Casey Anthony

[I Love Anna Kournikova]

Look, I'm not saying she's innocent; I think she was guilty as sin. But that's the way the criminal justice system works.

With that being said, You must agree that there should be a change then right? I mean if there is no absolute proof but its Obvious anyway there should be something.

 

And Sofa, does America really believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty? I think that's a big mis-interpretation. The way People are treated before they are proven guilty sure makes it seem like Innocent until proven guilty.

[OchyGTA]

Also, I guess that I learned today that court cases in the US can be broadcast live. I knew you guys could record them and broadcast the tapes, but I never knew you could do it live. Makes the whole UK court reporting system seem a bit draconian; we have to have artists do quick sketches of points they believe to be important and/or needing visuals for a news report.

I study law at college and we put it down to media pressure would be too much for juries to handle. Imagine if you have to decide to send someone down for life on national tv and if you make the wrong call it could mess you up. I think its good we don't broadcast trials. They don't seem as gimmicky that way

[Robinski]

 

Look, I'm not saying she's innocent; I think she was guilty as sin. But that's the way the criminal justice system works.

With that being said, You must agree that there should be a change then right? I mean if there is no absolute proof but its Obvious anyway there should be something.

I know you weren't quoting me, but I share AG's view on the matter. That's the way the justice system works, and has to work to be fair. It's only truly, objectively I mean, obvious that somebody is guilty if there is undeniable evidence that they have committed the crime (even a confession is not always sufficient). If not, you could convict somebody just because they're a social outcast. Say, for example, that you're looking for the cause of a number of pet disappearances in your local area. There's a local homeless guy who's been known to cook rats over a fire in a barrel if times get hard. It's obvious that he's been catching the cats to kill and eat because he can't afford food. We can't find where he got rid of the bones, but everybody is sure it's him right? It wouldn't be right to pick this guy up just because we all "know" it was him. For all you know, it could be the repressed, middle-class, white male over the street who runs an illegal underground cat-fighting ring.

 

 

I study law at college and we put it down to media pressure would be too much for juries to handle. Imagine if you have to decide to send someone down for life on national tv and if you make the wrong call it could mess you up. I think its good we don't broadcast trials. They don't seem as gimmicky that way

 

I did law at sixth form (I assume that's the level you mean, and not university level if you're in the UK) and yeah that's what we were always told. I think recording of it would be perfectly fine as long as you respected the privacy of the jurors. You could have them behind a one-way screen or not even in the room if you like. The only effects that the outside media that can really do to a jury is skew their belief by saturating the media with reporting on the story. I've heard of a few cases, which I can't name off the top of my head sorry, where the jury had to be thrown out and reselected as they'd been deemed too influenced by the reporting of the case in the media prior to being brought in for jury service (and thus the isolation from the media). To report on the case as it's going on is fine, because the jury are isolated from the media, and as such proper methods of reporting should be allowed.

 

We've already seen advancements toward more technological method of recording the happenings of courtrooms with the allowance of smartphones and twitter to be used in the Julian Assange court appearances earlier this year.

Edited July 5, 2011 by Robinski

[Icarus]

 

I mean if there is no absolute proof but its Obvious anyway there should be something.

What is obvious to some might not be obvious to others.

 

Let's say I'm on trial for murder but I'm innocent. Now I decide to take the stand in my own defence, but I'm shaking and stuttering quite a bit, because I'm nervous. I'm not nervous because I have something to hide, but rather, I may have never been in a court room before and I'm a bit scared with a lawyer bombarding me with questions, a judge staring right at me, twelve pairs of eyes focused on me from the jury box and being the focus of every other person present in the court room. Now the prosecution has failed to prove I'm guilty of murder, but from my conduct on the stand, it's "obvious" that I'm guilty and should be punished accordingly.

 

You see why something being "obvious" should not be used to convict people?

 

[EDIT] I'd like to say Robinski's first post in this topic hit the nail on the head.

 

[EDIT #2] Robinski beat me to a counter-example.

[I Love Anna Kournikova]

Look, I'm not saying she's innocent; I think she was guilty as sin. But that's the way the criminal justice system works.

With that being said, You must agree that there should be a change then right? I mean if there is no absolute proof but its Obvious anyway there should be something.

