September 2, 2011- It's like the calm before the storm. Expect a lot of fireworks from the prosecution to try and side-track the the real issue coming Monday September 5th. The issue is still the DNA that the court appointed experts have basically blasted out of the water. And the prosecution and company is now hard pressed to get around this- And for good reason. The DNA has been called into question from the very beginning. For those of you not up on this- simply put- the original trial court refused to have an independent review of the DNA as requested by the defense. The appeals court DID allow it and it put the prosecution in a very tight corner. Why? Well at the original trial it was put forth that Amanda's DNA was on the handle of the knife and the victim's DNA was on the blade- Now that is very damning 'evidence'. Yet it turns out that after the court appointed independent experts tested that knife- there was no DNA of the victim to be found on the blade. They did find starch though- which kind of kills the idea that the knife was throughly cleaned.
Now Low Copy Number DNA- which is what was supposedly on the blade- is a very tiny amount. And we only have the prosecution's expert Patrizia Stefanoni's word that it was ever there to begin with. The court appointed experts found no DNA of the victim on the blade. What is really strange to me is that there was no blood on the blade but they did find starch- you know- as in pasta or potatoes.
Now in the United States DNA has to be enough to be retested- not so the case here in Italy. So we are on strange ground here- Personally I wouldn't take a prosecution's expert's word for anything in this case- but that's me. It can not be proven that it was ever there to begin with. And the court appointed experts say if it ever was there it was quite possibly the result of contamination and the same goes for the bra-clasp. And to compound the issue, the lab that tested the knife and bra-clasp was not even certified at that time to do that kind of testing.
One would think that in a case like this, with all the damning evidence against this 'disappeared' DNA, discredited prosecution witnesses, and no believable motive- that the prosecution would simply back off- say 'whoops' and go away. But that's not going to happen- unfortunately. This is an Italian drama- not an American one. Yet no one is going to be fooled at this point and like I have said- the world is watching. Stefanoni, Maresca, Mignini........bring it on. No one is buying this smoke and mirrors act anymore. It's a sad thing when people can not admit they made a mistake and are still playing with people's lives for the sake of their egos and their reputations.
2 comments:
I agree totally, especially with the concluding paragraph,the whole thing here, the framing of innocents etc, it seems unbelievable unless you start reflecting on how often these things have happened historically and that,as human nature hasnt really changed for the better, even though at least in most civilised countries we don t condemn ppl to death anymore,,,these callous acts continue to happen to this day
We should always be careful and not delude ourselves, it CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE-
Thanks for your comment Harriet- Just remember the old saying- all things past away. Yet we are still learning from the mistakes. And hopefully the world will not forget what happened in Perugia Italy, and like you said "can happen to anyone", until things change.
Post a Comment