Casey Anthony brought out the worst in Central Florida's news

[FM 100 Means Music]

I think we can all agree that the coverage of the Casey Anthony Trial, led by Bright House's News 13 and Bay News 9, brought out the absolute worst in the various news reporters in the I-4 Corridor.

From dozens of reporters hounding an alternate juror to non-stop coverage of the trial rather than coverage of more important news (a five-year old boy was run over by an SUV on Fowler Ave in Tampa on Monday and got barely a mention b/c Bay News 9/News 13 was so obsessed with the jury deliberations), this has just been a shameful episode all around.

I call upon Rick Scott to permanently ban live TV cameras in Florida's court rooms and for the various reporters and editors in Florida's news rooms to look in the mirror and ask themselves, "my God, what have we become?"

 

[mediawatch22]

I think we can all agree that the coverage of the Casey Anthony Trial, led by Bright House's News 13 and Bay News 9, brought out the absolute worst in the various news reporters in the I-4 Corridor.

From dozens of reporters hounding an alternate juror to non-stop coverage of the trial rather than coverage of more important news (a five-year old boy was run over by an SUV on Fowler Ave in Tampa on Monday and got barely a mention b/c Bay News 9/News 13 was so obsessed with the jury deliberations), this has just been a shameful episode all around.

I call upon Rick Scott to permanently ban live TV cameras in Florida's court rooms and for the various reporters and editors in Florida's news rooms to look in the mirror and ask themselves, "my God, what have we become?"

It's not just Orlando reporters that are whoring themselves out on the trial and the subsequent reporting. The national folks are just as bad. If you've been watching the national coverage you've probably seen the shot of Casey Anthony hugging her lawyer at least a million times. Once was more than enough for me.

The sad part is that there are constant mentions of ORLANDO in every report. This trial has given the city a bad name!

 

[Silkie]

Lack of proper procedure through the criminal justice system of due process has given the whole country a bit of a tarnished image.  It all really comes down to a lack of due diligence in the investigation phase of due process, which is the very definition of justice:  what a person has coming to them under the law.

If reporters did anything they simply reflected that we have become a tabloid society, so outraged over the bad mother aspect that we have no outrage over dependence upon circumstances rather than hard evidence. 

When there is suspicion, investigation should just naturally follow.  If there is no hard evidence then the investigation should either continue or the case should drop, rather than hoping that a jury of normal Americans will go along with undue influence and pulling at the heartstrings.  Since there is no statute of limitations on murder there was no reason to trash the criminal justice system.  Rather, patience should have been the order of the day...and now there is a double jeopardy prohibition against dealing with the mother if hard evidence does surface.

That is all the reporters did.  The jury did not see the reporters for a month.  They were sequestered, so that when they found that there was no hard evidence, people who watched reporters trying the case TMZ style were outraged that there was no "justice".  In fact there was due process, but it was diminished by a failure of due diligence. 

 

[Rusty Muck]

The legal system in the United States is a unique one. It is, and always has been, the rule of law over mob rule. It's what separates us from primitive societies.

This case, however, showed that vis a vis the 24/7 news cycle and the talking head syndrome, that mob rule can be capable of hijacking the rule of law. I don't need to name names (we all know who I'm talking about), but for three years, Casey - regardless of her actions and *implied* criminal behavior - has been tried, convicted and assassinated in the court of public opinion. Her life, and the lives of her family which was annihilated during the trial, has forever been ruined. And even after the acquittal, she is still pinned and branded as "guilty" on an international level. This is exceptionally serious.

Quite frankly, I fear for our society as a whole. Out of the people so enraptured by this nightly coverage since the summer of 2008, there are a handful of people fuming that Casey is still alive - and may do anything and everything to exact revenge on their own. Don't doubt me. We know that the media - especially the usual suspects - will devote their lives to following her every move, stopping short of killing her. The media meltdown was hilarious in a sense (because everyone that covered the trial EXCEPT for Sean Hannity and Geraldo went bonkers) but it was frightening because it is feeding into an all-out blood lust for Casey.

It's like "Network," and we know who's playing Howard Beale. To hell with a person's safety, let's continue hounding that person for the rest of their life because it gives us ratings.

It makes me sick to know that someone will indeed kill Casey because of this. It's a fait accompli. Mob rule is dangerously close to prevailing over the rule of law - and most people likely will end up cheering at such an action not unlike finding out about Osama sleeping with the fishies. I feel deeply pessimistic.

 

[Silkie]

It is the TMZ mentality. Every other word is "like" or "actually", grammar is poor, but by golly they get that scandal mongering in there.

"I was like, you know, uneducated in like civics".

 

[jmtillery]

An acquittal [IS] justice being served considering Casey Anthony should never have been charged with First Degree Premeditated Murder in the first place. The state had no evidence linking Anthony as a murderer as all evidence the state had in its possession and presented during the trial was circumstantial. In fact the state failed to prove an exact cause of death, so we don’t know for sure it was, in fact, a murder.

