So let’s just burn Casey Anthony at the stake.
Or put her in a modern-day Roman Colosseum and let people vote “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on whether the gladiator should impale her on his sword.
Or throw her to the lions and let them devour her, blood dripping from their jagged teeth. (That’s kind of how I picture Nancy Grace. She certainly has the snarl down.)
There is a veritable frenzy going on right now in this country, as a USA-Today/Gallup poll shows 64 percent of Americans believe Casey killed her daughter Caylee and that the jury got it wrong. So now guilt is decided by the popular vote – wait, make that the unpopular vote?
More than 1.1 million Americans have signed a petition for a federal law making it a felony for parents or guardians to fail to notify law enforcement that a child is missing. Never mind that such a law would undoubtedly be unconstitutional, according to constitutional law guru Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law.
It’s no wonder one juror in the murder case is so frightened she quit her job and fled the state of Florida because, her husband says, “she fears half of her co-workers want her head on a platter” for the not-guilty verdicts on the murder counts.
Another juror made the most important point, however. Anthony was found “not guilty,” she was not found “innocent.”
“I just swear to God … I wish we had more evidence to put her away. I truly do … But it wasn’t there,” one juror said. “For me, it was not a good outcome.”
The medical examiner testified Caylee died from “homicide by undetermined means.” But her verdict of “homicide” was based on circumstantial evidence, including the “red flag” that the child was not reported missing and her body had been hidden.
Another juror noted: “We didn’t know how she died, we didn’t know when she died. Technically, we didn’t even know where she died. You couldn’t say who did it.”
A Chicago commentator put it best:
I believe it is also important to reiterate that the jury finding Casey not guilty does not necessarily mean that the jurors believe she is absolved of any or all responsibility in the disappearance and death of her daughter. It is also important to note that the not guilty findings do not necessarily mean that the jury believed the theory of the defense that Caylee died in a drowning accident. These are important distinctions and the kind of distinctions that jurors should be able to make when considering that prosecutors must prove things beyond a reasonable doubt.
Casey Anthony is a deeply disturbed person, and in my mind, someone who was unfit to be a mother. She may be unfit to roam society-at-large. That does not make her a murder[er]. It does not mean she is innocent as it relates to the death of her daughter. I am glad that in this instance, the American justice system has been able to make these distinctions. Had the prosecution presented evidence in a different way or presented different charges, Casey may well have been convicted of more than lying to investigators. Whether such hypothetical scenarios would satisfy commentators such as Nancy Grace is unknown, but it is something to consider when thinking about this case.
