The Hypocrisy of the Casey Anthony Trial

S. Paul Forrest

I think it is truly sad that people are so completely willing to condemn Casey Anthony without either knowing her or the circumstances behind the whole media frenzied murder trial we have deemed justice. Guilty or not, what does our desire to want to see her pay for her alleged crimes without a preponderance of evidence, say about our American State of Mind?

The Anthony case was brought to the forefront of our current media circus by broadcasters and legal commentators nationwide much like the O.J. Simpson case.  For weeks, people clung to the statements and testimonies of experts, friends, family and associates of the accused and the accusers alike.  When the trial was finally complete and both parties had rested their cases, the jury convened and soon after, delivered a verdict based on the evidence at hand.  The result: Not Guilty on all four counts.  In reaction to this verdict, people everywhere began to spew statements of condemnation for the verdict and have been insisting that the trial was a miscarriage of justice. 

The media has paraded around, discussed on news shows and talk shows and profited from this case.  How many commercials were played during the proceedings do you think?  How many useless gadgets and trinkets of zero value were sold to the People during this circus? And for what? The truly sad part of this whole mess and a question many should be asking themselves right now is:  If it weren’t for the media coverage and news print opinion polls, would Casey have been found not guilty at all?  Would justice have behaved itself and truly performed to the intent of its judicial protocol and standards of practice or would the trial have lasted half as long and resulted in Anthony’s death sentence?

What is truly perplexing is how, prior to the People vs. Anthony Casey verdict being read,so many people in America had stood in protest of this same Judicial System that has imprisoned people of ethnic diversity longer than those of the white ruling class.  They have protested this injustice ad nauseum with the soul intent to call into question the evidentiary process and have  vehemently protested the massive incarceration rates of the American population and for good cause: The American prison system has the highest incarceration rate per capita than any other Nation in the world.

Many have written on the injustice and questionable system of prison privatization and most recently, Wisconsin’s Governor, Scott Walker had decided to use prison labor to perform the job of Union workers but this decision by Walker was corrected by a Federal Judge to the great satisfaction of many.  The people determined the judge’s decision in the Walker labor case to be a success story for the Judicial System but now, these same people are calling into question the decision made by the People of the Jury in finding Casey Anthony not-guilty of the murder, manslaughter or abuse of her child; Caylee Marie Anthony and are rallying to reverse the judgment.  So why now have so many decided that this particular defendant should have been cast into the abyss of imprisonment?

I believe the answer lies within a social structure where the People have become so frustrated and have been forced to bear terrible witness to injustices outside the legal realm infecting their own lives.  These injustices have been delivered unto them by a political system support by a corrupt Supreme Judicial wrought with representatives and Justices who only favor corporate interests over those of the people and have now become infected with blood lust laced with want of revenge.  These thoughts and desires are new to many and they have no idea how to deal with them other than to cast their anger at a defined target rather than an in place bureaucracy which is seemingly unreachable.

Currently in America, the People are losing their jobs, their homes and their sense of financial security to a Governmental regime that seemingly cares nothing about them and these People have come to a point where they haven’t any idea what to do about it or even, how to control it.  When something like a trial for the alleged mistreatment or death of a little girl comes to the forefront, a relief valve of sorts reveals itself and they rally behind the hope that someone will finally pay for hurting a child the way they have seen their own children or those children of others they may know, or even the frustration they themselves have been suffering, to be punished for these economically challenging times. The Casey Anthony trial has very little to do with the disappearance and evident death of little Caylee: It has to do with payback akin to a moral road rage against the the system. 

Now though, after Justice did behave properly and delivered the true intentions of real American right to a fair trial, the People are reaching for pitch forks and torches.  Maybe the people carrying these mob tools or condemnation need to take a serious look at themselves and ask what it is they actually stand for. Maybe it is that they have been so fooled for so long that injustice is the new America System that they have found injustice to be the acceptable norm.  Perhaps these people need to take a refresher course in what Justice truly is and was originally intended to be in America.  

Now that all is said and done, the question that remains and hopefully, will resonate within all of our minds is: Who are we to judge Casey Anthony? Yes; a child was tragically lost but very few of us were either there during the alleged crime or the entire duration of the trial. We were not presented with the evidence.  Who are we to now sit as a jury and say she should die for a crime that was not proven to have been committed? Wouldn't this judgment be the very same sort of injustice levied upon We the People through an unfair system that so many fight against everyday?  Wouldn't this call for vigilante justice to condone the condemnation of this woman for an unproven act make all of us who stand daily against an unfair system, hypocrites?