint by looking at it.

—It’s useless saying who the luminol footprints belong to; the only effective argument is that they were left days or weeks before the crime on a floor that the girls were washing, therefore by stepping on it they pushed the detergent into the tiles, and that detergent reacted to the luminol.

Their Occasion

These lawyers are lucky: they had Amanda and Raffaele to speak clearly, in their books and even in court.

They had Amanda to explain everything already on December 15, 2007, when she asked to be interrogated, and then again at the trial, and prior to that in her email and in her memorials, and now in her letter to the court.

They had the prosecution never requiring the interrogation of Amanda and Raffaele, and providing reconstructions risible and continually changing. Nencini in person said that it was kind of strange that the prosecution never required the interrogation of Raffaele (and, as he then learned, of Amanda). How about making a hypothesis in court about why the prosecution didn’t seek those interrogations? (Perhaps because, being innocent, they would have effectively defended themselves? Or they could have said what happened in the police station?)

They had a Perugia prosecutor to accuse just those who on November 6 interrogated Amanda and Raffaele, and who had access to the knife and bra clasp! They had the Court of Florence to convict just that prosecutor, and not exactly for tax evasion but for “fabricating evidence.” (Conviction annulled, sure, but the opinion is out there…).

They had the European Court of Human Rights to declare Amanda’s appeal “receivable.”

They have the whole of the press and scholars of the case giving their support.

They had the tramp to show in court his madness.

They realized in court, before it was too late, that judges didn’t “memorize” their arguments but considered only those of Mrs. Caprioglio (of the SC). They have the motivations document from the SC, from reading which it looks evident that only one judge worked on the case.

They could see in court, before it was too late, that their strategy so far doesn’t work.

Last but not least, they had the judge to take extra time to think about the verdict. So they have extra time too!

If in the last day they will speak clearly, if they will chose to support the self-defense of their clients, they will make them free. Otherwise, an appointment next year in Rome, likely, to appeal a conviction.

Frank Sfarzo