Posted on 07/06/2011 6:32:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
On Tuesday, a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie.
As so often happens in high profile cases, the jury was wrong.
Casey clearly murdered her daughter. Her mom, Cindy, reported that Caylee was missing on July 15, 2008. Casey's cover story was unbelievably ridiculous. When Casey's mom, Cindy, confronted Casey at Casey's boyfriend's apartment, Casey actually claimed that a random baby sitter nobody had ever met had taken Caylee away over a month beforehand.
Cindy called the cops, informing them, "I found my daughter's car today. And it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car." Sure enough, cadaver dogs identified the trunk of Casey's car as a dead body location, and scientists confirmed that a body had decomposed back there. A few months after a jury indicted Casey, police found Caylee's corpse in the woods near Casey's home, duct tape on her head.
The defense did a Johnny Cochrane routine -- they blamed everybody within a 10 mile radius of the murder for the murder. Defense attorney Jose Baez suggested that Casey's dad, George, had sexually abused her during her childhood, without any evidence whatsoever. Baez also claimed that Caylee had drowned in the pool while George was at home, and that George had been involved in dumping the body.
There was no evidence to any of this. It was pure conjecture, a sociopathic response to being caught red-handed. And Casey Anthony is a sociopath: outwardly charming, pathologically lying, indecently self-centered, lacking in shame or guilt, promiscuous, exploitative and irresponsible, and willing to hurt anyone and everyone in order to get her way.
So, why did the jury acquit her? Because the jury system, as currently run, is stupid.
Yes, jury trial is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution (although only with regard to federal cases). It was originally considered a hallmark of civilized criminal justice because citizens did not want to be subjected to government inquisitions, with the court stacked against them. Juries were supposed to be a bulwark against governmental encroachment.
Nowadays, juries have become a hallmark of our heavily bureaucratized system. Those who have day jobs are eager to avoid serving on juries, mainly because the convoluted rules of procedure and evidence have turned summary trials into week-long events. By and large, only the least offensive -- and not coincidentally, the dumbest -- tend to be selected for juries. As the aphorism goes, the problem with juries is that they are generally composed of the 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
The phrase "show trial" now means something different -- it means a trial that is a show. That's precisely what O.J. and Casey Anthony were about. Every juror expects to see Sam Waterston get up and deliver opening remarks, and damned if the court system won't do its best to provide that entertainment. The provision of the Constitution that requires a public trial is now used to ensure that trials become media circuses.
Should we embrace the European inquisitorial system, in which judges ask the questions and come up with the decisions? Should we hire professional jurors?
The answer doesn't lie in abolishing the jury system utterly, but in revamping it completely.
The rationale behind juries is still important, particularly with regard to politically-oriented trials: We don't want judges paid by government to have full authority to condemn those of different political persuasions. And the rationale behind a public trial is also still relevant -- we don't want Star Chambers or clandestine hearings. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
By the same token, however, our current jury system is broken beyond repair. If we are truly to restore justice to our system of justice, we must pursue the best and brightest for service, make it easier for them to serve, make the rules of evidence and procedure more efficient, and allow justice to run more smoothly. Most Americans would be willing to serve on a jury for a day. Few would be willing to do so for a week and even fewer for a month. We need more day-long trials and less month-long trials. We need more justice and less showmanship.
Caylee Anthony, sadly, wasn't just the victim of her mother here. She was the victim of a system that did not mete out justice to her murderer. There will be many more cases like Caylee Anthony until we do something to solve this mess.
Simple answer “NO”. But I think we should replace a lot of prosecutors.
No matter what you thought of the evidence, you would have been under great pressure to agree with the majority of the jury. A relative of mine once sat on a jury hearing a serious felony case that went on for several weeks. Once deliberations began he found that he was in the minority. Most of the jurors didn't want to discuss the complicated case; they just wanted to deliver a verdict as quickly as possible and go home. As I recall, it was a Friday and no one wanted to return on Monday. The majority applied intense pressure and eventually abuse and threats on the handful of holdouts, who after several hours just gave up and agreed. Result: a rapist walked free and my relative removed his name form the voter rolls lest he ever be placed in that kind of situation again.
Don't sing to me the praises of "the system".
...a jury of your peers...
Well, since “peers” does not indicate a prerequisite to intelligence, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or a peers’ criminal history...
Se got what she wanted...A panel of idiots, who were corraled by the judge’s instructions to only consider the evidence submitted in court, not what the TV yammerheads and public opinion were determining...
