Call them inclinations, then. All other things being equal, that is what I think. I am speaking solely of the investigative phase here.
I have these inclinations because that is my life experience. Here is what I think.
Individual Malice is Unlikely.
I am inclined to believe in good faith because my experience tells me that most people try to do their jobs and their duty as they see it. Some are lazy, and some are bad at their jobs, but rarely are they just out and out malicious. Are their bad cops? Sure. Do they outnumber good cops? Not close. Even if you had a bad actor here, individual malice would be hard to conceive and execute in the time available. Again, I am speaking of the initial investigation. This point changes afterward. You would have to believe that a bad cop quickly thought up a plan to frame Knox and Sollecito, figured out how to do it, and pulled it off without getting caught. That seems farfetched to me. I don't think that individual had time or opportunity, and it would have to be one wickedly smart and clever individual. Those are rare too.
Group Malice is Even More Unlikely.
It is a common fallacy that organizations are unitary. In this case we speak of "the Police." Organizations are lumpy combinations of personalities and the messy dynamics that follow. Ever try to organize an office party or picnic, particularly when office politics are at play? Not easy. Organizations are even less unitary when you move them into a non-recurring task. Creating evidence and framing individuals is not the stated purpose or repeating task of police organizations. To get the "police"to do it here would require a discipline I just do not see in the videos I have viewed.
Group Malice Across the Multiple Teams is Less Likely Still.
Multi-team efforts are EXTREMELY difficult to coordinate, even when lines of authority and responsibility are clear, which they were not here. You had at least three groups of police stepping all over each other, with no person clearly in charge of all of them.
I do a lot of oil and gas work, which always involves multi-team efforts. When you drill a well, you will have a dozen or so contractors from a dozen or so different companies on site, each providing a different service, each bringing in their own equipment, each with its own corporate culture, and each setting up in their own way. It has to happen in very limited space. To make it work, there is a "toolpusher" and "company man" on site. These are men with a command presence that makes General George Patton look like Jimmy Carter fighting a rabbit. Almost always, they are barrel chested men in coveralls and steel toes. Using a devastatingly effective mix of profanity, foghorn-loud voices, and sheer menace, they make it happen exactly as it is supposed to happen. They have almost absolute authority. If you cross them, they will run your ass off before you can say "turning to the right." It takes that kind of no-nonsense supervision, that kind of command presence and authority, to make a big project with multiple teams work.
I see nothing resembling that here. I see teams doing their own thing, stepping on each other in a small space, and just overall lacking centralized coordination. That undergirds my inclination that mistakes resulted from disorganization, not malice.
This changes after charges are laid.
Once the charges were made, the organizations all had incentives in prestige and pride to be right. The inclination to give the benefit of the doubt lessens after that. That said, I do have good reason to believe that Magistrato Mignini strongly believes he did his duty and did it well in this case.
You can accept this or not. I am open to challenge. But these are my inclinations based on my experience. If the evidence goes in a different direction so will I.