I know you weren't quoting me, but I share AG's view on the matter. That's the way the justice system works, and has to work to be fair. It's only truly, objectively I mean, obvious that somebody is guilty if there is undeniable evidence that they have committed the crime (even a confession is not always sufficient). If not, you could convict somebody just because they're a social outcast. Say, for example, that you're looking for the cause of a number of pet disappearances in your local area. There's a local homeless guy who's been known to cook rats over a fire in a barrel if times get hard. It's obvious that he's been catching the cats to kill and eat because he can't afford food. We can't find where he got rid of the bones, but everybody is sure it's him right? It wouldn't be right to pick this guy up just because we all "know" it was him. For all you know, it could be the repressed, middle-class, white male over the street who runs an illegal underground cat-fighting ring.

Yea i Didn't know if I should have quoted you or AG. So You can take it as quoting you too.

 

But yea, I guess you do need proof. But still it sucks. If only there were a way to make everyone happy.

[Creed Bratton]

"Not guilty until proven otherwise" is something people just seem to forget all the time. I'm not saying she didn't do it, but I'm not saying she did it either. None of us is REALLY familiar with the case. All you know comes from biased media and their agenda is to make news interesting. And it's more interesting to know who the killer is then to hear people say how they have no idea.

Judicial system is not a perfect system, but it works better than no system at all. It isn't based on emotions and suspicions, it's based on facts and evidence. If you don't like it, too bad.

[Straznicy]

Also, I guess that I learned today that court cases in the US can be broadcast live. I knew you guys could record them and broadcast the tapes, but I never knew you could do it live. Makes the whole UK court reporting system seem a bit draconian; we have to have artists do quick sketches of points they believe to be important and/or needing visuals for a news report.

I have to disagree; I think the situation in the UK for media coverage of proceedings is appropriate.

 

Like Rown said, it seems this case became something of a media circus, which is really not desirable to me. It allows the mass media a channel of influence with which to further scrutinise judges and jurors and placing them under heightened pressure to deliver the verdict news interests would like to see. I shudder at the thought of Sky News covering cases.

 

The only capacity I would like to see cameras in courts is for educational purposes. I've just finished my first year of Law at university, and in particular classes it would have been very helpful to have a live example in front of me instead of deciphering various monologues in legal textbooks and journals.

 

 

 

[LuisBellic]

There wasn't enough evidence. But after all the bullsh*t she made up I think she killed Caylee.

[lil weasel]

Obvious?

What say, the grandparents arn't so happy with their daughter have a kid out of wedlock, they are Christians after all. And let's say the kid dies by accident. The grandpa having been a cop and a Christian, all but a bible thumper, wants to punish his daughter for her sins. He says don't worry to daughter I'll take care of it, you just go about your business and have fun. Grandpa disposses of the body and arranges for the 'evidence' over a period of time (30 days).

Suddenly one day Grandma 'realizes' her grandkid is 'missin' She gets all excited and calls 999. Meanwhile Granddaddy is in the background not upset at all.

Stinky car doesn't set off any alarms to 'experienced' car storage guy or Granddaddy Granny says she smelt Death in the car. Granny then proceeds to clean the stink out? Etc. etc.

 

Verdict reasonable to me.

[Ziggy455]

Bullsh*t. She obviously killed her daughter. And she is going to get away with it. I only pray somebody takes it upon themselves to kill her in Prison for the four year sentence she may serve for false information.

[Robinski]

Bullsh*t. She obviously killed her daughter. And she is going to get away with it. I only pray somebody takes it upon themselves to kill her in Prison for the four year sentence she may serve for false information.

Can you prove it? I'm sure there'd be a job for you in the US justice system if you could.

[Kwandilibro]

Bullsh*t. She obviously killed her daughter. And she is going to get away with it. I only pray somebody takes it upon themselves to kill her in Prison for the four year sentence she may serve for false information.

She's going to prison? Yes!!! I hope one of those really manly bitches up in the joint rapes the sh*t out of her. She deserves it, f*cking piece of sh*t.

[Voodoo]

She has three years time served just from being locked up during the trial. Unless the judge sentences her consecutively on those misdemeanors, she's probably out tomorrow.

 

 

[SWEETSAPRIK]

 

The evidence the prosecution had was all circumstantial. No eyewitness testimony, and no confession. They hardly had anything concrete to work with.

