Posted on 07/10/2011 8:46:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
Casey Anthony's acquittal of the killing of her precious child, Caylee, has shocked the nation. Many who watched the trial on TV and who were not constrained from taking into account inadmissible evidence, the punditry of various talking heads, or the overwhelming public sentiment against Ms. Anthony have been critical of the jury's verdict. Among those most vehement in their condemnation of the jury are TV notables Bill O'Reilly and Nancy Grace. Their indignation is shared by those who feel the verdict represented a gross miscarriage of justice.
Cases like this call the value of trial by jury into question for some. But critics should take some important points into consideration: In American jurisprudence, an accused wrongdoer is presumed innocent. The burden is on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt. The jury is not permitted to consider evidence that doesn't reach a certain threshold of reliability and they aren't permitted to take into account matters outside the evidence. They aren't entitled to discuss the case among themselves, or even form an opinion about the case, until all the evidence is in. They can't discuss the case with anyone other than their fellow jurors, and if any reasonable doubt exists about the crime(s) charged, they cannot convict. It is not enough for the jury to "know" that the accused is guilty as charged. The charges must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Most freedom loving people agree that these are important safeguards which must be met before one accused of a crime can be deprived of their life or liberty.
Trial by jury is not a recent phenomenon. It dates back over a thousand years, and its use has been documented in a variety of civilizations. The right to trial by jury has been particularly prominent in the American system of law and justice. When the Founders enumerated their grievances in the Declaration of Independence, King George's denial to the colonists of the right to trial by jury was in the forefront of their complaints. George Mason famously refused to sign the Constitution unless the right to trial by jury was made explicit. Thomas Jefferson made clear the value he placed on juries when he said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its Constitution." Its importance is highlighted by the fact that the right to trial by jury is expressly referenced in not one, but three of the amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights.
As Americans, we tend to take the right to trial by jury for granted; but it should not difficult to imagine the horror of living in a society in which the State possesses absolute power. Millions of people around the world live in societies that don't allow for trial by jury. When they are accused of wrongdoing, they aren't afforded an opportunity to defend themselves. No jury of their peers decides their guilt or innocence. Their lives and freedom are subject to the whims of those who hold power. Their tribunals if they exist at all are mere kangaroo courts which serve only as an eye wash. "Verdict first, trial later" is their modus operandi. Even here in America there was a time when perverted justice prevailed, when the word of a single white man could spell death for a politically and legally powerless African American.
This is why the right to trial by jury is essential.
Our Founding Fathers recognized that the collective judgment of ordinary people, while not perfect, is the most reliable, most just method of resolving conflicts in America's courtrooms. Does the jury system and its protections mean that sometimes the guilty will go free? The answer is yes. Alan Dershowitz addressed this in a recent article discussing the Casey Anthony verdict:
"For thousands of years, Western society has insisted that it is better for 10 guilty defendants to go free than for one innocent defendant to be wrongly convicted. This daunting standard finds its roots in the biblical story of Abraham's argument with God about the sinners of Sodom. Abraham admonishes God for planning to sweep away the innocent along with the guilty and asks Him whether it would be right to condemn the sinners of Sodom if there were 10 or more righteous people among them. God agrees and reassures Abraham that he would spare the city if there were 10 righteous. From this compelling account, the legal standard has emerged."
A justice system that allows for the possibility of the guilty going free is undoubtedly unpalatable for those who wish to see Caylee Anthony's death avenged, but it is a standard that recognizes and upholds the notion that life and liberty should not be deprived without due process of law. It's not a perfect system, but none better has yet been devised by man.
That’s interesting. It may depend on where you live. I used to get called all the time when we lived in TX, but they always passed me over. For some reason I am a person they don’t want on a jury. Go figure.
That’s interesting because I had heard the initial vote was 2 to convict (clearly I heard wrong). That is actually pretty powerful half, and then they all just changed their minds without even seeing any more evidence. That seems so odd. I wonder what the argument was. Well, someone will write a book.
That sounds about right.
Thank you, people seem to forget that.
I can see a reason to eliminate people who have a connection to anyone in the trial or people with certain issues (someone who has been raped may be a bad choice for a rape trial for instance) but over all, the first 15 people in the pool who don’t have a medical issue that would preclude them, speak English and can serve seems pretty reasonable to me. I don’t know why there is very much selection needed. How did they select jurors say 60 or 70 years ago?
Ouch.
Yes, I would like to see it reformed. I tried to find out how they used to select jurors. My instinct is that the current process is not the original, but who knows (not me). My only concern is that if defense attorneys have anything to do with it the reforms will be worse than the current system (ie, the defense attorney will handpick the entire jury!) :)
You might be interesting to debate if you actually debated instead of just tried to denigrate and humiliate people. That’s just tiresome. But I suppose if it makes you feel better about yourself, carry on.
Though I do hope you feel better soon.
If you feel denigrated and humilitated it’s not my fault (nor my concern).
Though I do hope you feel better soon.
