Sunday, April 10, 2011

An interesting point from Alexis re the Alaska case

Alexis raised an interesting point in her comment on the Alaska case.

Why the silence?

It is possibly due to child protection issues. It is often the case that the names of children are kept out of reports on criminal matters, even, or perhaps especially, if the child is an innocent or injured party.

In the UK a journalist cannot name even a convicted person under -I think- the age of 18 in a report of a story, unless a judge has given special permission.

They might be trying to arrange a plea bargain with the woman concerned to try to ensure that the names of the children -adopted or otherwise- are given the least amount of publicity as possible.

Other issues (off the top of my head, interest of the Russian authorities in the case, examining of the mental capacity of the woman to take part in a trial, lack of preparedness of the case by defence or prosecution, etc. A smart lawyer might try to argue that due to the publicity surrounding the case, she would not be able to get a fair trial. But an even smarter prosecutor would say: "Who was it who asked her to get her daughter to video her disciplining the boy and send it to a highly popular national TV programme, seen by millions of people?"

We await developments with interest.

No comments: