The Republican Gang, Part Five

So Florida has come and gone, and so has Nevada. And Mitt Romney is riding high, with a slew of favourable (Mid-)Western states set to follow.

Has he won?

In all likelihood, yes. He won when he wrapped up Florida with 46% of the vote, leaving Gingrich (32%) and poor old Santorum (13%) trailing in his wake.

I would imagine that, when we look back at the 2012 primary season, it will be Florida that is mentioned time and time again. This is were the race was decided.

Decided, perhaps, but not wrapped up. After all, look at Nevada.

It's true, the Nevada results were touted as a huge success for Romney by just about all the pundits. He got a whopping 50% of the vote, what more could you possibly want?

Except that it wasn't all that impressive, really. Back in 2008, Romney didn't get 50%. He got 51%. A marginal difference, perhaps, but still: it's Iowa all over again. What seems a victory at first glance isn't anything to get excited about; not when you look a little more closely. Besides, the turnout in Nevada was down by a not inconsiderable 25% compared to 2008.

As such, Nevada was assuredly a solid victory for Romney, but it also underscored the man's basic weakness. He was and still is the Whirr/Clack Mechanism, and let's face it, he's just not loved. There is a surprising, perhaps even rather confusing, emptiness to the man: you can't help but feel that, if you take away the robust exterior, you'll find that there's nothing inside.

Later today, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri will all have their say. For various reasons, none of these states will make a huge impact in the long run. For one thing, the caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota will be non-binding, whilst the primary in Missouri will be even less significant, since the delegates there will actually be allocated on the basis of a caucus to be held on March 17th. And Newt Gingrich isn't even on the ballot in Missouri (which is why Rick Santorum has been campaigning there quite rigorously).

Saying that the caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota are non-binding does not, however, mean that they are unimportant. The situation in these two states is roughly comparable to that of Iowa: further elections will be held down the road and the delegates who'll ultimately go to the Republican Convention (and vote for the presidential candidate of their choice) will be decided then and there. However, this is the first step in the selection process. (A difference between Colorado and Minnesota is, as I understand it, that in Colorado the caucus is the first step in actually selecting the delegates, whilst in Minnesota, there is no formal link between the caucus and that selection. The Minnesotan vote is actually a sort of straw poll.)

Of the three states, it's surely Colorado that is most relevant to the delegate selection process. It will be interesting to see how well Romney does there, taking the 2008 results into account. In that year, he got no less than 60% of the vote. For what it's worth, my prediction is that he'll do less well this time round. Why? Well, all sorts of reasons, but the primary one is what I've been talking about all along. It's that Romney is, well, Romney.

It'll also be interesting to see what happens in Missouri, precisely because of the skewered nature of the contest. If Santorum wins, he'll live to fight another day; if he loses significantly, he may well drop out.

The Republican Gang, Part Four

Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina...

It's been an interesting few weeks, to be sure!

When last I posted, Romney had just won Iowa, if only by eight votes. It was effectively a tie, but, well, someone has to be declared the winner, and that winner was Romney. Duly noted: one up for the Whirr/Clack Mechanism.

As for New Hampshire, well, Romney did as well there as may be expected. He won a comfortable 39% of the vote, with Ron Paul trailing him at 23%. To put this into some perspective: in 2008, McCain won New Hampshire with 37%, and Romney came in second with 31%. So: Romney did better there this time around, and even though there may be some doubts as to the substance of that improvement, he thoroughly whooped his main adversaries, with both Gingrich and Santorum limping along at the back of the field with a modest 9% each. Two up for Romney.

And then, of course, we had South Carolina. Wild mood swings all round, it seemed. When last I posted (on January 4th), Gingrich was leading in the polls in the state by 16%. Now, those polls weren't minty fresh even then, and they most certainly hadn't taken the New Hampshire results in their stride. Polls released a while later reversed the situation; suddenly, Romney had dashed to the fore and was leading by some 10%.

