Deliberations

Legal Codes, Moral Codes & Nuclear Codes: Casey Anthony's Radioactive Fallout

(Blogger’s Note: I am reticent to write a blog about the same subject two weeks in a row.  However, an event like the Casey Anthony acquittal is an extraordinary occurrence.  It has garnered a sustained media frenzy that can only be likened to lowering an elephant into a piranha tank.  Moreover, rarely have we seen an episode that seemingly shakes the American public’s faith in the jury system.  As a result, I am centering on Ms. Anthony’s case again in this blog.  Next week: YouTube’s most popular furry animal video.)

Watching cable news, the closest comparison to this trial (by consensus) is the acquittal of O.J. Simpson.  However, imagine explaining this analogy to a man who had been trapped on a desert island for the last 10 years (let’s call him Mr. Robinson).  Mr. Robinson clearly remembers the O.J. trial.  It was the public downfall of an American hero.  A Hall of Fame football star who was building an acting career was accused of a gruesome double-murder in the middle of one of Los Angeles’s wealthiest neighborhoods.  Complete with an on-air Ford Bronco chase and an all-star legal team, this trial (and acquittal) was hard for anyone to forget.

“Tell me about Casey Anthony!” Mr. Robinson asks you with great anticipation.  “She must be a celebrity who did something really bad to merit ‘O.J. level’ attention.”  Then (almost embarrassedly so), you must explain to Mr. Robinson that Casey Anthony was simply an unemployed woman living part-time with her parents who was accused of killing her young child in a middle-class Orlando suburb and not reporting it for a month.  She was not famous and in the terrible annals of child murders, this was not a remarkable cause of death. “Oh.” Mr. Robinson replies quizzically. You add enthusiastically, “There were photos of her dancing in a night club!” Mr. Robinson thinks for a moment and then adds, “Times have certainly changed since I have been away.”  You have no retort.

On the afternoon of July 5, 2011 a metaphorical nuclear bomb exploded in the State of Florida.  Hyperbole, you say?  Probably.  However, it’s difficult to describe the massive reaction to such an unexpected verdict in the Anthony case.  The vitriolic fallout from the public that has arisen from this verdict has been something that caused massive damage to the public’s faith in the justice system and will likely linger for years.

In fact, it could be argued that the greatest victim of the Casey Anthony trial (obviously second to Caylee Anthony) has been the reputation of the American jury system.  Public outrage (fueled by a litany of former-prosecutor TV talking heads) has declared jurors too stupid to be trusted with important decisions.  Debates have raged on the need for more judiciary discretion or “professional jurors.”  If mental deficiency was not the cause, many media experts have suggested that the dreaded “CSI Effect” blinded the jurors (see here for my blog obliterating the CSI Effect).  Without doubt, the sales of pitchforks and torches have skyrocketed this July.

It is here that we come to a crossroads between our legal code and one’s moral code.  The legal code is a set of rules that we live by.  The legal code says that the prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and Casey Anthony has no requirement to even put up a defense.  One’s moral code says that any mother who doesn’t report a missing child is lacking and likely guilty of wrongdoing.  One’s moral code may wish to punish aberrant behavior (like nightclub dancing) or perpetual lying and assume that these are symptoms of murder.

History has shown us the hazards of blending one’s morality with a justice system. Examples include:  feudalism (land owner morality), monarchy (the king's morality), the inquisition (the church’s morality), fascism (the dictator's morality) and McCarthyism (the witch hunter’s or lynch mob's morality).  

Our system is not perfect, but we tie a blindfold around Justice’s eyes for a reason.  It helps us to find a result determined by law, not morality.  In fact, a rising number of countries are actually turning to the jury system in criminal matters because of rampant judicial corruption.  Hopefully, one murder trial in Florida will not be enough for others to rethink a system that the rest of the world is learning from.

Blogger: Matt McCusker

 

The Real Danger from Casey Anthony's Trial: Scary Scientific Precedents

A cause of death that cannot be determined by the State’s medical examiner, but can be asserted on the stand by an anthropologist who has never done an autopsy.  The morphing of a projected child’s photo into a picture of her skull.  The description of a colorless decompositional  fluid (which is typically black).  Air samples that contain "the smell of death."  A phantom image of heart sticker that “disappeared” before the examiner could return to photograph it.

These are some of the worst examples of “evidence” that the State has used to make its case against Casey Anthony.  Most of these forensic techniques have never been allowed in any trial in the U.S.  Prior courts deemed them inadmissible because questionable scientific analyses should not be presented to laymen jurors (especially when a death penalty sentence is on the line).  The average juror does not have the expertise to differentiate between “good science” and “junk science”, so the court must help them by excluding dubious evidence.

For example, the “lie detector” or polygraph machine has been around for over 70 years.  Despite being regularly featured in crime shows and suspense movies, it is still generally inadmissible in our justice system.  This is because the machine is too unreliable and jurors will make more of polygraph results than can be scientifically substantiated.

 Chief Judge Belvin Perry is a very experienced legal mind.  He made his name as a prosecutor and actually brought the first woman to death row in Florida in nearly 150 years ( Judy Buenoano).  In fact, he attended the execution, so Judge Perry knows what the stakes are in capital murder cases.  This is why I have been so surprised by some of his rulings.

Casey Anthony very likely had something to do with her child's death.  However, I believe this case may well be overturned on appeal based on the reckless use of overreaching evidence.

Despite this, the alternative possibility is even more disturbing.  Once a technique has been admitted as evidence (especially in a case as high profile as Casey Anthony’s trial), it has a much greater chance of being allowed in other trials.  If this happens, the ramifications of this trial will span far beyond the salacious intrigue that has captured the nation.

Blogger: Matt McCusker