Amanda Knox as ‘Femme Fatale’
No sooner did an Italian court overturn the Amanda Knox conviction than pundits zeroed in on the really interesting psychological aspect of the case. As the Vancouver Sun put it: was she a “‘She-Devil’ or ‘Innocent Abroad’?” That’s what the public really wanted to know.
The trial was at least as much about how men perceive women than about Knox’s factual guilt or innocence. It was the inevitable outcome of a circumstance: Knox was a looker. And while that physical particular hardly seems relevant to the case, it set in train a whole sequence of psychological shifts; natural perhaps since it may be impossible for men — be they prosecutors or simply spectators watching from afar — to be neutral in the presence of feminine beauty. Even though there’s no good reason for it — and there never was — a sufficiently attractive woman almost always distorts the atmosphere in a roomful of men, and even a moderately attractive lady can produce a severe gravitational effect.
The males of the human species are an imaginative lot. And many can’t help but see an attractive woman who gains their attention except as a character in his own play. An instant tableau can spring up in the mind in which the lady is either one thing or another. That seems to have been the case with Amanda Knox:
Prosecutors depicted her as lascivious and slovenly — a drug-using party goer who regularly brought strange men back to her room. … Knox’s family have presented a completely different picture of a loving, sporty girl who spoke proudly to her mother of her friendship with Kercher.
…
The British Daily Mail newspaper quoted a guest at Knox’s going away party saying that it was a scene of debauchery, “with drinks, drugs and bodies everywhere. … Everyone just wanted to get drunk, get high and get laid.”
Friends of Amanda Knox groups sprang up in her hometown and on the internet, with messages of support deploring the “warped image” created in the press.
A more homely woman would never have engendered such scenarios. You can’t get Roseanne Barr to play either of the roles mentioned above in the imagination. But a beautiful woman can play either role if she wants. The French have a phrase to describe a woman who can project an image so strongly in men’s minds that they hypnotize themselves into believing that image is real: that phrase is femme fatale. “Her ability to entrance and hypnotize her victim with a spell was in the earliest stories seen as being literally supernatural; hence, the femme fatale today is still often described as having a power akin to an enchantress, vampire, witch, or demon.”
None of those powers inhere in femme fatale herself, their result is entirely the result of being able to make men give orders to themselves. Raymond Chandler’s novels are full of such characters, luring detectives in to alleys, getting brawny but besotted men to take the fall. But probably the most famous literary archetype is Alexandre Dumas’ Milady de Winter. Dumas’ Milady consciously calculates her words to produce the desired psychological effect. She can steal secrets, deceive people into committing murder, or even turn a man against the tenets of his faith. Who can forget how Milady demolished John Felton, Puritan:
In Dumas’s novel, Felton is a young soldier under Lord de Winter’s command who is entrusted to guard the fictional Milady de Winter. Milady’s master, Cardinal Richelieu, has ordered her to murder Buckingham so that he will not aid the Huguenot cause in the Protestant city of La Rochelle. As they question each other she puts on a façade of sorrow and broken innocence, even pretending to be a Puritan like Felton, and making up stories and anecdotes that demonise the duke. Milady manages to seduce Felton in a matter of days. They finally escape together and Felton is sent to stab the duke, which he still justifies on the grounds of his lack of promotion. Felton realizes that he has been deceived when Milady sails away without him and he is left to be hanged for his crime.
Felton was played in the 1973 Richard Lester production of Three Musketeers by Michael Gothard. The atmosphere of his gradual destruction at the hands of Milady de Winter can be gathered from Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack. He didn’t have a chance. When the actress playing Milady is Faye Dunaway, would you? Buckingham should have employed another Puritan, by the name of Solomon Kane, to guard Milady de Winter. He might have had better luck.
One lady I know offered the view that the femme fatale was a totally self-generated male creation. “The self-destructive acts are not orchestrated by women of some preternatural cunning. Most femme fatales do nothing. All the work is done by the men themselves. Femme fatales are only ordinary women who’ve accidentally found the right combination of buttons to push to make men do what they want. It is the fantasy of men that does the rest.” Her explanation made me uneasy because I had heard the same argument offered, in a political context, to explain the 2008 presidential elections. But in that view, we will never know any more about Amanda Knox than we will ever know about Barack Obama. Maybe neither actually exists as we think they do, except in our imaginations.
And yet — who would be a Musketeer without encountering at least one femme fatale in youth? Would such a youth be worth living? At the end of the novel, when Athos by the feudal power of justice invested in him in his position as the Comte de la Fère condemns Milady de Winter to death, our heart leaps at the prospect that D’Artagnan will rescue her:
Oh, I cannot behold this frightful spectacle!” said he. “I cannot consent that this woman should die thus!”
Milady heard these few words and caught at a shadow of hope.
“d’Artagnan, d’Artagnan!” cried she; “remember that I loved you!”
The young man rose and took a step toward her.
But Athos rose likewise, drew his sword, and placed himself in the way.
“If you take one step farther, d’Artagnan,” said he, “we shall cross swords together.”
Even the price of breaking the Brotherhood, even at the cost of setting free the woman who killed his own mistress, even at setting aside the vow of “all for one and one for all” — nothing seems too much to pay for Milady’s escape. I know it is with everlasting fictional regret that I read of her end by the banks of that accursed river.
But perhaps that is fantasy also; maybe it is women as we imagine them, and not as they are, that men hate and love so. If so Amanda Knox will remain a mystery. She has been acquitted, and while that is not quite the same thing as saying she was innocent or guilty, that is all that we can know and perhaps all that we will ever know.
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Having read Ann Coulter’s incisive analysis of the court records, I have to go for guilty; but then Foxy Knoxy has no sway over me.
It’s my understanding that Knox’s DNA wasn’t present at the crime scene. The black dude they arrested and extradited for the crime, however, had DNA all over the scene. His fingerprint in the victim’s blood was found on the wall. His semen was in her vagina. That’s pretty damning evidence.
So she had a few parties. Getting high or getting drunk isn’t a prerequisite for murder. I got high on weed nearly every day twenty plus years ago and never pondered killing someone. Not even for a second.
I really think this whole thing was a way for an anti-American contingent in Italy to get back at George Bush America.
@ Dack Thrombosis
The anti-American angle is the best lead, but this same prosecutor botched a case a few years ago with the same Satanist ritual claims. Could be a case of Salem translated to Catholic Italy (I’m sure the unmarried sex really harshed his rosary).
Your evidentiary analysis comports with what’s out there.
The Gaurdian relates that the prosecutor in the case has been in hot water rail roading people in the past. so maybe this is not the Fay Dunaway scenario.
Who is she, this woman
Whose eyes and dark locks
Can seize a man’s senses
With passion that mocks
The nature of reason
Of good common sense
With fantasy’s flaming
Scenes in present tense
They say that she knows not
Her fatal effects
She smiles for she knows
That it’s all in her sex
A smile at a man
A quick certain glance
Will make him a child
Who longs for the dance
Having read Ann Coulter’s incisive analysis of the court records, I have to go for guilty
Coulter has been irresponsible on this story. She said on O’Reilly a while back that liberals supported her because they like freeing guilty people but condemning innocents. Sometimes that may be the case as when the accused or victim is politically incorrect – eg white lacrosse players v poor black stripper – but in the Amanda Knox case it is clear she did not get treated fairly. By writing an article called “AMANDA KNOX: THE NEW MUMIA!” Coulter is making the cop killer’s supporters look better than they deserve while reinforcing the MSM’s portrayal of conservatives as closed-minded and blind to the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct. Now that even Italian jurors, despite the reportedly anti-Knox sentiment in the country, have agreed that she should be acquitted Coulter looks like a liberal caricature.
The author of “The Red Mandarin Dress” as one of the subtexts in the novel,comments on the dual standard regarding the “Fem Fatale” in Chinese literature and history. The upright man strays with a woman of the wrong station, commits all sort of infractions to be with her, ruins or nearly ruins himself, then blames the woman.
I haven’t seen a photograph of the prosecutor but I suspect he couldn’t get laid in house of ill repute.
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mandarin-Dress-Inspector-Novels/dp/031237107
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/my-thoughts-on-amanda-knox.php
I smell an anti-American bias in with everything else also.
That extra genetic material (xx chromosomes) in women surely has created a mystery to puzzle and beguile us men.
“She passes below my window, smiling as if at some private satisfaction, softly fanning her cheeks with the little reed fan. It is a smile which I shall probably never see again for in company she only laughs, showing those magnificent white teeth. But this sad yet quick smile is full of quality which one does not think she owns – the power of mischief.” Lawrence Durrell in ‘Justine’ one book of four (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea) in ‘The Alexandria Quartet” published 1951-1960
Who knows what the truth is in the saga of Amanda Knox? Some people’s lives are made up of selected fictions. Maybe time will separate truth from fiction here.
Excellent Power Line post by John Hinderaker on the case, here:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/my-thoughts-on-amanda-knox.php
Reading this summary of the evidence, I’m convinced it was anti-American (we trashy wenches!) animus that motivated the prosecution.
Whether she’s innocent or not she falsely accused a black barkeep to save her own skin. He was just a convenient target.
This man could have been thrown in jail forever if her word had carried weight.
For a modern take on the Femme Fatal archetype, I recommend Gong Li’s character “Isabell” in Miami Vice.
A prosecutor has to tell a story to public. But the kinds of stories the Italian prosecutor could tell — and perhaps he wanted to spin a sensational yarn — were limited by the raw material. Had the Knox looked like something the dog dug up, the prosecutor might have been hard pressed to tell a lurid tale of sex games and manipulation. It just wouldn’t work.
But throw in a babe and all of a sudden the possibilities expand. The entertainment industry already aired the Amanda Knox story starring “Hayden Panettiere as Amanda Knox, Paolo Romio as Raffaele Sollecito, Djibril Kébé as Rudy Guede and Amanda Fernando Stevens as Meredith Kercher”, something which would have been less viable had the story lacked “glamor” elements.
People will remember the Titanic disaster long after they’ve forgotten the much more tragic Dona Paz disaster. The Night to Remember had all the right cinematic elements: beautiful people, gorgeous ship, good speaking parts whereas the Dona Paz was just a bunch of poor people being fried alive.
The scenes with Felton were actually in the movie, “The Four Musketeers”, sequel to “The Three Musketeers”. Both were scripted by the late, great author of “Flashman”, George McDonald Fraser.
I believe the two movies were actually scripted as one, two part story.
