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Amanda Knox Verdict

Mordac said:
TML fan said:
No, ALL the evidence points to her likely not being in the room or having thrust the knife in herself. THAT'S IT.

What's more likely? A corrupt system tries to throw an innocent girl in jail for NO reason, or a corrupt system trying to use incomplete or faulty evidence to put a guilty woman in jail for murder?

I give up. This is a troll, right? You can't possibly be this dense. You're not a flyers fan.

I know, I was going to write that after his initial post about it that he was just trolling the subject.  Now after you've explained things perfectly, and in detail, and he is still arguing, I'm actually a little concerned if he's not trolling.
 
TML fan said:
Maybe she hated Kercher, hired the guy she buys pot from to rape her, rape went bad so he killed her and she planned the whole thing?

Does that sound so incredibly far fetched?

Maybe if you opened your mind just a little bit, you'd see that there's a whole world of possibilities outside of what you read on the Internet...

So baseless hypothetical situations are believable, but investigative facts aren't? 

 
They dont prove her innocence. They just absolve her of guilt. And they aren't baseless. They are based on questions I've posed that through all this discussion I have not received a rational answer for.
 
TML fan said:
I think you've got CSI syndrome, Bender. You're so focused on the DNA evidence that you won't even consider other possibilities.

The judge in the initial trial ruled that the murder was carried out by multiple attackers (iirc) so where are the other attackers? WHY were the police trying so hard to implicate Knox? Corruption? To what end? Why did Guede implicate her in that letter he wrote in prison? Why did she implicate some random person? Why were her stories inconsistent? Duress? That was never proven. She could easily be lying. Why did they continue prosecuting Knox after they caught Guede? What purpose does that serve?

Just so were clear, I agree with overturning the verdict. There is not enough evidence for a conviction and I believe in that type of system of justice. I think, however, that there is more than enough reason to cast suspicion on her and question the validity of her story.

Edit: it's also entirely possible that she's completely innocent, and that there's no evidence because she simply wasn't there. I just don't buy it. I'm just trying to explain why I think the way I do.

No offense but forensic evidence has cracked open quite a lot of cold cases and has set a lot of people free when they were wrongfully accused. I've never watched CSI and I don't plan to. As far as I can gather it's mostly nonsense. What I used to watch avidly was a discovery channel TV show called Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science, about real murders and police that used forensics to either catch criminals, or acquit people wrongfully accused. So I don't think the basis of criticizing me for getting all "CSI" about this is fair or accurate. I have considered other possibilities and I just find them farfetched and extremely circumstantial. There is no 100% hard evidence against them. If circumstantial evidence can get you imprisoned then there'd be a lot more innocent people in jail than guilty. However, I will try to touch on forensic evidence as little as possible here and focus on other aspects.

I've done quite a bit of research on the case personally and I'm familiar with the Milgaard and Truscott cases. If you read the Milgaard case you'll see people implicating Milgaard as well. Does that mean he did it? I think it's pretty safe to say he's an innocent man who was wrongfully accused. His own friends implicated him because the police threatened his friend that he was going to be considered a suspect as well.

The judge in the initial trial could not have accepted that there were multiple attackers because it would've been case closed. The point of the defense was to show that it was likely a single attacker, not multiple. The prosecution was to convince the jury that the attack was carried out by multiple attackers and that Knox and Sollecito did it. But I think she was classically railroaded: She made a statement that indicted Lumumba under coercion and duress without a lawyer or an interpreter and it was not recorded because she was considered a witness. I think this is a simple due diligence item that the police really should have accounted for. There's no way she would walk in there and state that it was Lumumba on a whim without some kind of coercion. The girl barely spoke a lick of Italian back then and this statement happened before they arrested Guede so the prosecutors were already incensed to make a case against both of them. She recanted her statement against Lumumba the VERY next day! Just one day. I doubt it was a change of heart. In general when people implicate someone they stick with it until it no longer works (Milgaard case for example). She said it was completely wrong and that she was coerced and under duress. An easy parallel is Milgaard's friend, who implicated Milgaard for the murder of Gail Miller. When Lumumba was cleared of all charges she stated she was happy he was let go and that something was going right in the case. Here is a link that explains some of the brutality of an Italian police interrogation: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-01/world/amanda.knox.author_1_giuliano-mignini-amanda-knox-sollecito-s-dna/3?_s=PM:WORLD