Don’t worry, she’ll do a spread in Playboy, and end up on the golf course with O.J. (eventually) to look for the killer(s)...
And to top it off, she’ll write a book about the whole experience (it’ll have pictures for the stupid people) and make plenty of money from the people who belive she’s innocent (just because)...
I agree.
If the pathologist is the only forensic expert called in, then their opinion is worth 100% of the forensic pathology issues in the case.
Join the Fully Informed Jury Association at www.fija.org
It is possible (I didnt follow the case and dont know if this was used as a reason or not) that someone dies in another person’s custody, and that person decides to stage a fake murder to draw attention away from yourself.
If someone has suffocated, the other person could use duct tape and move the body to make it look like a suffocation murder done by someone else.
Let's assume for a moment that Caylee did die accidentally. Even if her mom drove around with her body in the trunk for days (some people are like that, when my 14-day-old sister died my grandfather suggested she wasn't worth buying a casket and offered a cardboard box from the back of his store) what would be the point in placing duct tape over the mouth and nose? And that's just for starters, the dumb bimbo theory does not hold water!
I believe many prosecutors in this nation are out of control. While I think that she was guilty, I also think the prosecution presented a stupid and very weak case.
But Tom...The government was not on trial here...
If by government you mean elected officials, we have a whole other thing that is so screwed up it’s not even funny...
It’s called elections...
Not raggin’ on ya C.C., just pointing out one of the few things T.J. said a long time ago when things were run a little straighter than they are today...
What a great idea. I'd add: "no legally obtained evidence may be withheld from a jury by any party for any reason" and "all prior legal history of the defendant and any details of the relationship between the defendant and the victim shall be made available to the jury."
Enough with hoodwinking by lawyers!
I don’t contest that at all. But the pathologist’s “expert opinion” didn’t change the fact that tape had been placed on the victim’s head. His claim that the tape was placed post-mortem is just about as valid as another expert witness’s contention that a heart sticker had been placed ON the tape. Neither changes the fact that tape had been used on a child’s head. Again, if there’s a reason for taping a head post mortem, I might see things differently. Reason—pathologist’s testimony or not—says the utility of the tape existed only pre-death.
No way; but I have frequently thought of what I would want if I were wrongly accused of something. If the crime had any complexity to it, I would rather have a single judge hear the evidence and rule on it than leave my life in the hands of a jury of my "peers".
Again, this would be if I were wrongly accused. If I in fact did commit the crime, I would demand a jury trial, of course.
I gave one possible reason earlier that whoever put the body there put duct tape on the mouth in order to set up a fake murder, and draw attention away from themselves. I could reasonably believe that someone who had another die in their custody, but they did not murder them on purpose, would want to set up a fake murder to keep the police on them.
Its the physical version of saying “I think satanists or a gang did it.”
Ok, I’ll buy that...
So you believe Justice was served???
And if that is the case, should the public be fearful that the killer(s) are still out there???
Because that really would be “moving on” at that point...Right???
(BTW, I agree with the jury of her peers, they are stupid, yet the prosecution had to defend ALL the assinine allegations that the defence team brought forth to scatter the brains of the jury even more, away from the focus which was to determine the guilt of Casey Anthony, right??? She is innocent till proven guilty...That is an Constitutional absolute, and the state failed to prove her guilt, simply by deflection...)
Granted, but the defense doesn't need to explain all the evidence. They just need to create a reasonable doubt.
I don't have to. Any human system will be flawed, because all human beings are flawed. However, the overwhelming verdict of history is that a system of trial by jury is preferred, by everyone who has a choice, to a system of private judgment by one man, no matter how religiously observant or terribly cute he is.
The scary answer is in this thread...
You have three years to figure out which post it is...
By that time most of us will have forgotten most about this case and your jury pool will be ripe for the picking...you will have little trouble at that time to cast doubt on the original claim that the answer is in this thread...
I could also say the answer is in another thread here on Free Republic...And that only makes your job harder to prove...
You have three things to prove now...
What qualifies the timeline of your original question, did the dysfunction actually start 110 years ago, prove that in a court of law...
Define dysfunction??? (and how it applies to the first question)
And...
Who did this to us???
[You are making it hard on yourself...;-)]
(I am not a lawyer, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and feeling purty smart this morning...For some reason...)
“So you believe Justice was served???”
No.
I do think the public knows where the killer is, her name, and the sense to shun her for the rest of her miserable life.
She may has gotten off, but she wont be able to litter without people being all over her.
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