Ah, the pundits said. It might all be over soon; Romney will wrap up the nomination by winning all three early states. History will be written, and the Mechanism will ride in triumph through the streets of Florida. His whirr will be wondrous; his clack convincing.

Alas, though, it was not to be. Just two days before South Carolinians headed off to their ballot boxes, a weird thing happened: Romney lost Iowa. It wasn't by much, to be sure: in the official tally, his eight vote advantage was turned into a 34 vote deficit. But, well, someone had to win, and it turned out the winner was Rick Santorum, after all.

And when January 21st came along, it appeared South Carolina had changed its mind again, too. They'd reverted to the Not-Romney, and as far as they were concerned, the Not-Romney was called Newt Gingrich. Gingrich won the state with 40%, a solid 12% lead over Romney.

And so, it turned out, Romney hadn't triumphed at all. He hadn't won the first three states; he only managed to win the smallest one (New Hampshire). He might well go off and ride into Florida with his moneybags a-jingling and an army of staffers at his back, but he is no Caesar yet.

*******

So what happens now?

Well, in the end, the answer may well be sought by looking at the situation from a negative point of view.

Let's face it: Romney is not well-loved by many Republicans. They don't trust him. They don't know him. He just isn't one of them. And there is, in truth, not all that much Romney can do about this. He can't, because those Republicans are essentially right. Romney's a Mormon; he is a multimillionaire who earned his money in ways that most people do not understand but mistrust instinctively; his track record as a politician is moderate as best and downright opportunistic at worst.

As such, Romney is a very big duck waiting for his Porky.

The thing is, though, Romney's Porkies aren't all that convincing, and there aren't all that many of them left. Bachmann is out, so is Cain. Huntsman's joined them, as has Rick Perry. The list of Porkies therefore boils down to Gingrich, Santorum and Ron Paul. Of these, Paul can't be considered a Porky at all; he's decidedly anti-Pork, in fact. Paul follows his own agenda, and that agenda does not include hunting ducks.

So it's just Gingrich and Santorum. Of these two, Santorum immediately disqualifies himself. Frankly, one really can't imagine him as Porky; at best, he might pose as Porky's young nephew. He's a relatively innocuous piglet who goes around shooting anything with wings and missing without fail. To misquote Jed Bartlet: he's a peashooter in a Magnum world.

And that leaves Gingrich, whose appearance alone elevates him to a great Porky figure. Could he be? Could he really take down Romney? After South Carolina, there's at least a chance. A good chance, surely.

Well, in many ways, the Porky description fits Gingrich perfectly. The thing is, though - as anyone who knows his Loony Tunes will tell you - Porky isn't the best duck hunter in the world. In fact, he's pretty dismal. I mean, he wears a jacket; he's got a bow tie. He might sport a hunting cap. But he doesn't get his Daffy, does he?

And so Romney will, in all likelihood, survive. He won't survive because of any redeeming qualities of his own; he'll simply get by because, well, his opponents are Porkies.

In other words, to put it negatively: Romney is still the hands-down favourite to win the nomination. Not because he deserves it, but because his opponents deserve it less. Not because he's good, but because the others are worse.

*****

A few final words on the Republican nomination process. In Part Three of this series, I pointed out that the Republicans had taken a good look at the Democratic nomination battle between Obama and Clinton in 2008, and decided to create something similar for themselves. They changed the rules, hoping for a protracted struggle between the candidates.

Well, given the current results, they may well get it. I'm not at all sure they should be happy, though. The thing is, the 2008 struggle was a positive one: Democrats were divided about who they liked more. Obama was good, but Clinton was better - or was that the other way around? Gosh, let's see...

2012, however, may well be the other side of the coin. It may well be negative, not positive. It may well be a question of who's worst, not who's better. And that's not a struggle you want to drag out, I'd think.

The Republican Gang, Part Three

So: January 4th, 2012. Another month, and another shake-up in the Republican race.

The results from Iowa - the first time anyone could actually vote - are in. And it's abundantly clear that... err, that....

