Trials and Tribulations

I've been watching Death on the Staircase on BBC2, an eight-part documentary following the trial in North Carolina of Michael Peterson. He was accused of the murder of his wife Kathleen, who died, as the title suggests, at the bottom of a staircase in their home. The film-makers followed the defence and, to a more limited degree, the prosecution teams in the assessment of the evidence and building of their cases, the trial, and, in tonight's show, the verdict.

Obviously some bias is inevitable as soon as a camera is present (merely choosing where to point the thing sees to that), and the team clearly had more access to the Peterson family and their lawyers, but on the whole the trial was presented in an impartial manner, allowing the events to speak for themselves.

And what those events showed was a shaky prosecution case, unreliable forensic witnesses, and a judge who allowed the inclusion of material irrelevant to the crime being investigated. As the basis of conviction is supposed to be "beyond reasonable doubt", there certainly seemed to be enough holes in the case for a not guilty verdict to be returned. Having avoided the temptation to google my way to knowledge of the outcome, watching Peterson being found guilty was something of a shock.

While I'm still unconvinced by either the prosecution or defence explanations of Kathleen's death, the onus is on the prosecution to prove guilt, which they singularly failed to do. The defence team may not have proved Peterson innocent, but then they don't have to. The verdict seemed to be based more on prejudice and "gut feeling" than on logical examination of the evidence, an unfortunate side-effect of the jury system. It's a scary though that your future could be in the hands of a randomly chosen bunch of strangers who may send you to prison based on nothing more than hunches, biases and a lack of understanding of scientific evidence. Having said that, it's still the best system available, and the one least open to corruption and cover-up.

It seems the slow grind of the US judicial system is taking its course, and Michael Peterson's case will be going to appeal, so this isn't the end of the case yet. Hopefully the film-makers will keep us updated with its progress, as the insights provided were fascinating, even if the conclusions documented were somewaht depressing.