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Tags !MOD BOX WARNING! , Amanda Knox , Italy cases , Meredith Kercher , murder cases , Raffaele Sollecito

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Old 19th April 2018, 04:03 AM   #3001
Vixen
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Originally Posted by Planigale View Post
You obviously do not understand how a trial works. A defence expert witness would never lodge an application with the court! The defence expert witness will report to the defence lawyer, who in consultation with their client will deciide on the strategy to follow.

The witnesses to the testing do not need to be expert witnesses (though they may be) in this case you may have noticed that lawyers were present - certainly not experts. Can I repeat they are there as passive observers to ensure primarily the chain of evidence. They are not allowed to comment on or interfere with the testing process. If they are not present then the defence loses the right to challenge the evidence. They are not guarantors of the quality or accuracy of the test.
Obviously it would be done via the recognised lawyers.

Is this all new to you that you need a blow by blow account of court procedure?

Look, go away, read up on court process and then come back and cut out all the minutiae, so that when someone says, 'make an application to the court', they do not need to describe the client ringing up their lawyers saying, oh I say, please could you object to the contamination reported to me by Prof Torre. OK sir I'll fill in Form G/895462X today and fax you a copy, etc etc.... <eyes glaze over....>
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Old 19th April 2018, 04:04 AM   #3002
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
Having been that soldier (expert witness in criminal court) I know for a fact that Vixen has no clue what she is talking about.
Is there anything you haven't done?
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Old 19th April 2018, 04:06 AM   #3003
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Kokomani also heard it circa 10:30 and another independent witness reports seeing the same things Koko saw (dark car, tow car, breakdown car).

Amanda Knox herself told police she heard a harrowing scream from Mez as 'Patrik' raped and murdered her.

I believe Capezelli.
Please stop using the familiar name for the victim of this crime.
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Old 19th April 2018, 04:08 AM   #3004
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Originally Posted by Bill Williams View Post
Please stop using the familiar name for the victim of this crime.
Stop trolling, William.
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:25 AM   #3005
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Especially from oversexed out of control Seattle druggies.
No more oversexed than the vast majority of college students out on their own.

No more 'drugged' that everyone else that lived in the cottage and the vast majority of college students out on their own.

Really dumb comment, Vixen.
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:33 AM   #3006
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
You are misguided in your over-reliance in trying to use last meal to ascertain TOD.

In a recent tv series called 'Murder, Mystery and My Family' wherein a defence barrister and a prosecution barrister re-examine historical murders to see if they can find fresh evidence on behalf of the executed perps' living relatives and then present the findings to a real judge who has the power to instigate a review of the case with a potential view to a posthumous pardon, the issue of TOD and last meal came up.

A very senior forensic pathologist was interviewed on this very subject and he pooh-poohed the idea of 'time of last meal' as an indicator, saying it is notoriously unreliable as there is great individual variation in speed of metabolism and it is no longer considered a credible method of determining Time of Death.

Nope. I am absolutely not misguided.

Nobody (including me) is suggesting that digestive transit is an accurate guide to ToD under all circumstances. But this was a specific circumstance, Vixen. The circumstance here is that ALL of the victim's last meal was still within her stomach. None whatsoever had passed through beyond the duodenum. Had the meal partially passed into her duodenum and beyond into her small intestine proper, then yes, it would have been effectively impossible to place limits on the ToD.

But since all of the meal was still totally within the stomach, things are suddenly very useful and indicative. Simply put: there is ZERO chance that an otherwise healthy* young woman could still retain 100% of a medium-sized meal within her stomach for longer than 4 hours after starting that meal. And there is virtually zero chance that all of that meal would still be within the stomach 3.5 hours after starting the meal.

And since we know that Kercher must have started that meal at around 6.30pm (as a late estimate), this means that Kercher ABSOLUTELY MUST have been dead (or very close to death) before 10.30pm, and that she almost certainly died before 10pm. In fact, with reference to the relevant normal curve, the extremely high likelihood is that Kercher died between 9.00pm and 9.30pm (given that we know she was alive at 9.00pm). How interesting.......


* And by "healthy" I mean not suffering from an extreme gastrointestinal illness, nor severely ill through infection, nor in the final stages of a terminal illness, etc.
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:36 AM   #3007
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post

It transpired later that walk-in thieves were going around the City posing as 'knife/guillotine sharpeners' if challenged. On hearing about this, my cerebullum retrieved this memory via my hippocampus and brought it to the forefront of my neocortex. And I can still see this guy in my mind's eye.

If the police had shown me a photo saying, 'Do you know this man' as Volturne did, I would have said no. Had I been asked do you recall any unusual character stepping into your office, then it would be a different answer.

There is no anomaly.
You're twisted and tortured 'logic' is often painful to bear witness to. You're desperation to keep Quintavalle a credible witness in your mind is fascinating if not disturbing.

Quintavalle was shown a picture of Amanda. He tells Volturno he recognizes her. He knew Amanda was arrested and under suspicion for murder. He knows Volturno is looking to find out if Amanda or Raffaele had been in the store to purchase bleach. He tells Volturno she's been in the store a couple of times but always in the company of Raffaele. Volturno leaves him with a business card and tells Quintavalle to call him if he remembers anything more. He never does. A year later, after Fois talks to him, he claims he saw her in the store, and that she headed for the cleaning supplies section but he doesn't know if she bought anything.

That Quintavalle is a liar is indisputable since he testified he was not shown photos of Amanda and Raffaele. His story has zero credibility and you aren't doing anything to help him on that point.

Last edited by Agatha; 21st April 2018 at 12:29 PM. Reason: fix quote tags
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:43 AM   #3008
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Originally Posted by TruthCalls View Post
No more oversexed than the vast majority of college students out on their own.

No more 'drugged' that everyone else that lived in the cottage and the vast majority of college students out on their own.

Really dumb comment, Vixen.


This approach was part of Nadeau's invidious reading of the case. She became convinced that Knox was caught up in some sort of whirlwind of drug-fuelled student group sex orgies - and she imagined that she was seeing evidence of this sort of behaviour all around her in Perugia. I strongly suspect that she was guided and encouraged in this manic-puritan nonsense by Mignini, whom she (and Vogt, and to an extent Pisa and Follain) was leaning on very strongly for titbits of juicy "information" and gossip for her pieces on the case.

