Meredith Kercher case

[Ally]

Ally

Your excuse for not backing up the comments you made about the Maundy Gregory blog was that I was "a complete idiot who doesn't know his hole from a hole in the ground" (no ad hominem argument there!), and that therefore my posts weren't worth responding to.

You are. I was responding to John and helping him out, so he doesn't waste hours of his life finding crap you could find yourself, if you, you know, exerted some effort. And I didn't say they weren't worth responding to. I said they weren't worth exerting EFFORT to respond to. Ridiculing and mocking you comes surprisingly easy and with very little effort.

And as for your marvellous discovery that according to CNN Vecchiotti and Conti testified at the end of July that the evidence about the knife should be considered inadmissible, I can only wonder how you think the author of that blog could have been aware that this would happen when he wrote his post on 9 July. Apparently you consider that commentators are culpable if they are unable to divine by a process of precognition what testimony will be presented to a court three weeks in the future! That's scarcely a rational basis for criticism.

Wow. And if you were a little bit more attentive to detail, you'd note that what I linked to was not a blog, but an ARTICLE on CNN (you know..a fairly reputable news organization) and it was dated July 30 not the 9th. Are you just flat out pulling crap desperately out of your orifices now?

[Chris]

Ally

Your excuse for not backing up the comments you made about the Maundy Gregory blog was that I was "a complete idiot who doesn't know his hole from a hole in the ground" (no ad hominem argument there!), and that therefore my posts weren't worth responding to.

But if you're going to carry on responding to my posts - at least in the sense of directing a few childish insults in my direction - that excuse falls a bit flat. So I'll ask you again to justify your remarks about that blog, as I've asked you a couple of times already.

As for telling me "to go read the damn report himself," perhaps if you had been a bit more attentive, my statement that "I can't find those or similar phrases in the report" might have been a clue to you that I had already checked it. But perhaps that would be expecting a bit too much by way of analytical thought on your part.

And as for your marvellous discovery that according to CNN Vecchiotti and Conti testified at the end of July that the evidence about the knife should be considered inadmissible, I can only wonder how you think the author of that blog could have been aware that this would happen when he wrote his post on 9 July. Apparently you consider that commentators are culpable if they are unable to divine by a process of precognition what testimony will be presented to a court three weeks in the future! That's scarcely a rational basis for criticism.

[Ally]

John you are much more patient than I. I'd have told him to go read the damn report himself by now. When did you get all freaky mature?

http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/contents/conclusions-2/

Because I don't want John wasting all his life doing Chris's homework, here John, for you, I've dug up an article that states the experts testified both pieces should be inadmissible.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-30/world/italy.knox.appeal_1_kercher-s-dna-amanda-knox-knox-s-dna?_s=PM:WORLD

[John Hacker]

Unfortunately that wasn't the article that I was looking for.

Here's another one referring to the knife. http://news.sky.com/home/article/16040347

If I am remembering correctly they felt that both items should be inadmissible and went into reasons why, but I can't find the original article I read. I will keep digging. It's possible it was off of TrueJustice. I'll grit my teeth and look there later.

[Chris]

"Unacceptably high" is my translation, yes. Specifically the report states "the technical analyses performed are not reliable ". In court they testified that in their opinion the tests should be not be admissible as evidence due to the deficiencies in the collection and testing. (http://www.wcti12.com/news/29080630/detail.html) .

Thanks, but according to that report the comment about inadmissibility refers to the bra clasp, not the knife.

[Natalie Severn]

There have been a number of cases over the past five or six years where a case has had to be been thrown out due to the unreliability of LCN DNA testing.
Here are a just a couple:

http://politico.ie/crime/1575-scientists-sceptical-of-holohan-dna-testing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7156051.stm

[John Hacker]

A couple of other examples of misdirection and misinformation in that post....

"Conti and Vecchotti agree with the opinion of the chief police scientist, Patrizia Stefanoni, that Knox’s DNA was present on the handle of the knife and they don’t dispute the match between the DNA found on the blade and that of the victim."

What the report actually said was:

"Taking into account that none of the recommendations of the international scientific community relative to the treatment of Low Copy Number (LCN) samples were followed, we do not accept the conclusions regarding the certain attribution of the profile found on trace B (blade of knife) to the victim Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, since the genetic profile, as obtained, appears unreliable insofar as it is not supported by scientifically validated analysis;"

Also, the blog focuses on the possibility of contamination which was only one of 5 points in the summary in the report regarding the lack of reliability of the testing.

"1. There does not exist evidence which scientifically confirms that trace B (blade of knife) is the product of blood.

