Meredith Kercher case

[John Hacker]

I appreciate the work of the innocence project, I do. However, any " expert" can become overzealous in his or her quest for fame or money, or both...like the DNA "experts" who managed to contribute to OJ getting off...

Ally, insulting me and others and acting like a toddler in the midst of a tantrum because her mommy would not take her for an ice cream does not lend any "academic" credibility to your assertion that Knox is innocent.

Taking the absurd position that no one's behavior has any connection to their guilt or innocence and that we can always act how we want when we want to doesn't do it either.

Everything else you spout is your own conjecture, opinions you have formed from reading the same newspapers and weblinks as everyone else here, and all over the world.

Sorry, but that simply doesn't fly. The accepted standards of DNA testing are not difficult to find online. (Let's forget for a moment that we're talking LCN DNA testing) The links I provided contained external links to other citations.

Rather than bother to look into the details, you chose to pick the expert that echoed your own belief without taking an objective look. And you cry bias...?

[cappuccina]

I appreciate the work of the innocence project, I do. However, any " expert" can become overzealous in his or her quest for fame or money, or both...like the DNA "experts" who managed to contribute to OJ getting off...

Ally, insulting me and others and acting like a toddler in the midst of a tantrum because her mommy would not take her for an ice cream does not lend any "academic" credibility to your assertion that Knox is innocent.

Taking the absurd position that no one's behavior has any connection to their guilt or innocence and that we can always act how we want when we want to doesn't do it either.

Everything else you spout is your own conjecture, opinions you have formed from reading the same newspapers and weblinks as everyone else here, and all over the world.

[Ally]

John,

While I have yet to read a post by Cappucina that was anything but mockworthy on this thread or worth a reply, I have to chime in and agree that anyone who would denigrate the Innocence Project, truly sinks to depths beyond description. Either they are just woefully ignorant or so blind and rabid in their "belief" that no reason will ever penetrate their blind faith that they are right or they truly have no concept of the reality of the world and the fact that there are in fact innocent people in prison and without volunteers like those in the Innocence Projects, they'd rot there for all time because of empty headed idiots who say well the verdict was guilty, so even though there's no evidence, they must be!

God spare us all from the dim, they are actually the ones who might one day be deciding your fate.

[John Hacker]

Ally,

The verdict came guilty.

The last link was from the Times newspaper, are you going to say they also have an agenda ?

I rather think she covered that earlier.

The only thing that Scarlet has to say over and over and over is she lied. Yes we know. She lied. At this point, big whoop.

[John Hacker]

Cappuccina,

So I guess the answer to my earlier question is "no" then?

No, what John said was that one individual, i.e., Dr. Hampikian the director of one of many "Innocence Projects" (no agenda there, eh?) across the country thought that the DNA tests were invalid.

Very similar to the 'expert' in the OJ case who thought the tests were contaminated or planted.

Actually if you had bothered to read the links, you'd find that Hampikian was not the only one who signed the letter detailing their concerns and the other links were written by another man entirely.

I am not sure what "agenda" you believe the innocence projects have. They donate their time to work pro bono to obtain testing for those who may have been wrongly convicted. If the testing doesn't support the conclusion that they were innocent they walk away.

They don't make any money from this endeavor, and to date they've managed to get over 200 wrongly convicted inmates freed. Just today a man was freed after THIRTY FIVE years for a crime he did not commit.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/17/florida.dna.exoneration/

If that's an agenda, I have seen worse ones. Justice is about more than getting someone behind bars, it's getting the RIGHT one behind bars. If you can't see that then I feel sorry for you.

As far as Hampikian goes, he's a DNA expert and professor of both Forensic Biology and Criminal Justice at Boise State University which qualifies him to comment on the quality of the science.

I am guessing I am wasting my time here, but if you're sold on your position, why not look into the details of what he actually says and tell us all why he's wrong.

(Remaining hopeful, but expecting "just is")

[scarletpimpernel]

Ally,

The verdict came guilty.

The last link was from the Times newspaper, are you going to say they also have an agenda ?

[John Hacker]

Hello John

The thing is... that the three suspects fingered each other and only goes to show that the three suspects were involved. Amanda Knox apologised for her lies about implicating an innocent man so why should we believe the rest of her lies ? Also look at this:

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C297/

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tmk/C356/

The thing is, they didn't Scarlet. I am not sure what specifically you believe those particular links are supposed to demonstrate, perhaps you could enlighten me?