In fact, pretty much all of the press journalists covering this case (most of whom were stringers, paid only if their piece made it to publication) should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for their shockingly warped and sensationalised reporting of this case. Mignini, of course, was only too happy to be the ringmaster and throw them sensationalised vilification of Knox and Sollecito - practically all of which later turned out to be either grossly distorted/misrepresented or wholesale invented.
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:49 AM   #3009
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Volturne is an old school bobby and he went from shop to shop to his credit asking each shop keeper if they recalled anyone buying bleach and if so, could he have the till receipts roll. Quintavalle said in testimony the girl outside his shop merely hung around the cleaning section before vamoosing.

In addition, if a customer doesn't want a receipt, a small shop keeper might not issue one which means he saves on the VAT due to the government (cue Planigale to regale us with exempt versus zero-rated types).

Volturne although great as PC Plod, did not have an investigator's skill in asking the right questions. When I was in Insolvency Practice, being an Examiner was actually a highly recognised qualification, the aim to get bankrupts and dodgy directors to declare all of their assets by skilled questioning.
So now you're going to start denigrating investigating police officers?

Volturno did exactly what he was supposed to do. He interviewed workers at various stores, showed photos, asked questioned and documented all of this in his service notebook. What questions should he have asked that he didn't and how does that compromise the fact that he showed Quintavalle photos of Amanda and Raffaele and recorded his responses? His questions were sufficient for Quintavalle to confirm Amanda had been in the store a couple of times but always in the company of Raffaele.

Your best bet at this point, Vixen, is to let this go. Everyone here knows Quintavalle contradicts himself, has proven himself to be a liar, and that his testimony is not credible. Indicating Massei and Nencini deemed him credible does nothing to improve his status as a witness.

Last edited by TruthCalls; 19th April 2018 at 07:43 AM.
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:53 AM   #3010
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Volturne is an old school bobby and he went from shop to shop to his credit asking each shop keeper if they recalled anyone buying bleach and if so, could he have the till receipts roll. Quintavalle said in testimony the girl outside his shop merely hung around the cleaning section before vamoosing.

In addition, if a customer doesn't want a receipt, a small shop keeper might not issue one which means he saves on the VAT due to the government (cue Planigale to regale us with exempt versus zero-rated types).

Volturne although great as PC Plod, did not have an investigator's skill in asking the right questions. <snipped embarrassingly self-aggrandising and irrelevant part>


1) Why do you so very frequently get the names of people in this case wrong? Is it because they're in a foreign language? Whatever the cause, can you not take the minimal effort to check people's names if you're going to write about them? The police officer's name was Volturno.

2) Have you even read Volturno's testimony? What you claim (above) he did and asked is not what he states in his testimony. The testimony itself is quoted in this very thread, only several posts prior to yours. I strongly suggest you go back and read what Volturno says he actually said and did. And then you'll realise your invention, and you might also realise why Volturno's testimony totally skewers Quintavalle's credibility in respect of his "identification" of Knox (though, in fact, I doubt you'll make this realisation....).
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Old 19th April 2018, 07:20 AM   #3011
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Originally Posted by LondonJohn View Post
This approach was part of Nadeau's invidious reading of the case. She became convinced that Knox was caught up in some sort of whirlwind of drug-fuelled student group sex orgies - and she imagined that she was seeing evidence of this sort of behaviour all around her in Perugia. I strongly suspect that she was guided and encouraged in this manic-puritan nonsense by Mignini, whom she (and Vogt, and to an extent Pisa and Follain) was leaning on very strongly for titbits of juicy "information" and gossip for her pieces on the case.
When Michael Winterbottom bought the rights to Nadeau's slutty little book, he and screen writer Paul Viragh cottened-on quickly to the problem with it.

So in the 2014 film, "The Face of an Angel", one of the film's sub-texts was Simone (the Barbie character) making all the slutty points about students in Siena (the town which substituted for Perugia), but the film then showed Simone herself acquiring the best cocaine in town and sleeping with hoardes of men in the finest hotel rooms.

Then Winterbottom/Viragh deliver the coup de grace to the book they'd acquired - the hero who'd solved the crime was a curmudgeon of a blogger who, in Simone's words, they had to read every morning just to keep up on the case. Guess who? When asked, this blogger kept referring to the cops and prosecutors as idiots, and that the reason why people didn't understand how simple this crime had actually been, was because, "you are stupid and do not read my blog".

The end of the film has Simone leaving Siena with the ersatz-Nick Pisa character, and she tells him to carry her bags.

The film does not portray Simone as being guided by Mignini, but it is clear that the tabloid hacks in town filed their stories in a hurry so as not to be scooped by someone else, as the real Nick Pisa himself confirmed in the NetFlix documentary saying that, "waiting to fact check an item meant you didn't get paid."

But once the main character (Thomas) gives up on the tabloid hacks for info, and he himself checks out the student scene by befriending the young Melanie (Cara Delevingne), Thomas finds out that what AK and RS had been involved in was on the mild side of what had been typical, in a very typical college town.

Anyone who relies on Barbie Nadeau needs to take heed of what the Frank Sfarzo character said about her in the film, "She's nice enough when you meet her, but when she writes she's a real b****!"
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Old 19th April 2018, 07:43 AM   #3012
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
You are misguided in your over-reliance in trying to use last meal to ascertain TOD.

In a recent tv series called 'Murder, Mystery and My Family' wherein a defence barrister and a prosecution barrister re-examine historical murders to see if they can find fresh evidence on behalf of the executed perps' living relatives and then present the findings to a real judge who has the power to instigate a review of the case with a potential view to a posthumous pardon, the issue of TOD and last meal came up.

A very senior forensic pathologist was interviewed on this very subject and he pooh-poohed the idea of 'time of last meal' as an indicator, saying it is notoriously unreliable as there is great individual variation in speed of metabolism and it is no longer considered a credible method of determining Time of Death.
If one is looking to pinpoint TOD to within 30 minutes this might be true, but there are countless studies available that prove that in nearly all healthy people the stomach will be half empty by a maximum of 180 minutes (I am, obviously, over-simplifying the results to make a point). Time to begin emptying into the duodenum is significantly less than that. Meredith began eating her dinner at 18:30. By 21:30 it would be considered abnormal for that meal to not have begun emptying into the duodenum. The more you push that out, the greater the abnormality. In order for Meredith to have screamed at 23:00 or later would mean her meal was in her stomach for 4.5 hours and still had not begun to empty into the duodenum, a scenario that is, statistically speaking, impossible.