Guede is as unreliable as it gets. He stated that he was in Kercher's apartment in the bathroom when she was murdered. Then he took off to Germany. They found his bloody handprints and DNA matching him on the clasp of her bra. He cannot be relied upon for anything other than he stated he was in the room. Guede and Knox barely knew each other and Sollecito did not know him. I have a hard time believing that two scholarly kids would randomly try a sex act with a person such as Guede then kill Kercher for not wanting to join. This sounds like utter fantasy. He stated to Mario Alessi, another convict, that he acted alone. On the stand Guede said he didn't say that.

In my mind it's obvious he wouldn't implicate himself in the crime only. Why would he? He's a criminal and has a record for being a criminal. He pleaded guilty and had a reduced sentence. Doesn't that sound like he was trying to cut his losses? And maybe if he could implicate Knox and Sollecito they would be easier on him ala Karla Homolka.

The onus is on the prosecution to produce a case beyond a shadow of a doubt that Knox and Sollecito are responsible for Kercher's death. I don't think they were incompetent: They went with what they had, and they succeeded until the appeal for a re-examination. Under further scrutiny it was determined that the case against them was too weak to indict them. Classic Milgaard and classic Truscott.

I'm not saying there wasn't reason for suspicion. There are certain things I don't really know about the case and I can see why there would be suspicions against her. But I think the overwhelming body of evidence and the complete lack of evidence thereof against her (other than circumstantial) is reason enough for me to believe she and Sollecito are innocent.

So to recap

Police trying to implicate Knox: Sorry I meant prosecution. However, the police did a poor job handling the case.

Why? Incensed because they jumped the gun on evidence. People wanted blood after the beginning of her character assassination after her first police interrogation.

Who are the other attackers?: None. The whole case rested on 3 vs. 1 attacker. Rudy Guede is the lone attacker.

Why did Guede implicate her?: He's a completely unreliable con who was convicted of Kercher's murder. Flip flops many times, told 100% implausible story as to why he was in Kercher's room. Possibly could get less time for helping to convict Knox and Sollecito.

Why did she implicate some random person? Lumumba was implicated while she was under duress and coercion, without a lawyer or interpreter. She was a witness at the time and therefore the investigation was not recorded. However, I think the onus would be on the police in regards to this. If you're going to make someone sign a confession it should be recorded. This, in my mind, shows a lack of simple due diligence. A parallel can be seen in Milgaard case.

Why are her stories inconsistent? She stuck to her story afterwards. However, there are some issues due to her recollection of the night. There is circumstantial evidence here, but should not mean that she should be indicted or that she killed Kercher, especially in light of the overwhelming evidence against Guede.

Why did they keep prosecuting her: They thought they had a case. They ended up winning the case until the appeal revealed much inconsistencies with the evidence against her.

My question is if they did it why wouldn't they plead guilty with Guede? Guede ended up getting 16 years for expidited trial. Why wouldn't they do the same if the prosecution had a strong case in that they did it? Either the defense knew the prosecution didn't have a good case: Unlikely because the prosecution won the first time and the ran the risk of getting 25 years+ with no appeal! Or they really believed they didn't do it.

And this is all without the hard hitting forensic evidence that implicates Guede.
 
TML fan said:
They dont prove her innocence. They just absolve her of guilt. And they aren't baseless. They are based on questions I've posed that through all this discussion I have not received a rational answer for.

You want me to explain why she didn't hire her pot dealer to revenge rape someone?
 
TML fan said:
They dont prove her innocence. They just absolve her of guilt. And they aren't baseless. They are based on questions I've posed that through all this discussion I have not received a rational answer for.

I think I've answered them multiple times, but for some reason you do not accept my logic or reasoning. It sounds to me that simply you do not agree with my position.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and talk about philosophy for a second: Your reasoning really falls back on the whole "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Your answer would sound something like "How can we know for sure it made a sound? It could've been placed there. If you're not there you can't prove it." But to me the logic would indicate the tree does make a sound. If you can't be there to know for sure there are other things you can look at: Re-create the physics of how it fell, look at the kind of impact it left, what kind of damages surround it and which branches broke, if the roots are consistent with being pulled.

