Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Honor Bound

One of my more interesting and eccentric recent reads was Raffaele Sollecito's Honor Bound, his account of the horrific multi-year Italian travesty of justice that we in North America (or at least in Seattle) think of as the Amanda Knox Affair.

I probably became aware of this book through one of the mini-reviews sent to me several times a week.  I'd guess this was from Powell's Books.  The reviews are often enticing, and I was interested in trying to at least dilute the bad taste from several years of highly-smirky reporting on a vicious crime that seemed to be rampant for years in our major "media."  After way too much low-on-facts sensational beating up on Amanda and her boyfriend for years, their acquittal, while a huge relief, left me at sea as to just what the actual sequence of events had been.

Far be it from that-there "media" to actually linger over any reporting of facts, "news," or actual story, especially in an aftermath that didn't feature them at all well.  But they seemed to lose interest way back when the truth was still just a gleam in the eyes of some desperate parents.  Or when the ad dollars dried up.  This isn't "media" or "reporting," we get these days.  It is largely sleaze, sensationalism, and whatever sells.  More or less top-to-bottom. 

Disclosure:  I proffered this to Ms. Gumbo, who latched onto it before my queue allowed.  But I found it fallow a while later and she admitted that she found Mr. S a bit full of himself and had turned to other reading.

I could see a bit of that early on.  But I guess my interest in getting my version of the story line better-calibrated was pressing enough to get past some minor ego foibles.

I enjoyed this book actually more than I expected to, and recommend it if you are interested in either or both of the soap opera personal-interest saga or a jaw-dropping expose of what to an American struggling to maintain a sense of right-and-wrong and a belief that a proper justice system must be based on presumption of innocence and a mutuality of interest between prosecution and defense in getting to the truth.

Okay, yes, I can indeed be a Pollyanna.

It was amazing to learn how far the Italian prosecutors (one of whom was already under investigation for  criminal abuse of his powers,  harassing media and opposition witnesses, among other things) with tacit permission from at the very least extremely lazy and inept judges with no interest in what we were brought up to think of as justice went to cook the books on the case.  To me, this was clearly repeated crime on several levels by paid public servants.  Talk about government out of control!

Truly astounding, until you think back to Nov-Dec 2000.  The Scalia Stink-tank.  That too was a total travesty of justice, right here!  Maybe that scoundrel would fit in better repatriated back there where "justice" is just one of those cute words they use in those comic books, since that's clearly how highly he has repeatedly ranked the concept.  We certainly have our own problems these days with that whole concept of justice and fairness.  Guantanamo is still in operation, last I heard, as just one other example.

Check out Honor Bound, contribute to the ACLU, and impeach pathetic little antonin scalia.  Not much we can do from here for his vermiform clan in Italy.