The prosecution made a big deal on the varying times because it desperately needed to control the timeline. But the reality is there is a range of times for gastric emptying for normal, healthy people and that range PROVES Meredith was not alive at 23:00. In fact, statistically speaking, that nothing had even started emptying into the duodenum indicates Meredith was likely dead by 21:30. That is all that needs to be known to prove Nara's testimony was not credible, or at the very least, was not related to Meredith's murder.
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Old 19th April 2018, 07:57 AM   #3013
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Stop trolling, William.
Bill Williams is not trolling. You simply hurl accusations in the vague hope that something sticks on the basis of nothing. You simply think that deploying names gives you some kind of authority. Knock it off.

How would you feel if I were to address you as...
Quote:
That ingrown virgin bitch.
You wouldn't like that much, would you? Even though it is technically accurate.

You could in turn hurl that back at me, but then you would discover that I am the angel of the abyss, which is kinda cool. I make a guest appearance in revelations 9:11 which is cooler.

My point is that making fun of usernames as though it supports your point is childish in extremis.

If you have a point then make it.

ETA:Apologies to Bill Williams.
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Old 19th April 2018, 08:16 AM   #3014
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
All were deemed credible by the courts of law.

You have to take witnesses as you find them. As Mignini quipped, sorry he couldn't produce a Nobel Prize winner who had been bumming on a bench in the midnight hours.
It has nothing to do with the witnesses not being Nobel Prize winners. It's all about the judges being able interpret the testimony and differentiate between credible and non-credible witnesses. When it comes to Curatolo, for Massei and Nencini to deem him credible required judicial juggling of epic proportions.

The basic problem with his testimony was he was adamant the night he saw Amanda and Raffaele was the same night the disco buses were running, people were in costume and people were "...making a bit of a ruckus, it was a holiday." But he was also certain the morning after he saw them he saw the Scientific Police in their white suits at the cottage.

The proper conclusion one can make from this is Curatolo simply forgot there was an additional day between these two events, and as such, Curatolo did not see Amanda and Raffaele the night of the murder.

But that's not an acceptable conclusion if one starts off 'wanting' to believe the witness saw the suspects the night of the murder.

No, what Massei and Nencini do is conclude Curatolo is conflating events of two different evenings - Halloween and the night after that, and that he had to have seen them the night of 1 Nov because Amanda and Raffaele were not together on Halloween.

The proper conclusion one can make from this is Curatolo is misidentifying who he saw - he saw another couple and thought it was Amanda and Raffaele.

But that's not an acceptable conclusion if one starts off 'wanting' to believe the witness saw the suspects the night of the murder.

It's clear when you read the Massei and Nencini MR's that they were hell bent on believing Curatolo witnessed Amanda and Raffaele the night of the murder and it made no difference to them how contradictory his testimony might have been, they would modify and adjust accordingly to make it work. As an example, neither of them gives any credibility to the kiosk operator who contradicted Curatolo's testimony about the morning of 2 Nov.

It's very telling when you take someone like Vixen, who fancies herself to be above average in intelligence, and who is well aware of all of this and yet still concludes Curatolo was a credible witness who reliably places Amanda and Raffaele near the cottage on the evening of 2 Nov. Either it's another case of her confirmation bias owning her or she's not nearly as intelligent as she thinks she is.
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Old 19th April 2018, 08:37 AM   #3015
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
Bill Williams is not trolling. You simply hurl accusations in the vague hope that something sticks on the basis of nothing. You simply think that deploying names gives you some kind of authority. Knock it off.

How would you feel if I were to address you as...


You wouldn't like that much, would you? Even though it is technically accurate.

You could in turn hurl that back at me, but then you would discover that I am the angel of the abyss, which is kinda cool. I make a guest appearance in revelations 9:11 which is cooler.

My point is that making fun of usernames as though it supports your point is childish in extremis.

If you have a point then make it.

ETA:Apologies to Bill Williams.
Ok, now I get it. I thought she'd misspelled "Williams", by leaving the trailing "s" off. My bad.
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Old 19th April 2018, 09:35 AM   #3016
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post

It transpired later that walk-in thieves were going around the City posing as 'knife/guillotine sharpeners' if challenged. On hearing about this, my cerebullum retrieved this memory via my hippocampus and brought it to the forefront of my neocortex. And I can still see this guy in my mind's eye.

If the police had shown me a photo saying, 'Do you know this man' as Volturne did, I would have said no. Had I been asked do you recall any unusual character stepping into your office, then it would be a different answer.

There is no anomaly.
How many times have you been told not to use technical terms you do not understand. Your cerebellum will have nothing to do with this memory. The cerebellum primarily has to do with motor function and may have a function in motor memory (e.g. playing a musical instrument). The memory if held anywhere would be neocortical, the hippocampus would hold the emotional context - virtually none in this context. Memory is complex and is not held in a single place; this is why memory is malleable, the auditory memory of what was said would be in a different part of the brain from the visual memory of who said it. The association is unreliable so it is easy to mistake who said something. Your memory of someone saying this may be accurate, the associated memory of what they looked like is highly unreliable - you would unconsciously pick a visual memory that 'fits', the timing would be even more inaccurate you do not remember in a temporal manner, you need to reconstruct timing. (Remember even what you think you see right now is mostly a construct of your visual cortex, you actually see much less than you think.)

Last edited by Agatha; 21st April 2018 at 12:32 PM. Reason: fix quote tags
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Old 19th April 2018, 09:36 AM   #3017
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
People remember things out of the ordinary. For example, I still vividly recall a man walking into our office at least ten years ago or more, offering to sharpen the guillotine (for paper).
Originally Posted by Vixen View Post

It transpired later that walk-in thieves were going around the City posing as 'knife/guillotine sharpeners' if challenged. On hearing about this, my cerebullum retrieved this memory via my hippocampus and brought it to the forefront of my neocortex. And I can still see this guy in my mind's eye.