 

Had the prosecution gotten her on the stand, they certainly would have tried to rattle her with the hopes that her story would come apart. But the photos of her partying in the days after her daughter went missing weren't enough to prove the murder count beyond reasonable doubt. What they could prove was beyond reasonable doubt is that she lied to investigators...and she was convicted for those crimes.

 

Look, I'm not saying she's innocent; I think she was guilty as sin. But that's the way the criminal justice system works.

^This.

 

Personally I'm surprised she wasn't found guilty, but I'm glad she wasn't. Don't get me wrong, guilty or not she's obviously a scumbag, and she's probably guilty too, but they couldn't prove it.

 

There are far too many examples of innocent people spending years in prison for crimes they didn't commit. People who had witnesses placing them somewhere else when the crime was committed, cases where DNA evidence later proved they spent decades jailed for no reason. There are also loads of cases where those convicted are trying in vain to get the DNA evidence tested, since they didn't have the same technology at the time that they do now. You'd think as citizens we'd want to know that the people in jail are actually guilty, and that the real bad guys aren't still out there. Instead we allow our government to do everything it can to block the testing of the DNA in these cases, and pass laws limiting how much people can sue for when it is finally proved that they were serving decades for crimes they didn't commit.

 

Like I said, this skank is guilty of being a complete scumbag, and is probably guilty of killing her kid too, but without a single shred of non-circumstantial evidence I'm glad they didn't put her away. If they had managed to convict her based solely on her sh*tty conduct and the character assassinations of media whores like Nancy Grace it would have just cemented my opinion that they can imprison whoever they want, whenever they want, regardless of whether or not they're actually guilty.

 

[Attorney General]

 

Personally I'm surprised she wasn't found guilty, but I'm glad she wasn't.

Me too, Sweets. I don't doubt that she's guilty, but I don't want anyone to be convicted of murder based on the evidence the prosecution presented.

 

And Voodoo is right, she's gonna walk. This time tomorrow, she may be a free woman.

 

@ILAK, I know I'm a little late, and Icarus and Robinski gave you solid examples. But the reason she was acquitted was because of legal principle of "reasonable doubt". It's what is necessary for a conviction in criminal law in the US. In essence, it means that a juror(who is deemed to be of sound mind by the time he or she makes it through jury selection) must have no reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty if they are to convict.

 

RD is different from other legal classifications like "Preponderance of Evidence", used in civil court, which is pretty much majority proof(or 50/50 proof). Like if I have an IOU from you for 100 bucks, and you lost the signed slip that says you already paid me...you'd be held to the IUO in a civil court because I brought more proof to the table than you did.

 

What I'm getting at is that reasonable doubt is the most appropriate standard of evidence for criminal proceedings. It's an imperfect system, but it's the best we have.

[Padmasana]

[trip]

What I'm getting at is that reasonable doubt is the most appropriate standard of evidence for criminal proceedings. It's an imperfect system, but it's the best we have.

I agree.

 

I think there may be more people wrongly prosecuted than people let free while actually being guilty.

 

I actually have nothing to really add since I didn't follow this case, news story, current media hoopla, or whatever it is called these days.

[SWEETSAPRIK]

 

I think there may be more people wrongly prosecuted than people let free while actually being guilty.

Just for some examples.

 

http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2005/08/taryn_simon_the.php

http://www.tarynsimon.com/works_innocents.php

 

^Those are actually part of a photography project that Simon lady showed at TED a few years back, but it got me thinking. There are examples in her project like one of someone that had 13 witnesses that stated he was somewhere else (a public place, a bar) when the crime was committed, but he was still found guilty and served time for a crime he didn't commit. Another is an example of someone a rape victim couldn't identify, and after telling police that a photo looked "kind of like the guy", but the real guy was younger, they dug out a picture of him from years before and showed it to her 500 moire times, after he was finally released she refused to cooperate further with police because she felt they had tricked her into helping them jail an innocent man, and she felt she could no longer trust her own memories.

