Taylor: First, let me say that though I respect Alan Dershowitz, Mr. Shaprio is absolutely right in his analysis. The idea that it’s better for 10 guilty people to go free than one innocent person imprisoned is objectively wrong. As I pointed out before, a study of California felons showed that once released they had a 75% recidivism rate. If that number holds for our mythical 10 guilty people, that would mean we accept that seven or eight will almost immediately go out and kill, rape, steal, and abuse again.
Is that really what we as a society think is right?
Unlike Mr. Shapiro I believe that our justice system is the superior system in the world, but that doesn’t mean that we celebrate when a monster who abused and neglected her daughter, then tried to put an innocent woman in prison is able to beat her rap. As for the New York Times article Mr. Dershowitz points to as evidence we need to investigate the prosecutors, I find it hard to believe someone as intelligent as Mr. Dershowitz truly believes that. The Times has a history of printing lies and half-truths (Jayson Blair comes to mind) and I myself have been smeared by journalists who purposefully misquoted me to fit an agenda. The Village Voice ran an article that implied I was the web’s only bi-racial neo-Nazi using select quotes from an hour long interview I did. Is that article really evidence of my Nazism? Using a newspaper article as the basis for filing charges against anyone is simply silly.
To Mr. Anderson I would first say that he knows full well that the CSI effect is a cultural phenomenon and not reliant on each person watching a particular show. I understand he wouldn’t have time to watch CSI since he seems to spend most of his time cataloging Nancy Grace’s opinions.
I’m not sure why the Duke case or especially Crystal Mangum being black is important to this discussion though I am aware that such things do have particular significance at Lew Rockwell’s site. I will simply point out here that the accused in that case aren’t innocent. Innocent people don’t gangbang hookers, they don’t stiff hookers and they don’t hurl racial slurs at them. Had they been innocent boys minding their business they never would have had an unstable drug addict turning tricks at their party which led to the false rape allegations. Like Casey Anthony, their own criminality and immoral behavior led them to be the subject of public ridicule – as it should be.
Mr. Anderson goes on to claim false abuse reports have skyrocketed, while providing no evidence except noted frauds, most involving the Satanic Ritual Abuse scam. This is frankly disgusting. The Satanic Panic was the product of a conspiratorial culture that had far reach into government and media. Even at its height people had debunked much of it, by the way. This list of incidents he puts forward does not prove false reports have “skyrocketed” any more than a list of blogs I run would prove my blog running has skyrocketed.
But more importantly, how would this apply to the Anthony case? Even the jury convicted Anthony of lying about her child being missing and about the woman she falsely accused. It’s interesting Mr. Anderson has no sympathy for Zeniada Gonzalez in this story. She was actually falsely accused but there is little hyperbole on her behalf.
I would like to say I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Anderson thinks Casey Anthony was railroaded, but as I said before, this is how far our culture has devolved.
FP: Mr. Taylor, the Duke case is brought up and is important because it is a vital example of a rush to judgment and a false and inhuman rush to judgment. Crystal Mangum being black is important to this discussion because the rush to judgment was largely led by race-baiters who wanted to sacrifice the accused on the altar of their own racial agenda.
The accused were innocent of the crime they were accused of, that is the point. And “public ridicule” was not what they were a subject of, they were subject of being horribly vilified and smeared in the media and being accused of a crime they didn’t commit. Not only that but they were themselves victims of a persecution by a corrupt district attorney who nearly sent these innocent men to jail – and certainly ruined their reputations – for a crime they did not commit. It would be difficult to imagine a more flagrant and appalling perversion of justice.
Only the overwhelming evidence of their innocence, which had been deliberately covered up by a now-disgraced district attorney, saved them from prison, no thanks to the Nancy Graces of the world, who wanted those men jailed because of their own emotional vendettas or political agendas. Your implication is that these men deserved what they received because of their alleged behavior that created the context, but whatever the case is, and we know Crystal Mangum is a pathological liar, the men were innocent of the crime they were accused of – and people like Nancy Grace, and all the leftist feminists in Women’s Studies Departments (among others), wanted them to go to jail.
Mr. Taylor, justice is about people going to jail for committing crimes and having those crimes proven in the court of law; it is not about sending a person to jail because someone out there thinks he is a bad person. So the point here is that if you jail people not for crimes proven but for being allegedly immoral people, you would destroy the validity of America’s legal system. And if you want to jail men who hire strippers, if you had your way you would be criminalizing and imprisoning quite a significant portion of the U.S. population. But perhaps you would want it that way, although the impulse and psychology here escapes me.
In any case, whether the evidence was there to convict Casey Anthony, and I think the argument is there that there was, is another matter – and the primary matter here for our discussion.
Taylor: I disagree. The Duke case is completely irrelevant in this context and the hysterical hyperbole about an inhuman rush to judgement is liberal/left-libertarian grievance mongering. Three guys stiffed a hooker and got burned. If you rob a dealer you get shot. If you kick a rattlesnake you get bit. My point here is that though they weren’t guilty of rape they were not innocent. They hired two hookers (not strippers), didn’t get the color they wanted and when an argument ensued started calling them the “n” word. Justice prevailed – but they brought this on themselves when they hired and fought with two drug addled hookers. So let’s not pretend there is some deeper meaning here, and not pity degenerates whose degeneracy led them to be the victims of other degenerates.
