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Headlines are good at being poorly misleading

By 4L

I have many more fun things to discuss, based in part on the nice weather and my past and pending travel plans, but for now I'll simply chime in on yet another example of bad reporting, or at least "bad headlining." I only clicked on it because it seemed to be legally related and did not make any sense, and when I read through the article, saw that it made perfect sense and the headline was merely sensational gobbledegook.

The headline (on CNN's mainpage): Boy Who Killed Grandparents Won't Get Appeal. Well, that doesn't seem right at all, I thought. But when I clicked on it, the headline morphed into "Supreme Court turns down boy killer's appeal." Well, that doesn't mean that he didn't get an appeal. I'm not going to speculate on the reasons why cert was denied because it could have been anything. I am certain, however, that had he been denied a direct appeal, this defendant would have been successful in some petition for relief. I also find this sentence particularly amusing, if only for the wonder of what they told the reporter: "The inmate's legal team, from the University of Texas Law School, expressed disappointment at the high court's refusal to accept the case." Well, what did they expect? How about a comment on what the prosecutor initially offered before the jury got to sink their teeth into the case and this kid was sentenced to the mandatory minimum?

And any college that permits a field trip to visit a Nevada brothel certainly must have students lining up on the registrar's door to get off the waiting list. This sort of class almost makes those D1 basket weaving courses pale by comparison.

Full post as published by The Once and Future Lawyer on April 14, 2008 (boomark / email).