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Carol Forsloff - A composite profile of events and behaviors helps the public understand a criminal case, but the methodology must involve careful presentation of events in a fashion that fosters innocent until proven guilty, even when the facts of a case are filled with emotion. In that the media has failed.
T
he Casey Anthony trial is filled with media bias. Much of the media present issues in a somewhat one-sided fashion, leaving the public not served by the objective data that needs to be known to be fair and to reinforce the principles of justice.
Nancy Grace, an articulate, intelligent and talented attorney, gives a night-time update on the Casey Anthony trial on HNL and gives good information. But that information is consistently tinged by the view of someone who has personal experience with the impact of a violent crime. She has spoken about how she works towards justice in the criminal arena because of the killing of her former fiancé. Her sidebar comments, questions and body language however, support a bias of Casey Anthony’s guilt from the very beginning.
It is that tendency to speak from a personal view, along with armchair journalism itself, that has set a pattern of “guilty before being proven innocent,” which is an upside down commentary on American justice, that behavioral profilers are to reduce. Those profilers, like Kim Iannetta, believe they should abide by the same ethics as the media in recognizing limitations and the presumption of innocence as well.
Criminal profiling comes from an examination of specific criteria, of behaviors that are complex but observable.
Kim Iannetta, a profiler who uses a combination of statement analysis and handwriting examination, has an extensive history working with the police, attorneys and mental health professionals in Hawaii, and other parts of the world, to assess the underlying factors in the behaviors of those found guilty or accused of violent crimes.
Recently Iannetta examined language behaviors of Cindy Anthony, the grandmother of Caylee Anthony, the tot killed in Florida, whose death is said by the prosecution in the case to have been caused by Casey Anthony, now on trial in a high profile case that is being watched worldwide. Iannetta has also looked at the Anthony family and its dysfunction, a dysfunction that has deceit and manipulation at its core. Iannetta’s analysis has been detailed in a previous article on this site, but her comments recently get to the core of the ethics in the field of behavioral profiling and how crime news should be reported as well..
“We need to remember this is a family in pain. We also need to remember that we should not behave like gladiators watching people hurting in an arena, but use what we learn to help us in our own lives and families avoid the kind of lies and deceit that has brought the Anthony such agony, to have the daughter, Casey, standing trial for first degree murder. Facts are facts; emotions and judgment another. The facts in language behavior support the parents, George and Cindy Anthony, as having their own issues and patterns from which Casey may have learned similar ones. For Cindy, the desire has been to look good; and much of her past and present behavior conforms to those notions. She is a woman who focuses on the now, the present, and who has a cold, distant relationship with her daughter that is observable in language behaviors."
That kind of assessment style is one many forensic experts use when addressing their findings. They look at a constellation of factors and are more involved in how these show certain behaviors, and the predictability of them, with less focus on targeting an individual in some sidebar of self-righteousness that is tempting to experts and media folks alike. “What we need to do is remember this is a family, that Casey may not be an evil person but one who may have a predisposition to pathology that a certain parenting style reinforced.”
To that end we can learn in the context of this case, as Iannetta reminds us, not only the elements of the case itself but ethical standards. Those are the ones that can make people less involved in the “sport” of crime watching, as played out in the halls outside the courtroom where Casey Anthony is being tried, and more empathetic viewers of human behaviors that often go terribly awry and to learn what creates these behaviors in our lives, communities and families." It is the tendency to go beyond one's role as a profiler that Iannett says can negatively impact neutrality in a case, for either evidence experts or media personnel.
This speaks to the media’s presentation, and expert’s views as well. Certainly crime stories do involve emotions that need to be described in detail, as they are played out before others. On the other hand, selective reporting with opinion is a media style that opposes presumption of innocence, as
an Internet source points out. According to ethics in reporting, as outlined in texts such as
Writing and Reporting the News: a Coaching Method, there are principles of balance that are important when reporting sensational crime news. To the extent the reporter can be objective, according to journalism instructors like the Coaching Method author, while writing with color and interest, the more the focus becomes on the elements of the case and the facets of the personalities involved. When the verdict comes, the public can then respond in accordance with the facts, as closely as possible to what the jury finds.
That balance from experts and media sources is what the public looks to for a form of protection, as well as education, in the Casey Anthony trial, one where
both media and experts have failed.
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