Days after the Casey Anthony verdict, the drumbeat against America's jury system has swelled to an angry Greek chorus: "What were the jurors thinking--the mother partied for a whole month when her daughter was presumably missing?"
Many of these same confounded citizens also threw up their hands with the O.J. Simpson trial: "There was blood in the Bronco, for God's sake, and he was running away from the police!" And there were those who wondered how the plain facts of the Michael Jackson pedophilia case resulted in an acquittal: "He was sleeping in his bed with children that weren't his own!"
What these cases all have in common is not that they were celebrity trials, but that they represent a continuing loss of faith in the legal system. As entertainment these trials outperformed the steroidal voyeurism and tawdriness of reality TV. As civics lessons and as tutorials on the justice system, however, they were devastating failures.
Absurd verdicts are not limited to the rich and famous, or the suddenly radiant trailer trash. In May two New York City police officers who had assisted a drunken woman to her apartment while on duty, and then ended up spending the night with her, were acquitted of rape charges.
People are left to wonder: Are jurors simply stupid, or does something happen during legal trials that temporarily disables their common sense and critical thought?
Part of the incomprehension is an unacknowledged split between the legal and the moral in American law. A legally correct result can and often is morally repugnant. Legal laymen stand mystified and question what the eyes of the jury were looking at. What's the point of having a ringside seat if your vision ends up completely distorted, if you can't see what's really going on? The Casey Anthony jurors could have stayed home and watched it all on cable TV, and then phoned in a verdict that would have shown better judgment and matched the opinion of the rest of the nation.
Citizens have the right to expect that what is true will be discoverable at trial, and that obvious guilt can surely withstand the test of reasonable doubt. Legal decisions should make sense not simply to lawyers and judges; they should also appeal to the rightness and righteousness of ordinary people. What is a verdict if it doesn't verify the truth -- not some legalistic stand-in called legal facts, but the actual truth?
The Casey Anthony verdict may be the most recent example of this lack of coherence between what is glaringly right and what is provable under the law. Everyone watching from the cheap seats of their home is desperate to believe that the legal system is meaningfully interested in finding the truth and punishing the guilty.
But this, too, is yet further wasted wish fulfillment.
There is an altered reality inside courtrooms. Everyone is breathing a different kind of air. Insulated by all that marble and mahogany, the talking head noise of cable TV and the common sense word of mouth on the street are blocked out by a mute button. What makes complete sense outside of the courtroom has no bearing on the legalistic jury instructions, the narrowed presentation of evidence, the presumptions of innocence and the burdens of proof that guide criminal trials no matter how simple and plain the facts appear or indisputable the outcome.
From outside the courtroom, the legal system often looks as if it has no grip on the truth, or even worse, any concern or respect for the truth. But legal trials are, in fact, less interested in what is true than what can be proven.
By now legal experts have lectured us on the difference between saying that Casey Anthony was innocent and that the prosecution was unable to prove that she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's why the jury voted to acquit. But most reasonable, sensible, decent people are still left morally outraged by this purportedly correct legal outcome, and they won't easily be persuaded to appreciate the difference -- nor should they.
It bears noting that such travesties of justice happen less frequently in other western
nations. Instead of having both sides fight a zero sum game, the winner-take-all, scorch the earth contests that make American trials similar to its sporting spectacles, other countries place a higher value on having both the prosecution and the defense work to uncover the truth. After all, everyone in society benefits when the truth is known and injustice is not allowed to prevail -- in this case, the memory of Caylee Anthony, especially.
Follow Thane Rosenbaum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thanerosenbaum
David Lohr: Caylee Anthony Case: 'I Was There When The Search For Caylee Began'
Christine James-Brown: Caring For Our Caylees: A Call To Help Struggling Families
Casey Anthony Verdict | THE CAYLEE DAILY
Casey Anthony Trial Verdict: NOT GUILTY Of First-Degree Murder ...
Casey Anthony acquitted of murder -
Casey Anthony Not Guilty of Murder in Caylee's Death - ABC News
In Session: - Sidebar - CNN.com Blogs
Who's guilty, Casey Anthony or the jurors?
'Nanny' lawsuit resumes against Casey Anthony
Casey Anthony was not charged with being a bad mother. She was charged with first degree murder, and there was not sufficient evidence to find her guilty. Period. End of story. Perhaps Mr. Rosenbaum's view of the proceedings was obscured a bit - after all, he lives hundreds of miles away in New York City. The jury, on the other hand - who actually sat in that "marble and mahogany" room during the trial, and actually listened to all of the evidence - came to a different conclusion. A conclusion that should be honored by all those who believe the jury system is a net good in a country founded upon the principle that unchecked government power is an evil.
