Court cases are fascinating. Human behavior is fascinating. Law is fascinating. We are allowed to look. We also need to remember how to look.I am
Court cases are fascinating. Human behavior is fascinating. Law is fascinating. We are allowed to look. We also need to remember how to look.
I am sharing this article from legal journalist Meghann Cuniff because I think she is asking for something we need more of around high-profile court cases: caution.
I discovered Meghann Cuniff because I was looking for a professional coverage of the Tory Lanez trial that was non-mysogynistic and not leaning towards- “hip hop culture is thug culture anyway.” Enter Meghann Cuniff. I’m still following because I don’t like following every detail of most trials. Until I settled on a focus, I just took various courses. And then there was law. Specifically research.
Photo by Mitch/Unsplash
There is an enormous amount to study: human behavior, evidence, procedure, jury dynamics, strategy, constitutional questions, forensic evidence, judicial discretion, sentencing, and the difference between what the public believes happened and what can actually be proved in court.
But I don’t have the bandwidth to stay plugged in to every case that I’m interested in.
True stories helped raise me.
Long before I had professional language for violence, abuse, coercion, trauma, or the failures of systems meant to protect people, I learned through other people’s stories. Sometimes a newspaper article, television program, documentary, or court case gave me words for something I had already seen, felt, feared, or understood as a child but could not yet explain. Later, as an advocate, stories continued to teach me.
So I understand the value of listening.
I also understand that sometimes we go too far. Barely recognize ourselves. We are human. It happens.
A courtroom can slowly become entertainment. Every juror becomes a character to investigate. Every relative becomes somebody to hunt down. Every facial expression becomes evidence. Every rumor becomes content. People begin choosing teams. Strangers search through years of somebody else’s life looking for something that confirms what they already believe.
And somewhere along the way, attention becomes intrusion and spectacle.
That is especially worth thinking about in cases such as Lindsey Clancy’s, where three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, are dead. Whatever our opinions about criminal responsibility, mental illness, the legal process, the verdict, the lawyers, or the jury, those children should never disappear beneath the machinery of spectatorship.
We might notice that there is a difference between witnessing and consuming.
We can learn from court cases without treating every human being connected to them as public property. We can demand justice without demanding unlimited access. We can study failures in medicine, law, child protection, policing, mental-health care, or the courts without turning tragedy into a scavenger hunt.
Some stories need to be told. Some records deserve examination. Some questions absolutely need asking.
Wisdom also asks another question: How far do we need to go to learn what this story has to teach us?
I think Cuniff’s caution is worth hearing for precisely that reason. Paying attention is valuable. Bearing witness can be valuable. True stories can give people language they desperately need.
But human suffering should never become a permission slip to forget that the people inside the story are still human.
I watched Lindsay Clancy’s trial. Most everyone at the courthouse did not need to be there.
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