No, darn it! Nothing's clear at all! Romney "won" Iowa. He won it by getting 24.6% of the vote; he won it by doing worse than in 2008, when he managed 25,2%. And he won it by a measly 8 votes. That's a third of Bachmann's 23 children, for Christ's sake.

And who came in second? Not Bachmann, of course. Or Gingrich, or even Ron Paul. It was, instead, Rick Santorum, the guy who's be polling at approximately 0,002% all year long. Santorum, the Winchester Weasel, suddenly became the mouse that squeaked the Grand Republican Squeak.

There's something rotten in the GOP, indeed, and my word, it has never been clearer than it is now.

Who won the Iowa caucus? Well, I suppose the answer would have to be Barack Obama.

So what now?

Well, conventional wisdom will tell you that Romney - for all his faults, for all his manifest unlikeability - will now go on and sew up the nomination pretty easily. And I suppose that might well be the case. Not because of Romney's strengths, mind, but simply because it's very difficult to see any meaningful challenge emerging from his sorry band of would-be usurpers.

That might be the case. Then again, it might not.

Consider: Romney's riding high in New Hampshire; he should win by a very comfortable majority. But a win by anything less that the current poll lead (the Real Clear Politics average puts that at a whopping 21%), might well be considered a loss.

And afterwards it's South Carolina. And after that, Florida. And currently Romney isn't leading in either of these states. Instead, it's Gingrich who's ahead (by 16% and 7% respectively). The pundits will tell you that all that will change, and that, as the primaries in those states loom larger into view, Romney will simply have too much money and be backed too fully by the GOP establishment to not score well in those states. But you only have to believe one thing to realise that might not be true. You only have to believe that the majority of Republican voters simply don't want him. And if you look at the Iowa caucus, there's ample reason to believe that that's true.

And all this, of course, is playing out against the backdrop of the Rules (the Rules of the Republican Party, to be precise). It's ironic, but these rules may well become a bit of a burden for the GOP.

Let me explain.

In 2008, the Republicans lost. McCain never really had a chance against Obama; the Presidential contest was, in effect, over before it began. The Republicans, as you might imagine, took some note of this, but for some reason known only to themselves, they decided to blame their defeat, not on the fallibility of George W. Bush or the lack of viability of McCain, but on the process of election. There'd been this great big battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they reasoned, so the answer's simple. If we change our rules and have our own great big battle, we'll win.

As a result, the Republicans changed their election rules. In particular, they changed Rule 15, which now reads (insofar as relevant):

(1) No primary, caucus, or convention to elect, select, allocate, or bind delegates to the national convention shall occur prior to the first Tuesday in March in the year in which a national convention is held. Except Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada may begin their processes at any time on or after February 1 in the year in which a national convention is held and shall not be subject to the provisions of paragraph (b)(2) of this rule.

(2) Any presidential primary, caucus, convention, or other meeting held for the purpose of selecting delegates to the national convention which occurs prior to the first day of April in the year in which the national convention is held, shall provide for the allocation of delegates on a proportional basis.

What this means is, firstly, that any state that holds a caucus or a primary prior to February 1st 2012 be will penalised. The penalty is simple: such a state will have it's delegate count halved. Yes, that's right: all the results from New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida will all effectively be halved. (Rather weirdly, Iowa is exempt, the reason being that it doesn't actually allocate delegates on the basis of its caucus; that allocation comes later on).

Secondly, it means that any primary or caucus held before April 1 2012 will have to be, at least to some degree, proportional. That is: the results of such a caucus or primary will have to be weighed proportionally to the votes being cast, and the delegates allocated will have to be split according to that vote. It's not longer a winner-takes-all system. In the case of Iowa, for example, the results would mean that Romney takes 13 delegates out of the state, whilst Santorum takes 12.

The two changes together, mean, simply put, that it has become much harder to sweep through the first few contests and win the whole caboodle in one fell swoop. As long as there are candidates that have enough money and sufficient organisation to keep going, the process will drag on.