Fraser tried to be as faithful as possible to Dumas. Besides Faye Dunaway, the memorable cast of these classic movies included Charlton Heston, Oliver Reed, Michael York, Simon Ward, and Christopher Lee.
Wretchard said: “Her explanation made me uneasy because I had heard the same argument offered, in a political context, to explain the 2008 Presidential elections. But in that view, we will never know any more about Amanda Knox than we will ever know about Barack Obama. Maybe neither actually exists as we think they do, except in our imagination.”
Yes. When is it unconscious projection and when is it deliberate manipulation of that proclivity? Is there a perspective from which you can know the truth?
Despite everything, the femme fatale grows old and withered also. Except in the mind of her victims.
When your number’s up, experts say … take one step forward, leading with …
…-
“A formula for justice”
“Bayes’ theorem is a mathematical equation used in court cases to analyse statistical evidence. But a judge has ruled it can no longer be used. Will it result in more miscarriages of justice?”
“It’s not often that the quiet world of mathematics is rocked by a murder case. But last summer saw a trial that sent academics into a tailspin, and has since swollen into a fevered clash between science and the law.
At its heart, this is a story about chance. And it begins with a convicted killer, “T”, who took his case to the court of appeal in 2010. Among the evidence against him was a shoeprint from a pair of Nike trainers, which seemed to match a pair found at his home. While appeals often unmask shaky evidence, this was different. This time, a mathematical formula was thrown out of court. The footwear expert made what the judge believed were poor calculations about the likelihood of the match, compounded by a bad explanation of how he reached his opinion. The conviction was quashed.
But more importantly, as far as mathematicians are concerned, the judge also ruled against using similar statistical analysis in the courts in future. It’s not the first time that judges have shown hostility to using formulae. But the real worry, say forensic experts, is that the ruling could lead to miscarriages of justice.
“The impact will be quite shattering,” says Professor Norman Fenton, a mathematician at Queen Mary, University of London. In the last four years he has been an expert witness in six cases, including the 2007 trial of Levi Bellfield for the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange. He claims that the decision in the shoeprint case threatens to damage trials now coming to court because experts like him can no longer use the maths they need.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/oct/02/formula-justice-bayes-theorem-miscarriage
Is there no Truth in Beauty?
There are three ways to respond to the impact that the male libido has on a society.
1. The Matriarchal in which female achievement is exalted so as to demystify them.
2. The Bacchanal in which sexual energy is dissipated to every conceivable object.
3. The Repressive in which women are restricted so as to prevent the corruption of men.
All three have resulted in functioning and productive societies. For example modern Jewish culture has elements of Matriarchy. The Romans managed to conquer and hold a great empire for hundreds of years while shagging everything in sight. The Protestant English outdid the Romans in every field of conquest science or art.
Some ideologies have shifted from one sexual perspective to another. The early Socialists were criticized for their scandalous belief in Free Love. Lenin rejected Rosa Luxemburg and disciplined the new Soviet state partly through sexual repression or perhaps reassured the conservative majority of the masses that the Communists were in this matter not as corrupt as the libertine aristocrats. Supposed sexual corruption is always a charge that can be laid against a ruling class to delegitimize it. That is what happened to the Peisistratids in Athens and the Julio-Claudians in Rome.
The logical dead end of the denial and repression of women is Islam. This has proven incapable of directing human energy into creative productivity and invention, except in the narrow sphere of physical conquest. Unlike other publicly patriarchal cultures such as the early Jewish or Protestant it has proven incapable of reform and liberalization.
When you look in the dictionary at femme fatal, next to Mata Hari there’s a picture of Kathleen. None of you knew her. Well, maybe you did. It was back when lots of flight attendants (stews) looked like Faye did in her earlier films.
“experts like him can no longer use the maths they need.”
Only it’s NOT math, it’s statistics.
2+2=4 is math.
2+2=4 + or -1 is statistics. Statistics is the study of probability. It was originally called Probability theory when it was invented mid 19th century. It uses math but it is not math.
Amanda Knox is good looking? Huh… could’ve fooled me. :-S
Don’t compare Obama to a woman. He’s got a beard coming!
#1 Joan – “Having read Ann Coulter’s incisive analysis of the court records, I have to go for guilty; but then Foxy Knoxy has no sway over me.”
Ahhh, but just as the femme fatale may be the product of the male psyche, how might its counterpart reflect itself in a Foxy Coulter woman? What is it they say, the greatest threat to a woman is one more beautiful than she? Perhaps Ms. Coulter’s incisive legal analyses are driven by something more than Ms. Coulter’s objectivity?
A beautiful woman can drive everyone crazy!
The question that arises naturally in all of these cases is : If she did not do it, who did? This applies to Knox, Casey Anthony, and O.J. Simpson, among others.
Strange that following their acquittal that there was no new search for the guilty, although O.J. vowed to find the killer himself, the authorities made not one move. And in the recent execution in Georgia, none of the convicted’s supporters ever suggested who else might have committed the murder.
But in O.J.’s case he was not found to be guilty of a double murder but was found to be liable for the death of Ronald Goldman in a civil lawsuit. I still recall the shocked looks on the faces of some black people when they found out. Casey Anthony recently was found to be liable for some of the costs of searching for her daughter on the basis that she knew where the body was and so such searches were unnecessary.
About 15 years ago a man lost a paternity lawsuit and was told he must pay support of an illegitimate child he supposedly had fathered. 5 years later DNA testing proved that he was not the father. He went back to court and the court ruled that it had already ruled in the matter, and the test results notwithstanding, somebody had to pay for the kid and he was the officially designated sucker. I would not have been surprised if the mother had then used the test results to deny visitation rights.
Not Guilty. But Liable.
Reminds me of one of my favorite Frank and Earnest cartoons: “We the jury find the defendant not guilty but probably worth locking up anyway.”
The law is comfortable with such officially developed, formally approved, huge contradictions. And that is one of the hardest things to grasp. We don’t have justice but we do have financial liability.
In engineering I have seen people tackle correcting a serious design error without ever admitting it was ever even an error, but they nonetheless went out and fixed it. “This was done correctly from the beginning but now airplanes are blowing up so we have to go fix what was never wrong.” I thought that remarkable, but the law is unconstrained by the physical world and can produce far greater wonders.
“A femme fatale, is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations.”
Yes, dangerous these seductive little minxes. Given in to their charms one may be compelled to marry one, get a job, buy a house and raise children.
There is in males a gene that transfixes its interest in women with an irrational desire to ‘be’ with. The female soul fits within the males long after the raging hormones subside and a satisfaction of existence sets in that cannot be broken … provided two individuals can cope in a harmonious way with abject boredom. Here culture has raised the stakes of expectation.
Given the femme fatale’s male counterpart is as likely to manipulate for the sake of sex and spreading his seed, he is more independent in his blood lust should he be motivated by such things, but not always. Women are always more likely to seek the assassin. I believe that the femme fatale is merely the female equivalent of the alpha male, both with a hint of a sociopath.
I haven’t followed the Amanda Knox case very closely but was immediately skeptical when hearing about the satanic cult stuff. This kind of stuff cuts the left and right brain right down the corpus callosum and forces ones relationship with god into the equation. Should one make amends with god by convicting the temptress? In a way, this trial shows that Italy has evolved past its ancient superstitious roots and has attained a secular objectivity, something that the O.J. jurors were unable to do. Here in San Diego there was a case of a homely and simple man being accused of child abuse. A zealous prosecutor sensationalized the case as he used it to build his political credentials. An army of psychologists coached the kids to say the darndest things, rewarding them for ‘good’ answers and frowning and pressing on for ‘wrong’ answers. The case went on for months but started to breakdown when it turned out the Mr. Akiki had about a five minute window in which to produce a rabbit, threaten the children, then slay it, then put it away and clean up, not to mention other large African mammals. Soon the whole case unraveled. It was like prosecuting Boo in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I felt sick for the poor man.
Dale Akiki was a developmentally delayed man accused of satanic ritual abuse .
“His trial started in the spring of 1993. The cases against him included no physical evidence, but allegations of satanic ritual abuse including testimony that he killed a giraffe and an elephant in front of the children, drank human blood in satanic rituals, and had abducted the children away from the church despite being unable to drive.”
A decade earlier there was the famous McMartin case prosecuted by a similarly zealous prosecutor. In the heart of the case, it is alleged that Virginia McMartin, a wheelchair bound octogenarian, sexually assaulted the children as part of a far ranging conspiracy involving satanic ritual. My mother spent much of her youth on the beaches of Southern California and knew the McMartins well. She’d scoff; “That old grandmother abusing children. Judas Priest!”
“After six years of criminal trials, no convictions were obtained, and all charges were dropped in 1990. When the trial ended in 1990 it had been the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history. The case was part of day care sex abuse hysteria, a moral panic over satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.”
These sensational cases trace the rise of the Nanny State.
If these cases tell us anything it is that we as citizens know no bounds of what we will do or believe in order to protect the children and there is no miscarriage of justice too great that it does not feed the fame of its perpetrators and the reputations of the news media that carries it out.
I used to be unwaveringly pro death penalty but after seeing a dozen or more cases of convicts on death row having their cases overturned based on exculpatory DNA evidence I am no longer sanguine about the matter. That said, Timothy McVeigh was the death penalty poster boy. I just wondered if they were all a little too much in a hurry to move him into the great beyond considering so many conspiracies hung over his head.
@ 22
Ever hear of The Bearded Lady?
This situation is perfectly described in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novel “Desolation Island”. Mrs. Wogan (American agent) has this exact affect upon the officers and seaman of the HMS Lepoard.
“Femme fatales are only ordinary women who’ve accidentally found on the right combination of buttons to push to make men do what they want. It is the fantasy of men that does the rest.” Her explanation made me uneasy because I had heard the same argument offered, in a political context, to explain the 2008 Presidential elections. But in that view, we will never know any more about Amanda Knox than we will ever know about Barack Obama. Maybe neither actually exists as we think they do, except in our imagination.”
Buttons may be discovered by accident, but reused by intent. Fortunately, at least some of Obama’s victims have figured out that they were saps, and may be more resistant in the future. Obama was selling narratives that Progressives wanted to believe, they still do. But the Progressive Utopia is not happening, and they must either condemn Obama or condemn their beloved policies.
“Did I find you or did I create you?” An outstanding discussion of this can be found in a marvelous book, “Playing Pygmalion,” by Ruthellen Josselson.
