You know, we don't talk too much about criminal cases on the show, but we have this Casey
Anthony situation which we've been discussing off of the show for a while. And this is the
alleged killing of the young girl, Caylee Anthony. We just had a verdict in this.
If you haven't been following this, the long and short of it is that about three years
ago, a young woman named Casey Anthony was accused of killing her daughter. Her daughter's
remains were found, no cause of death was ever determined.
The entire trial turned into basically a sideshow freak show, including allegations that the
accused's brother and father both may have molested the kid, that the kid may have drowned
even before... or, rather, far earlier than the alleged death even took place, the alleged
killing.
And the question is did the legal system work or not? Because this is one of those cases,
much like OJ Simpson and much like the Michael Jackson child molestation case where in the
court of public opinion, and in the court of, realistically, Louis, logic and reason,
there is guilt here. However, the individuals on the jury decided that there was not beyond
a reasonable doubt evidence of first-degree murder, premeditated first-degree murder,
in other words, we didn't even actually know the cause of death, nor even second-degree
murder.
So the question is did the legal system work? And lawyers have been going back and forth
about this for days now discussing whether or not the system works or whether the system
does not work.
One view is listen, the court of public opinion is not the real court of law for a reason,
and those 12 jurors, based only on the evidence presented, said there's just not evidence
beyond a reasonable doubt to convict this person.
At the same time, is the legal system set up in this particular case where the defense
attorney can go in there, make all sorts of wild claims, confuse, confuse, confuse, and
people just say you know what? Because of that beyond a reasonable doubt, I feel like
I just can't say guilty. And people walk when they shouldn't.
Louis: Right, it's subjective. I mean, some people would say that's a perfect example
of the legal system working, and others would say the opposite. And the jury was either
incredibly honest or incredibly gullible, because obviously they felt that there just...
it wasn't 100%... they weren't 100% sure that she killed her baby.
David: Well, the question is this: they may have been sure that she did, but they couldn't
determine whether it was a premeditated first-degree murder, and therefore, they said this is just
so mangled that we're just going to go not guilty on everything except lying to federal
investigators, which is what they did.
Realistically, Casey Anthony may serve no additional jailtime at all, because we're
talking about four misdemeanors, she's already spent three years during the trial. She's
already served three years; it's very likely she will just be set free.
Louis: Right. I mean, what do you think?
David: I sympathize with the fact that if you don't have a cause of death and the prosecution
was somewhat arrogant, they go up there and they make the case for first-degree premeditated
murder and ask for the death penalty, but you can't even identify how this child died,
those... the rules of the game are the rules of the game, and it made it easy, in a sense,
for the defense to just confuse and say listen, they don't even know how this person died,
if you don't know how they died, then you can't by any means speculate on motive, because
we don't even know how... what the death was. Maybe it was a drowning. Maybe it was, who
knows what?
So I do get it. The thing that makes me disappointed is that, again, this is just based on what
we read, this is not the normal way a person acts, and my sense is that she was responsible
for the death of her daughter, whether it was a first-degree premeditated murder or
not.
Louis: Or it was negligence.
David: Or it was negligence. The other interesting thing is that experts are being brougth in
on all the major news networks who worked on the OJ Simpson case and the Michael Jackson
trials, and it's basically... they're not saying this, Louis, but what they're basically
saying is let's talk to lawyers who were involved in getting other people who were clearly guilty
also set free.
I mean, that's the parallels that are being drawn between OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson,
and this case, and the types of questions that are being asked, without saying it, are
you got a guilty person off, tell us what you think about this one.
Louis: And I'd say that those are great people to talk to, sure.
David: They seem to be experts in the field.
Louis: Yeah.
David: Absolutely.
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