Will Jury System Survive Uproar over Casey Anthony Acquittal?
As a blogger, I am grateful for the freedom not to be bound to those protocols of mainstream journalism that make it impossible to write what is real and true. Casey Anthony killed her two year old daughter, Caylee Marie. She didn’t “allegedly” do it. Nor is she innocent of that crime because 12 jurors found her "not guilty". In fact, we shall soon enough see that the O.J. Simpson verdict was the beginning of the end of the American jury system. Casey Anthony acquittal merely accelerated its demise by a century.
Some legal experts have even insisted that “the system worked.” Or perhaps it did, to show once again, why America’s crime rate is one of the highest in the world. The month-long Casey Anthony trial should have reminded us of how broken the legal system is in this country. Psychopathic murderers walk the streets, while juries toss on death row, time and time again, individuals, for whom later DNA evidence proves their innocence.
Maybe I will sign the "Caylee's Law" petition, which has gone viral on the Internet. It would tighten legal requirements on missing persons' reports to prevent the kind of legal fiasco we have just witnessed. But at the moment my cynicism tells me “why bother.” America does not need more such laws. Child Protective Services can take children away from parents who were late picking them up from school. But if instead, the mother had chloroformed the child, wrapped the corpse in a garbage bag, and tossed it in a swamp, then the state can do nothing. What America needs -- urgently -- is a national conversation on how our medieval jury system can be replaced by twenty-first century non-jury legal systems, as has occurred in most of the world's industrialized countries.
Some legal experts have even insisted that “the system worked.” Or perhaps it did, to show once again, why America’s crime rate is one of the highest in the world. The month-long Casey Anthony trial should have reminded us of how broken the legal system is in this country. Psychopathic murderers walk the streets, while juries toss on death row, time and time again, individuals, for whom later DNA evidence proves their innocence.
Maybe I will sign the "Caylee's Law" petition, which has gone viral on the Internet. It would tighten legal requirements on missing persons' reports to prevent the kind of legal fiasco we have just witnessed. But at the moment my cynicism tells me “why bother.” America does not need more such laws. Child Protective Services can take children away from parents who were late picking them up from school. But if instead, the mother had chloroformed the child, wrapped the corpse in a garbage bag, and tossed it in a swamp, then the state can do nothing. What America needs -- urgently -- is a national conversation on how our medieval jury system can be replaced by twenty-first century non-jury legal systems, as has occurred in most of the world's industrialized countries.
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