Like Beverly @9 I find the Powerline post most convincing.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/my-thoughts-on-amanda-knox.php
The Coulter piece, http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-09-07.html, is fragmentary and hinges largely on inconsistencies in Knox’s testimony. However, according to Powerline, Knox had been interrogated without a lawyer non-stop for 56 hours in Italian, a language she knew quite poorly.
Unless Coulter can go into much deeper arguments to support her position, I’m inclined to see her as driven to align her conclusion with her book, “Demonic,” in which liberals reflexively defend obvious murderers like Mumia and now Knox.
The movies are outstanding, including the execution at the river scene, and also feature some of the best sword fighting ever put on screen.
I am totally unfamiliar with Kane! Have to remedy that. I can certainly see echoes of the character in later authors.
As to sweet Amanda, I haven’t the foggiest, never paid it much attention as I could neither help, lay her, or even know the truth. I’d class her as on the cute to hot boundary, as she looked on camera, but de gustibus non disputandum. I read Hinderaker’s writeup and usually agree with his politics.
I suppose it must be tough to be a really beautiful woman, as it becomes nearly impossible to be much of a fully realized person in so many other ways.
OTOH I never really believed Buckingham, a lady’s man himself would so misjudge Felton, and even M’lady, in durance, would be hard-pressed to stay alluring. Something of a comment on the Puritan mythos, I think.
According to Rolling Stone, Knox was new to her beauty:
Rolling Stone portrays Knox as naive and clueless — not at all a femme fatale. While the other roommates were lawyering up, she was trying to help the police.
It’s hard for me to imagine how this murder works as a three-person conspiracy, especially when the prosecution is all over the board theorizing that it was a Satanic ritual or “a rage caused by smoking marijuana.”
It is Beauty that sways the mind and ignites the action. Beautiful women, beautiful (OK, “handsome”) men, beautiful children, beautiful animals, beautiful objects, beautiful words, beautiful details. . . . . aaah!
The major newspapers at the local market all have a picture of Knox in a unflattering state of high anxiety plastered on their front page. A true Femme Fatale would never have allowed herself to be shown that way. Got to go with Huxley’s analysis – she wasn’t guilty and this trial was a travesty. Particularly the verdict of the supposed boyfriend – did he get off too?
Calling Mark Fuhrman (good work on the Martha Moxley – Michael Skakel case.)
The prosecutor in the Knox case was convicted of criminal malpractice and sentenced to 16 months in jail–his case is on appeal–which can string out over years in Italy.
It was clear that the African drug dealer committed the rape and murder of the English student.
The prosecutor is clearly incompetent as are the local forensic techs.
The lesson of this case is that if you are a naive, attractive 20 yr old female American student abroad do not befriend African drug dealers.
Drugs open the gates to a world of evil
–partly from their direct effects
–but mainly because the dealers are part of a narco-terrorist underground economy and culture of death.
Another Heartfelt episode from flyover country.
Marc Racicot – Cool, Calm and Collected:
Still, from 1977 to 1988, Racicot gained prominence as a traveling state prosecutor. As head of the County Prosecutor Services Bureau, he gained convictions or guilty pleas in 54 of 56 murder or felony cases.
Marc Racicot’s Montana Legacy:
Racicot prosecuted Barry Beach of a murder in Poplar, Montana under circumstances that are questionable. Racicot was on Dateline on record as stating that bloody handprints found at the scene of the murder were of, “no probative value.” The case against Beach relied entirely on a taped confession that was later erased, as well as stating that evidence existed in open court that did not exist, such as a pubic hair that supposedly belonged to Barry Beach that was ruled inadmissible because a definite match could not be made and the hair could not even be found in the evidence locker. The general lack of evidence against Barry Beach has lead some to conclude that a wrongful conviction was obtained and a coverup had taken place that Racicot had taken part in, as well as that he had knowingly made false statements and perjured himself in open court. No investigation of prosecutorial misconduct has yet taken place and Barry Beach remains in prison serving his 100 year sentence without the possibility of parole.
Most of the State thinks Beach is innocent of the crime for which he is serving a life sentence. I am fully allied with those who object to the death penalty based on flawed judicial execution.
Ms Knox is a d@mn lucky young woman, naivete being the bad seed cousin of innocence.
I don’t have to believe that Knox is innocent; what I believe is that the prosecution failed to put forward enough evidence to convict her of a crime, and also that the prosecution’s theory of the crime is outlandish and unsupported by firm evidence.
And legally, that’s enough to let her go. Truly innocent or not, we’ll never know. But that’s not the question the law must decide.
Almost everytime I have seen the “satanic cult” theory brought up to expain a crime, it has turned out to be a stunt by a publicity seeking prosecutor who fears he doesn’t have any real motive or hard evidence to take to the court, so he comes up with this sensationalistic twaddle to cover up the weakness in his case. I’ve even seen a prosecutor here in East Texas who pushed that, and when all his evidence fell apart he began to claim that the investigating Detectives were also part of said Satanic Cult and were destroying his evidence to protect themselves.
It’s a remarkably circular theory. Fortunately he got laughed out of town for that claim, but not before he did a lot of damage to a lot of people’s reputations.
The Italian prosecutor’s other theory, “Reefer Madness”, makes no more sense than the namesake 40′s scare film ever did. It was a bad joke then, it’s a sad joke now.
Annoy Mouse wrote: “I believe that the femme fatale is merely the female equivalent of the alpha male, both with a hint of a sociopath.”
Agree completely, and I think a lot of our most gripping literature and history centers around the tale of when these two types meet up. Samson and Delilah all the way to Sam Spade and Brigid O’Shaughnessy.
Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other, more often than not they destroy each other. Occasionally they conquer the world – Justinian and Theodora, Juan and Eva Peron; but it never lasts.
then again, who does?
Over at freerepublic every story of a female high school teacher in the USA having sex with a male student — is reported. Its always a cause for hilarity because the female teachers are being prosecuted for doing exactly what all the guys fantasized about when they were in their teen age years. Nor can most imagine what harm could come to the boys for having sex with their female teachers. Rather they think the sex would be the source of a proud (though stupid) boast.Needless to say, there’s always a joke judgement on the women based on how good looking they are. If she is good looking the guys will post numerous ALL CAPS not guilty with exclamation marks. If she is not good looking similarly there will be numerous guilty posts.
So. wtf (win the future)
It is not always the females who make mistakes in these matters. So to be fair –here is a story from Australia entitled ….
Beetles Die During Sex With Beer Bottles
Analysis by Jennifer Viegas
Mon Oct 3, 2011 08:51 AM ET
http://news.discovery.com/animals/beetles-dying-beer-bottles-111003.html
Besotted beetles are dying while trying to get it on with discarded brown beer bottles, according to research conducted by Darryl Gwynne, a University of Toronto Mississauga professor.
It’s a case of mistaken attraction, because the beer bottles happen to possess all of the features that drive male Australian jewel beetles wild. They’re big and orangey brown in color, with a slightly dimpled surface near the bottom (designed to prevent the bottle from slipping out of one’s grasp) that reflects light in much the same way as female wing covers.
As a result, the beer bottles are irresistible to the male insects, which will die trying to mate with them in the hot Australian sun.
Gwynne made these observations with colleague David Rentz. This week they were awarded with an Ig Nobel Prize at Harvard University.
The Ig Nobel Prizes, a parody of the Nobel Prizes, are awarded annually by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research to “first make people laugh and then make them think.” The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people’s interest in science, medicine and technology.
“I’m honored, I think,” Gwynne, who is a professor of biology, was quoted as saying in a press release. “Really, we’ve been sitting here by the phone for the past 20-plus years waiting for the call. Why did it take them so long?”
Gwynne and Rentz were conducting fieldwork in western Australia when they noticed something unusual along the side of the road.
He explained, “We were walking along a dirt road with the usual scattering of beer cans and bottles when we saw about six bottles with beetles on top or crawling up the side. It was clear the beetles were trying to mate with the bottles.”
The bottles –- stubbies as they are known in Australia, Canada and a few other countries –- resemble a “super female” jewel beetle. Male beetles are so captivated by the bottles that they will gird their loins and go through the expected motions, refusing to leave until they fry to death, are consumed by hungry ants, or are physically removed by researchers.
The male beetles are very particular about the bottles. Beer cans or wine bottles do nothing for them. It’s all about the shape, color and texture and has nothing to do with booze. As the researchers wrote in their findings, “Not only do western Australians never dispose of a beer bottle with beer still in it, but many of the bottles had sand and detritus accumulated over many months.”
While the researchers and Ig Nobel judges obviously see the humor in all of this, there’s a serious message too, according to Gwynne. The findings demonstrate how our garbage not only litters landscapes but can also directly affect the populations of other species.
And second, Gwynne points out that the research supports a theory of sexual selection: that males of certain species, in their eagerness to mate, are often the ones making mating mistakes.
femme fatale, OK, but as for prosecutorial misconduct we have our own Cuomos and Spitzers and Fitzgeralds and whoever the dunce was in the Duke lacrosse case (Nifong), not to mention our very own current Attorney General, the preschool satanic cases in California and Massachusetts, etc.
there are very good reasons why we want to give the accused the benefit of the doubt, which is that it is only natural to see overreach by cops, lawyers, judges, governments, and even society. it’s not that we prefer to let a thousand guilty people go free to prevent one innocent from being convicted – we are not smart enough for that. it’s that unconstrained power will end up with hundreds of innocent people extorted, imprisoned, and killed on the way to locking up a thousand guilty people, and we don’t like those numbers at all.
I really haven’t followed the Knox case, and we are always at a disadvantage reading about foreign systems we know little about. I’m not under the impression that crazed prosecutors are much of a greater threat in Italy than they are here, so no matter how bad this one case may have been (if it was at all), I’m not sure what to make of it. I also don’t tend to see the US system as exceptionally better than all others, I’d like perhaps more of a role for the court as expert, than we see in our adversarial system.
To be fair, men are not at all like male beatles.
For example, they could not fit their whole bodies into a beer bottle.
The Italian legal system leaves a lot to be desired in any case. In this particular case there was a serious miscarriage of “justice” in the first trial, which was handled in a fashion frighteningly similar to the Duke lacrosse rape trial: specifically the over-zealous and unethical actions of the prosecutor. The investigation that led to the retrial and ultimate reversal exposed it.
The murderer of Meredith Kercher was Rudy Guede and he (originally) got the lightest sentence. That’s what happens when a career criminal games the system at the expense of two young people who are innocent of the crime, unaware of how the system works and, in the case of Amanda, didn’t speak the language very well at the time.
Whether she’s innocent or not she falsely accused a black barkeep to save her own skin. He was just a convenient target.
