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View Poll Results: Yes or no?
Yes, she's a convicted murderer and should do the time 65 26.10%
No, the US should ignore Italy's request 184 73.90%
Voters: 249. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 02-07-2014, 08:50 PM
 
Location: Pa
20,300 posts, read 22,160,578 times
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We have signed treaties. If we don't honor the treaty we can hardly expect others to honor them when we request it. We should honor the extradition treaty.
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Old 02-07-2014, 09:15 PM
 
1,825 posts, read 1,413,796 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamford View Post
I don't think the 5th Amendment can be used in an extradition case.
Lmao are you serious? The 5th amendment is exactly what would likely form the backbone of any extradition case. That is where something called the Due Process clause (federal) resides and the due process clause is basically where much if not most of the criminal adjudicatory protections reside for federal cases.
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Old 02-07-2014, 09:32 PM
 
1,825 posts, read 1,413,796 times
Reputation: 540
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamford View Post
The ECHR is recognised as being International Law, if the US wishes to sign International Law, that is up to the US, just as it's up to the US whether they wish to continue extraditing people from particular countries, continents or countries that adhere to certain legislation, extradition working both ways.
The ECHR is recognized as international law? Are you serious, because a bunch of European countries agree on something makes it international law. Let me put it this way the world cannot even agree on what basic human rights are. Why does Europe get to dictate human rights to the world?
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Old 02-08-2014, 12:08 AM
 
Location: Metro Phoenix
11,048 posts, read 16,783,195 times
Reputation: 12944
Bamford, this was one of the links you posted a few times...

It's not right to say there is

Quote from that link:

Quote:
First – the bra clasp. The part of the victim’s bra containing the hooks had been ripped or slashed from the rest of her bra. Not immediately collected on that first day after the murder, it remained in the room in a sealed house for six weeks before being sent to the lab in December. There, it was tested and found to contain a large sample of Meredith’s DNA, together with a smaller but clearly visible contribution from Sollecito.

The defence objections: firstly, between the two searches, objects in the crime room had been moved around, and indeed the bra clasp was found about a metre away from its original position. Secondly, apart from ‘alleles’ - genetic traces - of Meredith and Sollecito on the clasp, there were a few unidentifiable extra ones. Putting these two facts together, the defence pointed out that Sollecito’s DNA on the bra clasp could have been a consequence of a careless police technician stepping on Sollecito’s DNA elsewhere in the flat and then entering the room and stepping on the bra clasp, even though no DNA of Sollecito was found anywhere else in the house except on a single cigarette butt in the ashtray.
I know that there are a lot of Italians who are lamenting the portrayal of their police, investigators, and legal system as "third world," "inept," or "corrupt," but this is the exact sort of thing that's making people in the US think this way. Even though this article is sympathetic to the opinion that Amanda Knox is guilty of murder, this is an admittance that the crime scene was carelessly searched.

Forensics departments in the US, and I'm sure also in the UK, are held to very, very exacting standards. Perhaps in Italy, they are normally as thorough; however it's clear that in this case, they were not. A US judge would have most likely ruled that DNA evidence from the scene would have been inadmissable because of the high level of cross-contamination and careless handling of evidence there. If Italy pushes ahead with extradition, Amanda Knox's legal team with no doubt fight it. In fighting it, they will no doubt make the argument that the investigation was not up to US standards.

I'd like to reiterate two things I've said before:

1) at this point, the court case has become something that is purely political and it's almost exclusively fragmented upon national lines.

2) now that Amanda Knox is on US soil, any extradition will be contingent on whether the investigation and trial would have been admissible in the US. From here, you have a few things working against the extradition:

- Media leaks from the prosecution team that most likely would have resulted in disciplinary action, dismissal, and a mistrial in the US
- Substandard forensics investigation
- Substandard methodology for obtaining DNA evidence
- Inadmissable interrogation methods that would have been illegal in the US
- A legal system that does not allow for prosecution to file for an appeal after an acquittal

Dershowitz and Ku can certainly weigh in on it, and they are legal experts no doubt, but I'd like to see all of these things get through an extradition court.