If the police had shown me a photo saying, 'Do you know this man' as Volturne did, I would have said no. Had I been asked do you recall any unusual character stepping into your office, then it would be a different answer.

There is no anomaly.
Why do I suspect you invented the latter part of this convenient story? First you say he "offered to sharpen" the paper cutter but later add that they posed as sharpeners "if challenged". This story, originally meant to support Quintavalle's 'excellent' memory, suddenly becomes a way for you to support Quintavalle's failure to tell Volturno about seeing Knox. Hmmmmmm...

For you to claim that you would not have mentioned this man (you so clearly remembered ) if shown a picture of him by the police is beyond preposterous. Frankly, it is one of the most ludicrous things you've ever written.

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Old 19th April 2018, 10:07 AM   #3018
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Kokomani also heard it circa 10:30 and another independent witness reports seeing the same things Koko saw (dark car, tow car, breakdown car).

Amanda Knox herself told police she heard a harrowing scream from Mez as 'Patrik' raped and murdered her.

I believe Capezelli.
Ah, yes...Kokomani of the "thrown olives" who claimed he was chatting with Guede outside about borrowing his car when he heard the scream. Hmmm...I thought Guede was inside sexually assaulting Meredith. Kokomani who said he saw Knox with her (non-existent) uncle before she ever arrived in Perugia wearing a (non-existent) red coat. Kokomani who claimed he told people about this encounter and showed them a video he took. Hmmmmm... no mention of actually taking this video in his description of events and no witnesses who say he told them about this incident or showed them said video.
The ONLY thing he said that could be verified was the tow truck and the affected car which he could have seen while driving down the road that night. But the tow truck driver and car owners testified to seeing nothing and hearing nothing. Do you see the problem with this?

"Amanda Knox herself told police imagined she heard a harrowing scream" when the police asked her how she couldn't have heard Meredith scream and were insisting that she had amnesia.

Of course you believe Capezelli Capezzali. You believe any witness that supports your bias no matter how far fetched, illogical, and ridiculous their story is.
You think leaves blowing in the wind can be heard through double glazed windows. You believe she could know about the murder before its discovery. You believe she saw a poster with Guede's face on it before the police had identified him.
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Old 19th April 2018, 12:14 PM   #3019
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Originally Posted by abaddon View Post
Bill Williams is not trolling. You simply hurl accusations in the vague hope that something sticks on the basis of nothing. You simply think that deploying names gives you some kind of authority. Knock it off.

How would you feel if I were to address you as...


You wouldn't like that much, would you? Even though it is technically accurate.

You could in turn hurl that back at me, but then you would discover that I am the angel of the abyss, which is kinda cool. I make a guest appearance in revelations 9:11 which is cooler.

My point is that making fun of usernames as though it supports your point is childish in extremis.

If you have a point then make it.

ETA:Apologies to Bill Williams.
You can call me anything you want, as long as it's not 'too early in the morning'.
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Old 19th April 2018, 12:16 PM   #3020
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Originally Posted by TruthCalls View Post

You're twisted and tortured 'logic' is often painful to bear witness to. You're desperation to keep Quintavalle a credible witness in your mind is fascinating if not disturbing.

Quintavalle was shown a picture of Amanda. He tells Volturno he recognizes her. He knew Amanda was arrested and under suspicion for murder. He knows Volturno is looking to find out if Amanda or Raffaele had been in the store to purchase bleach. He tells Volturno she's been in the store a couple of times but always in the company of Raffaele. Volturno leaves him with a business card and tells Quintavalle to call him if he remembers anything more. He never does. A year later, after Fois talks to him, he claims he saw her in the store, and that she headed for the cleaning supplies section but he doesn't know if she bought anything.

That Quintavalle is a liar is indisputable since he testified he was not shown photos of Amanda and Raffaele. His story has zero credibility and you aren't doing anything to help him on that point.
The court found Quintavalle a credible witness. There is nothing you can do about it.
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Old 19th April 2018, 12:41 PM   #3021
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
The provisional court found Quintavalle a credible witness. There is nothing you can do about it.
Fixed it for you.

"THE" court of importance found Quintavalle a bogus witness.
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Old 19th April 2018, 12:44 PM   #3022
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
The court found Quintavalle a credible witness. There is nothing you can do about it.

"There is nothing you can do about it".

Well, there was something the Supreme Court could do about it, Vixen. The Supreme Court could rule, correctly and fairly, that the convicting courts had seriously erred in law in the way in which they assessed the credibility and reliability of Quintavalle's testimony. The Supreme Court ruled, correctly and fairly, that the material contradictions involved here - clearly the most serious of which was Quintavalle failing to remember Knox being in his shop on her own around the time of the murder when he was questioned by Volturno within several days of the event, but then "remembering" Knox's presence (made all the more ludicrous by his "remembrance" of exactly what she was wearing, her eye colour, and the direction in which she headed when she left his shop*) around a year later - were quite obviously incompatible with any assessment of his "identification" of Knox as credible or reliable.

To illustrate this point further, one can imagine an even more extreme example. Suppose there was a murder trial in which an eyewitness came to court to testify that he had seen the defendant stabbing the victim, but the defence then produced credit card and CCTV evidence showing the same "witness" buying petrol (gas) for his car some 20 miles away from the murder, and around 10 minutes before the time of the murder. Suppose the convicting court assessed the testimony of this "witness" as credible and reliable, and used it to form part of its conviction verdict. The Supreme Court would clearly be entitled in those circumstances to rule that the lower convicting court had improperly assessed the witness's testimony, and that in fact the testimony should be discounted.