And we’re are all sophisticated enough to understand that when a person refers to someone well known “as the Black stripper” there’s some bigotry going on. We don’t refer to Osama bin Laden as the Arab terrorist, we don’t refer to Casey Anthony as the White party girl and I won’t tell people I was debating some White guys in a symposium even if I think there may be a racial component to some of what’s being said.
The idea that people who have sex with and then try to short change hookers can be considered innocent is another illustration of my point about our society.
There’s nothing wrong with strippers and it’s nonsense to claim I said there was – but hiring hookers is illegal. Ripping them off because you wanted White ones is immoral. Getting screwed by people you screw is simply how life works.
Nancy Grace didn’t hire hookers to send to their house. She didn’t file those charges and she didn’t tell them to call a spiteful drug addict the N word after trying to get her to sodomize herself with a broomstick. So why is Grace the villain?
I agree that this has nothing to do with the Anthony case, but I object to anyone claiming criminals and miscreants are the victims of anything but their own behavior. You know who’s never gotten falsely accused of rape or murder? Me. Are you saying that’s luck or isn’t more likely I’m not some scumbag surrounded by the kind of people who make false accusations? I’ve worked with kids for years, but no false reports. Strange, huh?
FP: I am a bit speechless.
Again, in a system of law, just because someone is guilty of immorality or doing something bad, it does not mean that he should be convicted of a crime he did not commit, or that he somehow deserves to be charged for a crime he did not commit. The legal system is not based on karma.
I am very happy for you, Mr. Taylor, that you have never been falsely accused of a crime. Unfortunately a lot of innocent people have been, and many of them have lingered in jail for decades and continue to linger in jail for decades — and many have been executed on death row. And though this doesn’t need to be said in their defense, many of them were not engaged in other “immoral” activities when they were charged.
For the record, your description of the Duke case is false. In the first place, Crystal Mangum was a stripper, not a hooker. Further, she changed her story so many times, and it was so full of inconsistencies, that it is impossible to establish any of her charges. For instance, there is no evidence that the accused lacrosse players used a racial slur. In the course of the investigation, there was only one instance found of insensitive racial remarks by the 47 lacrosse players and there was no evidence whatsoever – none – that any such remarks were made by Dave Evans, Reade Seligman or Collin Finnerty, the three accused. See Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson’s Until Proven Innocent for an exhaustive and accurate account of what actually happened in the case. So this description of the specifics of the case is demonstrably untrue. Moreover, the idea that the three accused in some sense deserved to be accused of rape because they hired a stripper to entertain them is offensive and perverse.
The relevance of Nancy Grace is that she wanted innocent men in the Duke case to be put in jail and they were innocent. Now she wanted Casey Anthony put in prison. My own belief is that in the Anthony case, the evidence was arguably there for a conviction — although I cringe at the Nancy Graces of the world who believe that their own moral indignation is somehow at the epicenter of world civilization and far more important than the evidence that is presented in a court of law to prove guilt or innocence.
Alan Dershowitz, go ahead. As you see, it’s getting hot in here.
Dershowitz: Let me see if I understand the implications of Mr. Taylor’s views correctly.
1) It is better that seven or eight innocent people go to jail than that one guilty person go free, because for every 10 guilty people that go free, seven or eight will almost immediately go out and kill, rape, steal and abuse again. Thus in one fell swoop, Taylor undercuts millennia of history and tradition beginning with the Bible and covering Blackstone, the framers of our Constitution and the current Supreme Court.
2) Jury trials are essentially unnecessary because Taylor can tell, from reading newspaper accounts, who is guilty and who is innocent. So instead of a jury of 12 ordinary people we can simply have Robert Murdoch and Nancy Grace decide who goes to jail.
3) You can believe what the sensational press reports but not what The New York Times documents and quotes, because the Times once published Jason Blair and once smeared Taylor.
I don’t know about you, but I would not like to live in Taylor’s world.
Shapiro: It’s getting kind of lonely outside of the red-hot center of this argument, so I’ll just plunge in. Professor Anderson seems upset that I have proclaimed my belief that Casey Anthony is guilty, then sets up the straw man that the “trial should have been a mere formality and that since everyone already knew what Anthony did, the outcome should have been inevitable, if not pre-determined.” This is patent nonsense. The purpose of trials is to allow both sides a chance to present the evidence. The evidence supported Anthony’s conviction and guilt. One of the great idiocies of the current judicial system is the notion that when a defendant is brought into court, juries are supposed to engage in the mental fiction that the person is innocent until proven guilty. In truth, juries think that the person might be innocent and might be guilty. If the person were truly innocent, there is a very solid chance they would not be in court. In the world of reality, the police and prosecutors are not in the habit of tracking down and trying innocent people. That would be a waste of time. When somebody comes to trial, there is a high percentage shot that the person is guilty. Everybody in the room knows it, and it should not be taboo to either think it or say it. Aside from that, I seriously doubt that either Professor Anderson or Professor Dershowitz disagrees with Mr. Taylor or me that Casey Anthony killed her daughter.
I have a feeling that both Professor Anderson and Professor Dershowitz would be offended by the notion that the presumption of innocence is unrealistic for juries. That presumption, according to Professor Anderson, is a “bedrock” of justice. On one level, he’s right – we don’t presume the defendants guilty and then ask them to prove their innocence; the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. That’s all well and good. But that doesn’t mean that juries don’t think defendants are guilty when they walk in the room. That’s a reality worth dealing with.
I’m not going to get into the Nancy Grace debate, since I don’t know much about Ms. Grace; I’m not a Court TV junkie. I will say that I agree with Professor Anderson that the Duke case was a travesty abetted by Grace and company. I strongly disagree with Mr. Taylor’s characterization of that case. It was a racially-motivated lynch mob in the press egging on a horrible prosecutor.
