Meredith Kercher case

[Ally]

Obviously innocent people do sometimes tell lies, so the fact that Knox and Sollecito told lies isn't proof of their guilt (though the sheer number and variety of the lies they told surely put them into contention for some kind of record, if they are really innocent).

But of course that's quite different from saying that if someone tells lies that isn't a valid reason to be suspicious about them. Even if you aren't suspicious yourself, you can surely understand why other people are?

No I really can't. All of these people going "THEY LIED: they must be guilty" must have never in their lives been teenagers or young adults who lied to get themselves out of trouble. Man. That must be a nice feeling to know you have never told a lie. Me, who I count as enormously truthful, I've told lies, I don't think I've ever in real life come across people such as yourselves who have never told one so I would like to chat one day, just to figure out how you managed to go through your whole lives never telling a lie even when under duress.

And considering I have pointed to cases where people told lots of lies, and they weren't guilty at all, lying is obviously not indicative of guilt.

If Amanda and Sollecito had told lies about Meredith herself or their interactions with her or stole money or tried to hock her watch or jewelry in the aftermath of her murder, then maybe I can see how the lies would have meaning.

But you take a confused, stupid, vapid immature person put them in a grueling interrogation and you can get them to say almost anything. The four navy men did the exact same thing as Amanda...after their confession and telling how they raped and killed the girl, the next day they went...wait a minute, that didn't happen like that and tried to recant.

The lied in interrogation too. They came up with stories of what they did that wasn't true and then they recanted it. No different. It does happen.

Also that would be well and good on the night but why did she change her story after that.

Because people's stories change. As pointed out above. People can be coerced into saying something and then when they get distance later go...wait a minute. People's memories change. Both Amanda and Sollecito have stated they smoked dope and drank that night. It may very well be they don't actually remember what they did that night, and they are creating memories as they go along. It happens. Memories are not the immutable things we would like to believe they are, and asking some stoned drunk to remember exactly what occurred isn't necessarily going to work. Just because you remember something happened in "this exact way" doesn't actually mean it happened like that. You can implant memories into sober people, and it's even easier when someone doesn't have a firm recollection of the events, it's easy to plant memories.

But again, WE DON'T KNOW her story changed, or how often it changed or in what context. We only know that's what the police said and we don't know what she actually said because they didn't record the conversations.

Post #3 of this thread, following my post #2.

No evidence whatsoever at that point, and only Knox's behaviour to go on.

Hindsight is great, isn't it?

Uh actually no. At that point, the trial was well under way and I had whole bunches of information to go on. However, when I first heard about this case (as I stated in a subsequent post, I heard that the prosecution had definite DNA evidence that linked Knox to the crime via finding that DNA on the murder weapon. I hadn't actually heard a thing about her behavior at that point as it was somewhat past the "she devil" media hysterics as I got involved somewhat late in the case. Then when I started investigating, I found at that the so-called "murder weapon" was a knife that was randomly selected from a drawer full of knives (they didn't even bring the entire drawer in to test just picked one at random) and contained such microscopic and unprovable amounts of "DNA" as to be worthless. So no. Actually, I was not basing my initial opinion on her behavior at all, I was basing it on the mistaken belief that when a prosecutor says he has incontrovertible evidence that links victim and perpetrator to the murder weapon he actually has the murder weapon and has DNA. My mistake there. So no, my initial impressions were not based on anything so nebulous as her behavior, but on the belief that there was actual physical evidence linking her to the crime.

And no, I am not personally offended when this or any other thread goes off topic. I was just trying to steer this one back on course, for the sake of a family whose daughter was at school with mine.

No need for anyone to get snotty about that, surely?

If that was your intention, merely to steer it back on topic, but it didn't come off that way to me or to a few others either.

[tji]

Hi FM

Tracy, you're missing one salient point with regard to the law (well not Italian law).

The burden of proof lies with the accuser, not the accused.

Underpinning the idea of a democracy and citizen's rights is this: innocent until proven guilty.

They were proven guilty though.

Apparently even one of the Judges is not confident that they weren't involved - however on the evidence that had been allowed to be presented to the court he had no choice. That evidence may have stood up in court if the collection had been a little better planned.

Right or wrong I still think that evidence collected (or missed) could have proven they were there that night, but it doesn't matter now because it would all be classed as tainted.

Tracy

[Chris]

No I really can't. All of these people going "THEY LIED: they must be guilty" must have never in their lives been teenagers or young adults who lied to get themselves out of trouble. Man. That must be a nice feeling to know you have never told a lie. Me, who I count as enormously truthful, I've told lies, I don't think I've ever in real life come across people such as yourselves who have never told one so I would like to chat one day, just to figure out how you managed to go through your whole lives never telling a lie even when under duress.

Of course I realise it's more convenient for you to ignore what people post and reply to a straw-man argument you've just invented yourself, but it really does seem a bit pointless.

[Zodiac]

Of course I realise it's more convenient for you to ignore what people post and reply to a straw-man argument you've just invented yourself, but it really does seem a bit pointless.

Ally/Elphaba,

Chris speaks of you inventing a "Straw-Man"!!! He must somehow have found out about how you saved poor Fiyero, by turning him into the man of straw!!! He must be dealt with Elphie!!! Do want to use your Winged Monkeys... or shall I unleash "The Wheelers"???

Best wishes,
The Nome King/Zodiac

[mariab]

It was the cartwheels that did it for me I must confess.A bit like Nero 'fiddling' when Rome was burning------[and he had caused the fire].

