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Amanda Knox, acquitted of murder - Italian court orders new trial after appeal
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It's a Japanese game based on the work of a defense attorney who has to acquit those who are innocent. The game play works primarily because Phoenix Wright has a hell of a time acquitting those who are innocent. He has a hell of a time primarily because the system is stacked against him, in that he must poke holes repeatedly in the prosecution's case in order to keep the judge from calling the case immediately. Furthermore, even after significant holes have been made Wright has to prove innocence, generally doing so by finding the real culprit at the actual scene of the crime.
Granted, the game is nowhere near reality (it uses spirit mediums, for example), but the game works primarily because the Japanese court system is geared towards conviction, meaning that even the innocent have trouble getting away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlUsiKfeDfo&eurl=http://areasofmyexpertise.blogspot.com/
http://www.ugo.com/movies/babylon-ad-video-gallery/?cur=vin-diesel-dungeons-and-dragons&morepics=1
If we're basing it on countries that have histories of incidents of forced confessions, that hole is going to get very crowded, along with ourselves.
Which is why I'm baffled that people seem to have trouble acknowledging the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct here, or hold to some nationalist idiocy like "we can't cast judgment while habeus corpus is suspended in our country or else we're due for smiting by the Hypocrisy Gods." It's precisely because of the abuse of our own justice system that I find it so easy to imagine that another might also be corrupted.
At the same time, I think it's important to divorce the specific insanities of this case from the Italian justice system as a whole; while there might be things here that illustrate a systemic issue, it's pretty obvious that Giuliano Mignini is a crazy motherfucker and (hopefully) does not represent the norm for Italian prosecutors.
Well, some senator is urging her to look into it.
Also, if her conviction is overturned, can she sue for misconduct?
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Only if she can demonstrate that the prosecutor acted in bad faith, and went beyond their role in an adversarial trial system. Considering how this dude has alleged mob ties, and has avoided prosecution on those for years, she'd be better off just leaving and going back to the US to try and piece together something roughly resembling a normal life.
If she's innocent, mind you. If.
That's another thing, whether she killed her roommate or not has almost nothing to do with whether the prosecutor overstepped his bounds/fabricated evidence/is fucking loony toons. I'll forgo judgment on that question, but forgive me for leaping to the conclusion that she did not, in fact, kill her roommate in a satanic orgy as described in her manga.
No my problem is that this situation is much like Guantamo Bay. You retorted by saying that Guantanamo bay handled prisoners of war and military prisoners. I now proved that this was inaccurate. As for you thinking they are not is irrelevent, they clearly as not and to any even remotely objective observer it would be clear that they are not prisoners of war as there is no war going on, only an abstract statement of war against a vaguely defined group of people.
Second the fact that they are different agencies is relevant. But it does not matter in the lack of criticism from the media and political activists, and does little to detract from the general similarities of this case.
news:"Italian butcher brutalizes animals"
Americans:"that's horrible! Sure our animal shelters are notoriously brutal but that's a different segment of society that we don't care about how abhorrent their actions are so analogies are totally inapt"
Do you see my point so you can stop sounding like a broken record?
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
EDIT: just reread the last page, obviously you brought it up in regard to the cockwaving "our system is better than yours" thing for which gitmo is fair game. You're just having a different discussion... one that I have absolutely no interest in entering
point retracted.
Anywho, this trial is a mess because there's essentially no evidence, no motive, and the entirety of the prosecution is "so imagine all these illegal things happened. See, if those happened, wouldn't these people be guilty?"
And yes, Gitmo is an issue, hence why the trials are being moved into the civilian court system, so we can't use secret information to prosecute and then go "look, he did X Y and Z things, and you're just going to have to trust us on that your honor" Because that's a total bullshit method of prosecuting someone.
Does the brutal animal shelter make the Italian butcher's actions correct?
Because if not the analogy is pretty useless, and that's if you treat it as a given to begin with.
(hint: it doesn't)
Foreign nationals being kept imprisoned with changing stories of why they are there and without a trial. I guess the Italians got around to keeping the Phony trial, it remains yet to see wether the Gitmo trials will be as silly, but I believe the president reserves the right to keep Khalid Shaikh Mohammed imprisond if the trial can't convict him so it's pretty much the same thing. Someone in the state apparatus has decided that you're guilty of something and they won't let you out.
This argument does not negate the badness of the Italian court system unless you happen to think Guantanamo Bay is legitimate, which I don't think you do.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
This is similar to how clearly while there are people starving in the world we should not be sending aid that isn't food to anyone.
Or shall we continue to argue against fictional opponents until we get hoarse?
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
There have been tons of threads and posts on this forum critical of Guantanamo Bay. You're talking out of your ass on this one.
A fact which, incidentally, has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of hand.
Or that no one seems to dislike Guantanamo enough to make the obvious parallel to maybe try and actually get the place shut down, seeing as how it's not going to be shut down within the year as Obama promised (and thus has no official closing date anymore).
Maybe this is a terribly hard think to grasp.
I mean when something similar to an already famous thing happens someplace else usually the Media as well as 'normal people' are all about making comparisons, is the Iraq war like Vietnam, are school shootings in Finland related to those in the US, etc. Is the connection really that thin?