I’d like to focus a bit on Professor Dershowitz’s rather curt comments. He sets up a straw man by sticking with the Blackstone quotation, except he accuses Mr. Taylor of reversing it. I didn’t see Mr. Taylor do that. In any case, Blackstone, as I said, is nonsensical. There is no choice between letting guilty men go free and convicting innocent men – that’s a false choice of the highest order. The best justice system convicts the guilty and absolves the innocent.
What I find most fascinating about Professor Dershowitz’s point with regard to the 10-for-1 aphorism is that he cites “millennia of history and tradition beginning with the Bible and covering Blackstone, the framers of our Constitution, and the current Supreme Court.” Yet Professor Dershowitz is an avowed utilitarian who should himself reject Blackstone on the grounds that it loses more innocent lives than it gains. Furthermore, Professor Dershowitz’s citation of tradition in this context is ironic to say the least, considering he rejects the Bible, tradition, the framers, and thousands of years of human history in embracing gay marriage. So much for his respect for the argument from authority.
Anderson: First, regarding the Duke case, let us set the record straight. Three young men did NOT “stiff a hooker.” There was no sex, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty left the party early because they were disgusted with the whole thing. Not one of the three called Crystal Mangum the “N-word.” Mr. Taylor claims that the three of them “gangbanged” Mangum when that did not happen at all.
This is significant because all of the necessary information about the case is out there. Yet, even though the information is easily obtained, Mr. Taylor has insisted in this public forum to present a totally different — and patently untrue — rendition of the story, accusing the three men of having sex with Mangum and then refusing to pay her. So, if Mr. Taylor refuses to acknowledge the open facts of this story and create a new scenario out of whole cloth, why should I take seriously his view of the Casey Anthony case? Indeed, why take anything he says seriously when it comes to issues of the court and justice?
Second, “innocent until proven guilty” is a legal standard. People have preconceived notions; it is human nature. However, for sake of justice, those who decide guilt or innocence in criminal cases, be they judges or jurors, are supposed to approach the proceedings from the point of view that no matter what one might think beforehand, they are supposed to hold to a standard that says the prosecution must demonstrate guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
For example, in Tonya Craft’s case, most of the jurors entered the trial with the belief that she probably was guilty, as did most of the local media. However, by the time the prosecutors had presented their case and by the time the defense had presented its evidence, the jurors understood that the charges clearly were nonsense. Thus, they acquitted her and in the aftermath of the case have said they feel even more strongly about their verdict.
What Mr. Taylor has said is this: If “everybody knows” someone is guilty, then that is the only true standard needed. You see, “everyone knew” the Duke boys were guilty; “everyone knew” Tonya Craft was guilty. If we were to have gone by his standards, then those innocent people would be in prison right now.
As I see it, people like Mr. Taylor see the conviction of the innocent as “collateral damage” in the hunt for the guilty. Furthermore, Blackstone’s directive is not a non sequitur because no one (including Blackstone) has declared: “20 guilty men go free; therefore, an innocent person won’t be convicted.” Instead, Blackstone was saying that we must have standards of proof that are high enough to ensure that innocent people will not be railroaded into prison or execution. In that process, some guilty people also may go free, but to Blackstone, it was a much worse thing for an innocent person to be convicted than a guilty man acquitted. I believe that, too.
Taylor: Mr. Anderson and Mr. Dershowitz are just illustrating my point about the Liberal/left-libertarian desire to abandon common sense while attempting to overlay their ivory tower philosophical views on reality. Straw man is a mild description of what’s being said here. Justice isn’t a binary proposition where you have to choose between guilty people going free to protect the innocent or punishing innocent people to ensure that victims get justice. We can ensure the guilty pay for their crimes while not putting innocent people in jail. I haven’t said there shouldn’t be trials and in fact here and at RedState I have lauded our criminal justice system as being the best in the world. I assume that’s harder to argue against than claiming I want to put innocent people in jail.
Guilty people going free isn’t an endorsement of our system, it is a consequence of our nobility and dedication to liberty and freedom. That dedication is a good thing but it doesn’t mean that we celebrate justice being denied.
Nor should that dedication to fair trials mean we abandon our common sense when making personal or moral judgements. People who hire “strippers” from escort services are looking for hookers (and even Mr. Anderson described Mangum as a hooker in his writings). People who don’t report their children missing are hiding their involvement in a crime. Children whose corpses are found dumped in swamps with duct tape on them are the victims of foul play. We can pretend these things aren’t true if it helps us sleep at night, but no one can demand that society conform to what is at best a naive and sheltered understanding of the human experience.
It is profoundly disturbing to see that the definition of innocence here is that a court can’t convict a person. Being found not guilty and being innocent are two different things. The only innocent that has come up in this entire debate is Caylee Anthony – the child everyone is happy to forget about. Zenaida Gonzales is also probably innocent, yet for all the sound and fury here over false accusations, Casey Anthony’s false accusations against her don’t seem to be much of concern.
Which brings me to my point, which is not what most of you claim: that we live in a time when it can be argued that Casey Anthony is “innocent” is evidence of the complete moral collapse of our society. I won’t argue Dershowitz’s understanding of this supposed connection between The Bible and pretentious political quotes since I’m not a Christian, but I will say that the connection between who we give our sympathy to and cultural decline is clear. You can pretend that people hire “strippers” for frat parties or that there’s some reasonable explanation for not reporting your child missing or even that you truly believe that it’s necessary to let guilty people go free to ensure that innocent people aren’t imprisoned. What you cannot pretend is that there aren’t consequences to your pretense, one of which is the corpse of a Caylee Anthony.