The cartwheeling was certainly disrespectful and silly, but I have a confession to make: Until a couple years ago, up to my late 20s, whenever I was in a vast space I invariably indulged in jumping a series of Axels in a circle. I might have done this on campus, in the garden of a museum, before taking an exam, anywhere and anytime. Obviously I would refrain from doing this in front of the cameras as the defendant in a murder case, but teenagers and people in their 20s often have a LOT of energy to burn. I frequently travel with freshman students, and they sometimes quit what they're doing and start dancing around, rapping, chasing each other, rolling on each other on the ground. It's typical and certainly not criminal behaviour.

But you take a confused, stupid, vapid immature person put them in a grueling interrogation and you can get them to say almost anything.

Precisely.

The fact that the tapes are not there, in evidence, despite Italian law requiring them means there is something not right.

The BBC documentary and some other (non Italian) press coverage insinuated that Knox was being pushed to confess that she was present during the night of the murder.

[Natalie Severn]

Are you kidding? Why point a finger? If I were in a foreign country, had only rudimentary knowledge of the language, was fairly a weak person and was interrogated for 18 hours straight, I'd probably point the finger at all sorts of people who might have been involved.

I find it interesting that with not a single piece of physical evidence tying her to the case, not a single shred of actual physical evidence and not even circumstantial evidence tying her to case either, people are so easily convinced she did it. Based on absolutely nothing.

Why not read the link Chris gave Ally? You may be quite surprised.
Norma

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi FM



They were proven guilty though.

Apparently even one of the Judges is not confident that they weren't involved - however on the evidence that had been allowed to be presented to the court he had no choice. That evidence may have stood up in court if the collection had been a little better planned.

Right or wrong I still think that evidence collected (or missed) could have proven they were there that night, but it doesn't matter now because it would all be classed as tainted.

Tracy

Hi Tracy,

And of course democracy is underpinned by a right of appeal.

[Ally]

Why not read the link Chris gave Ally? You may be quite surprised.
Norma

I was quite surprised. Surprised that anyone viewed that crap as a fair and balanced review of the evidence considering the amount of evidence they ignore and the amount of falsehoods they continue to cling to despite them having been long since disproven.

But hey, she's a cartwheeling she-devil whore so what does it matter if she's actually guilty or not?

[Errata]

I gotta say though, the phrase "marijuana induced rage" just made me laugh til I cried.

[Chris]

I was quite surprised. Surprised that anyone viewed that crap as a fair and balanced review of the evidence considering the amount of evidence they ignore and the amount of falsehoods they continue to cling to despite them having been long since disproven.

Well, the phrase "fair and balanced review" is yours, not mine. What I actually said was that it discussed the arguments on both sides in detail, which is rather different. But as I said, I understand that it's easier to ridicule straw-man arguments of your own invention than actually to address what the other person has said.

Anyhow, presumably you didn't see my post above (addressed to John), linking to a post on that blog and asking for examples of which evidence had been ignored, and which disproven falsehoods had been included.

If what you say is true, presumably you won't have any difficulty backing it up. I know how keen you are on people backing things up rather than just stating opinions ...

[Ally]

Well being that I am the Queen of the straw man and you are the king of the ad hominem we make a fine debating pair don't we? But why you presume I didn't see a post addressed to John, asking him to do your homework for you, rather than just not responding to it because a) it wasn't addressed to me and b) I don't have an inclination to do so, I really can't fathom. I don't really consider you worth spending a laborious amount of time pouring over that website so that you can have the details spoonfed to you. Your contribution to the thread doesn't warrant the effort on my part.

If you had even bothered to read back over THIS thread you would see that John and I (John mostly, I readily give credit) have already pointed out quite a bit of the facts that are wrong in the blog and if you did a little cross checking you could easily suss it out.

As you already stated you know very little about the facts of the case, and don't seem to have any real desire to learn them through an expenditure of effort on your part, I am not too inclined to lead the baby by the hand.

[Chris]

Ally

No surprise there.

But just to comment on your remark about "asking [John] to do [my]homework for [me]" - of course (as I said) what I'm asking is that you provide some evidence to back up your own claims about the blog - about "the amount of evidence they ignore and the amount of falsehoods they continue to cling to despite them having been long since disproven."

You lectured Tracy at some length about the importance of providing evidence to back up her opinions. Doesn't that apply to your opinions as well?

[Chris]

Oh, and by the way, it really is a bit rich for you to accuse me of ad hominem arguments. It's only a few days since you described me as "a complete idiot who doesn't know his hole from a hole in the ground"!

[Ally]

You know what I love most? I love babies who start a personal argument and then get tweaked when it gets turned around on them. Here ya go sweetie:

It'll all be better when your nappies get changed.

Yes, I need to back up my opinions with facts. What I don't need to do is back up my opinions with facts to you, because frankly, you aren't worth the time. That blog is crap, and I have backed up my opinion by stating that they get several things wrong and I've named a few. That is about all you are worth in terms of time and effort, considering your contributions to this thread so far is: READ THIS BLOG and "Ally is a worthless bitch". AS both are equally irrelevant in terms of the actual case, I am going back to my original premise:

You are a waste of time and from now on, that's how I treat you. An idiot and a waste of time. Enjoy reaping. If anyone else wants to have an actual conversation on the case, and not Chris' precious blog and its holy merits, THAT I'll be happy to discuss.

[Chris]

... your contributions to this thread so far is: READ THIS BLOG and "Ally is a worthless bitch".

Just in case anyone gets the idea that I posted anything remotely resembling that phrase you've put in quotation marks, of course I didn't. What I actually said was "I read more rational discussion on that blog in half an hour today than I've seen in a lifetime of your Casebook postings."

Taking this latest outburst as a sample of your contributions, I doubt anyone will find that particularly implausible.