Nancy Grace is at it again
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/448049...entertainment/
Not sure if you've followed the Amanda Knox case, but its a big deal here in Seattle (its her hometown). The case has a lot of parallels to the Lacrosse case, especially an over-zealous prosecutor, and now Nancy Grace.
What a maroon. Hard to believe she has her own show.
A juror speaks out in Knox's favor
AP article in the AJC.
I wonder what Nancy Grace has to say about this.
Quote:
One of the jurors who overturned Amanda Knox's murder conviction said Friday he was never convinced by the "conjecture" of the prosecution's case and that he believed the U.S. student and her co-defendant simply didn't kill her British roommate.
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In an interview Friday with Italy's state-run RAI television, Chialli said he had spent a lot of time during the 10-month appeals trial reading the faces of Knox and Sollecito and determined they were telling the truth in insisting on their innocence.
"I saw the faces of these two kids, and they couldn't bluff. They didn't bluff. My point of view is that these kids weren't guilty. They weren't there," he said.
Hmmn. Juror says, after 10 months of observing, that the Prosecution's case is based on conjecture and also makes favorable credibility finding. Nancy Grace bases her conclusion on conjecture and her belief that prosecutors and police never make mistakes.
I'd bet Grace doesn't want that juror anywhere near her, since he would eviscerate her sense of the world. "Hey, Nancy! Here's someone who actually knows what this trial was all about, prosecutorial conjecture. Wanna comment?" "Get out of my way, I've got to get over to make-up..."
Or, Grace could read this
article in The Guardian by Ian Leslie, the author of Born Liars; Why We Can't Live Without Deceit.
Quote:
In the days and weeks following the discovery of Meredith Kercher's body, Italian police found no physical evidence linking Amanda Knox to the murder. But then, they didn't need it: they could tell Knox was guilty just by looking at her. "We were able to establish guilt," said Edgardo Giobbi, the lead investigator, "by closely observing the suspect's psychological and behavioural reaction during the interrogation. We don't need to rely on other kinds of investigation." Giobbi said that his suspicions were first raised just hours after the murder, at the crime scene, when he watched Knox execute a provocative swivel of her hips as she put on a pair of shoe covers.
Little about Knox's behaviour during that time matched how the investigators imagined a wrongfully accused woman should conduct herself. She appeared too cool and calm, they said – and yet also, it seems, oddly libidinous. One policeman said she "smelled of sex", and investigators were particularly disturbed by a video that first appeared on YouTube, shortly after the investigation began, which showed Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in each other's arms outside the cottage in which Kercher was murdered, as the investigation proceeded inside.
In fact, the video is anything but sexy. Knox, looking wan and dazed, exchanges chaste kisses with Sollecito, who rubs her arm consolingly. But the police professed shock. "Knox and Sollecito would make faces, kiss each other, while there was the body of a friend in those conditions," tutted Monica Napoleoni, head of Perugia's murder squad. A detective said he complained to Knox when she sat on Sollecito's lap, describing her behaviour as "inappropriate". Knox later explained to Rolling Stone magazine, via an intermediary, that she had been pacing up and down when Sollecito pulled her on to his knees to comfort her. The only strange thing about this is that an explanation for simple physical affection became necessary.
Demeanor is very tough and not all that reliable even in the best of circumstances. The same society, same language, same general values are all helpful, but far from unquestionable factors. Usually, there are elements other than demeanor that lead to credibility findings: some kind of physical evidence, a writing, an eyewitness (they can't always be trusted, either), an admission against interest. Plausibility is the watchword. Nothing like that was present in the Knox accusation. The claim that she was a promiscuous adventurer was totally without evidentiary support, yet the prosecution to this day is still ringing that gong. And even if it was true, how does it lead to a stabbing murder?
But Grace?...Well, she is simply non compos mentis when it comes to issues like this. She's worse than the both the Italian cops and the blood-seeking tabloid papers, whether from Italy or the UK (or sometimes the U.S.). She didn't even have what the Italian authorities had. All she had were Italian and Brit headlines. <sarc> Maroon</sarc> is not a strong enough description to apply to Grace.