Dershowitz: I am willing to acknowledge that the vast majority of people who are charged with serious crimes in the United States are factually guilty—that is, they did it. But an important reason why that is so is precisely because we make it so hard to convict the innocent by requiring prosecutors to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and to satisfy the strong presumption of innocence. In other words, by enforcing our preference for the acquittal of ten guilty over the conviction of even one innocent, we influence the process of charging so as to assure that very few innocents are in fact brought to trial. That is almost certainly not the case in countries such as Iran, China, Zimbabwe and others in which there is a preference for assuring that even one guilty does not go free, even if that requires convicting many innocent. So it is for utilitarian reasons that I support our traditional approach. (By the way, I do not reject the Bible. I wrote a book about it called The Genesis of Justice, in which I derive many pragmatic and utilitarian approaches from that wonderful book.)
Mr. Taylor believes that one consequence of preferring the acquittal of the innocent to the conviction of the guilty “is the corpse of Caylee Anthony.” Is he actually suggesting that Casey Anthony, if she in fact killed her daughter, actually did so because she calculated the odds of being acquitted based on the presumption of innocence? A much clearer consequence of the presumption of innocence is the fact that so few innocent people are actually convicted of serious crimes, though there are still far too many innocent people in American prisons.
Shapiro: We’re still stuck on the Duke case, I see. Instead of debating that – I’ve already said that I thought it was a travesty all the way around, and that the young men were unduly treated beyond all repair – let’s stick to Anthony. I understand Mr. Anderson’s point that “innocent until proven guilty” is a legal standard. My question is whether that is a realistic or correct standard, especially as vaguely applied by a jury of people most of whom desperately wanted to get out of jury duty. In fact, Mr. Anderson argues against his own standard in the case of Tonya Craft when he says that the jurors presumed her guilty but were convinced that she was not guilty. So the standard didn’t matter there, obviously.
I disagree that if “everyone knows” that somebody is guilty, they’re guilty. But there’s a pretty damn good shot they’re guilty, at the very least – and the chances of finding an unbiased jury are slim and none. Our entire system needs to be rethought around something approaching realism.
Finally, as to Mr. Anderson’s point about Blackstone – to reiterate, he said, “Blackstone was saying that we must have standards of proof that are high enough to ensure that innocent people will not be railroaded into prison or execution” – that’s not what Blackstone was saying at all. If it were, his statement would be nonsensical, since we can easily establish a standard of proof that always acquits the innocent: don’t prosecute anybody. But we need to draw the balance. Where we draw that balance is what is at issue, and what system is necessary to best achieve the ends of acquitting the innocent and convicting the guilty. I fully agree with Mr. Taylor’s assessment of the situation on that score.
Now, as to Professor Dershowitz, his statement that “by enforcing our preference for the acquittal of ten guilty over the conviction of even one innocent, we influence the process of charging” is false on its face, especially since Professor Dershowitz is the biggest critic of testilying, false prosecution, etc. If anything, our purported standard makes it easier to prosecute the innocent, since everyone assumes that no guilty person would be brought to trial. The reason that we are not Iran, China or Zimbabwe is not that they have a different standard of justice coming in, but that they are tyrannical non-democratic societies that do not give a general damn about their populations. Even if they had presumptions of innocence, does Professor Dershowitz think that those governments would suddenly begin acquitting their foes? They would simply shoot them or drag them off to the local gulag.
By the way, I’m not arguing with the Bible, in which I deeply believe. I’m just questioning why Professor Dershowitz would invoke it at all, since he does not believe in its authority. Pragmatic and utilitarian approaches require no citations.
Professor Dershowitz’s last point is one I admit I do not understand. He criticizes Mr. Taylor for stating that “one consequence of preferring the acquittal of the innocent to the conviction of the guilty ‘is the corpse of Casey Anthony.’” Apparently, he doesn’t believe in the notion that our standards of justice had any impact on Anthony’s behavior at all. This I find hard to believe. Our standards of justice are designed to have an impact. Make them lax, and criminals will prosper. Make them harsh, and some criminals will think again. Make them just, and the innocent will go free and the guilty will be convicted.
FP: Alan Dershowitz, Ben Shapiro, Rob Taylor and William Anderson, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.
All other things being equal, what would the verdict have been if the accused was father instead?
Why would a young mother Google chloroform even ONCE, and later have evidence of chloroform use in her car along with the overwhelming stench of decomposition? Even if the prosecution was duplicitous in not correcting its claim that she looked up the word 84 times, it still does not explain her search or the finding. Unless she was a sociopath, how could the grieving mother of a missing child party her brains out, get tattooed, and participate in a "beautiful body contest" while a fictitious babysitter-kidnapper held her two-year-old? Why would anyone believe anything Casey Anthony said when she was proved to be a liar so often it would make Pinocchio blush? This travesty of justice was like a tennis match in which a laughably poor 3.0 player emerged the winner only due to his 5.0 opponent's errors. The reason why the country was riveted to this trial was that there was a mountain of circumstantial evidence, and a collective desire for justice for an innocent — no, not the murderess Casey Anthony, but the beautiful gift from God that she discarded like garbage.
You are right.
