Yeah, I agree that it's very tempting for the media to point and go, "Look at the savages over there...aren't you glad you're not one of them?" Interestingly, I have the impression that the average US citizen thinks the UK courts are more or less Us + Funny Wigs=A Fair Justice System. There's a tv documentary program here called Locked Up Abroad, which follows people of various nationalities who get caught (usually for drug or cash smuggling, and sometimes the people are innocent but mostly not) and sentenced to prison terms in various countries, and it's interesting, but also makes you go, "Thank god I'm not living in Tibet! They'll lock you up and throw away the key on the smallest pretext!"
And for me - and this is probably because I'm inside my culture - the odds of somebody in the US getting unfairly railroaded all the way to an execution feel like they've been lessening. Many states have or are abolishing it, the process to actually be sentenced to death takes years and years, the appeals process can drag out even longer, and there are, if all else fails inside the system, groups that police the legal system and will try to work to correct miscarriages of justice. I'm not saying it never happens - we all know that's not true. And I'm not too keen on the death penalty myself, so I can't defend it with much vigor. But the idea that, if the Amanda Knox case occurred in the US, that she might be executed, seems very unlikely.
The actions of several corrupt prosecutors in the Monster of Florence case are just...outrageously over the top. And the idea that the same head prosecutor (from Perugia) who so badly and deliberately mangled the Monster case is now working on the Amanda Knox case...despite the fact that he stands legally charged with all sort of violations...is unbelievable. And yet, some of the Italians Preston encounters are not surprised that any of this is happening, and seems to expect it, in a rather gloomy way. Preston describes an attitude he frequently encountered, of thinking that Americans and their silly ideas of justice were naive beyond belief, and that everybody is always playing a deeper game, that there is always a story behind the story that they don't want you to see, reflects some of the themes that I see in the Andrea Camillari books, so I do think it's accurate (although obviously not universal to every Italian - Preston is helped a great deal by various people who want to fight against the various railroadings.)
And this reply has officially rambled off the deep end...
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-06 09:44 pm (UTC)And for me - and this is probably because I'm inside my culture - the odds of somebody in the US getting unfairly railroaded all the way to an execution feel like they've been lessening. Many states have or are abolishing it, the process to actually be sentenced to death takes years and years, the appeals process can drag out even longer, and there are, if all else fails inside the system, groups that police the legal system and will try to work to correct miscarriages of justice. I'm not saying it never happens - we all know that's not true. And I'm not too keen on the death penalty myself, so I can't defend it with much vigor. But the idea that, if the Amanda Knox case occurred in the US, that she might be executed, seems very unlikely.
The actions of several corrupt prosecutors in the Monster of Florence case are just...outrageously over the top. And the idea that the same head prosecutor (from Perugia) who so badly and deliberately mangled the Monster case is now working on the Amanda Knox case...despite the fact that he stands legally charged with all sort of violations...is unbelievable. And yet, some of the Italians Preston encounters are not surprised that any of this is happening, and seems to expect it, in a rather gloomy way. Preston describes an attitude he frequently encountered, of thinking that Americans and their silly ideas of justice were naive beyond belief, and that everybody is always playing a deeper game, that there is always a story behind the story that they don't want you to see, reflects some of the themes that I see in the Andrea Camillari books, so I do think it's accurate (although obviously not universal to every Italian - Preston is helped a great deal by various people who want to fight against the various railroadings.)
And this reply has officially rambled off the deep end...