The difference is he prejudged them, and then his lawyer attempts to use every opportunity to silence and punish the families of Amanda and Raffaele. It is quite a bit different to defend someone than it is to attack the
families of the two accused. I don't see how you can equivocate them.
As for the articles, the part about Meredith would hardly be discomfiting, it's the part about him expressing that he's made up his mind already without due process, he doesn't think she should be allowed (the mandatory) appeals, that people speaking out in her defense are 'cultists' and by giving a vague blessing to TJMK/PMF which never saw a cheap shot it wouldn't take at either family.
Just because he's the father of the victim doesn't mean that the accused don't get their day in court, that 'innocent until proven guilty' does not apply, nor that he can adopt the standards of the lynch mob without censure.
Maresca is party to the suits and charges against Amanda for daring to tell her side of the story, Amanda's parents for trying to tell her side of the story, and the Sollecitos, again for trying to tell Raffaele's side of the story. There's no universe where this is 'commendable' behavior. It may be
legal, but there's nothing dignified about it, and there's no pretending it won't have consequences just by wishing that is so.
Lemme put it this way: which parts of his interaction would you prefer be
left out of the movie? The big one I mean, the one perhaps written off of Grisham's book. Do you really want to be sitting there in the theater as they watch the sequence of events unfold and find that Maresca is involved in every reprehensible attack by the prosecution on the families of the accused? Do you suppose that would garner him sympathy with the audience?
Do you really want the audience watching as Maresca is participating in the persecution of the Sollecitos for Raffaele's father supposedly using his 'influence' to get on TV, while John Kercher is even more probably using his 'influence' as a former tabloid writer to write articles in the Daily Mail, Star and Times condemning them in no uncertain terms and writing something to the effect that it pains him that people think them innocent implying they should shut up and go away? The Times would be the same paper that got Amanda's parents charged for
this piece, of which no-one has been able to point out the offending passage that could mean jail time for them. That article is almost six months before
charges were filed! Does that mean they objected to the very idea of Amanda voicing a defense?
How about the part when Maresca is hugging the villain, Mignini, over the bogus DNA evidence? How do you suppose that's going to play with the folks in the theater? Or how about every sleazy line in court, as Maresca plays the prosecution's bitch pitbull?
There's a concept know as 'innocent until proven guilty.' It's one a few nations have found wise to adopt, even Italy as of late. It perhaps should have been remembered by those who chose to take such an aggressive posture on such ridiculous charges. Especially as that mindless embrace of the ludicrous notion that Meredith died in some bizarre ritual was
just made up by the crackpot last seen digging up bodies checking pants sizes, looking for Satanic cults responsible for cases twenty or thirty years cold.
You can believe this commendable all you wish, it won't change what those audiences are going to think,
if the whole story gets told in the movie. Personally I'd prefer it was not, my suspicion is John Kercher was
used by Mignini and Maresca, and I can understand why he might have been susceptible to it. Just like those journalists he got
played and it might never have occurred to him Mignini would lie to him, he supposedly has quite a commanding visage in his element, and in the end I think the Bad Guys here are the
players and not the
played.
Just for curiosity's sake is there
anything you would consider 'not commendable' that the Kercher's could do, short of physically attacking Raffaele and Amanda in court? How about they show up and throw rotten eggs, that wouldn't damage them much, would that be also commendable? There's not
much more they can do, short of physical violence, that's more damaging to them than supporting the trumped-up charges of the corrupt prosecutor as he tries to silence criticism of the railroad he's engineered.
They could end up in jail, that's the worst most countries do these days--to those who do violence.
This isn't just me
being mean Coulsdon, I'm just pointing out the obvious. If that movie is ever made--telling the whole story--in the end audiences may wonder just what makes the Kerchers think they have a license to attempt to deny justice to the accused, and destroy two additional families.