I have read the TJ site top to bottom and while there are occasionally bits of interest there that lead to something worth researching independently, the majority of their posts spend a lot of time as misrepresently opinion as fact, perpetuating disproved rumors and indulging in some of the weakest speculation I have EVER seen.

If there is a specific point you'd like to raise, please do and we can talk it through. But if you link to an entire page of their drivel I have neither the time or inclination to go through in bulk.

As far as why should we believe her? I don't know that I do on all points. But the circumstances of her initial statement (50 hours of interrogation in a short time period) certainly make it understandable why she would tell the police what they want to hear. Similar things happen all the time.

It's also interesting that contrary to Italian law, the interrogation was either not taped or the tape simply vanished. That makes it impossible to sort out who was telling the truth about what actually happened during it.

Because when it comes to credibility in this case, it's far from one sided.

Are we to give any credence whatsoever to Migini and his amazing shifting theories? (Each one more ludicrous than the last. Extreme sex, rent fight, occult ritual, the manga made them do it ) The guy who's on trial himself for ethical problems related to an investigation? Why should we believe him?

Or the forensic keystone cops who rather than bag and tag the evidence they feel compelled to physically play with it, hand it around, pick it up and put it down? Do they deserve to be treated as credible when they don't know the BASICS of evidence collection?

Or perhaps we should put our faith in the DNA "expert" Stefanoni who apparently doesn't have the slightest understanding of how DNA testing is supposed to work. Rather than deal with accepted standards in testing, she throws science to the wind and picks and chooses her evidence, even overriding the built in settings of the machine that does the actual work to get the answer she wants. Seriously? We should listen to her?

The problem is that on the police and prosecution side, their demonstrated failings are directly in their area of expertise. They clearly have serious deficiencies in the areas they are SUPPOSED to be competent in. It's like a barber going at your head with a spoon when you want a haircut. Are you going back to them for the shave as well?

Knox certainly did not tell the truth in all cases. She had sex. She did drugs. Pretty much standard for college students.

So we've got the college student on one hand and the most rediculously incompetent police and investigators imaginable on the other. How do we pick between them?

We go to the evidence which is the discussion I was hoping to have.

If your argument is that she lied, I'll sign on happily. She did. If you want to go the extra mile and say that makes her guilty, then there's really nothing further to discuss. It's not hard to find cases where innocent people have lied to the police under intense interrogation.

There isn't a worst blind person than the one who refuses to see.

If you keep looking at a site that's mission is to support a single point of view, you're not going to find truth. There's more to "seeing" than reinforcing your own beliefs. If you want to find truth you need to poke under rocks, look around corners and above all use the organ BEHIND your eyes.

[Ally]

Actually they are entirely irrelevant. Linking to websites in place of putting forth an argument is indicative of the weakness of one's own position. The most recent linking is completely irrelevant to anything that has even been discussed.

The only thing that Scarlet has to say over and over and over is she lied. Yes we know. She lied. At this point, big whoop.

The rest of us are having a discussion about the weakness of the evidence, which he can't even begin to refute so all he does over and over is link to websites that say she lie. We already know this.

They don't support his position at all, and no one has yet managed to refute the fact that forensic "evidence" is laughable and the absolutely pathetic collection procedures done by the police should never have been allowed in any serious investigation but instead ought to be used in police academies as an example of how NOT to process a crime scene. And they have to keep saying she lied, she lied, because they actually cannot get around the basic fact that the forensic evidence is entirely lacking.

[jason_c]

Maybe you should attempt to make a rational argument based on the strengths of your own ability to retain information rather than just linking to irrelevant websites.

They are hardly irrelevant websites.

Just going back briefly to the behaviour of Knox after the body was found. To suggest behaviour, body language etc is of no consequence is simply wrong. How a person looks, acts and behaves is very important in judging an individual. We insist (with few exceptions) on individuals appearing in court in person. The judge, jury, lawyers can then all view as well as listen to the person giving evidence.

If this face to face procedure were not so important police could just as well interview suspects via MSN messenger.

[Ally]

Maybe you should attempt to make a rational argument based on the strengths of your own ability to retain information rather than just linking to irrelevant websites.

[scarletpimpernel]

Ally,

There isn't a worst blind person than the one who refuses to see.

