There are many messages communicated by the Casey Anthony trial and its outcome, but the most important one is that the hue and cry erupting from the acquittals reveals that the Framers’ notion that freedom would lie with civilian juries interposed between government and a person’s liberty is in peril. Convictions were intended to be few and far between and difficult to obtain, as evidenced from the presumption of innocence, with the burden of proof on the government, and with an accused’s entitlement to an acquittal if the government did not carry their burden beyond a reasonable doubt, while never an entitlement of government to receive a conviction even if there was enough evidence, and with a strict rule that none of the burden could be carried by compelling evidence from the lips of the defendant. The final protection of the populace is the power of the jury to disregard everything that the judge says about the law and to deem technically guilty people not guilty, a power that the courts vigorously and jealously refuse to tell the jury about, but one which preceded the very framing of the Constitution and still exists.
Juries were to be skeptical of government [and government includes judges!], and the default was to be with liberty. But in our growing “Sieg Heil!” society, where citizens and judges alike are increasingly groupies of cops and of The Man, we have turned on its head the greatest protection we all had against tyranny, that the default position in the Republic is with the individual and against government, with liberty and against power.
The outcome of this trial is precisely what it should have been, where the government concedes that it does not know the cause of death and that it cannot rule out accident. In retort by the reactionary mob, much is sought to be made of the fact that Anthony is a liar and of a suggestion she is a slut. Interesting thing about lying in the public sphere: cops, DAs, judges, criminalists and other experts, and politicians at all levels from president on down, can lie, and they do, with nary a downside, but if an accused is found to lie about stuff, that signals his or her death warrant. Wow, that’s a curious and dangerous coda. Yeah, yeah, she was a party girl too. Being a party girl and slut and liar does not add up to the requisite proof that she is a murderer, nowhere nearly. It shows she is a liar, and verdicts went against her on that score.
We know that something obviously happened to little Caylee, but what, and by whom, and exactly when we know not. And that is why a highly political DA’s office would try to highlight the claimed lowlifeness of the defendant, as a substitute for evidence. If you can stir up the passions and prejudices of the jury, even though you are ordered not to do so, then maybe they will be hoodwinked and infuriated into voting guilty, which happens more than people would want to know; it happens all the time, across this Fruited Plain.
Thank God! we had a jury that was not of the government groupie outlook on life, but one that instead displayed the “prove it; show me” animus that was intended to be part of the jury’s duty, but which is sorely missing these “law and order” days.
Being an armchair juror is kind of fun, because you see much more than the real jury sees, and you can bloviate and tisk-tisk endlessly, without having to concern yourselves with the downside of poor judgment. The jurors were told they had to have an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge, based on what they saw in the courtroom, or the defendant was entitled to an acquittal. And she got it.
Does this mean Casey is innocent? None of us is innocent. The criminal justice system does not deal with “innocence,” but rather either with the default and baseline of not guilty, or with the heavy-carried guilty. This is a case in which guilt was not sufficiently proven; it is not one in which innocence was at all proven. And that is the rule of the game, that is the law, a more powerful and fundamental rule and law than the definition and punishment for murder, so “law and order” types should celebrate, not berate.
Was Justice done? What is Justice? If its definition as a constitutional construct encompasses the notion that we all remain free unless or until the government proves properly and sufficiently to our peers that our freedom is not deserved, based on found facts, then Justice surely was done. If your definition of Justice is roughly that of the self-righteous inquisitors in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts, maybe Justice was not done. Only your soul, or its absence, can define that for you.
Had she no ben such n accomplished lier the Childs body could of been found and perhaps DNA could have been recovered. Her falsehoods worked for her. Hopefiully the next time, she will slip up. The results were sickening wrong.
ReplyDeleteyou look at the wrong things ,, it doesn;t matter if she was a low life ,slut, whatever. her child was an inconvenience to her lifestyle,she made that obvious, if the baby drowned, who will be punished,,not her ,no physical evidence. everything that has come out in this trial and she cant be prosecuted?yes , the jurors did their job,because they had to follow the law, but does that mean it was a right verdict ,or that they even felt comfortable with the decision the system made them make ,,laws need to be changed so that when there is OVERWHELMING circumstantial evidence, people like her an do.j. dont SMILE when they get away with murder
ReplyDelete@anonymous: Her falsehoods worked to someone's benefit, to be sure, maybe hers or maybe someone else's, but the void from a falsehood does not itself supply evidence that otherwise is non-existent, like cause of death and non-accidental cause of death.
ReplyDelete@michelle: I am not certain that you I are are not virtually in agreement, if my post is carefully read and clearly understood. And I never said she was a lowlife, etc., but rather was addressing such accusations by others who somehow think that make sone guilty of murder, which obviously it does not. I don't know what you mean by "right verdict," because in our system, if the accusation has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a not guilty verdict is a correct verdict, whether or not it accurately tracks the divine or scientific truth of the matter, which is possibly the case here. Smiling can mean different things to and for different people: some smile as a consciousness of guilt; some from nervousness regardless of guilt; some unconsciously. I scolded one deputy DA who smiled all the time, when he was lying, when he was telling the truth, when he was eating, etc., that the only being who smile all the time are The Joker and porpoises. He smiled in appreciation of my comment!
All this hatred of Casey stirred up by a 3 Year Long Public Trial by Journalism. It sickens me. All those squalling, scalded cats out there clamoring for "justice" saw it and didn't recognize it for what it was.
ReplyDeleteWhere are those squalling and railing against several pieces of highly suspect (and in one case obviously false) evidence that this government used to try to KILL CASEY.
Hopefully, we are a better people than we are a government, else we'll have people in the streets taking up the government's cause... Kill Casey.
@Larry I fear we might not be a better people than government, because the latter functions in our image where the People are sovereign. I would not want to leave up to the current populace the duty and opportunity to re-write the Constitution, because I fear we are closer to the Salem of 1692 than the Philadelphia of 1776 or 1791.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, Mike. I thought I was a lone wolf howling in the wilderness.
ReplyDeleteWe did have fun howling in the old days - or at least snarling! I despair at what the Republic has become, and it is getting worse. I would not trust the current populace of capriciously self-interested narrow thinkers to sit in convention and rewrite the Constitution!
ReplyDelete