How I see it: The Casey Anthony trial

My facebook and twitter feeds are blowing up with people being angry about the verdict with the Casey Anthony trial. I don't feel like getting into debates on those types of settings, but I do want to put my opinion out into cyberspace.

God bless our judicial system.

I'll admit that I haven't been following the case religiously. Actually, the only thing I've heard about it were little tidbits on talk shows until today. But today, I started researching more into the case.

My opinion is that the media got carried away with convicting Casey before the verdict was out. Even after she was found not guilty, the reporters were hooping and hollering about how Caylee was wronged and how Casey should not have been found not-guilty. I won't get into the fact that reporters are supposed to deliver the news unbiasedly (is that a word?), but I'm assuming y'all know all about that already.

I think the problem lies in the difference between not-guilty and innocent. Like I said before, who am I to know if Casey killed her daughter? I haven't even been watching it on the news. But in the court of law, she is not-guilty of her accused crime. The fact of the matter is that the prosecution had the task of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she killed her daughter. And they didn't do that soundly enough, so Casey walks. It isn't a fact on if she did it or not, because honestly, I don't know. I know a little girl was murdered, and that's awful and terribly sad. But we don't know who did it. We don't know how they did it; we don't know when or where they did it, and we don't know how they did it. But the point of the matter is that our justice system is set up in a way to make sure that the least amount of innocent people go to jail. This woman was facing the death penalty. I would much rather her walk free and get her just desserts later, either in this life or the next (if she did commit the crime), than have her sentenced to death only later to find out Joe Schmo down the street is the one that killed the little girl.

Now that the jury reached a verdict, it seems more to me like people found out about this cute little Caylee who was murdered and they want someone to pay for it. They don't seem to care whether or not the evidence points to her or if the case isn't strong enough to accuse, they just want someone to pay for it. Maybe Casey was a crappy mom, but that doesn't mean that she killed her. Maybe she was a liar too, but that doesn't mean she's a murderer either. Think of what our world would be like if police officers and lawyers and reporters could sentence someone to death just because of circumstantial evidence. I wouldn't want to live in that kind of a world.

I do hope they reopen the case and make sure they have exhausted all of the possibilities of who killed Caylee. But if they can't build a solid case, they can't build a solid case.. and that's all there is to it.

Love,