I guess before the hubbub dies down and life for millions resumes to something more normal I’d best offer my two cents on the raging debate about Casey Anthony. And as much as I hate to say I told you so, I told you so. Well, not you. But I did tell others, I promise. I had a feeling she was going be found not guilty on the murder rap.
The only thing weirder to me than most of the weird trial is the weird way people reacted to the verdict, especially those who were in Florida for it, rubbernecking at every possible turn to get into the courtroom or get a glimpse of the Anthony family. I’ve truly never seen anything quite like that and I’m not sure I understand it at all. I get the whole pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road-to-stare-at-a-car-wreck deal, but that’s not really a way of life like the Anthony-watching going on.
Granted, Florida is the home of Lobster Boy and Noelle Bush, but really. These freaks acted and are still acting like someone killed their own baby. I always thought it was too hot down there to stand outside with protest signs. And there’s too much else to do, like go to the beach and eat in really good Jewish delicatessens. The Anthony Army looked as though perhaps its members actually took vacation or sick time from work to form their posse in the streets of Orlando.
Most of them are probably the same kind of people who oppose taxes and get good and riled up about too much big government, which is why it was a little surprising that they went so far off the deep end about the jury finding Casey Anthony not guilty. So do they believe in the Constitution or do they not? Do they believe in their precious justice system and its trial-by-jury or do they not? It is, after all, the American way.
And now politicians are hopping on the bandwagon, with Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, using Anthony as an example of “how hard it is to get a conviction in a U.S. court.” He said this on Fox News Sunday, when calling for terror suspects to be tried in secret rather than in the U.S. courts. I’ve even seen the Anthony case used in blogs in a racial context. People have been arrested for fighting over the verdict. Forget social media and the bizarre impact that has had on the national celebrity hunger and blood thirst in this particular trial. It’s too much to think about.
So I guess the question in this is: Do people believe in the jury system or do they just believe in it when it works the way they think it should? I’ve never been that much of a fan of it myself, especially when you factor in that of any juries hearing any trials at any time in the United States, one or more of them could actually find Nancy Grace to be a human being. Those are not peers. They are freaks. If I were Casey Anthony, I would sue Grace for slander and defamation of character. And for just being grotesque.
But seriously, Anthony did get a fair trial, albeit not a real speedy one. And until those maniacs in Orlando and elsewhere spend almost three years in an American prison, they really don’t have any idea what she has already been through. It’s not like an arts and crafts camp. There is no positive thing about it and there is no rehabilitation effort.
She got a lawyer and the prosecution got all of the tools a prosecution gets and there were 12 impartial jurors, as far as we know, and the two sides did the American thing and presented their cases and the jury did their thing and weighed the evidence and that was that. It is the way it works, for better or worse. They couldn’t convict Anthony of premeditated murder because they didn’t like her attitude. They needed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony murdered her 2-year-old daughter in cold blood and it was not there.
I don’t know why I find the reactions to the verdict so surprising. For one thing, it’s over, so why waste any more time fretting about it? But then I do have some semblance of a life, and maybe those fanatics don’t. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just old and mean? I say, move on. Go to the beach. Adopt a baby. Whatever. Let Nancy Grace find another freak show. It won’t take long.