With that analogy I do believe that you can reach some kind of objectivity on the case based on a mountain of evidence. They're not going to get it right every time, but I think they did this time. The only reason Milgaard was absolved of his murder was because they tested semen on Gail Miller and it did not match him. But according to your logic it would not make him innocent, but absolve him of guilt?

Also, apparently the prosecution did not check semen samples as well as a parallel case: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/david-c-anderson-amanda-knox-is-a-victim-of-italian-pride-2185628.html
 
No Manson, I want you to do what Bender just did and intelligently answer my questions and explain why you think its off base to still have suspicions about a person found innocent of her charges, instead of taking it personally and trying to ridicule and discredit someone. It makes you look childish and a bit dim.

Bender,

After Guede was convicted there was no NEED to continue the prosecution even if they thought they had a strong case and they must have known that it would get overturned in an appeal. There was no benefit to putting an innocent girl in jail once they already had the perp behind bars. That leads me to think that there's more to this case than we've been allowed to see.

There were also reports that Knox was quite emotionless during her trial and even during her interrogation. I don't buy the duress excuse. There was never any concrete proof of that as far as I know. She was charged with slander because of that and those charges stuck, so again, not buying it.

I understand your point of view and you explain it well. All I'm saying is, and by your own admission there is enough circumstantial evidence to arouse suspicion, so what's the problem? I think I've adequately explained my point of view and none of the evidence presented clearly and totally proves her innocence.

In response to your Milgaard example, they found evidence that absolved Milgaard of guilt. The semen was not his, so unless Milgaard made it with her corpse, he could not possibly have done it. That was not a lack of evidence, it was contradictory evidence. Just because they only found evidence of one person doesn't mean she wasn't there or that she didn't know about it. Just because you can't prove she's guilty doesn't make her innocent.
 
TML fan said:
No Manson, I want you to do what Bender just did and intelligently answer my questions and explain why you think its off base to still have suspicions about a person found innocent of her charges, instead of taking it personally and trying to ridicule and discredit someone. It makes you look childish and a bit dim.

No, you asked me to answer why she didn't hire her pot dealer to revenge rape someone.

First you posed the question:

TML fan said:
Maybe she hated Kercher, hired the guy she buys pot from to rape her, rape went bad so he killed her and she planned the whole thing?

Then you prompted an answer to the question:

TML fan said:
They are based on questions I've posed that through all this discussion I have not received a rational answer for.

Now you're saying you're not asking for an answer to the question.

And you've called me naive, closed minded, childish, dim and told me told use my brain for the first time in my life, but you're not taking it personally.

Honestly, you've been thoroughly schooled by Bender on the subject, there's nothing more to say.
 
Newbury said:
CarltonTheBear said:
TML fan said:
Are they actually making a movie? I was just joking...

No, no, they aren't making a movie about it. It's already been made:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1783413/

Whoa. Strange, but since the hot chick from Heroes is playing Knox I'll have to check it out somehow.

They are updating it now to include her release from prison.
 
CBS is airing an Amanda Knox Special Saturday night if anyone is looking to learn more about what happened.  Not sure if it's on at 8pm or 10pm.  The CBS website shows 10pm but my TV shows 8pm.

 
She had purportedly written a short story on her social networking website, about a drugged male who rapes a young woman, going by the name of "Foxy Knoxy" as she was known.

How strange that she got intertwined in a sensationalist case of rape, murder, and drugs.  That it happened in Italy, a place long known for it's guilty until proven innocent judicial system, the complete opposite of what we have here, which is innocent until proven guilty.

Obviously, nothing much has changed in Italy, other than to say that even here in Canada, we've had cases of guilty until proven innocent.  The Amanda Knox types of this world ought to be a little more wary of foreign judicial systems -- not all are created equal.

 
Guilty in absentia...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/defiant-amanda-knox-says-she-won-t-willingly-return-to-italy-1.2518234?cmp=rss
 
So apparently she spent four years in prison in Italy...how was she let go? And why was she allowed to leave Italy?
 
Her conviction was overturned by the Italian appeals court. The supreme court then ruled there were errors and inconsistencies in that ruling and ordered a retrial. She was convicted again in the third trial.
 

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