The Court of Public Opinion
I am never disappointed by the ignorance of the American People -
For three years we were hammered with daily updates on the Casey Anthony murder trial. The deluge of information, interviews and opinions became a dull hum, background noise to other more important things going on the world such as the budget battle in Washington, the economic implosion in Greece and political revolt in the middle east.
Yet this murder case hummed along and finally went to trial.
I tried to be indifferent about it at first but my fascination with the law and the court eventually captured my attention.
Towards the end of the trial I started to watch some of the live courtroom coverage and quickly became hooked. I also acquired an opinion as to how the case would end.
It's easy to let that happen, almost a natural process.
I could see the prosecutions case unraveling slowly as they tried to make their points with no real hard evidence. They did not have enough to make me believe "beyond any reasonable doubt".
In my heart I felt that Casey was involved in something or did something that caused the death of her child but I could not say that there was no reasonable doubt that she did it.
Casey is getting out in a few days and I expect the next chapters to unfold. My guess is that 60% of the public believes she is guilty. They have found her guilty in the court of public opinion using mostly emotion and outrage over the death of a child to convict her. Her life going forward will undoubtedly be pure hell.
Even with my gut feeling that she is guilty of something, I still think our legal system worked. I believe it is still the best legal system in the world.
I think just about everyone could be found guilty of something in the court of public opinion. It's easy to convict someone else on circumstance and emotion but we should all ask ourselves how well would we fare in that situation? Are we so ignorant and ignorant to believe that we are smarter than the best legal system in the world?