So what will the effect of these new rules be? At first glance, they would not seem to hinder a Romney bid. If anything, the Whirr/Click Mechanism is well oiled; organisation is not going to be a problem. As for wealth, well, anyone care to bet $ 10,000?

But look a little closer, and the problem for Romney becomes clear. Romney won Iowa, but only by a third of Bachmann's children. He did worse there than four years ago. Republicans just don't want him. As long as the rest of the field is fragmented, he's fine: he may well be the 25% guy, but that might well be enough to get him the nomination. But, as the process drags on, the field is going to be whittled down. The first casualty is already known: it's Michele Bachmann. The next to go may well be Ron Paul (who might sail off for a Libertarian bid), or Huntsman. And even as that happens, the not-Romney vote will start to coalesce; it will start to gather like a pall around the remaining competitors (say, Newt Gingrich or Perry). And it is quite possible that, if this happens, 25% will seem very paltry indeed.

And so, in the wake of the Iowa results, nothing is clear at all. Romney should win, there's no doubting that. And he will, but only as long as the competition against him remains fractured. The moment it solidifies around a single candidate - the ultimate Not-Romney - he's in trouble.

The question, therefore, isn't really how well Romney does. It's how well (or how badly) the other guys do. It's whether or not there's anyone amongst them who can rise above the field and take Romney on.

In the end, I doubt that will happen. But who knows? Those pesky, dastardly voters might decide otherwise and blow the whole thing up.

I mean really, will people never learn?

The Republican Gang, Part Two

My first posting on the Republican battle for the presidential nomination was over a month ago, on November 2nd.

It's now December 12th, and oh my, how things have changed.

Up to a few weeks ago, it was essentially a battle between Romney in the one corner, and the dwarfs in the other. And it was Romney who, in his rather stolid and unconvincing manner, managed to maintain the lead. Maintain it, or recapture it, as one dwarf or another would briefly and diminutively jump up and fall back down again.

All the dwarfs, that is, except for the one who blew himself up into a giant. That dwarf is the improbable - one might say, the fundamentally improbable - Newt "the Grinch" Gringrich.

Gringrich shouldn't be were he is today, proudly and condescendingly ahead of the pack and set to win the Iowa caucus comfortably in just a few weeks time. But he is.

How on earth did that happen?

I think the answer to that has to be Romney himself. For months now, Romney has been the heir apparent, the guy who would "inevitably" win the nomination. His poll numbers were always stuck at around 20 to 25%, but that was enough for him to be the de facto front-runner.

But 25% meant that 75% was not backing Romney, and I think that it's becoming much clearer now that of that 75%, quite a few aren't just sitting on the fence. They're not people who will come round to Romney eventually, if reluctantly - instead, they seem to be people who have, for some time, decided that just don't want Romney. Not now, and not on November 6th 2012 either.

Now we all knew that Romney was not liked by many Republicans. That, after all, was why the dwarfs were able to keep nipping at his heels, and why one after the other had his or her moment in the spotlight. What's becoming clear now, however, is the extent to which these people will go: it seems that many of them will, in all likelihood, vote for the single most controversial, potentially least trustworthy and least conservative member of the pack, just to keep Romney out of things.

I will not say a great deal about Gringrich here (there is, simply put, too much to say to do it succinctly and in passing, so that will be left for another time). I will, however, mention just one fact: $ 300,000.--. In 1997, Gringrich was fined this sum of money whilst he was Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was the first and only time a sitting Speaker had been reprimanded by the House, and the vote was 395 for and 28 against (not just the Democrats, but practically all Republicans voted for the fine). Why was it levied? For a convoluted and murky form of tax evasion. Gringrich had taught two college courses (designed, the House Ethics Committee stated, to further his own political ambitions) and funded them with donations he had received. Donations, of course, are tax-deductible, but only if they're actually used as donations. Financing college courses isn't what donations are meant for, and by appropriating the money in such a manner, Gringrich evaded the taxes he would otherwise have had to pay.