Quote:
Second – the mixed stain. Although not visible to the naked eye, the chemical Luminol which flashes blue on contact with blood revealed a spot in the room of the flatmate whose window had been smashed and room rifled. Swabbing the spot produced a mixture of Amanda and Meredith’s DNA. This is a clear proof that the murderer entered that bedroom after the murder, as someone must have brought Meredith’s blood into the room, contradicting the defence theory that Rudy Guede broke into the house and then committed the murder. The usual defence explanation for mixed DNA stains in the bathroom and corridor, namely that the house would have been coated in Amanda’s DNA given that she lived there, does not necessarily apply to a flatmate’s bedroom. It is much harder to leave traces of DNA than is commonly conceived, and hardly any of Amanda's DNA was found in her own room - where she surely spent a lot more time than in her flatmate's.
That's simply conjecture on the part of the author of the article. I have flatmates right now since I've moved to China, and have walked into their rooms in socks or barefoot multiple times to retrieve something, or because one of them wants to show me something on Youtube or something. I've sneezed, I've rubbed my scalp, I've stepped all over the place after coming in from a workout when my feet are sweaty and gross, we played musical chairs with rooms for the first two weeks while roommates cycled in and out... my DNA is all over this apartment. All the same that it "doesn't necessarily apply to a flatmate's bedroom," you can say "it certainly may apply to a flatemate's bedroom." In this case, the author can't speak in absolutes because this is speculation on her part.

As far as "hardly any of Amanda's DNA being found in her own room," well, considering what an asinine mess the crime scene investigation was and that the forensic expert who eventually found a snippet of DNA on a kitchen knife after failing to do so twice previously and being told by the prosecution team that there had to be some of her DNA on it and sending it back, I don't think it's a stretch to offer the counter to this argument that the prosecution team has no incentive in pushing their goals to speak at all of the amounts of DNA in Knox's bedroom.

Moreover, considering that their portrayal of Knox is that she was a sex-crazed nymphomaniac, I find it difficult to believe that there would be none of her DNA in her own room...

Quote:
Lastly – the knife. Days after the murder, a large kitchen knife was seized in Raffaele’s flat, where Meredith had never set foot. Police geneticist, Patrizia Stefanoni, swabbed spots on the blade of the knife and on the handle in the knife’s first DNA Test. One spot in particular attracted her attention: a visible scratch on the flat of the blade. The swab taken from this scratch yielded a positive ID for Meredith Kercher. By the third trial, when a new attempt was made to collect DNA from the knife (which had been swabbed again during the appeal trial, though no tests were then conducted) there was no match to Meredith – a result welcomed by Knox's defence team, though it did not in fact impact on the findings of the first trial.

Stefanoni’s test – she only conducted the first - came under strong fire in the courtroom. Two independent expert witnesses called in for the appeal against Knox and Sollecito’s original 2009 conviction stated that she had not worked in conformity with standard international protocol. Indeed, standard protocol for DNA testing involves three steps: first determining how much DNA is in a sample, secondly amplification, which reproduces the sample millions of times, and thirdly electrophoresis which produces the familiar DNA graphs showing peaks in the location of an individual’s alleles. Under cross-examination, Stefanoni explained that quantification had given a result of “too low” as the machine she used that day was not the most sensitive one in the lab.

Knowing that samples undetectable by the machine can still be sufficient to yield positive results, she chose to continue with testing. At the second stage of testing, amplification, a sample will normally be split into two or more pieces in order to run independent tests. But knowing that the sample was small, Stefanoni feared that cutting it in two would yield no result at all, and chose to amplify the entire sample in one unrepeatable test.
So, right here, we have an admittance that protocol was not followed and thus the methodology and quality of the testing was not up to par. However, for whatever reason, despite knowingly admitting this, the author ends what is more or less a description of how to not conduct a DNA test with the following:

Quote:
The end result was a perfect match to Meredith Kercher.
YES! VICTORY! FINALLY!!

...

???