2. The electrophoretic profiles exhibited reveal that the sample indicated by the letter B (blade of knife) was a Low Copy Number (LCN) sample, and, as such, all of the precautions indicated by the international scientific community should have been applied.

3. Taking into account that none of the recommendations of the international scientific community relative to the treatment of Low Copy Number (LCN) samples were followed, we do not accept the conclusions regarding the certain attribution of the profile found on trace B (blade of knife) to the victim Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, since the genetic profile, as obtained, appears unreliable insofar as it is not supported by scientifically validated analysis;

4. International protocols of inspection, collection, and sampling were not followed;

5. It cannot be ruled out that the result obtained from sample B (blade of knife) derives from contamination in some phase of the collection and/or handling and/or analyses performed."

The report is an interesting read and worth checking out. A translation can be found here. http://knoxdnareport.wordpress.com/contents/

[John Hacker]

I think I pretty much covered your questions although certainly not as exhasutively as possible...

"ignores evidence that doesn't support their argument" -

He makes a point that between Sollecito's flat and the lab that no one who had contact with Kercher's DNA handled the knife. Possibly true. However we do know that both Knox and Sollecito were at the scene of the murder, prior to the collection of the knife. As were some of the officers involved in the collection. (A point that seems to have skipped by the blog author) Knox specifically is known to have had direct contact with Kercher's blood in the bathroom the day after the killing. Given this, the possibility for contamination prior to or during collection is non-trivial considering the small amount of material found.

which of its arguments had already been discredited (obviously "discredited" would have to mean something stronger than "not accepted by the defence"!).

The court selected experts said it had no evidentiary value and to try and twist the findings so that there is a loophole where you can still claim the tests are valid and support your position is absurd IMO. And in this particular case the arguments made are misleading at best or dishonest at worst.

"Unacceptably high" is my translation, yes. Specifically the report states "the technical analyses performed are not reliable ". In court they testified that in their opinion the tests should be not be admissible as evidence due to the deficiencies in the collection and testing. (http://www.wcti12.com/news/29080630/detail.html) There were more articles at the time, but google seems obsessed with feeding me the same AP story 12 million times. I'll try and dig up a better article later.

[Chris]

John

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'm afraid you've answered a different question from the one I asked, but I found the answer interesting nonetheless.

I'll try to respond when I get a chance, but there was one thing that puzzled me:

So what is the possibility that it's contamination? According to the court appointed experts it's unnacceptably high.
...
The court selected experts said it had no evidentiary value ...

Did Conti and Vecchiotti actually say either of those things, in so many words, or is that your interpretation of what their findings imply? I can't find those or similar phrases in the report, but of course it's possible that I am missing what you're referring to.

[Carol]

Hi Ally and everyone!

Thanks for responding. Most of what I know about the case is from reading a book I brought back from England recently - The Murder of Meredith Kercher by Gary C. King. I think it must have been unbiased as I'm very much sitting on the proverbial fence.

Love
Carol

[John Hacker]

There really isn't an unbiased source of information online about the case unfortunately. All of the blog sites are tilted to one side or the other. In most cases, to an extreme degree.

It's worth looking at the motivations report from the original trial for a good overview of the arguments presented. The defense positions are pretty much summarily dismissed across the board, but you can get at least a feel for what they were arguing. From my perspective the document itself is so poorly reasoned that for me it was a very convicing testment to the weakness of the prosecutions case.

I haven't followed any of the "innocent" blogs regularly, but on the guilt side there is "True Justice" and the Perugia Murder File. Both of them will give a good overview of the guilt side and if you're like me, give you plenty of head scratching moments at the sheer outrageousness of a lot of the positions they stake out.

John

[John Hacker]

Chris,

Sorry for the late reply. It's been crazy busy lately.

The DNA issue is fairly complex so I'm just going to skim over it at a high level. There's a lot of detail on it earlier in this thread from prior to the independent experts report. Most if not all of the concerns brought up before were validated by the experts.

My basic issue with how the blog treats this is that it doesn't actually give a good overview of the concerns raised by the independent experts or their conclusions and instead focuses on how the results can be rehabilitated to be found acceptable, which is exactly counter to the findings of the report.

Asking "how likely" it is that the DNA was contaminated is simply a non-sensical question. It is always a possibility even under the best of conditions with normal testing which is why there are supposed to be stringent procedures to guard against it.

With LCN DNA testing the danger of contmination is far greater. Because of the greater number of replication cycles even the smallest amount of contanimation will show up in the results. A tiny amount DNA that would not affect the outcome of a test with a significant sample will be a major problem after that many replication cycles. (This is the amplification that he was discussing. It's standard in DNA testing, but in the case of LCN testing it goes on for a greater number of cycles.)

