Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Justice Denied

If you need proof that our justice system is broken, look no further than the verdict just rendered in the Casey Anthony trial.

In case you missed it, a Florida jury found Ms. Anthony not guilty of murdering her two-year-old child in 2008. Not guilty on manslaughter charges. Not guilty on various counts of aggravated child abuse. In fact, she was only found guilty on charges of lying to a police officer. While she may receive a short sentence for that crime, it's worth remembering that "Tot Mom" (as Nancy Grace calls her) has already spent three years in jail. With credit for time already served, she may walk out of the courtroom on Thursday morning, a free woman.

But even if she spends a few more months in the slammer, Casey Anthony will emerge from jail a rich woman. Book and movie offers will be pouring in (in fact, they already are) and forget about those laws that prevent the accused from profiting from a crime. There are plenty of ways to structure a deal to avoid the statutes, and besides, she beat the rap on the most important counts.

Say what you will about the lack of DNA and fingerprints. At the end of the day, there is--as prosecutors argued--only one person who benefited from the death of that beautiful little girl. The same woman who partied while her daughter was missing, without an apparent care in the world. The same woman who created an elaborate web of lies to conceal the child's disappearance. She is the same woman who will now profit from the death of her daughter.

Only in America.

12 comments:

John from Pennsylvania said...

I would not want to be the state attorney trying to defend how they dropped the ball on this one.

SwampWoman said...

I don't have any doubts that she did it, but I also don't have any proof, and neither did the state. I told people that yeah, she did it, but she's gonna walk. No evidence.

SwampWoman said...

I think that she killed the child, but I don't have any evidence to back up my belief except for her behavior, and neither did the state.

I thought all along that she was going to walk.

TOF said...

Much was made over the fact that the case was circumstantial. Most such cases are circumstantial. It's a lucky prosecutor who has witnesses to the crime of murder.

CEWare said...

This morning, while chatting with a friend about being noticibly more worked up over psychopathic dog-torturer Michael Vick's recent endorsement contract with Nike and BET "Sportsman of the Year" award (gag) than I appeared to be about Casey Anthony killing her own child, I wrote this:

"It's not that. It's that I believe justice will be served in the Casey Anthony case, whereas in the Vick case, not only has justice not been served --- he's actually being rewarded."

Pffffffft. Silly me. I guess I won't be surprised when a few years from now someone gives Anthony a "Mother of the Year" award.

CEWare said...

Mr. Vick, by the way, will apparently be free to own dogs again in late 2012.

princeton said...

Granted she us as guilty as OJ, one thing that makes America ... America is the fact that you need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt of guilt. Maybe it is my distaste for anything Nancy Grace but one thing the verdict does show is when you have no weapon, motive or hard evidence it goes gained what the framers of the constitution had in mind. That being said the "alleged" baby killer is a total sleaze ball but that isn't against flordia's criminal code (unfortunately).

Two more things...
1- what does decomp of human smell like as opposed to anything else and is that general knowledge? Rot is rot to my untrained nose.

2- This is one of those the system worked/system is broken moments. Also the high numbers of unemployed were hoping for some good, real - reality TV.

Bartender Cabbie said...

They couldn't prove anything other that she was a liar. A total sociopath if I ever saw one.

John from Pennsylvania said...

We suffer from CSI-itis. On TV they always seem to be able to have solid proof. In real life it is not like that and that was accepted in the past but not now.

MarkD said...

I'd say leave it to the professionals, but DNA is disproving a lot of slam dunk convictions we had and accepted in the past.

It's an imperfect system - just better than most others. When we get it wrong, it's supposed to be in favor of the guilty.

If you want justice run by professionals with a very high conviction rate, you could emulate Japan. God help you if you are innocent and accused.

tfhr said...

The media and its assortment of legal talking heads have played every second out of this thing and the resulting circus all but made certain that neither the accused or the victim would ever receive a fair hearing.

Courtroom sensationalism has become a corrupting influence so frequently that we've come to expect perverted outcomes such as this one. I honestly felt no sense of surprise over the decision - just more disgust.

Court processes should not be made into spectator sport. Pre-trial media hype guarantees a jury pool that consists of either people completely disassociated with current events (maladjusted) or liars that will say anything during selection to get a seat in the box and a book deal in the future.

All that's left now is for the late arriving scavengers to pick over the remains of the little girl. I think Grace and Greta got the eyeballs and I'm pretty sure Geraldo got the marrow but since I didn't watch ANY of it, I can only surmise based on pecking order.

Well maybe there's still something left - Mom will get a reality TV gig. I think she could do the "Bachelorette" one if that's still around. Or she could do a "Survivor" episode in Peru and link up with that Vanderslut creep down there to give Greta a great segue into more Natalie Holloway wallowing.

Must find the anti-emetics.....

1389 said...

No, one other person benefited from this obscene media circus.

Barack Hussein Obama.

While that trial was going on 24x7, nobody was covering the Gunwalker scandal, and the budget barely came up at all. The destruction that Obama was wreaking upon us during that time was simply lost in the media noise.