I agree with you fully! You said the truth! Anthony is guilty by the truth and common sense judgement.If jurors would have looked at the truth laid before them,the crazy behavior that Anthony did while she knew her child was dead in a swamp,and told lie after lie to Police. If she had been innocent she would not have had a reason to blame anyone,she would not have any reason to lie to police,and she would not have any reason to be on trial if she had been not guilty.
I agree with Rob Taylor, this jury's verdict shows "how far our culture has devolved." Ben Shapiro made a point that for many years I have contemplated: "One of the great idiocies of the current judicial system is the notion that when a defendant is brought into court, juries are supposed to engage in the mental fiction that the person is innocent until proven guilty." The accused, in my view should be "presumed" neither innocent nor guilty. He or she should simply be "presumed" accused. Professor Dershowitz invokes the Bible. I have a copy of his book, "The Case For Peace: How The Arab-Israeli Conflict (sic) Can Be Resolved." I got the impression Mr. Dershowitz believes those who justify the Jewish people's right to the land of Israel (Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, etc.) on the Bible, are the sort of extremists who are "enemies of peace."
So one of the great idiocies is the presumption of innocence? Then what should the standard by which one reaches a verdict? Thanks, but no thanks.
Anyone who agrees with a blogger like Rob Taylor with no credentials and adheres to the Nancy Grace school of criminology should be suspect.
The jury was so wrong in this decision.
Glazov does it again-another killer debate!
Living here in Central Florida you could not get away from this case. The only thought that kept me from getting sick on this was that I hope one day Casey has to face her daughter eye to eye and hear Caylee ask her, "How was your life, mother?" and then watch as the sentence is pronounced. What is forgotten by all murderers is that this life is fleeting and a mere flicker measured against eternity. THAT is what is truly REAL. FORVER is a long time. May little Caylee rest in peace.
We couldn't escape it in the rest of the country, either!!
Any mother who would party with her daughter missing certainly has something wrong going on. Juries in America seem to be so stupid. They do not understand reasonable doubt.
I think someone will eventually issue a case of justice to the woman.
This is an excellent article showing why most intelligent people with common sense despise lawyers. Too many words from LIARS er lawyers mouths and too little common sense.
Anyone at this point arguing the merits of jurisprudence in this case makes me want to vomit.
Okay, I resemble that. Do I believe she bumped her kid? In a word, "Si", probably. But my word is not good enough, and neither is yours. The prosecution had a tough case from the beginning, trust me on this one. The jury's verdict is the jury's verdict, and they didn't believe the prosecution proved their case. They never said she didn't do it. Those are completely different thing. The jury's verdict can't be "so wrong", unless the jury was tampered with, in some way. The jury's verdict, is the jury's verdict, and has nothing to do with being innocent.
Admittedly I take a hard line. A mother wraps duct tape around her child's nose and mouth; she hides the body in her car, then in woods, conceals the disappearance of her child for thirty one days while she parties; she lies to police so that by the time the body is found it is decomposed beyond recognition; she falsely accuses a baby sitter, etc. All these are constitute a capital crime. She should be executed. Have you read the account in 1 Kings chapter 3, the judgment of Solomon, in which king ruled between two women both claiming to be the mother of a child? The judgment was entirely based on circumstantial evidence like this case – except for the duct tape. It is a famous case. What has become of our society that we let this wickedness go unpunished?
It is so truly tragic that such a small child could have been treated so
brutally and subjected to the vile character of her idiot mother. The
grandparents must live with the knowledge they did not intervene and
I believe they were aware their daughte was unfit but the did not act.
The mother is representative of the new generation of selfish, self
centered individuals that are without familial ties that nurture but
are government drones, indoctrinated in government schools outside
of our former acculturation. In the "50's I was aware of how each
Church and Synagogue were working to build strong close knit families
and communities that worked together for safety and livability. How
it all has changed, it is depressing and sad beyond belief………..William
Executed?? It could have been an accidental death and, in panic, put duct tape on her mouth to make the "kidnapped and dumped" story be plausible. The accident may have been from stupid neglect such as going into the house to answer the phone while her child was swimming and getting engrossed in a 20 minute conversation and instead of admitting to such a thing tried to deflect it with a B.S. story. Execution is reserved for cold blooded premeditated murder, not gross neglect, child endangerment, stupidity, lying to the police, covering it up, etc., all of which constitute a crime, just not the crime she was on trial for. She may be a cold woman, but cold blooded premeditated murder wasn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt, hence, the correct verdict. Had she been on trial for man slaughter, there would probably have been a correct verdict there. Guilty.
Casey Anthony was so guilty. I get why our country is the way it is, and that is a great thing. However, our system didn't get the correct verdict. Our system works, but it failed in this case! Caylee Anthony is the victim here. I don't wanna hear about Casey Anthony out shopping at Old Navy, and and what she's been wearing. I care about Caylee. Her birthday is coming up on August 9th, and it's very sad that this precious baby would have been 6. I often find myself wondering what her life would have been like if her mother hadn't killed her. She was a beautiful baby girl. George Anthony was beaten down so bad on the stand it made me cry. For the defense to call him selfish and that he didn't care about Caylee is disgusting. Are you really teling me that George Anthony went into Casey Anthony's room, found a heart sticker and put it on Caylee's mouth? When Casey Anthony mailed letters all the time with heart stickers and put them on her dead pets, that she buried in the same woods!! And did no one forget about how the bounty hunter woman said Casey ran up to her and giggled and stuck a heart sticker on her knee? Hmm, odd much?