* Remember here that if Knox had visited Quintavalle's shop early that morning, there would have been no reason whatsoever for Quintavalle to have a heightened sense of cognition - this to him would have been just another ordinary morning, and Knox would have been just another ordinary customer. It totally defies all belief that in these circumstances Quintavalle could/should have had this extraordinary detail of recognition of Knox's nondescript visit. The man is either a fantasist or a liar. There's no other possibility.
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Old 19th April 2018, 12:45 PM   #3023
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Originally Posted by Planigale View Post

How many times have you been told not to use technical terms you do not understand. Your cerebellum will have nothing to do with this memory. The cerebellum primarily has to do with motor function and may have a function in motor memory (e.g. playing a musical instrument). The memory if held anywhere would be neocortical, the hippocampus would hold the emotional context - virtually none in this context. Memory is complex and is not held in a single place; this is why memory is malleable, the auditory memory of what was said would be in a different part of the brain from the visual memory of who said it. The association is unreliable so it is easy to mistake who said something. Your memory of someone saying this may be accurate, the associated memory of what they looked like is highly unreliable - you would unconsciously pick a visual memory that 'fits', the timing would be even more inaccurate you do not remember in a temporal manner, you need to reconstruct timing. (Remember even what you think you see right now is mostly a construct of your visual cortex, you actually see much less than you think.)
The cerebullum might well be mostly to do with things like knowing how to swim, play the piano, drive a car, but it is not possible to say 'memory is stored' in X, Y or Z, depending on type of memory. We can make educated assumptions by studying those who have brain damage, like the well-known broadcaster (name escapes me) whose prefrontal cortex was destroyed by a virus, yet he never forgot how to play the piano, for which he was famous, yet would immediately forget what anybody said to him. Then there are different types of dementia. Truth is, memory is complex and there are many types of memory. Thus, some people learn best by self-study, others do well face to face with a teacher, others are visual, some auditory.

So, showing people a photofit or photograph will trigger recognition in some, others may not recognise the photo, but memory may be triggered by recalling an emotional event, or hearing a voice, or seeing someone's gait and general constitution and demeanour.

I generally have a good memory, yet I often cannot remember names, so hopeless at questions on University Challenge or Pointless (say) which show a photo of someone and you have to name them, or there'll be questions about a film or theatre play and you have to name 'anyone who acted in them'. However, I am good at music questions, can name pieces in one or two notes, questions on literature or art, a doddle. Anagrams, riddles, maths, no problem.

So, whilst it helps to label parts of the brain as being where different types of memory are stored, I should be careful about quoting wikipedia and claiming that that something is a fact, when it is often only a theory.

Oh, and learn to recognise humour.
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Old 19th April 2018, 12:59 PM   #3024
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Originally Posted by Bill Williams View Post
When Michael Winterbottom bought the rights to Nadeau's slutty little book, he and screen writer Paul Viragh cottened-on quickly to the problem with it.

So in the 2014 film, "The Face of an Angel", one of the film's sub-texts was Simone (the Barbie character) making all the slutty points about students in Siena (the town which substituted for Perugia), but the film then showed Simone herself acquiring the best cocaine in town and sleeping with hoardes of men in the finest hotel rooms.

Then Winterbottom/Viragh deliver the coup de grace to the book they'd acquired - the hero who'd solved the crime was a curmudgeon of a blogger who, in Simone's words, they had to read every morning just to keep up on the case. Guess who? When asked, this blogger kept referring to the cops and prosecutors as idiots, and that the reason why people didn't understand how simple this crime had actually been, was because, "you are stupid and do not read my blog".

The end of the film has Simone leaving Siena with the ersatz-Nick Pisa character, and she tells him to carry her bags.

The film does not portray Simone as being guided by Mignini, but it is clear that the tabloid hacks in town filed their stories in a hurry so as not to be scooped by someone else, as the real Nick Pisa himself confirmed in the NetFlix documentary saying that, "waiting to fact check an item meant you didn't get paid."

But once the main character (Thomas) gives up on the tabloid hacks for info, and he himself checks out the student scene by befriending the young Melanie (Cara Delevingne), Thomas finds out that what AK and RS had been involved in was on the mild side of what had been typical, in a very typical college town.

Anyone who relies on Barbie Nadeau needs to take heed of what the Frank Sfarzo character said about her in the film, "She's nice enough when you meet her, but when she writes she's a real b****!"
I thought you didn't believe in slut shaming?

Winterbottom of course had to keep one eye on libel laws and another on pleasing American audiences.

So we had a sad character, the American journalist keen to discover the truth, yet finds himself amidst the cynical Brits on one side and this Frank Sfarzo type on the other, a conspiracy theorist teasing the Yank by claiming he knew where the murder knife was, and leading the hack through dark streets and alleys.

The hack believes he can solve the murder by getting into the minds of the students so frequents a bar where he meets mono-brow Cara Delavigne, supposedly a Knox character, bohemian and free-spirited.

Very soon the storyline became 'middle-aged' guy lusts after scantily clad 18-year old.

I thought the Dante theme was good and the photography atmospheric. It didn't really have much to do with the Kercher murder. More to do with the media and spin.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:09 PM   #3025
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Originally Posted by LondonJohn View Post
"There is nothing you can do about it".

Well, there was something the Supreme Court could do about it, Vixen. The Supreme Court could rule, correctly and fairly, that the convicting courts had seriously erred in law in the way in which they assessed the credibility and reliability of Quintavalle's testimony. The Supreme Court ruled, correctly and fairly, that the material contradictions involved here - clearly the most serious of which was Quintavalle failing to remember Knox being in his shop on her own around the time of the murder when he was questioned by Volturno within several days of the event, but then "remembering" Knox's presence (made all the more ludicrous by his "remembrance" of exactly what she was wearing, her eye colour, and the direction in which she headed when she left his shop*) around a year later - were quite obviously incompatible with any assessment of his "identification" of Knox as credible or reliable.

To illustrate this point further, one can imagine an even more extreme example. Suppose there was a murder trial in which an eyewitness came to court to testify that he had seen the defendant stabbing the victim, but the defence then produced credit card and CCTV evidence showing the same "witness" buying petrol (gas) for his car some 20 miles away from the murder, and around 10 minutes before the time of the murder. Suppose the convicting court assessed the testimony of this "witness" as credible and reliable, and used it to form part of its conviction verdict. The Supreme Court would clearly be entitled in those circumstances to rule that the lower convicting court had improperly assessed the witness's testimony, and that in fact the testimony should be discounted.