The state failed to prove its case, and because of the circumstantial nature of the evidence presented against Anthony, the jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Anthony was in fact guilty of anything other than the four count first degree misdemeanor of giving false information to a law enforcement officer.

Lastly, Anthony cannot be charged for this crime ever again due to the double jeopardy clause found in the 5th amendment of the United States Constitution. This one is over no matter how badly anyone wanted her to be convicted.

 

[Silkie]

No matter the level of decomposition the bones tell all. Guess they figured they could do this one on the cheap and get away with the undue inflence factor.

Justice defined: Due process.

The prosecution was lazy and should have been more patient. I can say that as one who had homicide investigators in the family. Patience and due diligence. 98% clearance rate nationwide.

 

[flashback]

one of the juriors went on tv and said the prosicution could not tell them what killed the baby.not that they could not prove it to the jury, that they could not tell them.it was plain in the closing remarks.if the rest of the jury was that inattentive i can see how casey got the not guilty verdicts.

these days with the CGI series and such they seemed to think they should have gotten the dna evidence and other new scientific evidence but because casey lied about the babys being gone for so long the animals and rain destroyed that.the jury failed to connect the dots.

 

[Silkie]

And do you figure that if they don't even know how the person was killed they can prove who did it and how?  M.O.M.  - Motive. Opportunity. Means.  The jury was paying attention; the prosecution could not say how the child died, and prosecution could not prove that the child was murdered.  Circumstances do not dictate our system of jurisprudence.  It would have been better to have the victim more recently deceased, so that a proper autopsy could have been performed, but they did not.  So they should have been patient and gathered evidence.  Hard, factual evidence, not speculation about surrounding circumstances.

The news media just figure, hey, if it bleeds it leads; and it doesn't really matter what happened - or how it happened.  But frankly, in retrospect, the media simply reported daily what the prosecution presented and how the defense managed it.

 

[flashback]

tape over the childs mouth and nose causing sufflication isn`t murder?

ok.lets go with they didn`t know how the baby was killed.wouldn`t not reporting the baby missing for 31 days ,thereby putting the baby in life threatening danger be enough for felony child abuse?

 

[jmtillery]

tape over the childs mouth and nose causing sufflication isn`t murder?

ok.lets go with they didn`t know how the baby was killed.wouldn`t not reporting the baby missing for 31 days ,thereby putting the baby in life threatening danger be enough for felony child abuse?

The state attorney filed seven charges against Casey Anthony, one of which was aggravated child abuse to which Anthony was acquitted. The bottom line is no matter how much anyone believes Anthony is guilty as charged, the state failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt to the only twelve people the state was required to convince - the jury! One critical piece of evidence the state failed to provide is proof of the cause of death. Although duck tape strategically placed with a body inside a garbage bag left in a wooded area appears to be criminal, this is not proof of the exact cause of death. This was critical evidence the state failed to provide.

 

[flashback]

i hope casey anthony does not use the death of her child to make money.if she has a real conscience she wont.we will see what kind of person she is.

 

[NewsStud]

tape over the childs mouth and nose causing sufflication isn`t murder?

ok.lets go with they didn`t know how the baby was killed.wouldn`t not reporting the baby missing for 31 days ,thereby putting the baby in life threatening danger be enough for felony child abuse?

And here, "Flashback" proves that nobody paid attention to us evil reporters ramming this story down everyone's throats. (Bear in mind, that we follow orders of news directors, who in turn follow orders of higher executives who make decisions to abandon regular programming in hopes of increasing daytime audiences by playing this smut.)

No hard evidence the child suffocated. No hard evidence the tape was placed pre-mortem. No hard evidence it was Casey who placed the tape there. Was it murder? Maybe? Did Casey do it? Can't tell for sure.

Not calling police for a missing child is reprehensible, but not in, and of itself, a crime. Perhaps it could be argued that it was criminally negligent, criminally reckless, an act of endangering a child, etc... but Casey wasn't indicted for those things. The jury can't convict you for something a Grand Jury didn't indict you.

This exercise was a chance for reporters to show the public how the U.S. justice system works. We either failed, or the community is full of "Flashbacks" who can't grasp simple concepts such as "not guilty."

 

[Silkie]

I am pretty certain that not too many people who are passionately involved with the undue influence factor are paying much attention to those two itty bitty words that mean so much in our Constitution:  Due Process.  Frankly, given the failure of the investigation aspect of our criminal justice system, it might even be argued that Casey Anthony was not given her due process.

As I said previously if the evidence is not there, then patience investigating and gathering hard evidence either points to the right person, or if the person tried in fact is guilty proper investigating prevents a double jeopardy prohibition against prosecuting her if the evidence in fact shows up another day.

