Look Out California, Florida's Legal System is Gaining on You! 7/7/11

NEWS & CURRENT EVENTS

Just when you thought that California was the only state where you could get away with murder…here comes Florida! I can’t say I followed the Casey Anthony trial closely, but given the defendant's bizarre behavior during the trial and the defense’s outrageous, unsubstantiated claims of sexual abuse, it seemed to me that the defense knew their client was guilty and were reaching for anything no matter how unbelievable. They certainly were not going to put someone that unstable on the stand, unless electricity could somehow be applied to the witness chair and save everyone some time.

Now this next part might hurt a bit…Legally, the jury was not totally wrong in making its decision. The case against Casey Anthony was for the most part, circumstantial. There was no hard evidence actually linking her to a murder. The forensic evidence only linked her to the victim, which is not a stretch considering it was her daughter. Had she been a stranger, she would have been found guilty. We try for our criminal justice system to be fair, objective, and balanced, but when you put a jury in charge, you cannot expect that 100% of the time, and certainly not in a high profile case, where opinions for the most part, are already established.

Now I won’t get into a long winded legal explanation about this, but superficially speaking, in order to get a conviction for murder (at least for the most part) you need one of three things, a confession, an eye-witness, or a murder weapon you can link to the defendant. This evidence has to be rock solid and above reproach to guarantee a conviction. However, being that the criminal justice system is open to subjective views no matter how hard we try for it not to be, sometimes verdicts can circumvent this. But in this case, even an actual cause of death was absent, so a conviction would have been difficult to say the least. Impossible? No, but difficult enough that an acquittal on the murder charge would not be beyond the realm of possibility. Sickening and outrageous as it may be, it is not legally implausible. As for her lying to police, there is no way that any judge would sentence her to anything other than time served, the woman has been in jail for three years; not releasing her soon would be unfair. I was actually surprised that her lawyers didn’t demand for her immediate release following the reading of the verdict, which leads me to believe that they were so in shock that their client got off that they totally forgot to ask.

But there was another famous case (in California, ironically enough) that was mostly circumstantial as well, Scott Peterson. He was found guilty of killing his pregnant wife with no more physical evidence than in this case. Now you can argue that the criminal justice system tends to be more sympathetic towards women defendants (I assure you it does) but that doesn’t mean that anyone should get away with murder.

Now for those of you who are upset that justice was not done, remember this. By acquitting her, the criminal justice system has, at least in Anthony’s own sick mind, justified her erratic behavior, pathological lying and her constant check stealing from family members, which means that she will keep doing it. Eventually she will get herself into a situation she can’t get out of; it’s only a matter of time.

SPORTS

Ahh…NOW we can talk about the first place Yankees!

The MLB All-Star Game always has its snubs, and it’s great for barroom debates and writers. Some are not always so obvious, but some are. In the case of CC Sabathia…damn! I mean come on, the guy is leading the American League in wins and his team is in first place... are you kidding? Look I know that scheduling might prevent him from pitching in the game, but at least name him to the team. And yeah I know that the game “means something” now (which is bullshit) with the winner getting home field advantage in the World Series, but you must strike a balance between winning the game and putting the most deserving players on the team.

THIS WEEK’S REASON WHY TERRORISTS WANNA KILL US

Maybe not kill us, but at least put us on high alert. It looks like asshole Nidal Hasan (unlike the “lamestream” media, I will not refer to this piece of shit by rank) will face the death penalty in his court martial for a shooting rampage at Ft. Hood that killed 13 people and wounded more than 20 others. Give his lawyer credit, it’s not like he was surprised, which is why an evidentiary hearing lasted 2 weeks and called 56 witnesses to the stand.

Whether you are for or against capital punishment is not even the issue. Capital punishment is available in the Armed Forces for the highest of crimes, and attaining the privilege of being a United States Army officer then using that privilege to enter a medical building to shoot unarmed soldiers seeking medical attention certainly does qualify. My record of tolerance towards all speaks for itself in my writings, just look at my archives. But in this case, if the Army’s decision angers some Muslims or liberals, I really don’t give a shit. Just be vigilant.