Viewing of the Documentary Blackfish

I watched the documentary Blackfish over the weekend. Thoughts about the documentary to come.

Music's Ability to Persuade

     When examining the use of music throughout the documentary Making a Murderer the viewer/listener may note the choice of music styles used when presenting each side of the case. The use of music is used as a subtle persuasion of the audience into feeling different emotions during different parts of the documentary.    
     The opening sequence of each episode, which depicts photos of Avery's childhood and back story, has a tune that is lighthearted in nature. The music has a sense of fluidity and is pleasing to the ear. Any scene depicting avery and his family has a melancholy tune, inducing a the feeling of sadness for Avery and his family for what they endured by the viewer.
     When scenes showing lawyers and politicians are talking about Avery's wrongful imprisonment the music is slow and staccato creating a sense of unease and suspense. While presenting the actions of the employees of the sheriff department the music has a harshness to it. The music repeatedly transitions from soft to loud. This is not pleasing to the ear, mirroring the unpleasantness of the actions of law enforcement.
     To find out more about how music impacts one's brain click here.
 

Miscarriage of Justice

After watching the first episode in the documentary series Making a Murderer one thing I was surprised at was the amount, or rather lack of amount, of investigating the Sheriff department had done concerning the crime. It is sad that even with the lack of hard evidence Avery was still convicted. What was even more shocking was that the Department of Justice did not find any criminal or ethical wrongdoing by the Sheriff department.

Here are a few problems I saw with the handling of this case:
1. The Sheriff department the Husband of the victim world investigated the crime- Never should someone or agency so close to the victim be lead investigator of a case. There should have been a neutral third party investigating from the beginning.
2. Even when the local police department and 3 females all said to look at Gregory Allen, the Sheriff department continued to only investigate Avery.
3. The victim could not read the statement she was signing and could not validate what the Sheriff department had written. However, she was still urged by the detectives to sign anyway.
4. The Sheriff detectives continuously lead and suggested that Avery had been the assailant to the victim. Avery was fit into the crime.
5. A law enforcement investigation is supposed to view a suspect as innocent until proven guilty. However, in this case, Avery was seen and treated guilty from the very beginning. The Sheriff department had a confirmation bias attitude during the case. Evidence and facts were twisted to describe Avery, while other facts regarding his innocence were ignored.

Writing and Communication can help solve some of these issues by being a permanent record of events that have occurred. Instead of a situation of he said/she said, written record provides physical evidence of a conversation, as well as, a video recording of any interviews and actions taken. Law enforcement is multi factored. There are many players in any given case- the investigative body, prosecution, defense, judge, and jury. Having an open mind and an nonjudgemental attitude when communicating and listening is key to any successful case

I was relieved when technology was finally advanced enough to do additional testing and was accepted in a court of law. Technology can be used to combat human error, but humans still tell it what to analyze. After everything surrounding the case, to have the evidence conclusively exclude Avery and be a direct match to Allen was like a slap in the face to Law enforcement agencies nation wide.

Before viewing this documentary I had heard a story on Fox News about the inconsistencies of the documentary and actual events. No matter where we, as readers, get our information from we have to look at multiple sources to get the bigger picture.