Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 00:46:58 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: So, the nanny's "guilty"?


I can understand Lou's frustration with the jury, the verdict stunk and
the sentence is worse. Everyone over here is a bit hysterical about the
result.

I don't blame the jury so much as the lawyers. Louise Woodward's lawyers
played a high-risk strategy because they were interested in their own
reputations. What cache is there if Louise was found guilty of a lesser
charge and got a lesser sentence. For their client that would have been
a better strategy, but for the law firm it would not have been so good.
The jury were likely to see the high stake strategy as scheming and,
with their own capacity to make a more rational judgement constrained
they punished the defendant for the lawyer's grand-standing.

I can't help but think that the Eapen's too were a bit too ready to pin
the blame on Louise Woodward. After all the employed a nineteen year old
girl with little expereince or qualification to look after their child.
OK so maybe the  options are not so great for a professional couple, but
I suggest it was the lurking guilt that they had made bad choices that
made them so adversarial in pinning the blame.

Without the legal framework, everybody would have found it easier to
understand this as a terrible mistake by an inexperienced young woman,
not a murder.

Fraternally
-- 
James Heartfield


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