Casey Anthony is Not Guilty? Really?

This has nothing to do with politics, right? Or not. I think that the same visceral, deep-in-the-gut reaction to this court case is the same elemental force that causes people to decide which political party to vote for, so let us spend a moment or two thinking about this case.

I think that Mark Levin was correct: the public outrage over the verdict of ‘not guilty’ is a reaction to the media coverage of the case rather than the merits of the DA’s case.

For those who have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, Ms. Anthony was accused of killing her 2 yo to continue her life as a bon vivant. The jury acquitted her on all counts. Hence, cries of outrage over a miscarriage of justice.

The jury had a choice of murder-1, murder-2, and manslaughter. Not only did the jury to not convict her of any of these, they did so like greased lightening in a mere 11 hours, even more amazing since they also had to consider 4 other charges of lying to police.

No, this does not mean that she did not commit the crime. It does mean that the DA’s case was weak and flaccid, and that he is probably not qualified to clean your toilet bowl.

In this case, it seems likely that she really did kill her baby. However, in the US justice system, you must prove this. The DA did not succeed. I was a juror in a PI case (sorry: civil personal injury lawsuit). Here, you can vote guilty if you think it so, and the legal standard you are tasked with is ‘balance of the evidence’. In a murder case, the DA must prove ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’, and in this case, there was plenty to doubt about the DA’s case.

However, does my opining convince you that justice was truly done? Don’t you still think that Ms. Anthony truly should have been judged guilty of murder? This is the same sort of thinking that I encountered when I ran for Congress. No matter how convincing your evidence, Joe or Jill six-pack will remain unmoved. This is the obstacle that politicians face in an election where you have the facts but not the emotion on your side.