This man could have been thrown in jail forever if her word had carried weight.
You’re assuming that she did this. But given the highly irregular and apparently unethical and unprofessional manner in which the police and the prosecutor handled the case it’s fair to question almost everything people thought they knew at the beginning. You’re the one exhibiting a bias.
RWE,
“In engineering I have seen people tackle correcting a serious design error without ever admitting it was ever even an error, but they nonetheless went out and fixed it”
The old “works as designed” logic. It allows them to put the issue into a different statistical category which (at least on the surface) doesn’t come across as negatively as calling it a flaw.
Knox, cute? Oh, very much so. Beautiful/hot? Probably. I’ll bet she cleans up real good.
Wrethard said:
“Felton was played in the 1973 Richard Lester production of Three Musketeers by Michael Gothard. The atmosphere of his gradual destruction at the hands Milady de Winter can be gathered from Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack. He didn’t have a chance. When the actress playing Milady is Faye Dunaway, would you?”
Faye Dunaway in her prime was an extreme babe. Unfortunately she’s now an old woman who has had too many face lifts. Richard Lester’s “The Three Musketeers: The Queen’s Diamonds” and the sequel “The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge” were incredibly well cast movies, e.g.
Michael York as D’Artagnan
Charlton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu
Faye Dunaway as Milady
Raquel Welch as Constance de Bonancieux
Oliver Reed as Athos
On top of a brilliant cast, the basic story is among Alexandre Dumas’ best novels.
How could the two movies not be utterly excellent?
Oddly enough, they only rated 7/10 at http://www.imdb.com (no accounting for taste). People have tried to make Three Musketeer movies after Richard Lester’s masterpiece but those efforts always had an air of futility (how can one improve upon perfection?).
Alexandre Dumas’ Milady de Winter is a scary character. She was a convicted prostitute who was branded with the fleur-de-lis. Through her skilled sexuality, she could seduce any man she chose to perform any task she desired. She was essentially a sex weapon. Cardinal Richelieu used her as a spy and assassin in the service of France. Milady de Winter as played by Faye Dunaway seemed to be a competent professional who was satisfied with her line of work. A central tension in Milady de Winter’s story was her being Athos’ wife. Athos was a French nobleman who had been seduced by Milady. Athos accidentally discovered the fleur-de-lis brand on Milady’s back, realized that he had been deceived and in a rather ugly scene, attempted to hang her. However he bungled the hanging and Milady survived to eventually become an agent for Cardinal Richelieu. This in turn created the wonderful irony of Richelieu, a cardinal of the Catholic church and supposedly an icon of public morality using this ruthless/amoral prostitute/assassin as an instrument for the state. Of course Alexandre Dumas’ story was full of wonderful irony. The funniest one being that D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers were risking their lives to defend a king who was a congenital idiot waging pointless religious wars. In essence, the story’s protagonists were fighting for the “bad guys” but the point was almost irrelevant because of their devil-may-care attitude and the simple fact that they were so extremely good as swordsmen (key irony here: they were musket soldiers who only used swords). Alexandre Dumas was a genius!
Hmmmmm – This Femme Fatale meme has me thinking of Sarah Palin and the effect she has on the “Ruling Class”.
When Knox made her appeal to the court yesterday morning, in flawless Italian she had learned in 4 years in jail, she spoke of “losing a good friend”. But everything said and written at the time of the incident was all about tension, hostility and dislike between the two girls.
Judge Napolitano didn’t make it clear last night in his “analysis” that Meredith Kercher had, reportedly on other occasions, refused to take part in Amanda & boyfriend’s (and others) sex/drug orgies.
What happened to the initial reports about Amanda and Rafael cleaning up the crime scene with bleach ? That seemed ironclad guilty.
Anyway, I also wondered about the connection between her physical attractiveness and yesterday’s verdict.
Hey Christopher Lee (Saruman) as Rochefort, and looking at the IMDB, I never realized Finlay was both Porthos and O’Reilly! The short O’Reilly scene is quite memorable. Heston as Richelieu was constantly amusing, stole every scene he was in, which was quite something in that costume much less that cast! And Chamberlain as Aramis, perhaps a tad light compared but he carried his weight.
The duels in the dark, and on the ice, … great, great stuff.
I’ve been meaning to finally upgrade to blu-ray, and I’m going out to buy new copies of these two movies first thing.
Two other examples of seductive extremely dangerous female(s) spring to mind:
Mary Astor in “The Maltese Falcon”
Kathleen Turner in “Body Heat”
Immortal Dialogue:
Ned: Maybe you shouldn’t dress like that.
Matty: This is a blouse and a skirt. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Ned: You shouldn’t wear that body.
A woman is raped and killed. And you charge a heterosexual woman of doing this? Her friend? Seriously? What planet are you from? Have you heard of a little word called “motive”? Where IS the motive? Have you even heard of anything similar ever?
I look at this person for 2 seconds and see she is a passive person. Part peacemaker personality and part reformer. She doesn’t have the grit to even be angry at the courts and her unfortunate circumstance. She’s an appeaser. This woman would never do anything aggressive like the crime she was charged with. The worst crime this person could do, would be to passively watch someone else commit a crime. This is a male crime through and through.
And secondly it just does not happen. Women just don’t out of the blue kill their friends with no motive, no prior tendencies in that direction and with an upbringing in normal family circumstances. Show me one single similar incident. I dare you.
Guilty people always claim lack of evidence. Innocent people always claim their innocence. She behaved consistently like an innocent person.
Any person will admit to anything if they are interrogated for 56 hours by a person skilled in brainwashing. Chinese intelligence officers proved this time and again during the Vietnam war. And this is 10 times more likely with the peacemaker personality to witch Knox belongs.
This is simply incompetence. I’ll stay clear Italy. That’s for sure.
JL, ever heard of Aileen Wuornos ?
Seems to me you make some pretty incredible assumptions about what a heterosexual woman would and would not be capable of.
Amanda had already established a reputation as a girl who brought home a lot of different men (about which her roommate Meredith Kercher complained) and a girl who used drugs a lot.
Deeply stoned (or whatever) anybody can do anything.
tanstaafl @ 48:
According to an advocate site, prosecution witnesses insinuated that a bleach cleanup had occurred but none testified so explicity.
Unsk @ 35: No, the boyfriend did not get off but is now seeking retrial.
huxley, all over “the news” yesterday was that Amanda’s boyfriend was acquitted in the same decision.
Thanks for the info. on the bleach.
Also on “the news” was the repeated phrase that “the acquittal wasn’t supported by the evidence”
There is a FACT that is really hard to quantify in this whole scenario; the anti-Americanism so rife (it seems in Europe). Europe has no soul … that is my opinion. I’ve also concluded that women in Europe are regarded as mere property (whenever possible) in private … again, there’s no soul there.
I once made the beautiful mistake of saying, “I love George Bush”; in a bar in rural France, after listening to endless diatribe about how our president needed to be tried for crimes against humanity. End result? I summarily clobbered by something very hard (from behind); KO’d and taken outside for further education resulting in a very sore and cut-up face. I woke up in my car; in a ditch several clicks away.
There’s more; but from that little experience I concluded that hidden away from the MSM eye is a monstrous hatred for the U.S.A. DON’T ever underestimate the anti-American mob-mentality of Europeans.
This Fall … I will be settling old scores with these cowardly bastards; since I’ve since managed to identify who they were. I forgive them; but the consequences of their actions live on!!!!
Take from that what you will … but I’m with Amanda.
Blast from the Past wrote: “The Romans managed to conquer and hold a great empire for hundreds of years while shagging everything in sight.”
Well, the Italians lost all the old competence, but they’ve sure kept that tradition alive!
Josh @ 49 said:
“I’ve been meaning to finally upgrade to blu-ray, and I’m going out to buy new copies of these two movies first thing.”
I was thinking the same thing as I was writing that movie review. Oddly enough there does not appear to be a Blu-Ray version. The only DVD version that I could find is the following:
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Musketeers-Four-Two-Movie-Collection/dp/B003BJODK0/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1317751516&sr=1-3
I think I’ll snap up a nice used copy.
Concerning Blu-Ray: I’ve been very happy with the Oppo Blu-Ray players. They’re a bit up-market but they do a good job of presenting Blu-Ray and up-converting DVDs to near Blu-Ray resolution. Also the Oppo players will play any disc format including ripped DVDs made on your PC. Also, there’s no point in getting a Blu-Ray player if you don’t have a first class television to play it on. I spent months researching flat screen televisions and concluded that the Samsung UN46B8500 flat screen was the best. Unfortunately, the Samsung 8500 series is hard to find. Samsung got their nuts in a ringer due to an intellectual property dispute over the Samsung 8500 (Samsung was forced to abandon the technology). For some weird reason, no one else seems to be pursing that technology so the Samsung 8500 remains the best even though it’s a bit dated.
tanstaafl @ 54:
I was going by this CBS News article, “Amanda Knox’s alleged accomplice wants retrial”, that is timestamped: October 4, 2011 1:01 PM.
I haven’t seen the phrase, “the acquittal wasn’t supported by the evidence,” anywhere. Cites?
At this point I’m convinced that the case against Knox was far too thin for conviction. I find the scenario of marijuana-fueled rage that would result in three people rape-murdering a fourth, but only DNA from one found all over the room including inside the woman’s body, very improbable.
I’ll stick with Occam’s Razor. They have one indisputable perp. Do we really need more without compelling evidence?
Forgotten in all this is Meredith Kercher, the victim. One of the saddest things about dying is to be forgotten.
Her name comes up here in this thread, of course. I’m talking about the usual zeitgeist in cases like this. The same underlying dynamics that had the prosecution focusing on Knox because she’s attractive also caused everyone to lose sight of Kercher.
And on the Three Musketeers:
There is a new version out. From the trailers I would have to say it is a monument to execrable CGI excess, full of idiotic anachronisms and flying people, and a female swordsman (swordswoman? Swordsperson?). Utterly stupid.
The French have a bigger stick up their a$$es vis à vis the Americans than the Italians do.
In any event, 40 stab wounds and her neck slit, that’s one egregious slaughter of a girl who must have been violently resisting something.
Maybe in some odd way, like for OJ 15 or so years after the fact, what goes around will come around for Foxy Knoxy.
The whole affair smelled of burnt oil and rotten garlic from the git-go. None of the preliminary reporting made any sense. The black chap, Rudy Guede, was obviously the culprit (rapist and murder), but he got only sixteen years. Perhaps that sentence is an instance of reverse racism?
its a powerful and potent mixture of anti-americanism and a young lady who decided she was going to let it all hang out overseas in italy. Interesting article in which she is quoted by a fellow employee at the World Cup cafe in Seattle, where Knox worked, said: “The first time I met her she asked me if I was Jewish. I told her I was. She then screamed ‘My people killed your people’ and began laughing hysterically.