* Remember here that if Knox had visited Quintavalle's shop early that morning, there would have been no reason whatsoever for Quintavalle to have a heightened sense of cognition - this to him would have been just another ordinary morning, and Knox would have been just another ordinary customer. It totally defies all belief that in these circumstances Quintavalle could/should have had this extraordinary detail of recognition of Knox's nondescript visit. The man is either a fantasist or a liar. There's no other possibility.
Then the Supreme Court has erred, as they do not have the jurisdiction to overturn accepted evidence. If they concluded Quintavalle's testimony had received the wrong legal treatment by the court, it can only ever send it back to the merits court, which does have the jurisdiction to find facts, possibly with a strongly worded direction of what is expected of it, as Chieffi did.

It isn't Marasca-Bruno's place to overturn Quintavalle's testimony.

In your yet-another-what-if scenario, again that would have to be remitted back to the court as 'new evidence'.

The Supreme Court is merely an overlord checking the legal reasoning is correctly formulated and in line with the legislation. It doesn't concern itself with 'what is true' or 'perhaps the facts found are wrong'.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:15 PM   #3026
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Kokomani also heard it circa 10:30 and another independent witness reports seeing the same things Koko saw (dark car, tow car, breakdown car).

Amanda Knox herself told police she heard a harrowing scream from Mez as 'Patrik' raped and murdered her.

I believe Capezelli.
Please show some decency and stop referring to the victim by a familiar name.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:20 PM   #3027
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Then the Supreme Court has erred, as they do not have the jurisdiction to overturn accepted evidence. If they concluded Quintavalle's testimony had received the wrong legal treatment by the court, it can only ever send it back to the merits court, which does have the jurisdiction to find facts, possibly with a strongly worded direction of what is expected of it, as Chieffi did.

It isn't Marasca-Bruno's place to overturn Quintavalle's testimony.
Please cite your own legal bona fides for saying this. The reason why it's put this way is that the 2013 Chieffi panel made similar changes to "the evidence". The Chieffi panel, for instance, said all the lower courts erred in finding that the motive for the crime was a sex game gone wrong.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:30 PM   #3028
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Originally Posted by TruthCalls View Post
It has nothing to do with the witnesses not being Nobel Prize winners. It's all about the judges being able interpret the testimony and differentiate between credible and non-credible witnesses. When it comes to Curatolo, for Massei and Nencini to deem him credible required judicial juggling of epic proportions.

The basic problem with his testimony was he was adamant the night he saw Amanda and Raffaele was the same night the disco buses were running, people were in costume and people were "...making a bit of a ruckus, it was a holiday." But he was also certain the morning after he saw them he saw the Scientific Police in their white suits at the cottage.

The proper conclusion one can make from this is Curatolo simply forgot there was an additional day between these two events, and as such, Curatolo did not see Amanda and Raffaele the night of the murder.

But that's not an acceptable conclusion if one starts off 'wanting' to believe the witness saw the suspects the night of the murder.

No, what Massei and Nencini do is conclude Curatolo is conflating events of two different evenings - Halloween and the night after that, and that he had to have seen them the night of 1 Nov because Amanda and Raffaele were not together on Halloween.

The proper conclusion one can make from this is Curatolo is misidentifying who he saw - he saw another couple and thought it was Amanda and Raffaele.

But that's not an acceptable conclusion if one starts off 'wanting' to believe the witness saw the suspects the night of the murder.

It's clear when you read the Massei and Nencini MR's that they were hell bent on believing Curatolo witnessed Amanda and Raffaele the night of the murder and it made no difference to them how contradictory his testimony might have been, they would modify and adjust accordingly to make it work. As an example, neither of them gives any credibility to the kiosk operator who contradicted Curatolo's testimony about the morning of 2 Nov.

It's very telling when you take someone like Vixen, who fancies herself to be above average in intelligence, and who is well aware of all of this and yet still concludes Curatolo was a credible witness who reliably places Amanda and Raffaele near the cottage on the evening of 2 Nov. Either it's another case of her confirmation bias owning her or she's not nearly as intelligent as she thinks she is.

I'll thank you not to personalise your comments. I never said anything of the sort.

Curatalo was a man of great integrity. It was his lifestyle choice to take drugs and he dealt them too. However, that was his philosophy, a Christian -Anarchist (a contradiction in terms perhaps). He was an old hippie and a rather sad figure.

He made an effort to be honest and scrupulously accurate in the witness box about what he saw.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:33 PM   #3029
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Originally Posted by Bill Williams View Post
Please cite your own legal bona fides for saying this. The reason why it's put this way is that the 2013 Chieffi panel made similar changes to "the evidence". The Chieffi panel, for instance, said all the lower courts erred in finding that the motive for the crime was a sex game gone wrong.
Chieffi 'sent it back down' to Nencini, with his strongly worded directions, and Nencini duly came up with the 'row over money and poor hygiene' motive.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:39 PM   #3030
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
I'll thank you not to personalise your comments. I never said anything of the sort.

Curatalo was a man of great integrity. It was his lifestyle choice to take drugs and he dealt them too. However, that was his philosophy, a Christian -Anarchist (a contradiction in terms perhaps). He was an old hippie and a rather sad figure.

He made an effort to be honest and scrupulously accurate in the witness box about what he saw.


What a total load of old nonsense.

Curatolo was a shambling mess who, by virtue of his severe mental health problems and his chronic dependency on hard drugs, was fundamentally unreliable as a potential witness.

But over and above that, it appears eminently possible that Curatolo was in thrall to the Perugia police and/or prosecutors, in a deal which seems to have required Curatolo to "help" the authorities in return for their turning a blind eye to his own criminal and antisocial activities. It certainly seems to beggar belief that the police and prosecutors had incontrovertible evidence (including recordings featuring a police stooge) of Curatolo dealing heroin dating back a few years prior to the Kercher murder, yet Curatolo had never to that point even been charged with respect to that evidence. It doesn't take a wild conspiracy theorist to suggest that this was something more than just grotesque failings in police/prosecutor bureaucracy: rather, this was a case of the authorities "having the goods" on Curatolo, and letting him know this, and using that as an.... *ahem*.... "incentive" for Curatolo to be their useful idiot.


The rationalisations and twistings of pro-guilt commentators appear literally to have no end.....
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:49 PM   #3031
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
I'll thank you not to personalise your comments. I never said anything of the sort.

