I believe that both issues are important, and it is every bit as important when jurors ignore the evidence as these jurors did, as when people like me herald what the mood out here is, and explain that there may be blow-back.
I don’t see you evidencing any concern at all that these jurors may have subverted their juro’sr duties in the process here.
Why is that? You’re going postal, okay (semi) postal with regard to the public taking the law into their own hands, but don’t seem to express any concern whatsoever if the jury system itself is subverted.
Isn’t that a threat to our rule of law? Seemingly not IYO.
I won't make excuses for the jurors, but if there's an undeniable public mood of grave consternation out there as you mention, it sure didn't seem to be prevalent in the jury box considering that it didn't take the jury very long at all to rule that the prosecutions' case was dog poop.
After all, if there really is a huge public sentiment about the Casey Anthony case to the point where the jurors need to watch their backs, you'd think that it would reflect in the jury's conclusion. Casey Anthony should never have had a flippin' chance no matter who sat on the jury, right?
It didn't, so where's the disconnect? Allow me to make a humble suggestion: The jury was hearing the state's evidence allowed to them by the judge on a daily basis, but the rest of America was watching Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, Geraldo, reading a bunch of unfounded innuendo on the Internet, and speculating amongst themselves in the way that children enjoy creeping each other out with scary ghost stories.
I know you're not holding a pitchfork or a torch in this. Also, you've been on FR long enough to understand that Freepers can confuse themselves into a mistaken frothing fury through mob action alone. You know better than to confuse that side of FR with 'The Real World®'.
Hell, man: There were five or six threads larger than this one last Fall focused on demanding that the USA nuke China for their act of war in firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile off the coast of Southern California near Catalina Island. Remember your concern for that idiotic spectacle of 'the mood out there'? I do believe you were (correctly) a skeptic then, right?
You're a long-timer here. I know you. Your credentials for not being an hysteric are well founded in my opinion.