Most courts won't allow the results of even well performed LCN DNA testing. And this wasn't well performed. They don't even meet the basic standards for NON-LCN DNA testing.

The blog tries to open up the possibility that there were adequate controls on the samples in the lab to prevent the possibility of cross-contamination. Unfortunately Stefanoni's record keeping was rather poor (to be generous) so we can't really tell much about the treatment of samples in the lab. We do know however that whatever was done was inadequate for this type of testing.

But let's look at the possibilities a bit...

He makes a point that between Sollecito's flat and the lab that no one who had contact with Kercher's DNA handled the knife. Possibly true. However we do know that both Knox and Sollecito were at the scene of the murder, prior to the collection of the knife. As were some of the officers involved in the collection. (A point that seems to have skipped by the blog author) Knox specifically is known to have had direct contact with Kercher's blood in the bathroom the day after the killing. Given this, the possibility for contamination prior to or during collection is non-trivial considering the small amount of material found.

At the lab itself there was plenty of Kercher's DNA. The author tries to suggest that if control samples were run that it would somehow demonstrate that contamination at this stage was less likely. Given the tiny amounts involved prior to replication that's not the case. (See some of the earlier discussion on this thread) In general the risk of contamination is considered to be so high at the laboratory level that the best practice for LCN testing is to not perform it at a lab that contained the DNA that you're looking for. The machinery should be under slightly higher air pressure than the lab itself to prevent the possibility of airborne contamination. We know of course that wasn't the case here.

For scientific evidence to be acceptable it is supposed to meet certain standards. In this case the independent experts came up with over 50 deficiencies related to the collection and testing of the clasp and knife. That's an astounding number, but it's unlikely to tell the whole story because records were either not provided, not kept or never made on some aspects of the testing itself.

So what is the possibility that it's contamination? According to the court appointed experts it's unnacceptably high. That doesn't give us a quantifiable number, but we do know that there was the potential for it to occur prior to collection, during collection and during testing. The degree of concern that should be applied is hightened by the fact that even the most basic procedures to prevent it were not followed.

Simply watching the tape showing the collection of the clasp should give a good feel for the "care" with which they treated evidence.

I have no issue with people who geniuely believe that Knox and Sollecito had a part in the murder, but when it comes to scientific evidence it's not a subjective thing. The court selected experts said it had no evidentiary value and to try and twist the findings so that there is a loophole where you can still claim the tests are valid and support your position is absurd IMO. And in this particular case the arguments made are misleading at best or dishonest at worst.

The blog author would be much better advised to simply drop the knife and clasp and return to the supposed "mountain" of other evidence.

My apologies for any incoherencies in the post... It was written in 30 second chunks as time permitted this morning. If you have any questions or if you'd like clarification on anything please feel free to ask.

John

[Ally]

Gloss over? I just couldn't be arsed to get into the conversation with you on the grounds that a conversation with you on this matter would be catergorised somewhere between 'a slow, painful death' and 'a pointless, hysterical exchange of a tit-for-tat cycle of verbal violence'.

Ah I see. So you can't be bothered with a slow and painful death and a hysterical exchange of verbal violence on anything actually relevant and meaningful to the thread topic, but you can be arsed to do it JUST to continue a pointless exchange of verbal violence. Interesting moral high ground you try to place yourself on.

And, finally, really finally, as I only have somewhere between 40 and 50 years to live, so I can't possibly sit here and fight fire with fire with you when there are opportunties to be had out there:

And yet, here you sit.

[Fleetwood Mac]

It would really be interesting to see the reality if we could see what happens if all the people loudly proclaiming "I would never" get locked in a box with experienced interrogators and rudimentary knowledge of the language and find out just what exactly they could and could not stand up to.

And nice complete gloss over the fact that Amanda was not the one who introduced her manager, the police were the ones who told her they were both there.

Ifs and buts, Ally: in other words, meaningless.

Gloss over? I just couldn't be arsed to get into the conversation with you on the grounds that a conversation with you on this matter would be catergorised somewhere between 'a slow, painful death' and 'a pointless, hysterical exchange of a tit-for-tat cycle of verbal violence'.

And, finally, really finally, as I only have somewhere between 40 and 50 years to live, so I can't possibly sit here and fight fire with fire with you when there are opportunties to be had out there: she had a choice.

[Ally]

It would really be interesting to see the reality if we could see what happens if all the people loudly proclaiming "I would never" get locked in a box with experienced interrogators and rudimentary knowledge of the language and find out just what exactly they could and could not stand up to.

And nice complete gloss over the fact that Amanda was not the one who introduced her manager, the police were the ones who told her they were both there.