No, I don’t, but I can’t think of any other reason for your personal attacks that have no information about the case. Perhaps you have another explanation.
If you have anything to debate about the issue, I’m for that, if you just want to chat, there are other places for that. I’m finished with this. So, if you continue you will be talking to yourself.
If I was DA I would now hesitate before taking an circumstantial case before a jury, making us ALL more vulnerable. It amazes me that Scott PEterson was convicted on his circumstantial case.
Every DA SHOULD hesitate before taking a circumstantial case to trial.
I was surprised when Peterson was convicted. I “know” he did it but to this day there remains nothing tying him to any murder.
I’ve always believed that circumstantial cases are, at best ‘iffy.’ I hope to never serve on a jury deciding a case such as these. When you are talking possible death penalty, I’d like to have actual proof of guilt rather than just knowing “in my gut” that the person is guilty.
It’s not seeing anybody through a jaundiced eye. The people complaining about this case always drop a sentence like “I don’t see how anybody could acquit knowing X” and if you dig into all you’ll find out X is a tidbit that came from a talking head on TV and never was presented as evidence to the jury. So as it turns out the jury doesn’t know X (or at least didn’t when they voted). But the people don’t think about that. So by putting that sentence in there is quite fairly frames the situation.
Nobody is saying the talking heads shouldn’t be taken into consideration, it’s a reminder that the talking heads presented information the jury never even GOT. And it’s a valid thing to remind people of, people tend to forget that we aren’t all operating from the same pool of information. They’ve been watching the trial on TV, reading about it on the web, discussing it with co-workers, making their own decisions based on a certain pile of information, then the jury comes back with a verdict completely at odds with that opinion of the general populace and the country yells “WTF”. Well that sentence accurately points to one of the primary reasons the jury and the general populace have two vastly different opinions: two vastly different pools of information. It doesn’t call anybody’s intelligence to question at all in any way, that’s junk YOU added based on not a single word in the sentence. You’re reading INTO it, I’m reading IT. IT doesn’t say what you’re reading IN.
Problem is they don’t have the evidence. They can’t even say how the child was killed, much less put Casey’s hands as doing the actions that did it. The evidence is supposed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. When the prosecuting attorney says they don’t know how or when the death happened the evidence isn’t proving much of anything.
Lack of another reasonable explanation is NOT proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt almost always manages to include method and time. The prosecuting attorney admits they don’t have either of those. The big problem is that with the evidence we have available the sentence boils down to this:
it seems likely that Casey at some decided to do something to her child which proved fatal, we’re not sure what she did, where she did it, or when she did it, and in fact we can’t even put her as the person who did it we just can’t find anybody that had the opportunity.
That’s just not a sentence that gets convictions. There’s way too much doubt.
They aren’t describing people that disagree with the jury in ANY manner, they’re simply pointing out that they have a different set of information than the jury. It IS presenting a balanced view, it’s not prejudicial in any way. I’m grasping things just fine, what I’m not doing is making crap up. That’s YOUR problem, you want to be angry so you’re adding intent and content to the reporting that quite simply does NOT exist in any way.
The first jury vote doesn’t, it’s the unanimous jury vote that matters. The writers didn’t make any categories at all. All the categories are coming from YOU.
I didn’t say anybody was stupid. That’s you AGAIN making crap up entirely from whole cloth. Inserting your own meaning to stuff I said. The only implications to what I said is what I said. It’s a well document tendency in humans to forget that people they’re talking to in a non-instructive don’t have access to all the same information. It’s not pejorative to point it out, it’s just a good reminder.
There you go again going way out of your way to get angry. I never said you said anything about the talking heads. Again the sentence you’re all worked up about is simply pointing out that the TV audience got information from the talking heads the jury didn’t. Whether or not it should be taken into consideration is not stated, and does not matter. It’s an information pool that one group has and another doesn’t, THAT is the ONLY fact that matters.
Nobody said that only the TV audience COULD find Casey guilty. That AGAIN is from YOU.
OK now I simply have to laugh at you. You’re quite simply being silly. Every one of your paras that end in LMAO is just plain goofy. Why should they mention every single source of info every other possible group could have? it would be pointless wordy and just plain stupid to do so.
The jurors who voted guilty changed their votes. All of your questions on that are again simply silly. Since the sentence you’re obsessing on never once even implies that no other vote was possible all of your harping about other votes they made is completely and totally immaterial.
Stop reading into things. Every single complaint you have in that post, both about the original sentence AND about my post comes 100% from YOU, none of them are based even slightly in the ACTUAL text. It’s all bad assumption YOU stuck in there because apparently YOU have a real need to get angry. Funny in another completely unrelated thread today I quoted a grand old maxim:
Never let the facts get in the way of a good diatribe.
And you just lived up to that in this post. The facts are 100% against you, nobody is saying anything that you’re accusing them of, but you’re diatribing like a fiend.
Don’t bother to post again unless you’re limiting to ONLY what I wrote with absolutely no additional content from your own head. It’s simply not worth my time, or yours.
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