Quote:
Knox’s supporters have claimed since the beginning that the accusations levied against her are based on the Italian justice system’s hatred of a pretty, American girl who likes parties and having sex. And whilst both parties protest their innocence, Thursday’s decision shows that there is real evidence against her and Sollecito, that cannot be ignored.
x 10

I just dissected or countered Ms. Schnep's arguments while mildly hungover, from my perch in a bedroom in China... how do you think any of these arguments would fair in a courtroom when dissected by legal professionals, forensics investigators, and scientists? None of this "evidence" is really evidence - actually, no it is evidence in that it was stuff taken from the scene of a crime or in the possession of someone accused of the crime. The only problem is that so much of it was contaminated, circumstantial, obtained using improper methods, or the conclusion on its validity to the case was reached using gross extrapolation and conjecture. There may be compelling evidence against Knox, but this article doesn't speak of it.
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Old 02-08-2014, 12:39 AM
 
Location: Metro Phoenix
11,048 posts, read 16,783,195 times
Reputation: 12944
And again, this has become totally political. Here is a quote from someone who posted on an article on the Knox/Kercher case on the Mirror:

Quote:
you sound surprised about anti American feeling, you shouldn't be , what you call the war of independence we call treason against the crown , then America invaded and tried to annex Canada , next america joined two world wars late kept Britain in poverty through a little thing called lend lease , after which America politically wrangled the uk into several Middle East wars not mention the friendly fire casualties suffered in these. Why would you be surprised by anti American feeling.
This comment is the most popular on the thread.

This is the comment that the above was a response to, which had twice as many downvotes as the above has upvotes:

Quote:
The analog would be the UK returning one of its own to serve a conviction handed down in Africa, Central or South America. Italian "justice"? They botched the crime scene in such a way that any prosecution would have been thrown out of a WASP or northwestern European country. Guilty, not guilty, guilty again after releasing the defendant. Double jeopardy alone would be sufficient to void this farcical conviction. Two university exchange students are likely scapegoats for this incompetent and politically motivated criminal justice system? What perverse motivation wants innocent blood to pay for a tragedy? Let's grab any available Brit and "convict" her for every unsolved murder and botched investigation and see how that flies.
Like I said, this has largely split upon lines of nationalism, and from comments here and elsewhere on the internet, I see a very obvious trend:

- the US has done some really bad and stupid stuff
- a British girl died
- there was an American girl who may or may not have been involved
- we demand that she be punished harshly for America's misdeeds and failures

If it was an American girl who died and it was a British girl who was fingered for it, I wonder how the British response to the trial would be? It seems that frustration with American foreign policy is more at work in the presumption of guilt against Knox than the actual investigation and trial are, because they wouldn't have stood up to scrutiny in the US or Britain.

I think it's quite sad that this is the case, and that now it will be purely political. Nationalism is the province of the stupid and proud, who don't have enough experience or achievements of their own on which to stand. I don't find Amanda Knox to be a particularly virtuous or sympathetic character to begin with; she's a rich little suburbanite who was partying and letting loose under the pretense of studying abroad. When I was the age that she was when this all went down, I was selling cars in LA... I come from a poor family and have never known that sort of freedom, but I've known people who think that their ability to go drug their way through a foreign country and obtain a couple degrees make them a better person than I am. I don't find her attractive, personally; blonde-haired and blue-eyed aren't my thing. Hell, I'm from Washington State originally, like her, but I can't stand it there because most of the people I met in the Seattle area are smug dullards. I seriously feel no affinity towards her whatsoever, but from everything I've read of the investigation onwards, it doesn't meet the burden of proof that I've come to view as acceptable. Moreover, even if she was guilty, I don't see how an American extradition court could allow her to be sent back while also adhering to her constitutional rights.

It's quite sad to me that there are people who are more or less openly crying for a pound of flesh for the glory of their nation for totally-unrelated past misdeeds, and yet somehow think that this is an evolved point of view to have.
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Old 02-08-2014, 12:59 AM
 
Location: Somewhere below Mason/Dixon
9,443 posts, read 10,730,920 times
Reputation: 15912
Quote:
Originally Posted by calipoppy View Post
The only reason that Amanda Knox has any sympathy is because "certain types" see her as a pretty(?) white girl who can do no wrong.

She committed murder. She was found guilty...twice. She needs to be extradited. She needs to serve her sentence.


