The fastest U turn I've every made?

My last post discussed television coverage of court cases and how the idea of rolling it out in the UK is absolutely retarded. But with the never ending furore surrounding the Knox case I (mistakenly?) investigated what was going on.

If you don't know about the story I'm sure you can look it up online. Short version, couple accused of killing flatmate.

The media coverage at the time was focusing on the fallibility of the forensic evidence. Apparently there was a kitchen knife found with blood on it and Knox's DNA. The other matter was that her partner's DNA was found on the victim's bra clasp.

What concerns me first, is not the fallability of the evidence, but its tenuous nature in the first place. It had Knox's DNA on it? Well of course it would, it is a kitchen implement she owned. Why wouldn't there be. Pretty much everyones stuff in their kitchen probably has their DNA on it. As for her partner's DNA on a bra clasp, errr, what if he helped out with the laundry? What if he was cheating with her? What if, what if... there are lots of explainations, that is before you get to the Defence's case that the items hadn't been bagged properly for days and not in accordance with international standards (there are international standards for this?) With such tenuous evidence in the first place sadly (this was using my time) curiousity meant I had to find out why there was a case against them in the first place.

Apparently she lied in questioning. She confessed at one point, and her bloke said that she left during the night and he didn't know where she went.
Further to that both said that they went to sleep at one time and woke up at 10:00, when their mobile were turned on at 6:00.

OK, you think, so she is obviously a liar and therefore hiding something. We'll you dig a little further again (I know, I'm meant to be working here!)
Her 'lying' is actually open to some serious interpretation. This all focuses on some imaginative interrogation by the police.

Apparently when police question occasionally they get the person to 'imagine' the scene the police want. And then the police ask them how that scene would go. I've never heard of it, but then why would I?
This is what the police used, so the Defence says. Combine that with being dehydrated from from lack of water and rest, plus shock and some (alledgely) increasingly aggressive police officers and frankly who knows what people say. In addition the police officer would slap her on the back on the head and call her a liar when she said the wrong thing. Hmmmm, not entirely sure that is the way to go. It was to help her remember?

Wait, is this recorded? How can this be acceptable? I hear you say. Well no, it isn't recorded. This is because even though it is proceedure, the police didn't record the interrogation. Neither did they provide a lawyer, which they also should have. Those issues alone, in my mind at least, are huge.
Further to that Knox was also being fed false information, she was told that they had evidence placing her at the scene (which they didn't) and that she was going down for 30 years, just to add more stress. Further one of the most interesting parts, was that they told her that her partner had 'stopped covering for her'. What actually had happened was that her partner had said she was with him the whole night. When he confirmed that they were both sleeping, it was put to him, and he accepted, that technically he couldn't have known where she was all night, because he was asleep. This is technically accurate of course, but is this what is meant when one says that 'he changed his story and said that she left and he didn't know where she went during the night'? If so that is a bit of an extrapolation. There is more, but I won't go on.

So at this point, what does it look like? It looks like the Police were incompetant and just desperately seeking to convict 'someone'. So at this point I look like I'm about to do the ultimate U-turn. One day saying press coverage of cases is bad, the next, thinking, my goodness without this coverage maybe no one would know about the potential incompetance of the police and the mistakes that can be made.

Except no.
After all, why were the police so desperate to convict someone in the first place? This has happened before and the answer is: press coverage! When there is huge media coverage of a case, there is huge pressure on the police to convict someone. It doesn't matter who necessarily. Just so long as someone ends up in the 'slammer'. There was one story from the UK where there was huge coverage, many years ago, and the police arrested, and the court convicted a man whom the police knew COULD NOT have been the perpetrator.
So generally press coverage makes the police pressured to find someone, quickly. And why all the press coverage in the first place? Because one of the women involved was 'good-looking' and young. I mean, can you get a more pathetic reason?

Further throw in the fact that the issue is now becoming one of national loyalty between Italians and Americans and the issues that actually count are getting further and further away.

Each day new facts seem to come out about how bad the police were: evidence not being found for 6 weeks, the lead prosecutor having a criminal record of his own for illegal phone tapping etc etc. But if that was what was being reported there wouldn't be so much of an issue. Police not following protocol and not recording interrogations is news in itself, individual facts of the case when reported are rarely going to be reported in full. After all, if the matter could be explained in a column then why would a trial take so long?

As I've written before the press can latch onto one thing and make the person sound bad, this case is no different. Once again the fact that the Defendant was called 'foxy knoxy' at one point comes up, it adds nothing to the case, but everything to the news.

Oh and I won't go into the millions of dollars the Defendant may now make through interviews, movies and books.

So how can I summarise my wildly swerving train of thought, moving from thinking that cases shouldn't be reported, then that maybe they should and then all the way back again?

The best way to conclude simply is this:

The fact of the matter is, I don't know the facts of the case, I don't really know who was and who wasn't guilty. I wasn't at the trial, I didn't hear all the evidence from both sides; so why can't we leave the deciding to those who are?