I have to agree with Bonnie on this, whether or not a woman (or a man, to some extent) is attractive has everything to do with how she is received, especially in media situations.
Do you honestly think that the media would have cared quite so much if Laci Peterson had been a huge fat lady with three chins and there were none of those cute smiling pictures to flash up on the screen every five minutes.
Would the Clinton scandal been half as controversial (at least in the media) if all of the men in the nation were going..."Hey...I'd LOVE to have a girl like Monica!" Rather than, "He's the President of the United States.....and he chose a girl like Monica?!?!?!?"
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if many here would be stating that this woman is a pedophile who needs to be put away rather than talking about how they want to hit that...if she was less attractive.
I agree with Zhukov that men are visual...but more pervasive than that is this simple fact that attractive people are subconsciously considered more valuable in our society than unattractive people. They've done studies on this. Attractive people are considered more intelligent, more successful, healthier (even over unattractive people in better shape), etc. This occurs for several reasons...one being the biological urge to mate with the best specimen...and attractivness, fitness, sucess = better biological reproduction...and one of the others being what media tells us is good looking.
As a woman, I personally think that she looks better in court without all the makeup than she does sprawled across the bike...but I can see which one would appeal to the 14 year old.
More related to the actual case, does anyone actually think that the insanity defense actually has a snowballs chance in hell of winning?