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| Did the rabbit "done die?" |
The hysterical, shrieking female talking heads (primarily prosecutors and former prosecutors) on cable bemoaned the Anthony verdict as a possible result of this effect.
Interestingly, though, according at least to this study, the 'CSI Effect' itself is not real. Its a very interesting read. The authors agree that there is a "tech effect" present - one that gives the jurors the expectation that various "high tech" elements, such as DNA, are required for convictions, such as in rape.
These same shriekers also decried the fact that the jurors "could not connect the dots" in the Anthony case - some declaring that the juries expected "too much" in the way of neat, organized presentations and facts and that a burden of proof "beyond reasonable doubt" was too high of a standard.
All I can say to these shriekers is wake up, spend a little more time on your job, and take some technology refresher courses at the local U.
Since the dawn of the United States technology available to criminals, prosecutors and the "average joe" has advanced beyond expectation or imagination.
Long gone are the days when "Joe the woodcutter" comes to town from his remote, isolated hand-hewn wooden cabin on the back of some ox-drawn turnip cart, shit still clinging to his boots, to sit on a jury to decide if Sam the butcher stole Sally's mule. Imagine this case: no computers, photography (how do we even know its Sally's mule), no DNA, no forensic analysis, no tens of thousands of applicable mule-hate laws to apply.
How was it decided?
With a quill pen, some India ink, some parchment, great oration, logic and guts.
(Of course, there was a much lesser propensity to lie about things (yes, its my mule) in the olden days... or was there???)
Do these female shriekers expect today's jury to function in the same way it did then? To accept the same arguments and prosecutorial techniques used in the late 1700's?
Are you kidding?
(One might also note that only the dreaded "old ass white man" was involved and employed in the justice system at that point in time (as prosecutor, judge, jury, police, etc.) Women did not yet have the right to vote, much less be employed as a prosecutor... It can't be too long ago because Alaska's first woman prosecutor just died this year.)
Between the late 1700's and my childhood in the 1960's little things like photography were invented.
The concept of "blood type" was developed (A, B, O, etc.) developed.
Finger printing as a means to uniquely identify people.
Vehicular homicide made an appearance.
In my lifetime alone law enforcement discovered computers, DNA evidence, a huge collection of forensic testing (blood, drug, health, disease, parasites, etc. etc. etc.), video, and many, many other technologies.
But these technologies, such as photography, did not come just to law enforcement - but also to the common "Joe" as well - who in the late 1800's could by a Kodak camera and take his own pictures just as well as any detective or prosecutor.
So by 1900, say, would it be wrong of Joe to sit on a jury and expect that, say a photograph, be introduced as evidence in a case of, say, forgery? "Here is a photograph of Mrs. White's tiara in 1895." Please compare it to the one taken in 1900 after it was retrieved from the vault at the jewelers.
"Do you notice any differences?"
No, of course not.
So a TV show like CSI, or the "tech effect", or whatever is a part of the natural progression of technology, crime, evidence and prosecutorial "keeping up with the joneses."
In my teenagerhood there was a common expression: "did the rabbit die?" This was in reference to an old time test for pregnancy where the urine of the female was injected into the rabbit. The urine of pregnant women caused a visible reaction in the ovaries of the rabbit.
Today I doubt there is a male under 25 (nor a single mom under 25) alive that is not familiar with the standard "home pregnancy tests." And I also bet, to a man (and woman), they all know what a "DNA test" is for and what it means for them. A paternity DNA test is a common occurrence these days - one conducted under the imprimatur of, surprise, the local county court house.
Given that, as a matter of course for young men and women, a "court ordered" paternity test is a common occurrence (one involving DNA, of course) - why wouldn't there be an expectation that the same sort of tests be applied where ever DNA would "close the deal" in a criminal case? Certainly in the daily life of youngsters today this is common technology - used by their peers to extract "child support payments" or as a lever to engage in holy matrimony.
No, my guess is that the average "joe" on jury duty, even with today's substandard education, expects more from his prosecutor than some tenuous, unsubstantiated links from A to B to C.
My guess is also that these female prosecutors, at least like those on cable news shows, deal almost exclusively with career public defenders and juries with little interest in believing anything beyond what the prosecutor tells them to believe. I would also guess that "career public defender" and "energetic, inventive defense" are not synonymous.
Indeed the CSI Effect probably had little to do with the verdict in the Casey Anthony case.
I think, the prosecutors reached for a verdict well beyond what they could actually reasonably prove and the jury simply confirmed that that reach was too far.
These shrieking female prosecutors will have to man up and accept that today's juries are much more likely to contain folks that expect to be presented with logical consistency and statistical likelihood instead of histrionic whining and flogging incendiary pictures of partying.
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