“I didn’t know what to say. She just kept laughing about her Germans killing my Jews. After that, I did not like her. She really freaked me out.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6727724/Meredith-Kercher-trial-Amanda-Knox-the-shy-former-Jesuit-school-girl.html
Also what was the explanation of waiting at the convenience store to open on the morning after the murder to buy bleach?
I haven’t seen the phrase, “the acquittal wasn’t supported by the evidence,” anywhere. Cites?
I heard the phrase several times from pundits (probably mostly on Fox) without any elaboration and thought…”If it wasn’t, then how could the acquittal happen?”
I don’t have specific cites.
(I followed this story closely at the time, there were also reports of Amanda and boyfriend in a Perugia store, giggling and buying underwear, the day after the murder. I acknowledge extreme bias against this girl.)
(over and out)
51. JL This is simply incompetence. I’ll stay clear Italy. That’s for sure.
There was a famous torture scene in Midnight Express that really put the kibosh on tourism to Turkey to the tune of millions of dollars. Maybe Oliver Stone can do the Amanda Knox Story next. I know I’m not going to visit St. Peter’s or anything like that, unless I can helicopter in and out of Vatican City from somewhere safer, like Albania.
“the acquittal wasn’t supported by the evidence,”
The reason this phrase hasn’t been seen or used (outside of one poster in this thread) is that it’s a legal oxymoron, a ridiculous statement to make in any legal system that has a presumption of innocence built into it. (ie, all non-totalitarian justice systems)
Here’s why: An acquittal is a legal decision that the Evidence is *not* sufficient to support a conviction. An acquittal doesn’t *have* to be supported by evidence, since it also results from a complete lack of evidence. Only a *Conviction* must be supported by the evidence.
Any other conclusion would make Stalin’s ghost proud.
You men are so cute. I love how G d arranged it so you like us and we like you. (Socialists be damned)
As for the anti-Americanism, we just can’t win. Wasn’t it just last week when some Euroweenie was blaming us for being so Puritanical? Now they’re blaming an American for being a party girl.
I watched the court proceedings. There on the wall, a huge cross with Jesus hanging. I thought gee, that would never be allowed in America, and yet Catholic Church/”puritanical”/they complain about us. Wow. How great they can hold all these conflicting beliefs at the same time without their heads turning into a fine red mist.
“The reason this phrase hasn’t been seen or used (outside of one poster in this thread)…”
I heard it said on television, at least a few times yesterday.
It was odd, of course, and maybe something that was supposed to read “The conviction wasn’t supported by the evidence” just kept being mis-repeated.
And go pound sand on your allusion that it wasn’t said outside of this forum.
Stalin’s Ghost was a great read.
tanstaafl @ 52.
I would hope you aren’t suggesting some equivalency between the two women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos
Wuornos was arguably a singular specimen. It would be an immense understatement to call her formative early life wretched.
I say that not in anyway to mitigate her crimes, but rather to point out the extremes of each womans upbring & life experiences.
#62. anon:
You forgot to close your “bold” tag. I will now attempt to do so:
I hope that worked. If not, oh, well.
Didn’t work. Caca!
the Midnight Express analogy is interesting as He actually did do the crime. Are you saying Amanda is guilty of some crime?? So again, in Midnight Express, it was a potent combination of anti-americanism and someone behaving badly
on their soil; not that one has to bahave badly in order to be victimized by anti-americanism.
“17. wws
Is there no Truth in Beauty?”
Perhaps not, but there is beauty in truth.
Boy some of you guys are quick to indict Italy and Italian courts.
Miscarriages of justice (IF the original conviction can be considered as one, which neither you nor I knows for a fact) go on every day in American courts.
the Midnight Express analogy is interesting as He actually did do the crime. Are you saying Amanda is guilty of some crime?? So again, in Midnight Express, it was a potent combination of anti-americanism and someone behaving badly
on their soil; not that one has to bahave badly in order to be victimized by anti-americanism.
Boy some of you guys are quick to indict Italy and Italian courts.
Miscarriages of justice (IF the original conviction can be considered as one, which none of us knows for a fact) go on every day in American courts.
To JL above,
Being a frickin’ serial killer along with being a lying, drugged out American student in Italy are NOT exclusive to men.
@John Lynch,
‘Fraid not. That came after 56 hours of interrogation and they asked her about her theory of the case. Yeah, prosecutors/cops asking this suspect for a theory of the case! At 56 hours in, she coughed up another theory for them.
oh come on …amanda is all american looking…nothing outstanding, not really pretty, far from ugly.
“i want to know about the foot print in the blood which was not mentioned this time” was that a lie? BIG movie to come out of this..book deals etc shep, FOX show, keeps calling her “foxy knoxy”..why?
and what about the young man that was in prison and set free…how is he, where is he>? I would be over the border gone.
the kercher family is in our thoughts.
65. wws
FWIW, Italy law is based on the Napoleon Code. There is no presumption of innocence as the English system sees it. No Jury either;
http://www.answers.com/topic/code-civil-popularly-code-napoleon-or-napoleonic-code
Normally 3 Judges decide the case based on preponderance of evidence. All the European courts used some form of the code Napoleon. Except England, which uses the English common law.
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Italy.htm
pinched
“The Italian legal system, as founded on Roman and Germanic traditions and based on the written laws value, is a “Civil Law system”. It is deeply different from the legal system of the English-speaking countries (so called “Common Law systems”), developed by royal courts of justice and basically structured as a “Jurisprudencial Law”, in which just the judges make law, binding by means of their sentences the following judicial decisions. The distinction between “Private Law” and “Public Law”, absent in the “Common Law systems”, on the contrary characterizes the “Civil Law systems”.”
The practical difference between versions of law based on Roman Law and Common Law is that in Europe what isn’t allowed is forbidden. In common law countries, what isn’t forbidden is allowed.
That is why the US Constitution is less then 2 dozen pages long, with amendments while the European Constitution is hundreds of pages, IIRC.
To me the telling point was she was ‘tortured’ until she confessed. I think anything more then 4 or 8 hours of questioning counts as torture. I forget how many the rules on questioning allow but it’s waaaay less then 2 full days. 50+ hours of sleep deprivation by 60+ people? I would confess to killing Lincoln under those conditions. Or anything else they wanted.
On a positive note, OJ’s off the hook.
lol – this thread should now be titled the BOLD and the BEAUTIFUL!
re: napoleonic code, and other systems. It’s easy to forget just how much greater individual rights are valued by the English legal system than they are by any other system in the world. But since the EU has been formed, the presumption of innocence has been imposed on all EU member states.
Article 48 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.”
Unfortunately this does *not* apply to Mexico and most latin american countries, which is just one of the many reasons you don’t want to get crosswise with the local constabulary down there.
Tanstaafl: sorry to believe you made that up – I just didn’t want to believe that so many people would throw around such a legally ridiculous and nonsensical phrase. To say it is to completely fail to comprehend how a justice system is supposed to operate.
Only a conviction requires evidence – a lack of sufficient evidence results in acquittal, and an acquittal is a legal ruling that there was a lack of sufficient evidence.
The Powerline writers have a wonderful writeup on this, from a legal perspective. Yes, the Italian system *does* deserve to be condemned for allowing this legal farce to go on this long – at least the appeals court has rectified the mistake.
This prosecutor manufactured almost all of the “Evidence” he claimed he had, which was why this got thrown out. Here’s the key – there is NO dispute, not even in the Italian Courts, that Guede was the actual killer! And yet his sentence was lightened up and his name is being whitewashed. That alone should tell you how corrupt and misguided the prosecution in this case was.
read more:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/my-thoughts-on-amanda-knox.php
I knew nothing about this case until yesterday when an old lawyer friend called out of the blue to tell me happily of the Knox verdict. He had been following the case from the beginning.
What struck him was the almost complete lack of physical evidence that Knox and her boyfriend had been in Kercher’s room and participated in the murder, compared to mountains of evidence that Guede had done so.
See these arguments from a veteran FBI agent on the case.
My friend ascribes Italian anti-Americanism to this trumped-up case against Knox. He is Italian and some years back his three aunts visited the old country. They spoke Italian but with American accents and were treated poorly because they were American.
I fixed the unclosed bold tag in #62.
It was amazing watching the sea monsters do their struggle on Wall Street today. First the PPT drew in the suckers letting the DJIA bounce along at -150 for most of the day in low volume. Bank of America was flirting with the lethal $5/share print getting as low as 5.2. No doubt many suckers thought we had reached the Lehman Moment where the Fed would allow market forces to take over. Bernanke setup the MSM cover story with another pointless speech. Then almost an hour before market close, the PPT sprung the trap where they goosed the Dow by almost 350 points (how many tens of billions of dollars did that cost?). Bank of America was goosed by 5%. This was almost a perfect bear trap courtesy of the PPT. Right now, there are many bears sobbing despondently having been reamed once again by the United States Federal Reserve Bank.
lol, living in Italy like for 12 years now, I can tell there is no Anti-americanism in all this mess. Of course there are anti-americans in Italy, but there is also a lot of right-wing pro americans too, a lot! I’ve seen hearts with the american flag during 4 July, and flowers and roses put every 9/11 in a Square in my town which is named 9/11 to remember and commemorate all the men who fell that day.
I think the Amanda Knox case just have to do with the messy, irresponsible latin way to do everything here, if you look at the other cases in court now here, which were highlighted by the press (the cases of Yara, Sarah Scazzi, Melania, etc) where there is NO american involved, yet the cases are still a big mess: starting with the actuation by the police, the first investigators, yes also the “jump to conclusions” thing (which is like a national sport), combined with the ever-present doubts regarding Mafia AND Omertà (see it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omertà) which only complicates everything… oh, and the press that tends to make a show of everything…
All that makes me conclude that there is NO anti-americanism involved here, please, you all too stop jumping to conclusions. There is no bias against femmes -fatales or not. When you put the things in context and get the perspective, you just see the Justice/Law system in Italy is the laughingstock of the civilized world
yeah they bumped the dow above the magic 10800 line.
–
Seems there’s a “digitally restored” Brit version of Three Musketeers in BluRay, I thought I’d checked to see if there was a US version, but I don’t see one now. Well, one more reason to put it off a little longer.