No she was not, "guilty". The jury found her "not guilty". I didn't "like" the verdict either, but I don't count and neither do you. There is no such thing as a "correct" verdict. The verdict is the verdict. Not guilty has nothing to do with whether you committed the crime or not.
Also, Casey Anthony wasn't upset when the police said they found bones by the park near her house she just smirked and went back into her jail cell, but when they told her remains were found in the woods, she lost and had to have help, she was having an attack! Duh, it's cause she knew where the body was!
Oh, good Lord! Not another "panel of experts" to pontificate about Casey Anthony. We got 3 years of that from Nasty Grace. How did that work out?
Three experts and a random idiot blogger you mean.
Please sign the below petition to stop Casey Anthony from profiting off the death of her little girl.
http://www.change.org/petitions/dont-profit-off-t…
Would that also apply to the Grand Parents and the Media? What about the Prosecution showing up on national TV.. and then there is that Judge Strickland. Are you people in Florida not in the least bit concerned about your justice system? It failed and YOU and the MEDIA need to be paying far closer attention.
I don't think it is fair the Prosecution can write a book and the accused is banned from telling their side of the story? This case has been so outrageously exploited the truth will NEVER be known.
If you actually want to be able to debate the Casey Anthony case or ANY case for that matter…. YOU MUST have actually watched the ENTIRE trial. NONE of you did. I DID. The defense did in fact point out the glaring internet report to the jury. It also made sure it was noted by the Judge that the prosection may have deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence as the defense was the one to figure this out on their own.
What was the duct tape all about? Covering the child's mouth and nose? What about the tattoos and the partying? What about falsely accusing a baby sitter? Why did she conceal the child's body in her car, then in the woods and lie and conceal her child's whereabouts for thirty one days? What was that all about?
AND if there are no laws that can slap a prosecutor for lying then you better start making them. The prosecution in this case was quite adamant that THEY could not be held in any way responsible for their actions handling the case. SHOCKING… In fact the prosecution NEVER mentioned 84 searches in their closing arguements… because they knew they had been CAUGHT
I agree a "finding of truth type legal system" is better than prosecutors bent on convictions at any cost and defense lawyers wanting acquittals at any cost. __The media should not be allowed to comment on ANY case what so ever until ithe case has been tried. AND that media source must have actually watched every second of the trial before making a single comment. AND if any information is found to be incorrect in their stories… they should be FINED. Every single court case should be broadcast in entirety in the jurisdiction. __That would be a one giant leap toward truth and justice.
Should you have been required to read of every word of this essay before your first comment? Also – maybe instead of watching every second of a trial people would be working but hey, I'm just a crazy conservative.
I did read the whole article. You didn't? USE your BRAIN.
Well argued.
Your obvious selfish agenda's ruined this article. If the above kinds of common sense ways of handling justice were followed. Misguided commentators exploited by the media
would not be making false judgements and leaping to incredibly uninformed postings.
The media needs to quit exploiting the justice system for cash and ego and PURE ENTERTAINMENT.. Shame on you. The media and indeed journalists are to be a unbiast neutral party reporting on the FACTS.
Yes, people who care about Caylee Anthony's death should be ashamed. People with opinions on cases should be ashamed. What a wonderful world it would be if we all never made a judgement. It is selfish of me to want justice for the dead. It's unselfish of you to demand the government censor the media because you don't like criminals being pointed at. You've got this all figured out.
You are so right R Scott, however I am afraid your common sense and logic is lost on a society that has become increasingly emotional with a need for the warm fuzzies, and drama. I personally believe Casey Anthony is guilty, but the prosecution charged the case too high to start with, without the legal proof they needed to win.
The Media today have no credibility in my opinion. They have turned high profile court cases into modern day Roman Circuses where you had the gladiators going up against lions or other gladiators, for the people to get their morbid entertainment, without any regard for the people involved or the facts. We do not need the lynch mobs of old, nowadays we have the media lynch mobs.
People seem to keep forgetting that it is up to the prosecution to prove their case, and the jury is given instructions as to how they decide a case, based on the what the law allows in that particular state, so they just can't do whatever they please.
We have a case that is going to be high profile out west here, and the police investigators and the DA's office are being very careful, so that when the case goes
to trial, they want to be sure that these two losers are going to go to prison for the rest of their lives where they belong, or possibly get the death penalty.
I say they should take all the time they need, to get it right, as much as they possibly can.
And for the Cuban Refugee… the media should have told you. The defense proved that the reason Chloroform was searched once was because the guy Casey was dating at the time put up a pic of a man and woman on a date.. and the words "win her over with chloroform" on his myspace page.. and she looked it up to find out what Chloroform was. Once.
The media might have wanted to tell you the FACTS from the trial but they have been pushing your emotional buttons so long.. that they just could not slip back into commense sense and TRUTH… because the truth in this legal case goes against the fired up popular opinion and they can't risk their ratings… and their lives….. now to tell you the truth…
Yes, please, tell us the truth, R. Scott … why are you so passionate about this case? Why are you dripping with antipathy for anyone who sees through the sham and deception of your "innocent," lily-white, could-have-been-a-nun Casey? Who do you suppose killed Caylee, R. Scott? Use your "common" sense …
What truth are you talking about? If you checked you would see that the software guy who reported the error regarding the number of searches was incorrect on the dates he published. The prosecution notified the defense of what happened as they were required, however by that time the not guilty verdict was in. In addition the chloroform search would not have been an issue had traces of chloroform not been found in the trunk. The prosecution may have made some mistakes but it was the defense that lied, slandered, and broke enough rules to have the lead attorney kicked out of court.