@Robots: By no-one I mean virtually no one, an insignificant portion of people commenting on this issue. I've not heard anything here or other forums I frequent, googling Amanda Knox and Guantanamo yields nothing etc.
EDIT: I am not talking about being critical of Guantanamo bay in general, I am talking about noticing how this case is largely similar to the case of prisoners at Gitmo.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
It is, in fact, possible to have outrage for two topics at once!
Because that administration fucked things up does not mean that somehow Americans who say "This was a shoddy trial that never would have flown in a better system." are somehow hypocrites.
Wait, so you're saying you want people to say "This Knox thing looks really damn shady but not as shady as Guantanamo, am I right?" and if people don't you then infer they support the shit that is happening in Guantanamo?
Because that's fucked up. The vast majority of these forums are against Guantanamo. And iirc the last polls I saw about the issue showed the majority of Americans supporting the shutdown of Guantanamo as well.
However this is starting to get off topic because this thread is not about Guantanamo. If you want to talk about that, make a thread or look up one of the many threads we've had in the past about the issue.
- "Proving once again the deadliest animal of all ... is the Zoo Keeper" - Philip J Fry
Your point has nothing to do with what I actually said. I'm not sure whether you misunderstood me, or if you're doing this on purpose, but weither way, stop trying to hit all of your talking points, and listen to what I'm actually saying.
Guantanamo bay is a different case because they are prisoners OF the military. Whether the prisoners themselves are military or not does not make a difference on that fact, because it is still the military who is holding them. As such, you cannot make a judgement on the American JUDICIAL system based on prisons that are outside of its jurisdiction.
Also, your constant assertion that Americans don't care about gitmo is a load of bullshit that you really need to stop spewing. Obama's promises to shut gitmo down are part of what got him elected. My comment about them not being white was a joke.
Cite this, or stop repeating it.
It contradicts clear evidence in the election of Obama. If such a poll with these results exists, I'd be very curious to see the wording and sample size.
There's a vocal minority who oppose closing gitmo. That doesn't mean anything.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/119393/americans-oppose-closing-gitmo-moving-prisoners.aspx
Edit:
Basically, it's a NIMBY thing.
Pretty cool huh
Note the "and move them to the U.S." clause.
It's irrational, because prisons are designed to hold dangerous people, but ask the same question without that clause, and you see a different reaction.
NIMBY at it's finest.
Because we have beaten that horse to oblivion. It doesn't exist any more. There isn't anything left but some rust-colored, mildly horse-scented dirt. Sorry you are late to the party, but we aren't going to rehash an old topic just because you missed a chance to feed your sense of indignation.
Look, it's not fair to Knox, not to mention her parents, friends, and whoever else was championing her innocence, to say, "America has Gitmo, so it has no credible legs to stand on when it comes to incarcerating who might very-well be innocent civilians." We're talking about this SPECIFIC case using SPECIFIC examples of an actual trial that was, by all accounts, handled with very little concern about convicting the >right< person, just convicting the nearest suspects.
As an American, I'm sorry about Gitmo. It is a travesty of traditional justice, on a quasi-personal level, as I hold a degree is criminal justice. That said, I do wonder sometimes about its anti-terror effectiveness, as we haven't had another terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, which is rather astounding when you think about it.
In any event, getting back to Knox, it's flat-out wrong to throw her to the wolves because we're "guilty" of doing similar things ourselves. She's not a terrorist, but a (convicted) murder suspect. Our wrongs don't make the Italian proceedings a right. They really don't.
I don't know if she killed Meredith Kercher or not. At this point, I doubt the truth of what happened during the murder will ever be known. That's NOT the point, though. The point is whether or not Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were given a fair trial. All indications are that they weren't.
And that's the ONLY thing that should be considered. Not Gitmo, not Rendition, not us giving smallpox blankets to the natives. Just this. Why is that so hard to grasp?
Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!
Not Gitmo, but we're fans of torture (towards the bottom). Which says a few things about our view of justice.
Not really. Quick, name every foreign terrorist attack on US soil.
Is an Iraqi who opposes Gitmo a hypocrite because they lived under a government that allowed rape rooms? Because not every criticism of Gitmo is also accompanied by a "Saddam was worse" qualifier?
I think that Gitmo is shameful and represents how badly the checks and balances of the US government broke down these past 8 years.
And I think the fact that Nancy Grace still has a license to practice law in the US is a black mark on the American jurisprudince system, and shows that we have our own problems with rogue prosecutors.
It is not hypocrisy to hold these positions simultaneously.
I am not a hypocrite for thinking all of these things.
BTW, I >am< rather protective of my own countrymen/women and, all else being equal, tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. So, yes, that means I'm automatically biased whenever a fellow Statesider is accused of anything. This is mostly why I was supportive of defending Laura Ling and Euna Lee, even though it was later revealed they did cross into N.K. (for all of a minute or two). This is also why I think Iran is holding those three hikers as prisoner/political hostages.
I bought a TV in 2001. Since then, there haven't been any terrorist attacks. Coincidence? Or do I have the most terrorist ass-kickingest TV ever made?
I prefer to think the latter.
Good thing we have that eighth amendment.
Since, you know, we're trying to parallel JUDICIAL systems.