–
So, was Knox guilty after all, at least involvement and cover-up? What if she comes home and goes on Oprah and tells all?
Anybody watch the Italian detective series on PBS? I think it’s called Zen. A very interesting take on the Italian way of investigating crime.
We are discussing a country that is currently trying a seismologist for the crime of FAILING TO PREDICT AN EARTHQUAKE.
since you brought up other Italian legal cases, Atlante, how’s it going with Berlusconi?
and Eggplant, I’ve wondered if the PPT was really as active as you’ve repeatedly said. Boy, if today doesn’t make believers out of everyone watching, nothing will! You’re right, it was a perfect bear trap. Given that Obama and Durbin *both* went on the record slagging B of A and trying to drive the price down today (Durbin? you *really* want to start a run on a bank that big???) we have to wonder – are they just useful idiots, or were they playing a part in this as well?
(okay, I still lean towards the useful/useless idiots explanation)
“Even though there’s no good reason for it — and there never was — a sufficiently attractive woman almost always distorts the atmosphere in a roomful of men, and even a moderately attractive lady can produce a severe gravitational effect.” You need a “reason”? It’s called hormones and hard wiring. Somethings can’t be helped. Reason is not part of the equation.
“Helicopter crashes in East River,
Role of Knox and Palin uncertain at this time”
I thought the case sounded ridiculous, and did visit Steve Moore’s site (in huxley’s post) at some point for enlightenment. I married into an Italian family years ago and learned that simple explanations for things just won’t do. Knox seems able to turn the beauty off and on, up or down, as befitting the average pretty twentysomething.
The males of the human species are an imaginative lot. And many can’t help but see an attractive woman who gains their attention except as a character in his own play.
The stuff of nightmares, speaking as a mother of daughters.
The phrase “marijuana-fueled rage” is a real hoot. Marijuana doesn’t fuel rage. It makes you stupid and hungry. It makes you giggle. It doesn’t make you mad.
Concerning anti-Americanism in France and Italy: yes, it’s there, but it’s not as bad as you might think. In fact I think it’s rather the exception to the rule. In for northern France, Normandy and Brittany especially. When I was there some years ago there were still many people who had lived through World War II and seen American soldiers fighting and dying, literally in their yards, to liberate France. Their memories of that time were vivid, and their gratitude for the sacrifices made by American boys was deep and genuine.
76. anne: “oh come on …amanda is all american looking…nothing outstanding, not really pretty, far from ugly.”
Typical chick thing to say.
I think she’s hot. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
@ Raven #86:
It’s worse than what you say. It’s a country that put a technician on trial because he MANAGED to predict an earthquake, but he was not a seismologist, therefore all the “scientist community” jumped at once against him.
When you look at the work of the technician, you know he’s been doing a down-to-earth work, taking measurements after measurements, recording indexes after indexes, which eventually allowed him to make a prediction. It was not a new theory, it was just an application of the observed data, some logical induction from the facts, some reasoning and then.. the trial!
Additional note: I’m speaking about the earthquake in Abruzzo region (2009), he gave the alarm and nobody listened. He even went to the square to yell about it. When the earthquake came, the scientific community was ashamed, terrible mistake the technician has to pay…
England and Scotland are, in my experience, hotbeds of anti-Americanism, more so than France and Italy. And the educated Irish can be awfully smug and self-righteous toward Americans; they have a tendency to go all moralistic on you.
Bottom line, I think Europeans are truly baffled by us. Most have never been to America and know nothing substantive about it. They have little if any understanding of its size and diversity. The immensity and variability of America blows their minds and they can’t comprehend it. They don’t understand how culturally different, say, Minnesota is from Alabama; or, for that matter, how different the North Side of Chicago is from the South Side. Nor do they understand how united we are (or can be), despite our differences. They have never driven on back roads, on what used to be called “blue highways” (a wonderful term), through small-town America. They have never spent time in the small towns and the suburbs visiting with and talking to average Americans. They really don’t have a clue.
Their loss.
4/4 I’m outta here
When you know how many resources the Police/Legal/Justice system has invested to spy -literally, the Prime Minister Berlusconi because he seems to be conquering every single female of the Galaxy, and when you see them fail miserably in cases like Knox, Yara; when you see how everything is converted in a show for the press like in Scazzi, or Melania (reminds me of the roman bread and circus), or when they put Giuliani on trial because he alerted the population of an earthquake; then you know there is a miscarriage, a collapse of the entire justice system
Focus on the knife, that key piece of evidence on which the entire case seems to rest. Knox’s DNA on the handle. OK, why not? She probably visited the boyfriend’s home a time or two. Victims DNA on blade. Well now, that is more interesting. But the analyst notes that the quantity is marginal, perhaps not sufficient for analysis. Then Viola!, a match for victim. Lab cross contamination? Very likely. Why would Knox and Sollecito take a small knife from his set in his kitchen over to her apartment? Slice the cold cuts? Premeditated rendezvous with Guede for a sexual satanic ritual on an unsuspecting roommate? Does not make sense because there were more and better killing instruments available in the knife set at the girls’ apartment.
How many of you fine jurors are ready to believe that they grabbed a knife from the block on the way out the door? “Hey lets get something to hold against the throat of my roommate while Guede rapes her”
In view of the French origin of the expression femme fatale as well as Dumas’ novel, it’s only fitting to mention Blaise Pascal’s mot on the subject: “Le nez de Cléopâtre, s’il eût été plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé.”
As for literary femmes fatales, I always think of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Of course Zelda Fitzgerald was a femme fatale herself– at least in terms of her impact on F. Scott’s career.
Forget Aileen Wuornos.
Think Karla Homolka.
so far I didn’t read the comments, though it appears to me that the girl managed to impress only by her looking like a fallen angel !
It though it sure was a drug/alchool trip, where she hardly can remind what she did.
and above all her family money bought clever lawers, Italian jails aren’t such a bad experience though. My feelings go to the english family, they must feel that some Injustice was ruling there !
BTW, none talk of the black guy’s fate, hey, this one has no powerful support !
I hope that this american girl will be pursued by nightmare, if not a society justice, then it will be a psychological compensation !
hmm femme fatale don’t commit crime, but crimes are commited because of them !
You have to wonder about the sanity of the Italian courts when they can take scientists to trial for failing to predict an earthquake. I suppose had there been a prediction issued with no resulting earthquake those villagers would have sued the scientists for the bother of it all eh?
Seems like a country where it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Knox was lucky. That appeals court could have gone either way IMO.
you also have to wonder how a DSK is condamned for only having a consensual sex intercourse vs a fallen american angel that is revealed a true daemonic murder !
so it’s justice at different level whereas only american (whiteys) should be excused !
in human affairs, there’s no earthquake prediction to prevail, just common sense !
p’tain get your facts real, this girl is a murder !
Rough@94: They really don’t have a clue.
I agree for foreigners, in general, although I can’t comment on the distinctions you made. We Are The World, but it’s a very big world. The “magnitude” of this country is challenging for any individual to embrace without the experience of it – geography, culture, sociology, history, belief systems, ideology, extreme sports, fast food and ice cream; you name it, we have several flavors of it. The world still sees USA in stereotypes and caricature, very few of which are viewed through rose-colored glasses – except by those who manage to get in. Which implies that the magnanimity of the experiment is marginalized on the big screen – America reduced to The Great Satan who exists only to protect The Little Satan, or America who exports youth of questionable grounding and direction, or America home to the corrupt squid monsters of Wall St., or, even, America where justice can be nudged with a wink and a bribe and a sturdy Hollywood reputation – or a very good lawyer.
It’s ironic that this country is the poster child for “diversity” yet the very concept is now being squeezed by those who believe that heterogeneity of thought has imposed an insuperable gridlock on American institutions. Stress fractures and fault lines abound. (My “bet” is that we handle it somehow, but I’m sure this one is going to be messier than usual.)
Back to perceptions, one wonders about the obverse – how well or poorly Americans “understand” foreign cultures. Very poorly, we are informed – from those stateside, as well as abroad, with the scolding finger of disapproval directed at us, we who are making it work (sort of.) Exceptional might be an incendiary word, or too much of a peacock word, but that doesn’t mean it is inaccurate as much as it might suggest recent developments have not been particularly worthy of the accolade, although I am not sure where in the world that is true – not even Monaco is living up to its Grace Kelly legacy.
102. YBR
Blah blah !
there’s no anti americanism in this deal, in the contrary it was a vassal compromission in letting this american girl get out of the accusation, I would like to see how her case would have been treated in america, say, if she was a french girl !
your vindicte to accuse a DSK lets me presume of what the trial would have been !
A @ 83 – thanks for putting that on record. I’ve spent some time in Italy, only short visits, but have never seen any evidence of anti-Americanism, nor felt unwelcome. It’s a beautiful place, really, with lots of beautiful people, etc.
T @ 85 – the original Zen mysteries were books written by Michael Dibden (regrettably now deceased) several years ago. Have to recommend them. They do give a very jaundiced view of the Italian legal system. They’re little masterpieces, really, especially the earlier ones.
A Femme Fatale from the 19th Century.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2043906/New-book-reveals-lowly-British-girl-conquered-high-society-seduced-ruined-king.html
Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.
MC@103: RE my post @37, I am no apologist for the American judicial system (nor am I particularly impressed by the French judicial system.) I think your English comprehension is fine, but I also think you might be missing some of the undercurrents. I am no defender of the young woman in question, but I do think we’re dealing with one of Teresita’s statistical outliers, and not a trend line. (I will admit, I believe DSK to be guilty of rape.)
hmm YBR, though this case is a motive for your generalisations !
hmm DSK had much more the profile for being a serial crimminal !
funny how appearences are cheating !
MC: I think you are objecting to my @102
I have no interest in the Amanda Knox case – little more than a young gal “caught up in it” before she was wise enough to properly engage. I suggest you are being disingenuous to compare the “profile” of this kid with DSK.
all is relative proportions my dear, and I’m not following your general digression, I stand for what I said
“What happened to the initial reports about Amanda and Rafael cleaning up the crime scene with bleach ? That seemed ironclad guilty. ”
my how precise they were to clean up their DNA and leave Rudy Guede’s DNA EVERYWHERE in the room with (and all over) merideth’s body. btw- rudy’s original sentence was 25 years – he got a 9 year reduction for testifying against Amanda and her boyfriend (who was also acquited). motive for testifying against them wouldn’t you say?
An aspect of this case is critical of Italian law and procedures, which is routinely compared as something not up to snuff with American law and procedures.