Another note on this suddenly 'expert' defense team. Had they lost, CA had a very reasonable shot at retrial due to incompetent defense. This defense pulled every dirty trick in the book leaving morality and ethics in the same swamp where little Caylee Anthony was found. They lucked out when an equally incompetent jury bailed them out.
IF every member of that jury had kept their mouth shut they would not be catching anywhere near the flack they are but Juror number 2 or 3, I forget which, does them all a disfavor when she tries to explain their process. The process was, they had no freaking process.
The dates were the same on the reports…. it was the "date" the cachback guy sent the notice to the prosecution. No one in the Anthony home ever searched 84 times for Chloroform and the two different reports were very clear… the states report completely missed the "myspace" searches… how convenient……Traces of Chloroform? Actually the states witness said there were astronomical amounts of Chloroform… a sure sign your "study" is waaaaaaaaaaaaay off base.. and why would that be… Chlorofrom is in EVERYTHING… the carpet..wet bathing suits from a pool… the list goes on…. the Fabreaze the grandmother used in the car…. you can test my car and find astronimical amounts of Chloroform.
Before reading the article I wondered why FP was asking an economist to comment on a criminal legal case that didn't involve econnomics. As for Mr. Taylor's opinions what makes them important or even credible. What kind of authority on a subject does being "a blogger" mean? After reading the article I am more puzzled why these men were selected. Surely, you could have found two more people with legal expertise to engage in the debate. Both Mr. Dershowitz and Mr. Shapiro shared enlightening opinions for the layman.
Yeah, the opinions of jaded, godless in at least one case lawyers.
Derschowitz actually has said that he could write the ten commandments better than God.
Beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean beyond any conceivable doubt. Anything is POSSIBLE. We are taught from day one that the least likely thing is always the truth; everything you thought you knew turns out to be what they call a "myth." We think that intellect is the ability to deny the obvious. But it's not. Our society no longer knows what intellect is. Yes, this case shows the decay in our culture, decay that starts in school and gets worse in the media. CSI, where the obvious turns out to be the truth, is the least of our problems.
Seems to me that the Duke Lacrosse trio have an actionable case for defamation against Rob Taylor.
How so? Did they not admit to hiring "entertainment" from an escort agency?
Like I just stated, adding some random armchair analyst like Taylor makes this article good for a laugh. It just seemed funny to have three legal experts… and Rob Taylor, who probably took notes watching Nancy Grace.
Think on this scenario. Casey Anthony gets cloroform to quiet her daughter down
so that she can put duct tape on her mouth. She want's to go out to party, drug up
and have a wild night, every night but the kid is in the way and maybe she has those
nights where she can not get some one to babysit and is tired of hearing her parents
on the issue of having the child dumped on them, she is a bad mother etc. and
the whole thing is she doesn't want to hear it so she has her brilliant plan. Cloroform
the kid and put duct tape over her mouth so no one can hear her crying in the trunk.
What happens when the kid wakes up, she tries to cry and can not, she is frightened
and upset and does what a two year old does, throws up but because of the duct
tape she chokes to death. Casey Anthony finds the body after sobering up and
takes it into the woods and continues as all addicts do with her obsession.
She should have been found guilty of manslaughter at the least. In a more sinister
account she would swing and not how she would want to………………William
The duct tape…. consider this…. the family has a history a long one of burying their dead pets in the backyard… in a blanket, garbage and duct tape.. THREE pieces of duct tape…. a family member wrapped that baby up… which one? And Why did George Anthony put a slab of cement just days after he says he last saw his daughter and granddaughter? He made the cement himself… and why did he tell police he SAW his daughter in a car and chased her down the highway? and why did he call Casey… the ONLY time he calls her from work.. is the day the baby was last seen? If you watch the whole trial.. you will ber SHOCKED at what the media NEVER told you. It is far more interesting than the crap they are spinning to get ratings…. the truth my is stranger than the fiction the media is feeding you.
This is another plausible explanation of accidental death instead of premeditated murder. Nothing proved premeditated murder, but plenty of evidence proved involvement. Still the correct verdict on the charge for which she was on trial.
I would add the child may have suffocated due to lack of oxygen, heat stroke or
was frightened to death…………it may be that there were other players but the
entire situation was so stupid and that much idiocy speaks to a deranged mind,
her life can not end well, stupid sticks to the landscape and is become and
epidemic…………………………………………………………………………..William
This woman is a pathological liar, a low life narcissist…..real trailer trash….. now she will have to live out her life with a memory she cannot dispel. She knows what happened!!!! She may have excaped legal justice, but her sentence is just beginning…..a life of regret, sorrow and even misery….that her lies cannot dispel.
I don't think you are right about that. She was not grieving when her daughter’s body was decomposing in the woods. She only thinks about herself. She will get rich, and will try to use her opportunity of being famous (in a wrong way) as much as possible. She is hiding now, but wait, we will hear from her again. But, personality usually doesn't change, and I think someday she will commit another crime and will be sent to prison, where she deserves to be.
I don't think you are right about that. She was not grieving when her daughter’s body was decomposing in the woods. She only thinks about herself. She will get rich, and will try to use her opportunity of being famous (in a wrong way) as much as possible. She is hiding now, but wait, we will hear from her again. But, personality usually doesn't change, and I think someday she will commit another crime and will be sent to prison, where she deserves to be.
