Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Step Right Up!: (Reluctantly) Weighing in on the Casey Anthony Circus


I cannot believe I'm writing this blog. I have ignored the entire Casey Anthony debacle as much as possible, and I wouldn't even have known they reached a verdict had every news source not been blasting it. Of course, as soon as the verdict was read, Facebook blew up. In fact, there are already two of those re-postables in honor of the little girl going around, after only about 45 minutes. By the way, this post is probably going to piss some people off, just to warn you.

First of all, I am making no judgments on whether she did or did not kill her daughter. I was not there. I did not see anything, was not present in the courtroom to see evidence or hear testimony, nor do I even know any of the people involved even remotely. Therefore, I have no reason to think my judgments would be correct. If she did do it, she should have been punished, though the death penalty would never have been reasonable in my opinion. If she didn't, I'm glad she was acquitted.

I am not writing this to yell and scream about her not guilty verdict. Nor am I writing it to proclaim her innocence. As I said, who am I to say? I was not on her jury. What this is about is the public response to the whole mess. Since it began, the public has been collectively losing its mind over this case. Yes, it is sad that a small child died. Is she the only one that died at that time? No. Is she the only one who died under odd circumstances? No. Do I think that if she had been a child of color or someone much poorer the media would have jumped on this? No. The Casey Anthony circus reminds me a great deal of the Jon Benet Carnival several years back, and I have the same opinions about that mess as well.

I continue to be depressed and aggravated by my fellow human beings. You would think the woman had come into their homes and murdered their child from the tone and comments. The comment (from Facebook, of course) that bothered me the most was: "I have never been so disappointed or disgusted with our legal system." Really? Never? Not once? While I do believe that murder is a serious and terrible offence, this particular case is certainly not one that made me lose faith in the legal system. That happened years and years ago and continues to happen repeatedly. Rapists walk the streets, women are still forced to pay for their own rape kits in some areas, children are taken away from loving parents because of sexual preference, a homeless man is given years in prison for stealing $100 because he was hungry (which he later returned on the grounds that "he was raised better") yet a person who steals billions (literally) in corporate America is given mere months, Leonard Peltier is still in prison, poor people and people of color are disproportionately jailed for minor offences that the wealthy and white continually get away with....

So, do I mourn the fact that a young life was ended, possibly violently? Of course, but I also mourn the thousands who die homeless and hungry, who are killed by bullets and bombs in idiotic wars, who suffer needlessly everyday. The point is that if the Casey Anthony case is the first thing that made you question the justice of our legal system or anything else in this world, you have not been paying attention.

3 comments:

S. Russell said...

The reason I was interested, as opposed to the millions of other legal issues in the world, is because I was in Florida when all this was going on. I'm not a trial person by nature (-:

You know, I actually don't question the legal system on this. I question the idea that good always wins more than anything, and the completely NOT logical idea that the right thing will ultimately happen. (-: I admit it's not the most educated way of wanting the world to run, but I do have a heart, along with a brain. Sometimes I let it make a few calls.

After reviewing the FL statute on aggravated child abuse, I have to give it to the jury and say, well, fine...I guess you are good there. But in other states, the definition is different, and the *cough* story about the pool would have garnered a guilty there. Not that I believe it at all...

So, there you go. (-: Yes, I posted about the verdict. But not because of the legal system woes, but rather over the craptasticness that is. Sometimes we all get to be 4 year olds and stomp our feet and say "thats not fair!".

obsessive compulsive dawn said...

Yes, Shy, but your comments on it were not what bothered me. I don't mind people being upset because they disagreed, but some of the people on my facebook I swear would have drawn and quartered her, dragged her body through the streets, and then posted her head on a pole. One was saying she was so freaked out, she needed to leave work. Others were screaming about the justice system's failure, but these are the same ones I got angry at when the whole bin Laden thing went down. They want to cry mercy and "judge not, etc" 90% of the time, but then they turn into bloodthirsty monsters and get pissed at people like me who disagree. Makes me lose my faith in humanity and want to pull my hair out.

S. Russell said...

Ah, humanity....defined by both being humane and being human as we know it today....two very different things! And I know you're not referring to me, I just like to put my side out there....on your blog....where I don't have to deal with the consequences, because my facebook pool is not quite as open minded as you are, lol!!!!