Twelve Angry Men and Casey Anthony

From the movie "Twelve Angry Men"

Avenging Caylee's Anthony's death seems to have been more important, at least to some like Nancy Grace and the other talking heads, than the law, justice, or just about anything else that you could imagine.  Up until the very end I had paid little attention to this case - dismissing Casey Anthony as an idiot, stupid slut who killed her child in order to party - just as the media portrait of her suggested.

My mother and others had commented on the trial over the previous weeks - but until the last week or so I had simply assumed what the media had said was true.

She was guilty...

By the long July 4th weekend, however, I started to pay more attention - I started to wonder how a woman so obviously guilty of a crime needed such a long trial - I wondered what the evidence was.

Since the trial was nearing its end various cable news channels started to replay portions of the trial - closing arguments, testimony, etc.

I watched closely. I paid more attention.

Where was the prosecution's evidence, I started to wondered...?

I did not see any, none at all.  No linking of fact A to fact B.  No indication that only Casey Anthony could have been in location A at time B doing act C associated with the crime.  Nothing.  I say the Gawker version of a "media conviction" - but nothing I would call "judicial."

I know a couple of people with close family members who were murdered in cold blood.  In every case the authorities were extremely, extremely careful to link facts together in a proper chain showing how no one else could have been involved at crucial points (thus cementing their guilt) before going to trial.  If these points could not be proven then the cases waited to go to trial until they were proven.

Of course the prosecution in this case wanted people to hate Casey Anthony for "partying" while the child was missing or dead - that's what the female news talking heads hated the most.  This "evil slut" went out dancing while little Caylee rotted in her grave.  In fact, they even proved this point in court - showing dated pictures of Casey partying juxtaposed against the probable time of death for Caylee.

This is the only thing the media, the female talking heads, and some of my own family members all focused on - "evil bitch" they cried - convict her - she's guilty.

But in listening to the testimony of the prosecution's own witnesses - the forensic experts, anthropologists, and others - there was simply no chain of facts linking Casey to the death of her child.

When you expect a jury to condemn someone to death they must be provided concrete facts and a scenario that shows how no one but the defendant could have done it.  Jurors are required, in criminal cases, to find that the defendant did it "beyond reasonable doubt" and "with moral certainty."

Now one would imagine that someone like a Nancy Grace or a Judge Jeanine Pirro would have noticed this distinct lack of concrete evidence.  After all, the present themselves as "experts" in these matters.  But apparently, despite actually being in the court room, this total lack of evidence escaped them.

By Sunday night the news had arrays of talking heads discussing, or I should say ranting about, the Casey Anthony jury and its certainty of returning a conviction - all at least what I call the "old ass white men" - old, white haired forensic pathologists and the like.  These folks pointed out how there was simply no forensic evidence presented and that the prosecution's case was basically laughable.  Needless to say they did not last in the "hot rotation" from anchor to anchor over the prime news times.

Instead we were presented with a collection of smurking women experts decrying the "evil slut" and her actions.  How Caylee's death must be "avenged."  Convicting Casey in the press.

Tuesday's news, however, told a far different story - the jury found Casey "not guilty" on all the counts related to Caylee's death (and yes, she was found guilty of lying to the police because that exactly what the evidence showed).

And how did these women talking head experts take their complete failure to predict the outcome?

Outrage.

Anger at the stupid jury.

Shock.

What's much scarier than Casey Anthony's "not guilty" is how these talking head women "experts" have perverted justice, the Constitution, and society.

Is it a total outrage that Caylee Anthony is dead?

Yes - if, and only if, someone actually killed her.  She could, for example, have died accidentally.

Must an accidental death be "avenged?"

The talking head news idiots I believe drive the thankless public servants in places like the Orlando County Courthouse to "rush" in cases like this.  Their shrieks of "Oh my God! Caylee must be avenged!" cloud facts, reality, the judicial procss and good judgement.  The create hysteria and blood lust for vengeance where slow and plodding are called for.

As I said, no murder I know directly of was handle this way - mostly because, I imagine, folks like Jeanine Pirro and Nancy Grace don't know about the case nor take them up as "causes".  Instead the detectives merely plod along, sometimes for years or decades, until they get a break - at which point they convict their man.

The jury in this case, returning a verdict in only 10 hours or so, clearly were all on the same page (this being confirmed by the comments of one of the alternate jurors).  There was likely no "Twelve Angry Men" scenario where only one thought she was innocent and the rest guilty - there simply wasn't time in that ten hours to got through all of that.

The scariest thing of all - from my perspective - is that Grace, Pirro, and others were busy in the nations court rooms in previous years.  Apparently using the zest to "avenge the death..." to push the judicial process along in directions that believe are best for everyone based on their own fervent beliefs rather than on due process.

(Not every death is a crime.  Not every action is a crime.  Unfortunately today when there is a problem apparently "someone has to pay."  Sounds like a police state to me...)

You have to hand it to Casey Anothey - she has balls - she did not take a plea and stuck to her guns to the end.

Is she guilty of being a killer?

The court says no, but then so did the 1995 OJ court (at least those prosecutors managed to produce the Bruno Magli shoes).

God will judge Casey Anthony in the end.

The good state of Florida has judged her and found her not to be a murderer.

Thankfully the jury took their job seriously and rendered a judgement based on the evidence presented instead of the media hype provided by Grace and others.

But I fear the Pirro's, Grace's and others before them have already and forever polluted justice with media.

To them I say there are good reasons the founding fathers created our justice system.  One of them being to ensure a "fair trial" for anyone accused of a crime.

How wonderful that they foresaw a day when the likes of the Pirro's and Grace's would be busy convicting defendants in the press before and during their trials.  How wonderful that they foresaw only a Constitutionally protected system of fair trials would allow the country to evade becoming a police state, to grow and prosper despite their creation of corresponding "free press" to open talk about said trials.

Maybe Pirro and Grace can create a foundation to sue Casey Anthony in civil court to extract damages for Caylee's death - relying instead on the "preponderance of evidence" to convict her.  Maybe they can spend their own millions of dollars to prosecute this stupid young mother in order to avenge Caylee's death.

Perhaps they could sue the Orando Country Prosecutor's for presenting such an incompetent case?

The coverage of this case by news outlet's has totally sickened me.  These people are not "experts" - their predictions are failures and wrong.  Their Nazi-esque zeal to ensure that there is always someone "responsible" for an unfortunate or tragic event is downright scary.

They pervert justice.

They pervert the notion of a "free press" and "fair trial".

What I write here are my own opinions - read them if you like - don't if you don't.  But I don't push them on you.  I don't write about things like Casey Anthony (I am writing about her trial here - not her) before all the facts are in (which, in this case, they are not - there will be years of books, made for TV movies, documentaries, counter suits, etc.).

If I were some of those talking heads I would sincerely think about reexamining my own motivations and credibility rather than pouncing on the next victim who needs "avenging".