Curatalo was a man of great integrity. It was his lifestyle choice to take drugs and he dealt them too. However, that was his philosophy, a Christian -Anarchist (a contradiction in terms perhaps). He was an old hippie and a rather sad figure.

He made an effort to be honest and scrupulously accurate in the witness box about what he saw.
So? Chieffi weighed in on the evidence.
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Old 19th April 2018, 01:50 PM   #3032
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Then the Supreme Court has erred, as they do not have the jurisdiction to overturn accepted evidence. If they concluded Quintavalle's testimony had received the wrong legal treatment by the court, it can only ever send it back to the merits court, which does have the jurisdiction to find facts, possibly with a strongly worded direction of what is expected of it, as Chieffi did.

It isn't Marasca-Bruno's place to overturn Quintavalle's testimony.

In your yet-another-what-if scenario, again that would have to be remitted back to the court as 'new evidence'.

The Supreme Court is merely an overlord checking the legal reasoning is correctly formulated and in line with the legislation. It doesn't concern itself with 'what is true' or 'perhaps the facts found are wrong'.

Where to start......?

Well firstly, the SC did not "overturn Quintavalle's testimony". Rather, it ruled that when all the evidence in respect to Quintavalle was taken as a whole, no court could lawfully accept Quintavalle's alleged identification of Knox in his shop early on the morning after the murder as serious, credible or reliable. One cannot "overturn testimony", Vixen. One can, however, deem it unreliable and lacking in credibility, according to the rules set down in law.

Next, neither the Quintavalle situation nor my example involves any "new evidence". They both involve nothing more than the correct interpretation of already-existing evidence.

And you STILL have scant idea of how Supreme Courts in Italy (or elsewhere) operate. In Italy, as in England & Wales, the Supreme Court has the ultimate power to entirely annul a case, as well as to remand the case to a lower court for retrial. In the Knox/Sollecito trial process, the SC deemed - correctly - that the whole case against Knox and Sollecito had been so ineptly investigated, prosecuted and tried up to that point that there was in fact never any realistic prospect of any convictions from a lawfully-operating court, and it was precisely on this basis that the SC threw the entire sorry case out on its backside. The police, prosecutors and convicting courts ought to be extremely embarrassed and contrite about their disgraceful work on this case. THAT is what the SC was - belatedly but correctly - remedying.


(Oh but of course I forgot: the SC was nobbled by one, some or all of powerful mafia intimidation, a multi-trillion-dollar US PR effort, and direct threats from the US Government..... )
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Old 19th April 2018, 02:34 PM   #3033
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Originally Posted by LondonJohn View Post
Where to start......?

Well firstly, the SC did not "overturn Quintavalle's testimony". Rather, it ruled that when all the evidence in respect to Quintavalle was taken as a whole, no court could lawfully accept Quintavalle's alleged identification of Knox in his shop early on the morning after the murder as serious, credible or reliable. One cannot "overturn testimony", Vixen. One can, however, deem it unreliable and lacking in credibility, according to the rules set down in law.

Next, neither the Quintavalle situation nor my example involves any "new evidence". They both involve nothing more than the correct interpretation of already-existing evidence.

And you STILL have scant idea of how Supreme Courts in Italy (or elsewhere) operate. In Italy, as in England & Wales, the Supreme Court has the ultimate power to entirely annul a case, as well as to remand the case to a lower court for retrial. In the Knox/Sollecito trial process, the SC deemed - correctly - that the whole case against Knox and Sollecito had been so ineptly investigated, prosecuted and tried up to that point that there was in fact never any realistic prospect of any convictions from a lawfully-operating court, and it was precisely on this basis that the SC threw the entire sorry case out on its backside. The police, prosecutors and convicting courts ought to be extremely embarrassed and contrite about their disgraceful work on this case. THAT is what the SC was - belatedly but correctly - remedying.


(Oh but of course I forgot: the SC was nobbled by one, some or all of powerful mafia intimidation, a multi-trillion-dollar US PR effort, and direct threats from the US Government..... )

It's amusing to read the PIP's bien-pensant soundbites. Quintavalle was and is a credible witness. When he says he saw Knox hovering outside his shop (literally just two minutes away from either Raff or the cottage) at 7:45, I for one, believe him.

As for the Supreme Court, nowhere does it say Knox or Sollecito are innocent, either.

When the gravestone is inscribed on the judicial careers of Hellmann, Bruno and Marasca, the words, 'illegal', 'corrupt', 'defective' and 'perverse' will appear.
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Old 19th April 2018, 02:37 PM   #3034
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
I'll thank you not to personalise your comments. I never said anything of the sort.

Curatalo was a man of great integrity. It was his lifestyle choice to take drugs and he dealt them too. However, that was his philosophy, a Christian -Anarchist (a contradiction in terms perhaps). He was an old hippie and a rather sad figure.

He made an effort to be honest and scrupulously accurate in the witness box about what he saw.
I'm sorry, are you now saying that he was NOT a credible witness?

Please, you didn't know Curatolo any more than you knew Meredith, which is to say you didn't know him at all. So claiming he was a man of great integrity is both disingenuous and laughable.

Even if he was trying to be honest, it doesn't change the fact that his testimony was completely contradictory and therefore unreliable (i.e., useless). And none of this has anything to do with the fact that both courts that you seem to hold in such high esteem erred when they chose to disregard those contradictions.

So once again, is it confirmation bias or lack of intellect that allows you to continue to ignore the irreconcilable contradictions in his testimony and consider him a credible, if not noble witness?
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Old 19th April 2018, 02:37 PM   #3035
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
When the gravestone is inscribed on the judicial careers of Hellmann, Bruno and Marasca, the words, 'illegal', 'corrupt', 'defective' and 'perverse' will appear.
It's illegal to vandalize gravestones with graffiti.
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Old 19th April 2018, 02:48 PM   #3036
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
It's amusing to read the PIP's bien-pensant soundbites. Quintavalle was and is a credible witness. When he says he saw Knox hovering outside his shop (literally just two minutes away from either Raff or the cottage) at 7:45, I for one, believe him.

Ahahaha this is a perfectly fabulous circular-logic fail! "Quintavalle is a credible witness because I personally believe he's a credible witness". AHAHAHAHAHA!

