Science Of Small Talk

In Britain, we don't have such racial differences in crime reporting; the fatal stabbing of a black teenager is likely to get as much coverage as the fatal stabbing of a white teenager. What we have instead is class differences. The murder of a member of the underclass is hardly mentioned; the murder of a prominent citizen (of any ethnicity) is headline news.

I touched on the issue in my novel "Perilaus", where precisely such a contrast in murder reporting is descibed.

So I suspect that what you describe is an international phenomenon in broad terms, but national in its specifics.

A jury believed that Peterson killed his wife and unborn son, even though prosecutors had no physical evidence and could not say exactly how the crime was committed. Peterson was convicted and sentenced to death in a media firestorm.

Gilberto Cano, 32, pled guilty to stabbing his pregnant girlfriend in the belly three times, then strangling her. Martha Moreno, 29, and their 26-week-old fetus both died in their home in Modesto.

Despite overwhelming physical evidence, evidence that did not exist in the Peterson case, and a confession, Cano got 15 years to life for second-degree murder and two years for the use of a knife and ligature, used in strangulation. Nothing was imposed for the death of the fetus.

Unlike the Peterson case, Cano's did not generate any speculation on cable television talk shows, and Moreno's pretty, smiling face never became fodder for supermarket tabloids.

Fladager and Harris, who took over the case when Distaso left the prosecutor's office, said a first-degree murder conviction might have been hard to obtain, because of the question surrounding Cano's state of mind. A first-degree murder conviction requires premeditation, also unproven in the Peterson case.

"In any trial, there's always a risk, and there were elements in this case that we needed to take into consideration," Fladager said.

Cynics will decide what those elements were.