In my experience, whenever criminal cases turn into symbolic melodramas, reason goes out the door. I'm referring to the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin murder trial currently dominating cable TV news channels. What began as a lamentable tragedy was promoted as a multimedia morality play on the theme of racist brute vs. innocent child.In consequence, millions of Americans gullible enough to believe what they see on TV developed passionate beliefs about the case..During a recent online colloquy, a woman identifying herself as a Seattle criminal defense attorney (you never really know on the Internet) opined that the only reason George Zimmerman hadn't been forced to plead guilty was that "the police did not do a proper investigation, and handled the case poorly (seriously, Martin is found with a cellphone on him, and they decide they can't ID him and let his body sit in the morgue for a week??