This is not why I support her. First I think there is a lot of "reasonable doubt", and yes I know that is our system not theirs, but still she looks like she really could be innocent. Also as an American I see her as a fellow citizen who has been violated by a foreign power, and I believe its the duty of our government to protect her. The treaty???? I really don't care, they can protest if they want. She was only convicted over there because of rampant anti-Americanism and I really don't care what they think. I don't take their kangaroo court seriously. Even if the consequences of standing up for our citizen included the end of our alliance with Italy I am ok with that. What kind of ally does this to our people who are in their nation? We don't need those kind of allies. Nothing makes me angrier than seeing our people abused overseas, at least Amanda is safely here in the good ole USA, we also need to think of our people rotting in North Korea and Iran. Those cases should involve military action, again we should never tolerate our people being abused by foreign powers.
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Old 02-08-2014, 05:13 AM
 
Location: Great Britain
2,737 posts, read 3,152,563 times
Reputation: 1450
It should be noted that this whole case doesn't hinge on DNA as there was ample time to dispose of items, clean the scene using bleach and even stage a false break in, to try and make it look like a burglary that had gone wrong.

Although the fact remains that Knox's DNA was present and there were mixed blood traces as well as DNA her boyfriends DNA, however the most compelling evidence is Konx's own contradictions, the witnesses which dispute her account, the break in, the shopkeeper and the potential bleach and cleaning products used to try to destroy forensic evidence and numerous other such evidence.

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Guardian

Few crimes in recent years have captured the imagination quite so much as the murder in Perugia of Meredith Kercher. The beauty and kindness of the victim, the fresh faces of her alleged assassins, and their passion for sex and drugs, all set against the backdrop of one of Italy's most stunning cities, made this a story that was as captivating as it was tragic. Now that both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito have been acquitted of Kercher's murder, the story becomes in some ways even more fascinating, as no one knows quite what to believe any more. Many people remain convinced that the two are guilty.

John Follain is the Rome correspondent for the Sunday Times and has been following the case since it began. His book is a neutral retelling of events, from the British student's murder on the night of 1 November 2007 to that acquittal a few weeks ago on 3 October. Death in Perugia is not a first-person narrative, nor one that expresses an authorial opinion on the guilt or otherwise of those on trial. Perhaps because of this objectivity, it's a gripping read: a balanced, detailed account that allows the reader to respond to the central question: did they or didn't they?

It was immediately clear to detectives who attended the crime scene that a burglary had been faked. Windows had been smashed, but they were too high for a burglar and the broken glass was on top of, rather than underneath, the flat's ransacked contents. No burglar, detectives thought, would have locked Kercher's room. The flat's front door hadn't been forced. It looked as if someone on the inside had been involved in the murder, or had at least let in the murderer.

Attention turned to Kercher's American flatmate for many reasons: Amanda Knox had a scratch on her neck, and her behaviour as detectives watched her was bizarre in the extreme – constantly kissing and laughing with her Italian boyfriend, doing yoga in the police station, and snapping at one of Kercher's friends, who had expressed the hope that Meredith didn't suffer, with the retort: "She f*cking bled to death." (which she should not have known sat the time)

As investigators looked more closely at Knox, she emerged as a narcissistic attention-seeker who was sexually adventurous but also jealous of Meredith Kercher's cheerful contentment. Knox knew, it seemed, no boundaries, leaving a vibrator in a transparent washbag and enjoying one-night stands. Detectives thought she was both sly and naive.

These character traits, however, were as nothing compared with the contradictions she got caught up in. At first she said she was there that fateful night; then that she wasn't. Pages of her diary were ripped out. Her phone, always on, had been switched off early that evening. She had used drugs. Most incredible of all, Knox claimed to have entered the flat the following morning, having found the front door open and blood in the bathroom, and rather than running outside and calling the police had gone straight ahead and had a shower without a second thought.

Her DNA was found on the handle of a knife that also had Kercher's DNA on its blade. That knife came from the kitchen of Knox's boyfriend, Sollecito. He, it emerged, was a habitual drug-user who liked knives and hardcore porn. His DNA was found on Kercher's bra clasp. He had lied about when he had used his computer, about the time of certain phone calls, and also about the time he'd eaten dinner.