This was bad enough, but then, and perhaps more importantly, he lied about this to the House Ethics Committee. In a number of letters, his lawyers denied the funding, and these statements were found by the Committee to be an "intentional or reckless" disregard to House rules.

All this resulted in the fine of $ 300,000.--; all this resulted in, at the time, bipartisan and almost universal condemnation of his actions. In 1998, Gringrich stepped down as Speaker and left the House; the Republicans had just endured one of the worst mid-term elections results of any party that didn't hold the presidency. This wasn't all due to the events set out above by any means; in fact, the main reason for the poor Republican election result was the way in which they had used the Monica Lewinksy affair to try to rid themselves of Bill Clinton. But that, too, was an endeavour spearheaded by Newt Gringrich (who was, as an aside, having a rather more serious extra-marital affair of his own at the time).

This is one of the many reasons why I find Gringrich's rise to the top so very - so fundamentally - improbable. And it all becomes even more bewildering if one considers the advent of the Tea Party and the current mood of Republicans in general. The candidate they seem to be favouring is the very candidate they should find distasteful. In many ways, Gringrich is the insider's insider; in others, though, he is worse: he's the insider who managed to screw things up so badly that even the other insiders had had enough.

And yet, here he is, and whilst we're still in the land of would-be's and what-ifs (after all, not a single vote has actually been cast yet) he's poised to win Iowa. And South Carolina, and Florida. If that happens, he will effectively have reduced Romney to the same position Romney was in back in 2008. All the planning, all the endless (subtle and years-long) build-up will have been for naught; Romney will have to bow out of the race once more.

How on earth does such a thing happen? Yes, the answer is, in part, Romney himself; it is Bain Capital, it is Mormonism; it is the whir/click character of the man. But part of the answer must also be sought in the minds and hearts of Republicans. I fear that there's something rotten in the GOP, and it's showing.

The Conrad Murray trial - a brief comment

I’m not really all that interested in the trial of Conrad Murrray. I know a lot of people are; after all, we're talking about the death of Michael Jackson.

The reason I’m not that interested is that, whichever way you look at it, the answer’s the same. Michael Jackson killed himself. It doesn’t much matter whether you feel his doctor was the one who actually gave Jackson a lethal dose of Propofol, or Lorazepam (or whatever drug in may have been); even if that were the case, it would still have been Jackson who hired that doctor and effectively told him what to do.

I will, however, make one comment on the trial. Today, both the prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments. The prosecution’s case was dealt with by David Walgren, who did what was expected of him. He presented a strong and convincing case, and that was about it.

The defense however, was another matter. The closing arguments were handled by Edward Chernoff, a lawyer from - of all places - Houston, Texas.

Throughout the case, Chernoff, ably helped by his associates, made more or less a mess of things. It was very difficult, at times, to even try and figure out where they were going.

Today, however, all that changed. Chernoff gave a blistering closing. It probably won’t wash - Murray will be convicted for involutary manslaughter (it’s Michael Jackson, after all) - but boy, did he do well.

“There is no perfect villain”, Chernoff said, “and there’s no perfect victim”. And that pretty much sums up the case. Murray was hardly a perfect doctor; but then, Jackson was hardly the ideal patient either.

As I said, Jackson killed himself. There is, in this trial, only the question to what extent Murray’s accessorial role is actually criminal. It makes the case, viewed from a broader perpective, more or less trivial, but watching Chernoff today, one has to admire what some lawyers can make of such trivialities.

Well done, Chernoff!

The Republican Gang

It’s time - past time, surely - to look at the Republican race. Will they come up with a viable nominee? Will they? Will they?! Oooh, it’s so exciting…

Actually, the first few months weren’t all that exciting at all. They were rather dull, in fact. The only thing we really had to work with were the candidates’ debates, and those debates weren’t anything to write home about. By and large, they all followed the same pattern: in one corner we had a cluster of Decidedly Small People (a.k.a. dwarfs), and, in the other, the whir/click Mormon Mechanism known as Mitt Romney. Throughout the debates, the dwarfs would try and aim their peashooters at Romney, and time and again, Romney simply dodged. And the dwarfs would miss, and Romney would emerge unscathed.

