There are two unrelated stories today which are connected, or I want to connect, in what might be an instructive way.
First, this about the trials of Amanda Knox and I mean by that “trials” in both senses.
The Italian Court of Cassation, the supreme criminal court in what has come to appear their odd legal system, has ruled that Knox and her co-defendant, her then Italian boyfriend, are innocent. This finding is based on many grounds.
Of more interest than the finally ruling, is the clarity with which the court spoke on how the prosecution conducted its case as it meandered through the legal system over a period of just a little less than a decade. Note some of the language:
glaring errors … a hit-and-miss hunt for a scapegoat to satisfy public opinion … stunning weakness … investigative bouts of amnesia
Concluding:
Avid media attention and the nationalities of the people involved led to a spasmodic search for one or more guilty parties to offer up to international public opinion, which certainly did not aid the search for the truth.
Public opinion, more, misguided and uniformed public opinion, distorts justice and the truth. If it can do this what can it not do?
Then there is this report of a conservative ‘revolt’ in the Vatican.
Of course, when the conservative Pope Benedict was in power there were rumors of liberal, or even radical, revolts in his Vatican. And indeed there was; Francis, a polar opposite, was elected after all.
The subtle and significant difference is that Pope Francis is “popular” and this is what happens; “public opinion” plays a role now as it did not during Benedict’s time.
A good thing?
These two articles make a connection worth noting. (It just so happens that it is an Italian Connection!)
clamjamfrey 