A third man emerged as a suspect. Rudy Guede alleged that he had merely been making out with Meredith and was in the bathroom when he heard her screams from the other room. He tried, he said, to save her. Prosecutors didn't believe his story, especially when DNA evidence indicated a sexual encounter with Kercher – with, detectives thought, Knox and Sollecito involved as coercers. Various eyewitnesses came forward to place Guede, Knox and Sollecito at the scene of the crime, and the fact that the young lovers had bought bleach the following morning suggested they were trying to cover their tracks.

The evidence appeared overwhelming and all three were convicted. But earlier this month, Sollecito and Knox were acquitted. The lead prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, had told the jury "you can't make a black boy pay for everyone", but that is how it now stands: only Guede, raised in Perugia, born in Ivory Coast, remains in prison. Doubts had been raised about the DNA evidence: the bra clasp had been found 46 days after the initial police search and contamination seemed a possibility. Witnesses were shown to be confused. Knox stopped laughing and clowning around in court. The prosecutor himself was described as a sex-obsessed conspiracy theorist. Now, as the prosecution appeal to overturn the acquittal, there will probably be another trial.

We will, of course, never really know what happened. Many remain convinced of Knox's guilt. "To my family," Meredith Kercher's father once said, "she is, unequivocally, culpable." One investigator said: "she's certainly not the first convict who claims she's innocent... My guess is that Amanda has convinced herself that she is." A prosecuting lawyer called her "a sorceress of deceit". Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese barman whom Knox falsely accused of the murder, said she was "the world's best actress".

Death in Perugia: The Definitive Account of the Meredith Kercher Case by John Follain

The Evidence - The Murder of Meredith Kercher

Last edited by Bamford; 02-08-2014 at 06:16 AM..
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Old 02-08-2014, 05:27 AM
 
Location: Great Britain
2,737 posts, read 3,152,563 times
Reputation: 1450
Quote:
The analog would be the UK returning one of its own to serve a conviction handed down in Africa, Central or South America. Italian "justice"? They botched the crime scene in such a way that any prosecution would have been thrown out of a WASP or northwestern European country. Guilty, not guilty, guilty again after releasing the defendant. Double jeopardy alone would be sufficient to void this farcical conviction. Two university exchange students are likely scapegoats for this incompetent and politically motivated criminal justice system? What perverse motivation wants innocent blood to pay for a tragedy? Let's grab any available Brit and "convict" her for every unsolved murder and botched investigation and see how that flies.
Italy is a first world country, and not a third world country, and to compare it to the countries suggested there is beyond stupidity.
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Old 02-08-2014, 05:28 AM
 
Location: Great Britain
2,737 posts, read 3,152,563 times
Reputation: 1450
Quote:
Originally Posted by Egbert View Post
The ECHR is recognized as international law? Are you serious, because a bunch of European countries agree on something makes it international law. Let me put it this way the world cannot even agree on what basic human rights are. Why does Europe get to dictate human rights to the world?
It's International Law because it involves a number of countries signing a legal document, in the same way the Geneva Convention is International Law.
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Old 02-08-2014, 05:34 AM
 
Location: Great Britain
2,737 posts, read 3,152,563 times
Reputation: 1450
In terms of Konx's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito an habitual drug-user who liked knives/swords and hardcore pornography, and who likes to post pics of himself at Nazi Concentration camps. I should also imagine he would be quite a handy person to have around following a murder, in fact here he is pictured shortly before Meredith's murder, wearing protective clothing with a bottle of bleach and a meat clever.

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Telegraph



But police checks on his background revealed a darker side to Sollecito, who had a lifelong obsession with knives and swords, which he collected, and always carried a flick-knife in his pocket.

He described himself on an internet blog as someone who liked to try "risky things" and was sometimes "totally crazy", and he was a collector of Japanese manga comics, known for their extreme violence and rape fantasies.

Sollecito also appeared to have a taste for the macabre – he had visited the site of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau in Germany and posted photographs on the internet of himself posing as a cross between a mummy and a mad doctor, with a meat cleaver in one hand and a bottle of bleach in the other.

Meredith Kercher trial: Raffaele Sollecito profile - Telegraph

Murdered Meredith: Flatmate's 'crazy' boyfriend poses with a meat cleaver and bleach | Mail Online

Last edited by Bamford; 02-08-2014 at 06:05 AM..
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