What do you think of sensationalist murder cases?

[Wanderista]

I saw this today in the news and thought I would ask about it since there are some ladies from Down Under on this board. It's the ruling in the baby-murdered-by-dingoes case. I do think that it is typical of legal trials that become national and international obsessions.

edition.cnn.com/2012/06/12/world/asia/australian-dingo-chamberlain-inquest/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

What do you think of sensationalist murder cases? I mean the ones like Madeleine McCann, the Caylee Anthony murder, the OJ trial, now the Trayvon Martin case that stay in the headlines for months and years.

Do you think that kind of media coverage impacts the outcomes of some of these trials? Does it highlight important broader societal and moral issues? Do you like to follow any of these cases or get emotionally involved in the outcomes? Or are you more like, "Oh no, not THAT case again."?

[bugabean]

What publius said. Sometimes it's somewhat interesting to follow the news about whatever case, but it drives me crazy when people think reading the paper is equivalent to seeing the trial. Reporters, while I generally have nothing against them, simply are not lawyers or judges, and what makes a good headline is not the same as what makes a good argument or good evidence. I have no expertise at all in law, but I do know that!

[clickerish]

Agreed with the above. Hate it. One, travesties happen every day but aren't all news. Guaranteed there were others kids who weren't as squeaky clean as Trayvon Martin who would never make the news despite their deaths still being wrong. Two, moral judgements aside, the legal system is...a system! A system people study to work in, meaning that listening to armchair lawyer that employs technical terminology in a wrong way drives me up the wall. Watching law and order does not qualify you to opine on felonies. Gah.

[oneslybookworm]

I never bother watching these things because a) it's annoying to hear about something 24/7, regardless of what it is, b) people get far too emotionally invested in something they have no business in, and c) most of the shit is wrong anyways.

My mom watched the Casey Anthony thing...told me all about it in daily calls from the States and about how Casey should fry because she killed her little girl, my mom just KNEW IT! The TV said so! UGH...annoying as crap.

[Wanderista]

I agree with all the good points you guys have made. I just asked because it seems like an interesting subject; I have no agenda or anything. The dingo case struck me as interesting because the mother who was accused did time for years before the conviction was overturned and now she has been exonerated. It reminded me of cases like the JonBenet Ramsay murder where the media made it seem sure that the parents did it, and then it turned out that they didn't.

That hit-and-run case definitely sounds like a situation where the media's moral outrage (about a very valid concern, drunk driving) colored their coverage of the case and where the outcome turned out to be more nuanced than they portrayed.

I agree with everyone that it is definitely a judicial process and that generally the process prevails (and should do so). Law and Order vs. real life law are certainly very different and indeed, journalists are almost the antithesis of judges. What sells a headline is not the same as what constitutes due process.

I will usually read about these big cases at first but then tune out until they conclude. Indeed, I agree that for every one of these cases, there are many others that are compelling but that don't become media fire storms. My mom got really obsessed wth the OJ Trial back in the day to the point where when it was finally over, I thought, "Thank you, can we please watch something other than Court TV now?" We spent many hours watching that trial when I was a kid.

Thanks everybody for your two cents (or pence)!

[travelingturtle]

I got way too invested in Casey Anthony and Treyvon Martin because I lived in Central Florida. I didn't live in FL when the Treyvon Martin stuff happened (but, I had lived very close to where it happened). I was interested simply because I lived nearby and I had a gut reaction that there was racism involved somewhere because of my knowledge/feelings towards the police department. I've since realized that I don't know anything and have decided not to follow the case anymore. It's sad what's happened to that town, though. For the sake of the city of Sanford, though, I do hope for the best here.

For Casey Anthony, I was still in CF and her father was a volunteer where I worked. It was basically the only thing on the news ever, so there was no escaping it. I didn't realize it was as national a story as it was until I went to Michigan on vacation and people were talking about it over breakfast. Part of what had me intrigued in that case, after the fact of the location, was that her lawyer was such a scumbag. I remember visiting his website as soon as it was announced that he was going to defend her and none of his links worked. It was so odd. I stopped paying attention to the whole case once I moved, except to find out if she was guilty or not. I don't actually remember what the verdict was anymore, though.

[Wanderista]

Jun 14, 2012 10:52:30 GMT -5 travelingturtle said:

I got way too invested in Casey Anthony and Treyvon Martin because I lived in Central Florida. I didn't live in FL when the Treyvon Martin stuff happened (but, I had lived very close to where it happened). I was interested simply because I lived nearby and I had a gut reaction that there was racism involved somewhere because of my knowledge/feelings towards the police department. I've since realized that I don't know anything and have decided not to follow the case anymore. It's sad what's happened to that town, though. For the sake of the city of Sanford, though, I do hope for the best here.

For Casey Anthony, I was still in CF and her father was a volunteer where I worked. It was basically the only thing on the news ever, so there was no escaping it. I didn't realize it was as national a story as it was until I went to Michigan on vacation and people were talking about it over breakfast. Part of what had me intrigued in that case, after the fact of the location, was that her lawyer was such a scumbag. I remember visiting his website as soon as it was announced that he was going to defend her and none of his links worked. It was so odd. I stopped paying attention to the whole case once I moved, except to find out if she was guilty or not. I don't actually remember what the verdict was anymore, though.

I can definitely understand that it must feel very different to live in the area where one of these mega-trials happens. Similar so if you have some sort of more personal connection to the people involved. My gut instinct on the Trayvon Martin case was also that racism was at work in the proceedings, but yeah, then I realized that it is a more complicated case than it originally appeared to be. I leave it to the courts.

[Deleted]

I don't like the media coverage on these things. If a person is proven not guilty by a jury, they should be left alone by everyone else. With their supposed guilt plastered all over national tv, they will have to change names in order to have a normal life after! I believe there was a case of rape by some college boys that had their names and faces all over the tv because it made a sensational story. Later they found out the girl had lied. Do you think the boys lives went back to normal and everyone stopped associating them with rapists? I doubt it.

[Wanderista]

I completely agree. I remember hearing about the rape case. That's exactly like what I was thinking when I heard about the dingo case. How do you move on from something that intense and that public?