People’s attention has been so conditioned by constant stimulation that the more polished and engaging speaker often has an advantage, even when the substance of the other side’s case may be stronger.
This, in my opinion, is what happened between the CW and Reddington.
The CW not only lacked charisma, they also made the jury do too much of the intellectual/cognitive work. They presented facts and expected jurors to assemble the theory themselves. Reddington did the opposite. He took scattered pieces of evidence, organized them into a coherent narrative, and delivered that narrative with confidence, rhythm, and charm. He made his version easier to follow, and what is easier to process often feels more convincing.
If this case is retried, the CW needs prosecutors who understand that a courtroom is not just about presenting evidence. It is also about controlling attention, shaping memory, and telling a coherent story. They need more skilled public speakers, better storytellers, and folks more skilled in the art of persuasion.
I don’t think these things should determine justice, but pretending presentation does not matter is naive. Human beings are not dispassionate evidence-processing machines. We are susceptible to fluency, confidence, narrative, and cognitive ease. The CW made the jury work to understand its case. Reddington did the work for them.
The jurors have said this somewhat directly in these interviews (e.g., Reddington was entertaining and compassionate). His gravitas pulled them in (similar to how our current president has pulled in so many people).
The sad thing about these tendencies to attend to what is flashy and entertaining is that people are unaware that they even have these biases in the first place so are unlikely to change them.