Graphic photos.
“Dignity”.
Who are we really “protecting” - the victim/family...or ourselves?
Are certain brutalities publicly “acceptable” while others are not?
WHY?
Withholding graphic crime scene photos/graphic court testimony is wrong.
It’s simply stunning in it’s misguided sense of “decency” and “propriety”. In their vast wisdom, the courts unilaterally determine that we are all children, innocent Pollyannas who live in Neverland - that we can’t handle the truth, we must be “protected”. Protected from what - the TRUTH?
During OP’s testimony, graphic photos of dead Reeva were “accidentally” shown in court.
“ACCIDENTALLY”?
Isn’t the whole point of this murder trial the graphically dead Reeva?!! This notion of “accidental” showing - as if it is somehow a grave offense - is ridiculous in the extreme, bizarre on its face. If one is accused of murder, shouldn’t the graphic results of that murder be the #1 evidence displayed in open court? Isn’t that death the singular point of the entire trial?!
It’s like enthusiastically electing to throw a brutal, bloody war, but then not show the graphic, gruesome results of that brutal, bloody war to the public (the same public that fights the war and pays for the war). Such a sanitized policy is cowardly and perverse (especially when war crimes are involved!). War is extremely bad, extremely ugly - but let’s just sanitize it and pretend - we won’t show just how extremely bad, how extremely ugly it really is. [side note: This is one reason maimed/traumatized US war veterans are all but invisible when they return, why they too often end up homeless or commit suicide, why they too often don’t get the help they desperately need - we REFUSE to show the truth of war and its manifestly awful consequences. Same with murder - most victims simply become little more than invisible names and statistics.]
Simple words too often fail miserably to accurately convey the harsh reality in murder cases.
“Murder”, as a word and legal concept, is clean, neat, abstract. A murdered human is not clean, neat or abstract. For god’s sake, let us deal in REALITY! (Let those who don’t wish to see such photos turn away.) We have a solemn moral duty as a society (the justice system even more so) to accurately, publicly display the wretched TRUTH - murderous actions have miserable, insanely horrid consequences. Portraying anything less than the entire truth is a grave disservice to victims. (Seriously, do you honestly think a murder victim would wish the stark visual reality of their death withheld? I certainly would not.). By disallowing open court to view all such photos (treating the public like 3 year olds), the crime itself is diminished, whitewashed - like sanitized war photos. It disrespects victims in the extreme by not showing the ENTIRE truth of the crime.
Excuses of protecting the victim’s and/or family’s “dignity” simply do NOT hold up (yes, the family has every right NOT to view the photos, if they wish, which I staunchly defend). But also remember this: murder is a crime not only against the person, but against the State; the public has a vested interest in crimes against the public.
Let’s face reality head on. The victim is DEAD - s/he does not care about “dignity”. The family desperately wants JUSTICE above all - if graphic photos/graphic testimony help bring justice, isn’t that the goal? The only road to justice is to literally see the whole truth. (If it was my murdered daughter, I’d want the freaking WORLD to see exactly what OP did.) To downplay the graphic nature of murder in a misguided bid to preserve alleged “dignity” is to subtly, indirectly continue the proliferation of violence. (Well, yeah, he killed her but it wasn’t so bad - I saw the [sanitized, highly selective] photos.) NO!!! “Killing” someone doesn’t tell the story - ALL graphic crime scene photos/testimony tells the real story - not bits and pieces through an arbitrary filter.
Society must SEE the true consequences of violence. Yes, seeing such horrid photos / hearing graphic testimony is extremely uncomfortable - but that’s the point: murder and its far-reaching familial/societal consequences are extremely uncomfortable. It should be. The dead body is Exhibit #1 - it too often gets lost amid all the trial legalese and courtroom dramatics in a warped sense of preserving "dignity".
The accused did not shy away from committing murder - we should never shy away from seeing the full results of that murder, if we so wish.
Full justice demands full disclosure.
Murder victims deserve nothing less.
That is true dignity.
One more thing. . .
The extremely disparate treatment of graphic court testimony/photos between Reeva Steenkamp’s murder trial and the Anene Booysens of the world is a whole other discussion entirely, isn’t it? Highly selective “dignity” - based on class and color. Apparently, certain victims deserve more “dignity” than others.