I’m not sure how you quantify that. Law is not a science, it is quite sloppy and case driven. A lot of people have said that Foxy Knoxy would not have been convicted in the first place had the trial been held in America. Sadly, I’m familiar enough with the American judicial system to know that’s not true. The American judicial system is not a perfect thing.
A lot of ink was spilled on the last thread regarding the borders of the American Constitution. Some said if you leave the country all bets are off, and that thought carried the day. That thought is not what drove American interest in Foxy Knoxy, however. Rather the outrage and press coverage was driven by the perception that Italian way was lacking (and there’s a hot chick). The American response to Foxy’s imprisonment was uniformly Puritan and judgmental according to Italian eyes. Our outrage was that they were not Americans; we demanded, and got in the end, a verdict in harmony with our preferences.
This outcome throws a wrench in the argument that all Constitutional bets are off once we leave American shores. Another is the actual policy of the United States government. I should know, as last week was the last week of the federal fiscal year and whole bunch of training was due. The lion’s share of it regarded sexual harassment training, an oxymoron in which the training seeks not to teach you how to harass someone sexually but rather “to build a new culture” (self-proclaimed goal).
Congress has passed some very harsh laws vis-a-vis human trafficking, one of which bound US citizens to US law no matter where on earth they are. That binding has enjoyed expanded scope. If you violate US law in Guinea, even if what you did in Guinea was not illegal in Guinea, it is not at all clear if the US does not have jurisdiction anymore. Increasingly they avail themselves to it.
The recent example was the Gibson Guitar Company, which imported wood legally from India and Madagascar according to the export laws of India and Madagascar. They got their chops busted anyway.
US citizenship increasingly does not stop at the borders of the United States. The US Government does not think so, and the majority of Americans become outraged and derisive the moment another country does not live up to their perceived standard.
US citizenship is increasingly a global prerogative. And it’s up for grabs for anyone coming up from the south into the United States.
From a piece at NRO The Corner on Sept. 27th concerning the Gibson raid.
Senor Equis, speaking from Moscow…Knox wouldn’t get a seoond look here amid all the leggy blondes and brunettes. Forget it. I don’t see any Femme Fatale at all.
In the end I think the interest of karmic justice was served. Ms Knox had to pay for introducing lowlifes into Ms Meredith’s life. Four years is sufficient for that folly.
“karmic justice was served”. is her becoming a millionaire from book deals part of Karmic justice?
“What happened to the initial reports about Amanda and Rafael cleaning up the crime scene with bleach ? That seemed ironclad guilty. ”
“my how precise they were to clean up their DNA and leave Rudy Guede’s DNA EVERYWHERE in the room with (and all over) merideth’s body. btw- rudy’s original sentence was 25 years – he got a 9 year reduction for testifying against Amanda and her boyfriend (who was also acquited). motive for testifying against them wouldn’t you say?”
The report was that they bought the bleach, not used it. Maybe the plan was to help clean up the scene but decided against it for some reason. did they directly kill her? probably innocent of that.
I have to agree that femme fatale is a stretch in the case of Amanda Knox, but you have to credit the young woman with wisely avoiding the callow stridency that so quickly defaults into a caricature of hollow insignificance. Appears that the girl benefited from some good counsel somewhere. Karmic justice or yesterday’s meal?
This woman was arrested, accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced FOR BEING AN AMERICAN.
That is pretty obvious throughout this fiasco, as the evidence did not even remotely support such a conviction.
That she was pretty and liked to party was used to demonize her. But the fact is, if she was a dowdy reclusive virgin, her original trial and conviction would have been based on her being a crazy sexually frustrated psycho and would have had the same result:
GUILTY OF BEING AMERICAN!
Wallabee beat me to it. She was convicted of being an American. The boyfriend was convicted for hooking up with an American. Ivory Coast guy did it. The Brits are up in arms about this and 10 to 1 don’t even care about Ivory Coast guy. They wanted to fry an American. Even the slain girls parents say they are now back to square 1 – even though Ivory Coast guy has confessed.
“GUILTY OF BEING AMERICAN!”
we can take the anti-americanism to a certain point until a logical person
needs to start to disagree. It played a significant role but her behavior really drew a lot of attention to her that a “dowdy reclusive virgin” would not have. Amanda’s parents claim she boasted of her close relationship with the victim (which is the opposite claimed by the victim’s family)but behaved in such a way that is completely inconsistant with finding out her friend was brutely murdered.
her original statement to the police was that she was there in the home when her roommate was murdered. after she got a lawyer she changed her story to being somewhere else, which was not verifyable. the first part could be blamed on intense interagation but the second part? if anything the anti-americanism got in the way of doing a proper, by the book investigation.
hmmm and this charming angel is going to make big money out of herr adventure
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045210/Amanda-Knox-latest-Foxy-Knoxy-toasts-freedom-celebration-mother.html
Wallabee, no, she was found guilty because of logical reasons
can’t say the same for your country !
Doesn’t anyone remember The 50′s Three Musketeers” with Gene Kelly and Lana Turner? Gene Kelly was a much better D’Artengne. Graceful not a clod. As it was the age of Hayes, the Cardinal became the Prime Minister. Later Lana’s Daughter did some knife work herself. While we’re at it. The last word of King Kong say’s it all “…..twas beauty killed the beast!”
Speaking of American Justice, yesterday, House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) requested a special prosecutor to investigate the Attorney General Eric Holder for perjury.
I fear what a special prosecutor might bring, along the lines of GeoffB ‘s post “the government also attempts to get low-level employees to “finger” their bosses. For example, the feds threatened Gibson employees with long prison sentences. This is not a search for truth, but an immoral attempt at extortion ”
Obama and Holder are nothing if not audacious, arrogant and subversive. I can see a very “Special” prosecutor who goes on a witch hunt for those who ratted out Holder and his amigos, and forgets completely about the perjury of Holder, et al.
“Her explanation made me uneasy because I had heard the same argument offered, in a political context, to explain the 2008 Presidential elections. But in that view, we will never know any more about Amanda Knox than we will ever know about Barack Obama. Maybe neither actually exists as we think they do, except in our imagination.”
I agree with Jeff @47. I was thinking that Palin is a great example of this femme fatale phenomenon from the first paragraph of the article.
And look at a couple of the new shows this season. I would say that New Girl is one of the most annoying shows I’ve even seen but I couldn’t take my eyes off of Zoe Deschanel, at least in the pilot. And apparently I’m not alone since it’s one of the top-rated new shows. Rachel Bilson in Hart of Dixie has much the same effect on me as Zoe Deschnanel, although her show is not rated nearly so high.
The people that market politicians are starting to realize what the creators of TV shows have known for a long time: striking women attract men to whatever they are selling, even if the product itself is not that great.
I suspect we’re going to see a big increase in the number of attractive younger women entering politics for all parties for that reason alone.
@Marie Claire – OMG you’re a joke. Her family is RUINED. They have sold off EVERYTHING to get help for their daughter. Her home town took up collections for their neieghbor. Her parents are now divorced over this. I hope the Almighty judges you on your works and words. You’re hatred for white Americans never ceases to amaze me. Remember – Ivory Coast guy’s DNA was one the body – IN the body and he confessed. They only lowered his sentence (from 30 years) when he agreed to implicate the other two.
Some ideologies have shifted from one sexual perspective to another. The early Socialists were criticized for their scandalous belief in Free Love. Lenin rejected Rosa Luxemburg and disciplined the new Soviet state partly through sexual repression or perhaps reassured the conservative majority of the masses that the Communists were in this matter not as corrupt as the libertine aristocrats.
Soviet history is an interest of mine. I was not aware that Rosa Luxembourg had tried to seduce Lenin and that he had rejected her. Interesting!
However, I don’t think Lenin’s Bolsheviks were quite as sexually repressive as you suggest. I distinctly remember a passage in one Soviet history that described the top Bolsheviks as simply taking women they liked and living with them in the residential portions of the Kremlin without any form of marriage involved. For example, Stalin took a shine to Nadezhda Alliluyeva (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Alliluyeva), the daughter of a fellow revolutionary who once hid him from police, when she was still just 16 young and he was a widower of 39. A couple of years ago, they simply started living together. Despite the Wikipedia article, I’ve always understood that they had no marriage ceremony of any kind as the Bolsheviks viewed this as hopelessly bourgeois.
Having it all, for women, can be a case of too much.
Knew a girl in college who could have modeled eye makeup for national accounts, had classic bone structure, a bikini model’s figure, perfect legs. Etc.
She married a butthead, divorced after a year, hasn’t found a guy who is, or thinks of himself, as up to her in forty years.
Oh, yeah. IQ of about four hundred. She certainly changed the dynamics in a room. If somebody got forward, she’d give him a look that would cause his testicles to retract to somewhere around his appendix. Defensive tactics are necessary in some cases.
Point is, having the tools can have unwilled, inadvertent effects without any intent, and sometimes it’s hard to tell from the intended effects.
Richard Chamberlain damn’ near killed me. In the film, he and a couple of the 3M were goofing around in the mess and he leapt to a table, sword in hand, and faked a couple of moves. Figured I could to that, did a standing leap up a flight of stairs–got four–but brushed an overhanging soffit with my hair. IOW, I was a sixteenth short of crushing my skull and breaking my neck.
To get back to Knox; did the prosecution make her what they supposed she was because of her effect on them, or did they think she was a F.F. in her life and thus the cause of the whole thing?
Interesting article & comments, but ENH’s post (#21) puts the pin in this one.
RE: #126
“Ivory Coast guy’s DNA was on the body – IN the body and he confessed.”
So, this is just another rape/murder of a white girl by a black guy.
Surprise, Surprise.
Anybody read about the young white couple walking in the park in Tulsa,
gunned down execution-style by two black “youths” a few weeks ago? I thought
not. And don’t forget the one youth who came back to the park the next day
and was interviewed by the local TV reporter, said how “scared” he was now to
use the park and how “nice it was when he was a kid”.
All this talk about Amanda Knox is missing the point.
lolly pops, yes, anything that contradicts your divine superior rights is hatred against the Americans ! LMAO
then what were your medias doing when DSK was accused of rape? they generalised his case to the whole french society, and I spare you the images of pig perverts !) if it was not true anti-french xenophoby, then what is it?
OK her parents got ruined, but that doesn’t mean that the girl isn’t guilty !
Any parents would have done that for a child being jailed in a foreign country !
then what were your medias doing when DSK was accused of rape? they generalised his case to the whole french society, and I spare you the images of pig perverts !) if it was not true anti-french xenophoby, then what is it?