 

And these are examples of the first 250 people released off of DNA tests that weren't available at the time of their conviction.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Innoc...Project_250.pdf

 

Now don't get me wrong, if someone is guilty I'm fine with some "old testament" type punishments. That said, I want more than just proof that someone is a crappy person, or that they just acted "kinda fishy", I want evidence that is more than circumstantial, and even then I tend to want to give the benefit of the doubt. I'm a big believer in the idea that it is better to let a few bad guys off, than to put a one innocent person away, mostly because in case like that not only do they jail an innocent person, but they fail to get the real guilty party. While "reasonable doubt" is how it is supposed to be, most people don't share my opinion, at least not most people serving on juries. There are probably at least a few thousand people in jail simply because they seemed like scumbags to the jury, or lived a life the jury didn't agree with. It should be about the evidence and not whether or not the jury would like to hang out with the accused, but far too often that standard is not what is applied by juries while deliberating. That's probably why it is so easy to find innocent people in prison that can be released simply by running the DNA tests they didn't have at the time.

 

 

[universetwisters]

shes guilty

 

 

the jury was obviously bribed/intimidated/epic trolling

[Capricornus]

The verdict is complete horsesh*t and I kind of felt that this would be the outcome. USA with its bulllsh*t justice system and retarded jurors. Oh well nothing I can do about it.

[Icarus]

The jurors are told they can only make their vote guilty if there does not exist a reasonable doubt. If there is any doubt, no matter how minute, they are to vote not guilty. Given the fact that the prosecution only had circumstantial evidence, they were kind of hooped right from the get-go. That's the way the system works. If you don't like it, propose an alternative.

[fireguy109]

 

If you don't like it, propose an alternative.

 

 

Something like that.

[Voodoo]

Part of the problem lies in how she was prosecuted. She was way overcharged considering the evidence that was available. If this had not been a capital murder trial with the possibility of a death sentence, she could have been found guilty of a lesser charge such as second degree murder, criminal negligence or at least obstruction of justice. She would have done some time in that case.

 

 

[Icarus]

Here's a question for some of you who know a bit more about the United States legal system.

 

I've seen some people say she can be brought back on federal charges without violating the double jeopardy rule because of different jurisdictions since she was tried in a state court. Any truth to that or is it just a load of bull?

[sofa_king]

Here's a question for some of you who know a bit more about the United States legal system.

 

I've seen some people say she can be brought back on federal charges without violating the double jeopardy rule because of different jurisdictions since she was tried in a state court. Any truth to that or is it just a load of bull?

Yes its true she could be recharged with a crime if some evidence comes to light.

She cant ever be tried for the murder of the little girl though. So say she wrote a book and in her book she stated

she shot the little girl in the head with a 9mm.... She could be charged with illegal discharge of a firearm but not murder.

She would also most likely be charged for illegal disposal of a body, but again.. not for murder.

[fgcarva1]

shes guilty

 

 

the jury was obviously bribed/intimidated/epic trolling

Can you prove that the jury was bribed? If not please leave this topic because your post adds no value to the discussion.

 

Well, here's my opinion. They had no proof that she murdered, she chose not to speak, there was nothing else to use as evidence. I personally believe that she did it, but I may be wrong. I am glad they did not find her guilty without the necessary amount of proof. It would be stupid to take her life if she really did not do it. Screw it, her life is pretty much over with her face on the cover of Newsweek for being accused of killing a baby. The rest of her life is going to be worse than any death penalty. The media f*cked her over... I can imagine her try to make friends or look for a job, her life is ruined so I don't care that she was found "not guilty".

[UNRATED69]

 

Half of the people in this topic.

 

 

Also, I've been wondering what makes her case so special and deserving of this may followers. There are plenty of other murder cases, so why is everyone so focused on her?

[fgcarva1]

 

Half of the people in this topic.

 

 

Also, I've been wondering what makes her case so special and deserving of this may followers. There are plenty of other murder cases, so why is everyone so focused on her?

I also question that. I don~t see why the media made such a fuss out of this when dozens of women kill their kids in the US every year. Maybe because she didn't report her child missing for 31 days? The media may have seen that as more cruel and used it against her.

 

Also, I followed the case for like 3 weeks.

[darthYENIK]

 

Half of the people in this topic.

 

 

Also, I've been wondering what makes her case so special and deserving of this may followers. There are plenty of other murder cases, so why is everyone so focused on her?

Seriously, that's how I feel it is. I've seen it on the news almost none stop for a month or so, but never have I heard anyone actually speak about it. Suddenly, people are experts and she's OJ.

[SunshineBoy]

What do you guys think for the trial of Casey Anthony?

When i saw that see was not guilty(for murder, guilty for lying) i blew up

what about u guys

Depends on those who are the power controlling body in a country. Such things usually are handled in Politics so but I don't think he was guilty(no offense).