Tuesday, July 5, 2011

You never know how the Jury will go...

Apparently a forgone conclusion was NOT reached today in Florida. There are two ways to take a trial like this; either justice prevails or the prosecution was a bunch of nincompoops. I find the defense's tactic interesting but altogether necessary and not the first time it has been done. Casey Anthony's defense team referred to their client as a "lying, no-good slut" taking away the ammo of the prosecution and choosing not to try and defend the "indefensible" acts of a mother who many thought should have been behaving less like a Girls Gone Wild stereotype and more like a parent desperate to find her daughter. During the 1917 trial of Rev. Lyn Kelly, Kelly's defense argued their client was crazy. They pointed out his "confession" to sinking the Lusitania and his antics inside the courtroom did nothing to dissuade the jury of his outhouse rat personality. While the prosecution relied on his confession for the Moore-Stillinger murders they also made a point of drawing attention to how crazy the minister was. The defense knew they couldn't just stand up and say "Reverend Kelly's just really unique," and get away with it so they doubled down and went with the "hell yeah he's crazy, but he's not a murderer."

With this acquittal it isn't likely Caylee Anthony will ever have justice. I cannot say for certain that Casey Anthony was the murderer of her daughter but her actions indicate she certainly knew more about the case then she let on. I'll leave it to blowhards like Nancy Grace to scream about miscarriages of justice on this one. For now perhaps we can all move on and those who wish to can mourn the senseless loss a beautiful little girl. But I am getting out the popcorn in anticipation of the number of people who will try to capitalize on this verdict, from Casey herself to juror numbers five and twelve and alternates three and six.

3 comments:

Ed Epperly said...

Inspector: So glad to see you back. For a while I checked your site everyday but gave up.

Inspector Winship said...

Dr. Epperly: Thanks for the comment. I enjoyed your series over at the Villisca Axe Murders blog. Hopefully I can get back to posting here regularly.

Miz Kizzle said...

Many things distress me about the Anthony case but what I find particularly galling is the way people fell all over themselves to embrace little Caylee as "America's child" after she was dead but we don't give a hoot about the thousands of children living in poverty with young, single mothers.
It's very schizo the way we idolize childhood on one hand as a time of innocence and on the other we do little to ensure that every child has enough healthy food to eat, a safe place to live, and a good education.
When things go awry and children are no longer cute little moppets but ill-educated, angry young people we, as a society, echo the unreformed Scrooge who asked "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"
I fear for the future of our country when there is such a lack of compassion.