Ms. Jaime said she believed the federal and state governments were afraid of heightening the conflict with a direct confrontation.
But each law presents problems for the prosecutors, and one of them may heighten the conflict between the two prosecutions' theories.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has the power to heighten the conflict there at any time, doing further damage to the economy.
He knows he has arrived during a time of tension between Iran and the United States, and he said he did not want his story to heighten the conflict.
The Jordanian minister said using suicide bombings as a reason to heighten the conflict would only help foster greater extremism in the region.
Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, an advocacy group here, predicted that the decision would "heighten the conflict in both legal and political terms" and could make it difficult for prosecutors to win a conviction in any marijuana case.
However, Follmer's unresolved relationship with Reyes also served to heighten the conflict between Doggett and Follmer, as both men had feelings for her.
Rather than clarifying the saga of what prosecutors said was a sex game gone fatally awry, the conviction on Saturday of Amanda Knox, 22, a Seattle college student, for killing her roommate, Meredith Kercher, 21, seemed only to heighten the conflicting public opinions voiced in two years of fierce international news coverage.
Indeed, they heightened the risks of conflict for all Western countries.
The collision earlier this year between an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter, and Bush's subsequent approval of a large sale of weapons to Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty, have heightened the sense of conflict.