I agree that the US media portrayal of DSK had an anti-French influence but it was not the main prejudice*. But there was also anti-American prejudice in the Italian and British press in the Amanda Knox case. The only conclusion we can draw from MC’s post is that because DSK was a victim of the US Amanda Knox deserves to be a victim too! At least DSK got a lawyer unlike Knox who was essentially tortured (the European Court of Human Rights said in the 1970s that sleep deprivation of terrorists in Northern Ireland amounted to torture) then spent 4 years in jail (“her adventure” as MC put it), again unlike DSK.
* The main prejudice in the DSK “adventure” was political: He was a rich, white male and the accuser was a poor black illegal immigrant. (BTW DSK’s wife, Anne Sinclair, is a big fan of illegal immigrant rights. Her last blog entry before the arrest of her husband was about the need for the US to improve the standing of illegals. I love those kinds of ironies).
That’s because Coulter IS a caricature.
Of what, I’m not sure, but whatever she is, she’s NOT a conservative.
Here is an interesting take on this subject by a young man who lives in Italy (I suspect it’s true):
“What you wrote is understandable, given the fact that girl was American so there was worldwide coverage of the trial, and as an outsider it is difficult figure what is not usually reported.
So I tell you all, there is nothing different between this process and the routine treatment of Italian citizens accused of a penal crime. Simply, of them you will never know.
You have no idea how many similar stories are in the Italian news.
The true facts:
- judges are leftist and omnipotent, prosecutors are omnipotent too and most are totally incompetent. No one of them will ever pay any mistake, exactly as your equivalent in the USA.
- most journalists are leftist, stupid, lazy and hypocrites, exactly as your equivalent in the USA.
- judges know they are unable to rely on serious evidence collection, hence the Medieval mediated witch hunt. For us, CSI is like Star Wars.
- so they did what they do ALWAYS: a bit of prison and after, freed. So, if she is innocent, she did not pay much, if she is guilty, at least she did a bit of time. The sole thing we will never know, is who did the crime, ANY crime.
- another thing we have like in your USA, is the guilt always extended to some male, in this case, her boyfriend.”
Re: femmes fatales
Can’t forget the one in _No Way In_.
jules
you’re reducing my purpose, I never said that Knox deserved DSK medias treatment, you’re just replicating lollypops mental process. Besides, I never heard that she got such a treatment in Italy press, though even if 75% of Italians still think that she is guilty !
as far as because DSK was such a powerful man, he deserved this bad reputation, then what is your justice for? Vance relesed him because of no tangible proofs, and as he didn’t want to look fool, something that would have ruined his chances to be re-elected ! Though, if DSK hadn’t been French, I bet that the treatment would have been cooler !
One of the more interesting things in this thread were the very widely differing opinions on Amanda Knox’s attractiveness. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” got a real test in this thread!
Still, having said that, I find those opinions that she is not at all attractive, or even ugly, to be both bizarre and immature. Utterly baffling to me.
Another observation I found noteworthy was “Atlante’s” on the myth of Italian anti-Americanism. Her take that this was a typical, and unfortunate, sloppy bit of Italian bureaucratic execution is more plausible to me. After all, the prosecutor was already in hot water about some “Satanic” case he prosecuted earlier which I don’t think involved anyone but Italians. Any prosecution that has the term “satanic” attached to it is almost invariably a red flag for gross judicial incompetence. Italy is much-visited by many nationalities, including a whole lot of expatriates. Also, you have to consider how many Americans call this their ancestral home. I myself spent half my childhood there.
One more note for “Atlante:” with our current administration and nincompoop elites, we are descending into the same morass as Italy.
In Continental Europe’s legal systems, the accused are not given the protection from conviction that American defendants have recently been accorded. So, arguing that American standards of evidence were not followed is as nonsensical as protesting that the trial was not conducted in English. Any legal system that could allow the unjust O.J. verdict has no business nit-picking other systems.
DSK was a political hit by the Obamaoids in order to put one of their Chicago lawyer cronies in charge of the IMF. His treatment depended entirely on his position and the desire to remove him from it. His nationality was irrelevant. Cheers -
139. agimarc
“His nationality was irrelevant”
Boff !
Josh@31 “I suppose it must be tough to be a really beautiful woman…”
I knew a woman like that: before-breakfast-beautiful and a complete knock-out when cleaned-up.
One thing guaranteed to set her off; address her as “beautiful”, “pretty girl”, “good-lookin”, etc.
She told me that for every advantage being attractive gained her, it cost her in other ways. For instance, she claims she never had a single female “best friend” and her sisters all reviled her because she attracted all the attention, even when she didn’t want to. She always sympathized with celebrities trying to avoid attention- she said she knew how they felt since she got hit on constantly.
It isn’t all beer and skittles.
It’s not
Mr. X @ 113 said:
“speaking from Moscow…Knox wouldn’t get a seoond look here amid all the leggy blondes and brunettes. Forget it. I don’t see any Femme Fatale at all.”
My 11 year old daughter has this computer game that she likes to play called “Sims-3″. Part of the game requires designing real life avatars. Just for fun, I started playing with my daughter’s game and tried to design the perfect woman. After going through the process, I took a step back, looked at my creation and concluded that she looked like an expensive Russian prostitute.
Okay, let’s try again…. I started from a clean slate, went through the process again, took a step back and concluded that my creation looked like a Ukrainian prostitute.
Alright, last try, I began again from zero, went through the process and ended up with another Russian prostitute.
I guess that says something about me…
Eggplant,
“I guess that says something about me…”
Yes – you’re trying to give a second chance in life to some of the victims of communism.
Wallabee, no, she was found guilty because of logical reasons
A contaminated crime scene – including videotape of it being contaminated, no real confession, no DNA, no attempt to flee the scene, no indication of a third person in the room. The case against her was as weak as the case against DSK. Perhaps you’d like to explain the “logical reasons” for her conviction.
I never heard that she got such a treatment in Italy press, though even if 75% of Italians still think that she is guilty !
Then you haven’t followed the case. You don’t think the press coverage has something to do with 75% of Italians ignorantly believing she was guilty? The Italian jurors knew better.
So, arguing that American standards of evidence were not followed is as nonsensical
Not if one is interested in the question of her guilt or innocence rather than jingoistic pissing contests.
Any legal system that could allow the unjust O.J. verdict has no business nit-picking other systems.
The O.J. verdict was due to a racially motivated jury. Unfortunately, that’s something the Anglo-Saxon system can’t overcome.
Hunt for the Great White Defendant
Mr X wrote: speaking from Moscow…Knox wouldn’t get a seoond look here amid all the leggy blondes and brunettes.
True, but it is all relative. In your Slavic part of the world you are used to higher standards than the rest of us.
142. Eggplant
th
Gadhafi too, perhaps he is your soul mate after all
144. Jules
No I haven’t followed the press noise around the Knox affair, but I did for DSK’s, though he wasn’t accused of murder !
as far as logical reasons, I don’t suppose that someone is accused without them, be it in a “unterdevelopped” country like Italy
Anyway, if she is really innocent, then I’m happy that the affair is over for her !
and oh, the black guy, what a convenient criminal !
Whats with all the sensitivity and petticoats showing, re perceived anti-Americanism? Every country slags every other country all the time. It’s the normal state of affairs. Time was when Americans wouldn’t play the victim card – especially victims of Italy. Chin up guys – the wide world is an amazing place – and the U.S. is still one of the amazingest parts.
Marie Claude,
I will forgive you because you are obviously not a lawyer and do not understand what evidence is or how you need evidence in order to convict someone of a crime. Let me help you by summarizing the evidence here:
1) The undisputed DNA evidence in this case proves that Guede, the African drug dealer, raped and murdered Kercher. Not even the prosecution disagrees that Guede raped and murdered Kercher.
2) There is no physical evidence of any kind that ties Knox to the scene of the crime.
3) There is no evidence, physical or otherwise, of any kind of a motive for Knox to assist Guede in killing Kercher.
Please confine any response you might have to these facts. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things.
Henry Reardon 127,
I meant of course that Lenin rejected the pure ideological, maybe even Utopian, Communism of the German Social Democrats (Sparticists) who were lead by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht that explicitly included sexual freedom and rejected Nationalism. As the wiki says, “Her position denying a national right of self-determination under socialism provoked philosophic tension with Vladimir Lenin.” If she did make a play for him in any sense it would be news to me but it would make for great theater. The Revolution went through phases, as did the revolutionaries. For that matter The Revolution also went through revolutionaries but that is another subject. At one time the Marxists embraced the liberation of women to include sexual freedom. We can call that the period of student enthusiasm and recruitment. Lenin put a stop to that. He was at heart a typical chauvinist bourgeoisie. He may have accepted the use of women as units of labor in factory production but in his heart and in his government women were to be seen in the kitchen and not heard. The leadership of the Party may not have played by the rules they laid down for everyone else but in social and artistic matters they quickly opted for not just oppression but repression. Stalin may not have conformed to the rituals he wanted others to follow but bank robbing rogue that he was he is hard to cast as a romantic sweeping a girl off her feet like William the Bastard did Maud.
Connecticut Lawyer
“you are obviously not a lawyer and do not understand what evidence is or how you need evidence in order to convict someone of a crime”
no, though Vance, a expert, accused DSK of rape on “evidences” (also DNA), that became quickly explosive
hmmm, I’m not going to argue if Guede is the criminal or not, apart that his DNA was found as evidence, though he didn’t acknoledge being the murder, so, may-be he needs you as lawer !
Lenin had two known mistresses when he stayed in Paris
“He had two mistresses. The first was Elizabeth de K., a wealthy, cultured divorcee to whom he once said, “It is quite obvious that you will never make a Social Democrat.” Her reply: “And you-you will never be anything but a Social Democrat.” The second was Inessa Armand, a committed French Bolshevik, who died of typhus in 1919″
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/famous-russian-leader-in-history-nikolai-lenin-part-6.htm
The Italians may have chanted “Shame” but they said it best – “Better to let a guilty person walk free than to keep an innocent person in jail.” And likely, they did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5bKju0SiJk&feature=related
“However, I don’t think Lenin’s Bolsheviks were quite as sexually repressive as you suggest. I distinctly remember a passage in one Soviet history that described the top Bolsheviks as simply taking women they liked and living with them in the residential portions of the Kremlin without any form of marriage involved.”
Shine a light on Lavrenti Beria. The guy ran a rape factory out of his house. Probably raped hundreds of women. He’d have his thugs procure women and then bring them back to his house. Top leaders knew about it and said nothing out of fear.