While you're relying on your own subjective intuition to try to prove your own argument, why don't you tell us all again exactly how and why Quintavalle's reliability and credibility ISN'T sunk below the waterline by his having told Volturno - in direct response to being shown photos of Knox and Sollecito (who were also all over the Italian national news by that point) and asked whether he'd seen them in his shop around the time of the murder - that he'd only ever seen them both in his shop together, and not around the time of the murder anyhow.



Quote:
As for the Supreme Court, nowhere does it say Knox or Sollecito are innocent, either.

That's because you still have no idea that it is not the role of courts in a system such as Italy's (and E&W and the US) to pronounce innocence. The sole job of the courts is to determine whether there is proof BARD of guilt. On top of that, law and ethics determine that proof of innocence is never required, and nor should it be required. I really can't be bothered to explain why to you once again, but there are plenty of decent books you can read which should be able to set it all out for you adequately.




Quote:
When the gravestone is inscribed on the judicial careers of Hellmann, Bruno and Marasca, the words, 'illegal', 'corrupt', 'defective' and 'perverse' will appear.

Really? Will Quennell be carving their tombstones then?

And I'm sure the Italian authorities - as well as the European Court of Justice - would be more than willing to hear any credible, reliable evidence you have to support the above accusations, especially the "illegal" and "corrupt" parts. But then you and your pro-guilt clique don't HAVE any credible, reliable evidence to support these wild and extremist accusations, do you....?
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Old 19th April 2018, 04:37 PM   #3037
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
Quintavalle was and is a credible witness. When he says he saw Knox hovering outside his shop (literally just two minutes away from either Raff or the cottage) at 7:45, I for one, believe him.
This isn't an interesting or unique position. 100% of all PGP believe Quintavalle, which is as a whole interesting because 100% of all rational people would find his testimony unreliable. You don't have to take any PIP's word on this. Go up to a reasonable person that doesn't care about this case and explain (all) of the information surrounding Quintavalle and see for yourself.

You PGP are the least introspective people on planet earth though, which is a requirement to maintain PGP status.
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Old 19th April 2018, 05:31 PM   #3038
Stacyhs
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Originally Posted by Vixen View Post
It's amusing to read the PIP's bien-pensant soundbites. Quintavalle was and is a credible witness. When he says he saw Knox hovering outside his shop (literally just two minutes away from either Raff or the cottage) at 7:45, I for one, believe him.As for the Supreme Court, nowhere does it say Knox or Sollecito are innocent, either.

When the gravestone is inscribed on the judicial careers of Hellmann, Bruno and Marasca, the words, 'illegal', 'corrupt', 'defective' and 'perverse' will appear.
Oh, my....
Then why didn't Quintavalle impart this information to Volturno when he was asked about Knox and Sollecito shortly after the murder? Oh, yes...because he wasn't asked exactly "Have you seen this woman in your store buying bleach?" when Quintavalle later claims she went into the cleaning section of his store! If you can't recognize just what a pathetic excuse this is, then you have zero objectivity. But we already knew that.

When certain PGP gravestones are inscribed "Completely Bereft of Common Sense and Logic and Blinded by Confirmation Bias" will appear.

Last edited by Stacyhs; 19th April 2018 at 06:31 PM.
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Old 19th April 2018, 05:34 PM   #3039
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The guilters continually misrepresent the legitimate functions, under Italian procedural law, of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation (CSC) in order to falsely claim that the Marasca CSC panel could not quash the Nencini appeal court's provisional conviction of Knox and Sollecito and pronounce an acquittal.

For example, the guilters maintain: "The Supreme Court is merely an overlord checking the legal reasoning is correctly formulated and in line with the legislation. It doesn't concern itself with 'what is true' or 'perhaps the facts found are wrong'."

However, as has been pointed out in many posts on this forum, Italian law provides that the CSC may examine the interpretation of evidence by a lower court, if that is the subject of an appeal, and is free to interpret the evidence to pronounce a final acquittal. The CSC definitely has the legal authority to declare that a lower court was illogical in its inference or interpretation of evidence and even to declare that evidence heard before a lower court was not admissible under Italian procedural law. It also has the legal authority to annul a judgment - specifically, a conviction - without referral, and to acquit on its own judicial authority.

The relevant procedural laws include CPP (Italian Code of Criminal Procedure) Articles 606, 609, and 620. Here is a translation of relevant sections of those articles.

CPP Article 606 Cases of appeal to the [Supreme] Court of Cassation

1. The appeal to the CSC may be lodged if it is based on [one or more of] the following arguments:

b) failure to comply with or misapplication of criminal law or other legal rules which must be considered in the application of criminal law;

c) failure to comply with the procedural rules established under the penalty of nullity, exclusion of evidence, inadmissibility, expiry;

e) the grounds of the judgment [that is, the inferences or interpretation of evidence] are lacking, contradictory, or manifestly illogical, when the defect results from the text of the appealed decision of from other documents of the proceedings specified in the arguments for the appeal to the CSC.

CPP Article 609 Cognisance of the CSC

1. The appeal to the CSC assigns cognisance [that is, judicial notice] of the proceedings to the CSC, exclusively with regard to the arguments raised.

2. The CSC shall also decide on the issues raised ex officio at any stage and instance of the proceedings and on those issues which could not have been raised at the appeal stage.

CPP Article 620 Annulment without referral

1. In addition to the cases specifically provided for by the law, the CSC shall deliver a judgment of annulment without referral:

a) if the criminal act is not deemed an offense by law, if the offense is extinguished [that is, the statute of limitations has passed] or if prosecution should not have been started or continued;

h) if there is a contradiction between the appealed judgment or order and a previous judgment or order concerning the same person and the same subject, delivered by the same or another criminal judge;

l) in any other case in which the CSC believes the referral is superfluous or [that it] may proceed to the determination of the sentence or take the necessary decisions.

Source: The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure: Critical essays and English translation; ed. M. Gialuz, L. Luparia, F. Scarpa; Wolters Kluwer Italia (C) 2014

Last edited by Numbers; 19th April 2018 at 05:43 PM.
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Old 19th April 2018, 06:34 PM   #3040
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Darn it, Numbers! Like TC, you insist on confusing the issue with facts. Just stop it. You know the PGP break out in a rash when confronted with facts.
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