Posted on 07/08/2011 11:27:44 AM PDT by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears
When the Casey Anthony verdict was announced I expected celebration from her defense team. I was more taken aback by the celebratory tone taken by pundits like Geraldo Rivera and Judge Andrew Napolitano. Their position is the same one that many liberals, anti-death penalty activists and libertarians are promoting now: this proves the system works.
But it doesn’t.
The American justice system is the greatest legal system in the world but like any other it is fallible. In the interest of liberty we err on the side of caution in criminal cases, but that means that in many cases we do not get justice. Talking heads on Fox were making the point that this was justice, that the verdict is a victory for the Constitution. This is wrong. Criminals getting off is a byproduct of a our love of liberty but it certainly isn’t an endorsement of our system.
Casey Anthony may or may not have killed her child but we know she committed several crimes afterward. She didn’t report her daughter missing for weeks. When police were finally involved she attempted to frame an innocent woman for murder. While her daughter was supposedly missing she was out partying. If not reporting your daughter missing for a month isn’t child abuse – or at least child neglect – nothing is.
(snip)
Little Caylee Anthony was abused, possibly raped according to her own mother who claimed George Anthony was a child molester. She disappeared and her mother did nothing. She died a horrible death and her family hired lawyers. Her body was desecrated, thrown into a ditch like so much garbage and her mother will likely walk free at sentencing. How is this an endorsement of American justice?
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
Yes, I always believed that was a part of the problem. What got me to scratch my head is that she looked uglier and uglier as the trial went on. Her face was an absolute mask of hatred - and yet some guys still were fixated on those photos of her dancing. As a friend of mine used to say - in the unexpurgated version - sex can pull freight trains.
Many of the pundits - Sean, Rush to some degree, the awful Judge Napolitano - mistated the evidence. For those of us who paid close attention, it’s been an embarrassment to watch. If you can’t keep the evidence straight in your mind don’t talk about it on national radio.
I mean, it’s not like there aren’t other things to talk about, lol!
I just heard Ann Coulter say she thought she was as guilty as hell. Thank God!
Once she flirted, she calculated the sympathy factor. She is an expert at this kind of manipulation. Men are more susceptible to it in her world, I’m sure. It’s probably a “gift” that most pathological liars share. The victims don’t even know they’re being played.
Completely irrelevant, as far as the jury knew she was clean as the driven snow. That is why trials should occur in court and not on TV where cerdicts are rendered based on facts in evidence. You're basing an opinion on a TV trial, not a courtroom trial.
She has one felony arrest prior to these new felonies.
Again irrelevant, you may disagree but that is the law.
I agree with you and probably 99% of all other people who believe she is culpable in the death of her child, the problem as presented is identifying just how. The coroner could not even list her death as anything other than unknown homicide.
Where do you go with that? Should juries convict on what they interpret to be crimes in their eyes? Do we want a system where people can be whipped up by the emotion of the case rather then see true justice of people convicted of the actual, provable crime they committed?
Our justice system is very concise and the government has to prove specific elements of crimes to gain convictions....as it should be.
The problem is, the government did not meet its obligation, they screwed up....when do they ever do things right.
This Case is a travesty all of the way around, there are no winners this time.
It's not the system that is bad, its the incompetent people who run it.
Since she did not take the stand, her priors were not introduced into court. Of course I understand that.
I was talking to Freepers who insist she is as innocent as the driven snow - not the jurors. The jurors, meanwhile, were a pack of morons. They had a large body of circumstantial evidence in which to convict without knowing she was already a convicted felon.
No, you don't understand, it has nothing to do with her taking the stand as to whether or not said evidences was introduced....her priors are not admissible, period. You keep trying to conflate your emotions and what YOU saw on TV with matters and rules of law.
The jury did not see the same things you did! Nor did you see the same things that they did!
The jurors, meanwhile, were a pack of morons.
No, they followed the rule of law, the prosecutors failed to meet their burden.
Look, I know this is an emotional case, we all saw the beautiful little girl with her hand under her chin with big wide eyes. We all know she died at the hand of an unfit mother and want someone to pay the price....no matter what.
It's the what that we have to define if we're going to live in a lawful society.
Shall we convict on emotions or law, what do you want?
The lack of convictions and justice lays solely with the prosecutors who tried for the headlines instead of focusing on justice of what they could prove, period.
Prosecutors said the hair was found in the trunk. Some prosecutors say a lot of things. What did the court rule?
Prosecutors said the hair was found in the trunk. Some prosecutors say a lot of things. What did the court rule?