We don't criminalize people we don't "like" in this country. That's now how it works. I may not like Mr. Rosenbaum's writings, but I don't suggest that he be punished for writing such balderdash because he has not broken the law.
Perhaps Mr. Rosenbaum would like to punish everyone he doesn't care for. Let's hang everyone who SEEMS guilty. Maybe he thinks that would be the "moral" thing to do.
Thank goodness that's not the country, or justice system, we've built.
Other western countries have traditions that extend from the Roman law as revised by Napoleon.
No one is any happier with the result- look at the Amanda Knox trial uproar.
Our system has the virtue of a more consistent outcome from place to place and trial to trial.
The Roman or "Civil Law" outcome is notoriously impredictable.
Most of the media and the people having opinions on this case were both prosecutors, and defense attorney's. Both sides were of the opinion that Casey Anthony was guilty, so it wasn't so slanted to pro-prosecution, it seems that everyone that analyzed this case day to day had so many a-ha moments that it truly is a travesty of justice. Caylee will never have justice, her murderer was set free. Would you like to take her in to your home and let her watch your kids everyday? She is looking for another country to live in, surely you have room in your house for her.
One thing for sure I hope they are able to go on with their lives, but they really did mess up with their verdict. Maybe that's why they are living in fear because even they know they didn't do the right thing.
But I wish them no harm. What is amazing is that more than half of the country thinks she's guilty, yet 12 who didn't made that decision. Such a shame !! Just because she wasn't found guilty, doesn't mean she's innocent.
She will have to live with herself for the rest of her life. It seems that even prior to killing her daughter, Casey was a criminal, it's just that she had co-dependent parents who never held her accountable. I don't see any happiness for her, she is the most hated woman in America, she is going to have to hide for the rest of her life. The interest in her is already wavering, so there isn't going to be the big bucks waiting for her to cash in on within the next couple of weeks. Stupid is what stupid does.
He always got the killer and in the end it was never on the basis of anything other than circumstantial evidence.
Casey is young and she can pull this stunt again and we can have this fun again too.
Convicting her is so unentertaining!
What I think is saddest in all of this, is that the two people who were the first to hold that tiny baby when she entered this world - were happy that the killer was freed. There was no one standing outside of that courtroom in tears for that baby and the injustice done to her.
Eventually Casey will be left standing alone with no more people protecting her as if she's celebrating her daughters death. At least that's how I see it. The defense team partying after that verdict was dispicable, disgusting, and so very wrong. Casey is no rock star, she's no celebrity, she's nothing but a murderer who got off by lying to everyone.
She's the modern day Lizzie Borden, although I read recently that Lizzie had quite the life after she killed her parents, she would have parties at her house, and continued living in that house until the day she died.
But today's society isn't going to be so forgiving. Who really wants to hear her during an interview? I have absolutely no desire to hear her tell the public more lies.
Her lies have already destroyed too many people, and I won't be interested in listening to her any further.
In the O.J. case and, I think. in the Anthony case, it is easy, too easy, to see prosecutorial incompetence as a huge reason for the eventual verdict. In the Anthony case, the jurors were obviously disposed towards a guilty verdict but could not convict the mother when there was NO evidence on what the cause of death was or who caused the death! Sorry but your prejudice towards a guilty verdict just means you watch too many soaps or are willing to grant that Truth is always on the side of the prosecution!
In America it is necessary to PROVE on the facts that the accused did it, not just say that they seem to look guilty or that they belong to the class of people who, you know, always commit crimes.
What type of JUSTICE do you believe in? Trial by TV personalities? Next time think!
Fanned
As far as karma goes, I agree, but you have to understand the fruits of karma may not appear in this lifetime. Sometimes they arise to produce suffering in a different lifetime than when they were created. Same as the Christian thing where you get judged and punished after you die. Which is why so many evil people prosper in this lifetime.
**out of 3446 approx lynchings of blacks in this country how many whites were ever convicted of the crime? Please lists the crimes the lynched were to have committed. Please.
Everything comes back around Thane. It's sad but that's just one little white girl who didn't get justice. Stay tuned. the universe has more to come. Peace
I watch Nancy Grace every night. And I also watched the same trial as you did, and not for one second did I take into consideration what Nancy Grace was reporting in reaching my own opinion on the guilt or innocence of Casey Anthony.
How ironic that you think the way the jury did. Because you too must be ignorant to what the evidence said in totality. Circumstantial cases are tried every single day in this country and people are convicted every single day for the crime they are accused of.
You must be a fan of CSI shows where the case it wrapped up in an hour and there is a mountain of evidence.Duct tape, garbage bags, swamps, lying, partying, ditching a car because of decomposing body odors, cloroform, fantasy friends, combine all of that and what do you get??? An innocent person ???? Seriously ??? Innocent people don't do all this, they call the police !