Inevitably, though, things started to change. The first reason for this was the entry of Rick Perry, the governor from Texas. Now I’m not quite sure who the Republicans’ coach is (I’ve a sneaky feeling it might be Newt “The Grinch” Gingrich, but don’t quote me on that), but swapping the ailing Tim Pawlenty with the much more interesting Texanator was a great decision on his part. Without actually opening his mouth once, Perry happily leapfrogged over Romney and, for a time, perched at the top of the heap. And then, of course, he did open his mouth, and went tumbling down again.

The second reason was the Black Walnut Guy. Unlike Perry, Herman (known to his friends as “Herb”) Cain was one of the original dwarfs, and at first his presence didn’t really register in one’s mind. But then - one might imagine the utter bewilderment of all the pundits - he won the Florida Straw Poll, a feat seldom accomplished by mere mortals. After all, this is a poll where hundreds (and I means hundreds) of people voted. And Herbie won! Suddenly, the old Walnut was thrust into the limelight, and it was all “Honeypie” and “Sweetiecheeks” and whatnot.

Except that that didn’t last all too long either. One of those honeypies had had a little fracas with Herb, and then it appeared another did too. And Sweetiecheeks didn’t seem to have liked old Herbie’s affectionate remarks either. Oh dear, oh dear.

So, it was back to the Texanator, then. Except that he’d unfortunately chosen just this pivotal moment to show what an incomprehensible ass he was, appearing before a New Hampshire Republican Clapper Society drunk. “No!” his staff quickly replied, he wasn’t drunk at all. “Nothing of the sort!”. Yikes! You mean, he was sober? You mean he's just that weird when he's not on anything at all? Oh yes, I sure want that guy somewhere in the vicinity of the nuclear button. “Hee hee, live free or die!”

Did I miss anyone? Except the remaining huddle of dwarfs, over there by the corner? Oh yes, wait, I can hear the distinct whir. I can discern a click-clack-clicking. The Mormon Mechanism is still in motion, much as you might have missed him lately. And how shall we describe him? Well, he’s still unscathed, for want of a better word. And he will remain so, until someone decides that the belief in a fraudulent imposter who decided to reinvent history and toss all logic to the wind is a little too weird to stomach.

One wonders how well Obama is sleeping, these days. Better than he should be, I’d warrant.

The Verdict in Perugia: The Case Against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (Epilogue, Part Two)

Monday, October 3rd, 2011:

Acquittal!

That was the simple and short verdict rendered by the appeal court. (That, and the conviction of Amanda Knox for defamation of the police; a sentence already served, given her four years or so in custody).

Acquittal, then, for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Acquittal for both Amanda and Raffaele.

Why?

Well, we don’t yet know. We’ll have to wait a while (just as we did in the original trial), for the judge to offer the court’s reasoning.

In the meantime, though, there are a few remarks to be made.

Firstly, the appeal court obviously dismissed the DNA evidence with regard to the kitchen knife and the bra clasp. This was not unexpected, given the fact that the experts appointed by the court urged to do just that.

What is, however, less clear, is what the appeal court may have decided next. What did it think of the infamous break-in (which was, according to the prosecution, clearly staged)? What were the court’s thoughts on the forensic evidence found in the small bathroom and in the corridor (the mixed DNA and/or blood stains; the bloody footprint on the bathroom mat; the bloody shoeprints leading to the exit), which, taken together, seem to indicate that more than a single perpetrator had been involved? What of the wounds on Meredith’s body, which again would point to multiple attackers? What of Amanda’s (and, to a lesser extent, Raffaele’s) statements, which were contradictory and seemed to implicate at least Amanda’s involvement?

