When criminal charges are splashed across the evening news, the emphasis tends to be on attention-grabbing details of the allegations, rather than on facts. That was again recently the case when news broke of a Raleigh man’s arrest on suspicions that he stabbed his boyfriend to death.
The suspect made a court appearance earlier this week on a homicide charge. One television station described him as “tearful,” though no tears could be seen in the aired footage. They also conducted a brief interview with an acquaintance who said he recently noticed a vague change in the suspect that he couldn’t describe.
Tears that can’t be seen and changes that can’t be described? Those are hardly relevant to the serious charge the man faces and whatever evidence police might have pointing to him.
Law enforcement officials said officers were called early Saturday morning to an apartment the couple shared on Lake Lynn Drive.
“My boyfriend has been doing methamphetamines and stabbed himself in the chest,” the 31-year-old suspect had reportedly told a dispatcher.
Inside the residence, the 28-year-old boyfriend was found. He was taken to WakeMed and pronounced dead.
Two days later, the 31-year-old was taken into custody by police.
According to WRAL, officials have not yet described what they believe to be the motive for the alleged crime.
As we have seen so many times in the past, the media emphasizes the trivial and lurid, while criminal defense attorneys focus instead on the evidence and facts of the matter. Attorneys do that in order to protect the rights of the accused, but also to look for potential holes in the prosecution’s case to be used at trial and to explore the possibility of negotiations for a plea to a lesser charge.
Source: WRAL, “Raleigh man makes court appearance in boyfriend’s stabbing death,” Jan. 14, 2014