Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede were accused of sexually assaulting and murdering British Meredith Kercher in 2007 . Meredith Kercher, a 21 year old exchange student was discovered in her bedroom at her flat, a post-mortem examination reveals evidence of sexual activity at some point before Kerche died. Police claims Kercher was murdered because she refused to take part in violent sex . In 2008, Guede was trialed separately and was found guilty of the murder. Knox and Sollecitio were trialed in 2009; Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years. In October 2011, they were acquitted of Kercher’s murder but this was overturned in 2013, and Knox and Sollecito were found guilty for the second time in January 2014. Knox has been both demonised and celebrified in the coverage that followed her arrest and conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher . She has been painted as both a villain and an innocent victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. Her guilt or innocence is not read in the evidence, but is instead based on her failure to conform to expected feminine behaviour; her character as a hedonistic, sex-crazed deviant confirms her guilt of the crime. Knox has been experienced a character assassination by the media, her identity dissected and reassembled from the discourses of femininity and criminology. The representations of Knox demonstrate the complex interplay between transgression and power. Power refers to a set of relations that change over time, which operates through knowledge. Discourse relates to systems of power, which shape what is known and how it is known by individuals and society. A transgression is a violation of a moral, social or legal code.
Representations of Knox a...
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Knox’s alleged crime is framed by social discourses in the courtroom and in media coverage. Women’s violent actions are predominately seen and understood through her female gender. A lack of vocabulary exists to examine and understand violent women, and thus these paradigms have a strict hold on our perceptions of the deviant women. Amanda Fox has been unable to escape her reputation as a sinister seductress, a femme fatale, and has experienced trial by media. Knox is deviant in her failure to conform to social and moral expectations of her feminine in gender – in emotional composure and sexual agency. The lenses used to examine and dissect Knox are tools used to affirm male dominance in society and “put women in their place” and deny them agency. The fear of unknowable femininity creates suspicion about the conduct of women and their hidden agendas.
Women of color are treated differently; law does not function as a social mediator between relationships of all people. The focus is on women of colour and how non-white communities are considered inherently violent. By such stereotypes, rape myths create a belief that certain races are more dangerous than others, creating fear based on the social construction of society. Using the ``Slut Walk`` article as an example: women have argued ``it is different for a white middle class women to wear something slutty and march in a parade than a women of colour.`` Due to the social construction black woman are more likely to have their characters stereotype and are seen more promiscuous compared to white woman. (Julie Dowsett Lecture).Stereotyping has even gone so far where a police official made a comment about York university students, referring to the females saying “they should not dress like a slut” to reduce assault (Slutwalk 249). Such rape myths put women on the line, claiming that it is their fault for getting sexually assaulted because they provoke men. “Such stereotypical assumptions find their roots in many cultures, including our own. They no longer, however, find a place in Canadian law” (R. v. Ewanchuck
The defendant of the Casey Anthony Trial, is Casey Anthony. At the age of 19 she had given birth to her daughter Caylee Marie Anthony, the victim in this case. The one who first noticed the 2 year old daughter missing were her grandparents, Cindy and George Anthony. Casey was found a month after she left her parents house, with her boyfriend Tony Lazzaro. It was then that Casey had told the police about how her daughter was missing for about a month because the babysitter, Zenaida “Zanny the Nanny” Fernandez-Gonzalez had kidnapped her. These were the main people who started off the investigation on Casey Anthony.
There are many differences when it comes to gender within the trial of Thomas and Jane Weir. Women were usually domestic workers within the household and society, doing jobs such as child-rearing, weaving, and roles of mother, sister, daughter, wife and caretaker in the community. Men were either seen as the husbands of the female witchcraft users or someone of an intense authority figure. “Sir Andrew Ramsay, Lord Abbotshall then Provost of Edinburgh” were all men with high statuses within the community in Edinburgh in which Thomas lived. Women during the time of witchcraft in Scotland came to be connected with the Devil by possession while most men do not have carnal knowledge of the work of the Devil himself
Filetti, Jean S.”From lizzie borden to lorena bobbitt: violent women and gendered justice.” Journal of American Studies 35.3(2001):471-484. .
The Casey Anthony trial has been arguably the most controversial case since the trial of O.J. Simpson and has been speculated over ever since the verdict had been given in July of 2011. It was decided by a jury of her peers that Anthony was not guilty of murder, for the death of her daughter Caylee. Many believe that Anthony should have been found guilty however, very little Americans actually comprehend the justice system.
