In his closing argument, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini played a computer-generated simulation that showed an avatar-Amanda killing an avatar-Meredith. It ended with a gory crime-scene photo of Kercher's body.
The animation now seems to have been a mere fantasy, an animated version of the prosecution's theory that Knox was a sex-crazed femme fatale - "Foxy Knoxy," as the British tabloids called her, or a "she-devil," the term used by the prosecutor and appropriated by many European journalists.
In Italy, the acquittal triggered a wave of self-recrimination. Outside the courthouse, groups of onlookers shouted "Vergogna!": "Shame!" Vittorio Zucconi, writing in La Repubblica, adopted a less accusatorial tone: "In the end, it was ... a clash of cultures more than a legal case. The same girl whom prosecutors depicted as a she-devil starved for sex and orgies was, in inverse proportion, perceived in American public opinion as a chaste diva who fell into a hornets' nest of inept, evil men."
But this assumes that law and culture are separate. They aren't. Effective lawyers mine the popular imagination for stock characters and scripts to frame their stories. And, increasingly, their advocacy begins well before the courtroom opens, through leaks, interviews, social networking, and websites aimed at the public.
Once a narrative frame is set, dissonant details get pushed away, while consonant ones leap to observers' attention. This is important to trial lawyers because there are always gaps in the evidence. With a recognizable story and a cast of familiar characters in hand, they can coax their audience (jurors and judges) to fill in missing details. The audience's experience of the world puts flesh on the bare bones of a prosecutor's or defense attorney's legal theory. In this sense, media strategies are legal strategies.