If this evidence against the three suspects had been a snake, it would have bitten you by now.

Maybe you should take a look at this:

http:/www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5047102.ece

[cappuccina]

No, what John said was that one individual, i.e., Dr. Hampikian the director of one of many "Innocence Projects" (no agenda there, eh?) across the country thought that the DNA tests were invalid.

Very similar to the 'expert' in the OJ case who thought the tests were contaminated or planted.

[Ally]

Sigh. Anyone else notice how Scarlet has once again completely ignored all the evidence, provided absolutely no rebuttal to the points John raised that CLEARLY show the DNA tests were BS and just gone back to repeating the same old tired lies and already refuted propaganda as before?

It's like attempting to have a conversation with a goldfish.

[scarletpimpernel]

Hello John

The thing is... that the three suspects fingered each other and only goes to show that the three suspects were involved. Amanda Knox apologised for her lies about implicating an innocent man so why should we believe the rest of her lies ? Also look at this:

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C297/

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tmk/C356/

[John Hacker]

Hello John:

It is important to look at the Micheli report translations about DNA.

http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C343/

Ok, first off, that's not a translation. It's a summary done by someone who came in with an agenda and they're picking the bits they want to go into detail on.

But that having been said...

From the summantion:

Dr Stefanoni reported that the locus ascribable to Meredith and identified on the knife blade shows readings of 41 and 28 RFU. Conventionally, RFU values lower than 50 can be defined as low. But she maintained that the profile matched Meredith’s by explaining that there is no immediate correlation between the height of the peaks obtained by electropherogram and expressed in RFU, and the reliability of the biological investigation.

Well, yeah. There is. That's why the lower values are not used. There is always background noise in the electrophoresis process. It's especially significant when you're dealing with incredibly poor samples like this. LCN DNA testing is a new technique that the controls that are associated with it are much more stringent than with normal DNA testing and none of that occurred in this case.

But I think this bit (in the above links) give a pretty good idea of how stringent Stefanoni's work was. This was from someone who observed the hearing.

But the substance was minimal and if she took it to test the blood than nothing would remain to test the DNA. So she said O la va o la spacca, make it or break it, and took a 20% of it to test it for blood: negative.

The test failed but Dr Patrizia wasn't discouraged and she took what remained, about 20 microliters, she dried it to 10 and tested it for DNA. It didn't sort anything but Mrs Stefanoni didn't give up and started to amplify and amplify until the first peaks appeared. The machine was not allowed to go beyond, but something there was and had to be taken out. The goodwill scientist broke the seals and kept amplifying and amplifying and amplifying until, in a forest of background noise peaks, some alleles emerged. She decided which were the stutters, the false ones, and which the real alleles, et voila! The genetic profile of Meredith Kercher was served to Renato Biondo who could deliver it on a silver plate to the one who hired him, the prosecutor.

What he's saying, is that the machine automatically discards and won't display the low peaks because they're not considered reliable anywhere. She recalibrated the machine to show the unreliable peaks and then picked the ones she wanted and didn't want.

That's not science.

I strongly urge anyone who is interested in the case to read the above links because they're not only directly relevent here, they've got some good background on DNA testing in general and the ways that testing can go right or (as in this case apparently) wrong.

As for the clasp, all they had to offer was this bit. (Opinion, not translation)

As for Sollecito’s DNA found on the bra clasp, the match is unquestionable, according to the lab reports. Samples from crime scenes very often contain genetic material from more than one person (e.g. Rudy Guede’s DNA has been identified in a mixture with the victim’s DNA in a few places), and well-known recommendations and protocols exist in order to de-convolute mixed samples into single genetic profiles.

So if the lab reports indicate that unquestionable biological evidence of Sollecito’s DNA was found on the bra clasp, at the present time we have no reason to believe that these recommendations weren’t followed and that therefore the reports are not to be trusted.

Seperating the samples was never the primary issue raised by the defense and this is simply avoiding the issue. We know that the clasp ended up with several genetic profiles on it and from what is known of Kercher, it's pretty difficult to assume anything but that at least 3 of them got there in some way other direct contact. It's impossible to rule out contamination at the scene (as it sat there for 47 days, moving around the scene) and it's clear from observing the collection of the clasp that the people doing so had NO clue what they were doing.

Micheli can be as comfortable with it as he wants to be, but that is not how evidence is handled by professionals.