I feel very sorry for her….she seems to be without any real feelings….and unable to tell the truth about what happened….I apologize for calling her names. She is a troubled person, no doubt about it. Perhaps she will have a break through someday and let out the truth.
That's right ,BUT , the jury DID NOT know what happened , atleast not to the point to be beyond reasonable doubt .Maybe all have forgot , the charge was premeditated murder /warranting a death penalty , therefore premeditation had to be proved , also the manner of death . In the jury's opinion it was not.. I dont know , it seems the author is leaning towards some "condition " the country is in that brought about the decision to acquit . Bunk ! trials and decisions like this have been around for two hundred years .And they've gone either way ,much to the surprise and chagrin of the public at large .
To R Scott:
Casey did not look up chloroform or what is chloroform she looked up HOW TO MAKE Chloroform
There seems to be the opinion that if the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence then Casey Anthony should be set free. Casey was guilty and the evidence was there to prove it. The duct tape established premeditation without the need for 84 searches for chloroform.
However, withholding evidence is a crime and entirely too many prosecutors engage in it. To deal with this I propose the Equivalent Sentence Rule. Any prosecutor found guilty of withholding or fabricating evidence should receive the same sentence that he asked for in the case in which he violated proper prosecution ethics. That means that in the Duke Lacrosse team case the prosecutor, if found guilty of deliberately withholding evidence, would serve the sentence for rape. The rule should also be applied to police officers and expert witnesses, such as crime lab technicians, who fabricate evidence used to convict accused criminals.
The Equivalent Sentence Rule would eliminate most, if not all, cases of prosecutorial misconduct. Today, rogue prosecutors are rarely caught and usually suffer no more than disbarment. One prosecutor getting a needle in the arm will likely make prosecutorial misconduct resulting in convictions of innocent persons extremely rare.
the duct tape evidence was explained by the family, Lee, Cindy and even George eventually acknowledged tthat GEORGE buries the family pets the same way Caylee was found, blanket, plastic garbage bags … THREE pieces of duct tape to seal th ends and the fold in the middle.. and then he buries them in the backyard… why did George Anthony put a slab of cement in his back yard days after what the prosecution believes is the date Caylee died? He did it himself…. and then there is Kronk.. the Anthony meter reader…. did he come across the baby in the bag.. on his rounds.. and grab it thinking it was a little somehting he might want… bit of a thief.. and then decides to dump it in the woods when he decides he doesn't want it…. consider the Kronk evidence…. did Kronk grab the baby before George could finish burying it? The evidence in the trial is fascinating…. far more interesting that what the LAZY media is telling you.
All of what you cite are suppositions for which there is no evidence but that's not the important point.
Casey got away with murder and nothing can be done about that now. However, what can be done is seeing that the prosecutor is fired and disbarred for withholding evidence. That will prevent him from committing more ethical breaches that could result in an innocent person from being imprisoned, or worse, executed.
It may be that they were led away from acute attention to the mother and were
scrutinizing the prosecution to a point of not being able to get past the inability
to come to a conclusion asked for. Red herrings were plentiful in the trial but
I saw nothing that ameliorated the accused's position of being the cause of
the childs death but plenty that was absented in prooving intent and evidence
of murder. If the case was manslughter it would have come out guilty under
the court of law, as it is, it is guilty under the court of public opinion………..William
You would have to look at Geroge too… he was in the home the day they believe the baby died. I don't know what happened in that house that day… but I think George also knows. His actions were just as suspicious if not more so than Casey's.
I think the father and Casey know pretty much what happened, but there seems to be a complete disconnect of truth and reality with these folks…..some kind of moral or mental illness that defies logic. The jury did not have the proof to convict, true. But Casey and her family will have to live with the truth burning inside them.
It seems that the truth is not good enough for many people that find themselves
in unbelievable circumstances. It may be that George found the baby in
his daughters trunk. They may know how she died but that information
would mean a jail sentence and tried to obfuscate and mislead because
they just could not deal with it nor accept responsibility for what happened.
William
I think George knows also and he will never be able to deal with it.
William
I have to take issue with Mr. Taylor's "Infowarsian" criticism above. As someone who myself has seen some very undeniable local police and DA corruption, including total violation of their duties, fabrication of evidence, perjury even worse, it is frightening to think this guy won't even admit it is going on and ridicules the facts as mere conspiracy theory. How can anyone cope with this when you know for a fact that it is going on with such a reaction? How can the system be fixed if the corruption can't be seen clearly because people like him say these things without knowing the true situation?
Thankfully the internet has brought this problem to light, because it's the only voice those of us in the know have to talk about it. Otherwise, all it gets is lots of whitewash, and you feel like you're living in a parallel universe or something. It's hard not to feel like the conservatives are as crazy as the liberals with this kind of talk. I'm sorry, Mr. Taylor, let me put it as gently as I can, you are wrong, and you don't have a clue what's really happening.
Mr. Taylor's ignorant and hateful ravings about the Duke lacrosse case pretty much disqualify everything he says. The only people we can be certain that did not have sex with Ms. Mangum in the days leading up to the party are the players. The strippers took the money, danced for a few minutes, and left.
I wonder why Dershowitz still insists on surrounding himself with idiots like Rob Taylor, who couldn't tell the difference between a pie graph and a pot pie. Its a laugh that some local idiot blogger would ever be considered "esteemed" by anyone. He's definitely the odd man out in this debate. Here is your esteemed group– three experts and some uncouth blogger with a bigger mouth than brain.
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