In July of 2008, one of the biggest crime cases devastated the United States nation-wide. The death of Caylee Anthony, a two year old baby, became the most popular topic in a brief amount of time. Caylee’s mother, Casey Anthony, became the main suspect after the child supposedly was kidnapped and went missing. To this day, the Casey Anthony case shocks me because justice, in my opinion, wasn’t served. I feel as if the criminal conviction system became somewhat corrupted in this case. The entire nation, including the court system, knew that Casey Anthony was behind this criminal act, but yet she escaped all charges. I chose this case not only because it’s debatable, but also to help state the obvious, this case was handled the wrong way. Clearly the legal system was biased, which worked in Casey Anthony’s favor, freeing a murderer.
The Casey Anthony case was one that captured the heart of thousands and made it to the headline of national TV talk shows, newspapers, radio stations and social media networks for months. The root of the case was due to a clash between the parental responsibilities, the expectations that went with being a parent, and the life that Casey Anthony wanted to have. The case was in respect to the discovering the cause of Casey’s two-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony’s, death; however the emphasis was placed on Casey and her futile lies, which resulted in a public outcry. The purpose of this essay is to delve into the public atmosphere and inquire about why the media and social media collectively attacked the case by uncovering the content of the case, the charges that were laid, and later dismissed, the “performers” of the trial and the publics reaction. It will further discuss how it defies universal ideologies and how the media represents this. The discussion of the complexities of the case and its connotations will incorporate Stuart Hall’s Representation and the Media, Robert Hariman’s Performing the Laws, What is Ideology by Terry Eagleton, The Body of the Condemned by Michael Foucault, and a number of news articles, which will reveal disparate ideas of representation in the media, and the role of the performers of the law and their effect on the understanding of the case.
The number of sexually abused children is five times what it was in 2012. Jerry Sandusky has contributed to this statistic. Jerry Sandusky was the head coach of the Pennsylvania State Football team (Penn. State). He has a wife and a few children, some adopted from his charity organization, the second mile, but this did not stop him from committing the crimes he did. Jerry Sandusky was convicted of raping ten innocent children, some of which he met through his charity. This earned him thirty-sixty years behind bars. There are issues from this case that are similar to some issues in the play, Twelve Angry Men. Ultimately, throughout both cases the jury was faced with difficult decisions. In both cases the verdict took a long time and a lot of thinking. But, in the end both came out with the right resolution. Sandusky’s reputation of being the guy everyone looked up to made the overall decision of the jury, in this case, inordinately difficult.
On June 12,1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered. Their bodies were discovered outside Nicole Simpson's condominium. Nicole Simpson was the estranged wife of the famous football player and T.V. star O.J. Simpson.
He claimed that the statistics seriously under-estimated the extent of female criminality. From an examination of official figures in a number of different countries he claimed to have identified certain crimes that are usually committed by women but are particularly likely to be unreported. Pollak went on to give reasons as to why there should be an under-recording of female crime. 1. He argues that the police, magistrates and other law enforcement officials tend to be men.
When the criminal justice system was established, the main objective was to create neutrality and fairness between the sexes. Even though people might believe that there is no such thing as ‘stereotyping’ in the criminal justice system, it is quite obvious that women are constantly being looked down upon because of their sexuality. In general, women tend to be treated like fragile objects that could break at any moment; the truth is that women can be strong and courageous just like men. Society stereotypes about women and the criminal justice system are no different. Throughout history, certain crimes have been separated into different categories based on their prevalence.
He had explained to police that women were the natural choice because he had the need to feel dominant. He had stated that he found crime easy to commit because it was what he had done before and Catherine was a crime of opportunity, she had no one to protect her, she was alone and he wanted to commit a crime. He stated that Catherine’s murder and assault was “just an idea that came into my mind, I couldn’t put it aside, it was the perfect opportunity.’ He had weighed his benefits and left with a purpose to kill someone and that night he had wanted it to be a woman, he had told police that “I knew as soon as I saw people turn away from her, I could commit a crime and chances were, I could get away with it” (Schmalleger, 2014, pg.
This account of Mary Brown provides historians with insight into the social and legal practices of the 18th century. This case identifies the social unrest and anxiety regarding the popularity of theft, and in this case shoplifting. This case reiterates this units themes, including, the gendering of crime. London society believed shoplifter most often to be women. The Old Bailey records, reaffirm the notion of gendered crime, and that women were more often than men accused and convicted of shoplifting. However,
that is perched in front of them” (Coyne75). She describes how the convicted women graciously
Society’s gender infrastructure has changed since the 1920’s and the nineteen amendment that allowed women the right to vote. Or so we thought, many of the gender expectations that were engraved into our early society still remain intact today. Women for many people still mean an immaterial, negligible, and frivolous part of our society. However, whatever the meaning of the word women one has, the same picture is always painted; that of a housewife, mother, and daughter. Women are expected to fallow the structural identity of living under her husband 's submissions. Threatening the social norm of what is accepted to be a woman in society can put in jeopardy the personal reputation of a woman, such treating her as a whore. But, what happens