Trial Literature and the Amanda Knox Saga
Amanda Knox, the American student accused of murder in Italy whose trial and appeal have gripped both sides of the Atlantic - or so I've read - was recently freed after an Italian appellate court overturned her conviction. This could either drive up sales or immediately outdate the numerous books already published about the case, including The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox, Murder in Italy: The Shocking Slaying of a British Student, the Accused American Girl, and an International Scandal, The Amanda Knox Story: A Murder in Perugia, not to mention this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. Okay, can I stop now? That's an impressive array of sensational titles less than two-years since the verdict.
At least these books waited for the sentencing, if not the appeal. Today was supposed to be the sentencing of former Governor Rod Blagojevich, but last week that hearing was delayed. Of course, the postponement (or even the trial) didn't delay publication of the Governor's own memoir - or this biography.
And there already are books about the Casey Anthony trial three months after the verdict: this one, this one, and a bunch more.
The problem with these quick-fire books is that there is no "getting to the truth" of a trial. There is rarely any "untold story." In this era of the twenty-four hour news cycle, there is nothing to glean from a current book that wasn't already disclosed in media coverage. Anyone who reads one of these books likely has decided on guilt or innocence, although people do love to read material that confirms their existing beliefs.
Much more intriguing are studies of long ago legal proceedings, including new entries regarding Chicago trials. One book analyzes the trial following the Haymarket incident in 1886, in which eight policemen and four civilians were killed after a bomb was thrown during a workers’ rally. Another comes from the attorney (and retired judge) who defended John Wayne Gacy, the "Killer Clown," who was convicted of murdering thirty-three boys between 1972 and 1978. A good read from earlier this year is Deborah Lipstadt's examination of the Adolf Eichmann trial.
Such books explore how trials reveal and possibly change society, not to mention the people involved. They allow us to compare our justice system and understanding of fairness to those of other times and places. A good work of legal non-fiction does not dispense with the question of guilt -- what good would that be -- and can look at the evidence, included in the trial or not, perhaps subsequently discovered, with a new lens and historical perspective. But a book that claims to contain the truth about a recent trial is, as a lawyer might say, simply not credible.