Given what we have seen of the prosecution's handling of the case any evidence that were to show up now might be considered planted because of sour grapes.

Some have argued that we want a CSI world.  Unlike when I went to college and was laughed out of dodge for theorizing that one day the genetic code could be used to solve crimes, we do in fact live in a CSI world today.  If the prosecution was too cheap to use it, not Casey Anthony's problem.

 

[flashback]

newsstud. one of the charges was felony child abuse.the not telling the police her child is missing for 31 days.that sounds like felony child abuse to me.if no evidence of murder or manslaughter is there the felony child abuce is not out of the picture.

silkie .we may live in a csi world more then we did years before but not always is csi evidence available.if for 31 days a missing child is not reported whose body has been in the wilds long enough between animals eating her skin and rain storms destroying cgi evidence how can you use it ?

i am not saying retry her again.i know it is not going to happen.but perhaps jury mistakes can be avoided if this stuff is discussed.

 

[NewsStud]

newsstud. one of the charges was felony child abuse.the not telling the police her child is missing for 31 days.that sounds like felony child abuse to me.if no evidence of murder or manslaughter is there the felony child abuce is not out of the picture.

It may sound like abuse to you, but it's not.

Here's what the law says:

"Child abuse means: Intentional infliction of physical or mental injury upon a child; An intentional act that could reasonably be expected to result in physical or mental injury to a child; or Active encouragement of any person to commit an act that results or could reasonably be expected to result in physical or mental injury to a child."

You can read the full statute here:

http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/filestores/web/statutes/fs07/ch0827/Section_0827.03.HTM

It makes it pretty clear that "abuse" needs to be an action, not an inaction, and it needs to be directly done to the child. It's not all that subjective.

The statute also goes on to describe neglect, which may fit the bill for not calling cops over 31 days. But Casey Anthony wasn't charged with neglect... And the prosecution failed to show the jury that Casey acted in a way described above by the language of the statute.

"Flashback" here is indicative of a larger problem: Ignorance. Ignorance of the law and how it works. People "feel" she's guilty, so therefore she *must* be. That's just not how the system works, thankfully. "Flashback" may just be an average Central Florida citizen, but the train of thought apparently infects Law Journalists too.

i am not saying retry her again.i know it is not going to happen.but perhaps jury mistakes can be avoided if this stuff is discussed.

The jury doesn't make mistakes. They work with what they're given. If the prosecutors can't prove their case, the jury isn't allowed to connect the dots on their own. Perhaps the police and prosecutors should have charged her with a different crime; one that was actually able to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Like, for instance, child neglect.

Again, I don't really blame all of the "Flashbacks" for this ignorance. I blame us. We're obviously not doing our job as the "Fourth Estate." We're supposed to be telling people about how their community works with an air of great dispassion. When the best we have is Nancy Grace barking "Tot Mom" every five seconds, I can't expect much more from folks like "Flashback."

 

[inonothing]

i am not saying retry her again.i know it is not going to happen.but perhaps jury mistakes can be avoided if this stuff is discussed.

To retry her AGAIN, she would have already had to have been retried once. Of course you obviously missed (along with the fact that computer keyboards are capable of making capital letters) the several times it was mention that Anthony cannot be re-tried in this case.

You fall in the category of many people all across this country, who believe what they want and refuse to believe any other point of view.

 

[flashback]

i am not saying retry her again.i know it is not going to happen.but perhaps jury mistakes can be avoided if this stuff is discussed.

To retry her AGAIN, she would have already had to have been retried once. Of course you obviously missed (along with the fact that computer keyboards are capable of making capital letters) the several times it was mention that Anthony cannot be re-tried in this case.

You fall in the category of many people all across this country, who believe what they want and refuse to believe any other point of view.

perhaps my phrasing was not the best.but no i did not forget that she can not be re-tried.i never thought she should be retried.i would not want her to be re-tried matter what i think of the verdict.

 

[Rusty Muck]

i am not saying retry her again.i know it is not going to happen.but perhaps jury mistakes can be avoided if this stuff is discussed.

To retry her AGAIN, she would have already had to have been retried once. Of course you obviously missed (along with the fact that computer keyboards are capable of making capital letters) the several times it was mention that Anthony cannot be re-tried in this case.

You fall in the category of many people all across this country, who believe what they want and refuse to believe any other point of view.

And that's why Casey will never live a *normal* life ever again. Basically her life is so damaged beyond repair, that even if she takes a psedonym, gets a haircut, and goes into hiding... there's always that one person who will assist her that may come forward to the media so he/she can claim a fat paycheck.

 

[Pete Pyeatt]

If you think you've heard the last of Casey Anthony, think again. About ten years from now, she'll be caught stealing back some of her memorabilia and will be found guilty of armed robbery. It never ends...