There are, basically, two ways of looking at this case. The first is to look primarily at the (forensic) evidence; to consider it carefully and then to decide whether or not that evidence is, in and of itself, sufficient for a conviction (which means that the evidence must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt). Taken this way, once the DNA evidence with regard to the knife and the bra clasp is dismissed, it is relatively easy to conclude that an acquittal is in order. The bra clasp was really the only convincing “hard” - scientific - evidence that tied Raffaele to the crime; without it, surely, he should be aquitted. When it comes to Amanda, the knife is more important; again though, dismiss this evidence and the link between the murder and Amanda becomes tenuous (even if there is rather more evidence available).

The second way of looking at the case is different. It takes a more holistic (and perhaps more reasoned) approach. Who committed the murder? Well, we already know Rudy Guede did; he’s been convicted by three courts and the evidence against him stands. The question then becomes: did Rudy act alone, or did he have accomplices? If he had accomplices, could those have been Amanda and Raffaele? Or could these accomplices have been, perhaps, one or more people hitherto unknown?

Taken this way, the case becomes relatively easy to digest. The idea of Rudy committing the murder with unknown accomplices is, frankly, not to be taken seriously. There’s no evidence, no motivation, no means; there’s nothing in the world to assume this could have been the case. I find it almost impossible to point out how farfetched this notion actually is; it is, truly, grasping at straws.

What we are then left with is the idea of Rudy having committed the murder on his own. Is this possible? Yes, I would assume it is. To believe this theory, however, one must believe that a host of improbabilities was stacked up; one on top of the other. And one would have to believe that all these improbablilities would ultimately account for Rudy perpetrating a crime he in all likelihood never wanted to commit in the first place and yet did not avoid, even though he could readily have done so.

You would, for example, have to accept the fact that Rudy broke into the apartment at an odd time and in a strange manner; that he would have started to ransack Romanelli’s room but then decided to use the bathroom; that Meredith returned right when Rudy was in the bathroom and never noticed the break-in; that Rudy would then have decide to attack Meredith instead of simply leaving the apartment. You would have to believe that somehow, having decided to burgle an empty apartment, he turned into a vicious murderer on a whim and ended up not stealing anything of note. And, as stated above, you would have to accept all this whilst disregarding the simple forensic evidence that more than one person committed the crime.

It’s possible, I’ll grant you. It just seems rather unlikely.

_______

Two further thoughts.

The first: the possibility of an appeal to the Italian Supreme Court. As I understand it, quite a few people who think Amanda and Raffaele are guilty feel that the Supreme Court will set things right. They point to the fact that this court has already ruled in Rudy Guede's case, and, in doing so, stated that the crime was committed not by Rudy alone, but by three people.

For what it’s worth: such a view seems to misrepresent the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Guede case and, indeed, it misrepresents the Supreme Court’s authority. The Supreme Court deals with matters of law, not of fact. Therefore, the Supreme Court never ruled that the murder of Meredith Kercher was perpetrated by three people (let alone that Amanda and Raffele were two of those three); it simply accepted the earlier courts’ factual findings on this matter, as it was obligated to do. I suspect that the appeal court’s reasoning - once it emerges - will be dominated by factual considerations, rather than legal ones; I therefore suspect that the Supreme Court will offer little to solace those who long for Amanda’s and Raffaele’s imprisonment. At best, the Supreme Court may annul the appeal court’s ruling on technical grounds; even then, the case would have to be referred to another (factual) court to be tried again.

Secondly, a more abstract matter.

There is something known as Blackstone’s formula. Or Blackstone’s law, if you will. Generally put, this is how it reads: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”.

Now, Blackstone lived in the 18th century, when men (and women) were regularly put to death for the most innocuous crimes. His formula seems a bit odd when considered against the backdrop of his time. It seems even odder if one considers that his idea had been around long, long before the Enlightenment: God himself, according to the Bible, was persuaded by Abraham to not destroy an entire city because, amongst its inhabitants, there migt be ten that were “righteous”. And yet God killed everyone in the whole wide world (excluding Noah and his family) when he felt like it.

Nevertheless, throughout all this time, the idea has persisted: it is better to acquit ten quilty people than convict a single innocent man.

It is an abstract notion, as history (and God) has often shown. And yet, I believe in it.