FBI mitochondrial DNA expert, Catherine Theisen, delivered testimony that a strand of hair obtained from Casey Anthony’s car’s trunk matched that of either Caylee or Casey. Prior testimony indicated that the strand of hair had a “death band” or markings of human decomposition present. Cindy Anthony was asked to describe hair from family members in an effort to boost the prior testimony for the prosecution that the hair did not come from anyone other than Caylee Anthony
Before Catherine Theisen testified, the jurors heard testimony from FBI hair and fiber expert, Stephen Shaw who stated the hair strand contained a marking consistent with decomposition. The prosecution argues that as the remaining members of the Anthony family are alive, they are not the source of the hair found in the trunk of Casey Anthony’s vehicle.
Catherine Theisen also testified that the hair found in the trunk of Casey Anthony’s white Pontiac Sunfire matched hair from Caylee Anthony’s skull located at the crime scene where her remains were found.
This is where Mark Levin got his 30 ft. Information...(it was the heart sticker not hair)
Earlier in the trial another FBI forensics expert, Elizabeth Fontaine, told the court, “During my examination... an outline of a heart appeared in one of the corners on the edge of that piece of duct tape... The outline of the heart resembled that glue or debris that if you had been wearing a band aid for an extended period of time.
Another forensic expert testified that a heart shaped sticker found on a piece of cardboard was 30 feet away from where Caylee’s skull was found.
Gottesman also testified that black plastic bags found with Caylee’s remains were not the same as plastic bags found at the Anthony
home.
The garbage bag may or may not have come from the Hope Spring house but the unique tape sure came from there.
I can’t see how a jury can render a verdict in eleven hours on a case this complex when they didn’t take adequate notes as reported.
The jury did observe a tape of Casey lying to the cops and they convicted her for lying.
The jury did not see a tape of Casy directly being involved in Caylee’s death or did they see a tape of her dropping the body off at the swamp and brought a not guilty verdict.
A “wonderful” single parent would have a “real” job to get such accolades from witnesses.
I don’t think it was a matter of the court ruling - it was evidence presented by the state - a hair with the death band was found in the trunk of the car. The defense tried to plant doubt about the science concerning death bands. That’s part of what Baez labeled “Junk Science”.
Seeing that Caylee was contained within a laundry bag and garbage bags, and Cindy tried to tidy up the trunk before the car was taken, I am not surprised that there wasn’t a large quantity of hair in the trunk.
Yes, I heard that the prosecutors said that they found a hair in the trunk.
I was wondering if that passed muster, or if the hair’s provenance were altered.
Late term abortion in a liberals mind.
Please stop lecturing me. In fact, you seem fairly emotional yourself about this case.
I’m glad you think that Casey Anthony got a fair trial. Happy Days for you. I, on the other hand, seeing all the circumstantial evidence produced IN COURT, feel she got away with murder. PERIOD.
In all my times at jury duty, not once has the defendant taken the stand. No problem; his right. But afterwards, the defense or state has always thanked us and eventually it comes out that defendent had done some major prison time for some other related crime. Often the juror feels like they’ve been had. (Don’t lecture me on this either, please). It is not a perfect system (as proven in the Anthony case) and sometimes it is downright faulty.
The verdict, IF she committed the act, does nothing but demonstrate that, in THIS case, the prosecution failed to meet their burden. NOTHING else. You hyper-emotional twits who cannot handle that simple Truth simply need to get a life and switch off the TV for a while. It's called the "idiot box" for a reason.
Our justice system was designed very carefully to ensure that innocents get successfully prosecuted as rarely as possible. It was important to our Founders, and it ought to be important to us today. As such, sometimes a Prosecutor fails to meet their high burdens of proof. It happens. You've failed to submit an excellent report or work product from time to time yourself. Everyone has an off day, week, project, etc. In this case, the Prosecutor was under immense pressure from TV-inspired dolts (like those over-reacting here), and foolishly succumbed to that pressure. He over-charged the crime, he went forward with less-than-adequate evidence, and he was insufficiently skilled to overcome those two immense self-inflicted hurdles.
Caylee is dead. Even the verdict that most expected would not have changed that. Her mother got lucky that the Prosecutor made some significant blunders. The American Justice System is still the best one out there... or do the detractors here want to change the system so that Prosecutorial mistakes are simply ignored, and the verdict that the TV implies is correct will simply be adopted anyway? Idiots.
(Decisions based on emotion, rather than reason, are virtually always deleterious to our nation.
I agree with you the system isn't perfect but it works more times then doesn't. Even though Casey will be let out of jail, I don't think she'll be free for the rest of her days here on Earth.
She certainly isn't worth making enemies here over ;)
No apologies necessary. I guess a lot of us get hot-headed over the death of such a sweet little girl.
Cheers and may we talk again on a happier subject!
Amen!!
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