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“Bad mom” doesn’t mean murderer

Jill

I’m writing in The Daily today about the Casey Anthony trial (disclaimer: I had nothing to do with that headline and I’m trying to see if it can be changed). A sample:

The not-guilty verdict reached this week in the Casey Anthony murder trial set off a social media avalanche of indignation and cynicism directed at the American justice system. The consensus on Twitter seems to be that Anthony got away with killing her daughter. Outraged Facebook statuses asked, “How could this happen?”

If you want to be jaded by our justice system, there are plenty of places to look — for instance, defendants who are wrongfully convicted after the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence, or the disproportionate number of black and Latino men who are sentenced to death. The Casey Anthony trial, though, isn’t cause to rail against the system. It simply illustrates the problems that arise when prosecutors rely on circumstantial “bad mommy” evidence to make their case. It’s an irresponsible strategy, it doesn’t work, and it poisons the public consciousness.

Lacking the physical evidence necessary to pin the crime on Anthony, the prosecution attempted to convince the jury that Anthony’s not-motherly-enough actions — she didn’t act like a grieving mom, she went out drinking, she moved in with her boyfriend, she got a tattoo — meant she probably caused her daughter’s death. I’m not about to stand up for Anthony, who is at best a habitual liar with questionable decision-making skills. But unsavory choices aren’t necessarily criminal, and “bad mom” doesn’t equal “murderer.”

For the record, I think Anthony probably did it, but that’s pretty irrelevant to the point of the article. If the evidence isn’t there, it isn’t there, and it’s radically irresponsible for “news” media to cover a trial the way they covered the Anthony case. It’s also disheartening to see that this case is the one that makes people “lose faith” in the system. I swore I wouldn’t write about this stupid trial beyond praying for Nancy Grace to retire, but the prosecution’s strategy, the TV coverage and the reactions to the verdict were so frustrating I couldn’t hold back.

Anyway, you can read the whole piece here.

61 thoughts on “Bad mom” doesn’t mean murderer

  1. Great piece. My news feed has been sprinkled with calls to “torture the bitch” and laments about our joke of a justice system. This case has actually strengthened the little faith I have left in our courts and your essay explains why.

    There are many reasons to hold the U.S. jury system in contempt; this case is not one of them.

  2. I’m afraid I won’t be sharing it with anyone until the title is changed, though. Good luck with that!

  5. Wow, nice piece but WTF were they thinking with the title? Thanks for letting me know that wasn’t your doing, and I’ll keep that in mind when I see other titles and headlines. I never knew the writer didn’t have the final say on that.

  6. LynneSkysong: I never knew the writer didn’t have the final say on that.

    I think it’s usually the copy editors who write the headlines for newspaper articles. Maybe Rupert Murdoch transferred this copy editor from the News of the World.

  7. “It simply illustrates the problems that arise when prosecutors rely on circumstantial “bad mommy” evidence to make their case. ”

    That wasn’t enough to stop a conviction against Scott Peterson though.
    Take a good look at the difference between that case and this and you’ll see why people are outraged.

  8. tvexpert:

    That wasn’t enough to stop a conviction against Scott Peterson though.
    Take a good look at the difference between that case and this and you’ll see why people are outraged.

    Casey’s daughter was too young for people to truly give a damn whereas Mrs. Peterson was a real person who was also pregnant. That’s my opinion. They couldnt prove that man murdered anybody jsut as they couldnt prove Casey Anthony didnt murder her daughter. Its the same thing.

  9. At some point in life one should wake to the realization that law and justice are barely related to each other. IMO when that realization occurs is often directly related to how much privilege you have. So I categorize this “outrage” as a number of privileged people finally realizing that Oh Wait this shit is broken. And as you say…this only happens when those in power do not have their power reified by the system. I’m sure had this woman been a “proper” parent sentiment would have gone the other way. The involvement of the press in this case is one more reason I think the Constitution is broken.

  10. Kristen J.:
    At some point in life one should wake to the realization that law and justice are barely related to each other.IMO when that realization occurs is often directly related to how much privilege you have.So I categorize this “outrage” as a number of privileged people finally realizing that Oh Wait this shit is broken.And as you say…this only happens when those in power do not have their power reified by the system.I’m sure had this woman been a “proper” parent sentiment would have gone the other way.The involvement of the press in this case is one more reason I think the Constitution is broken.

    The constitution is broken because some people wrote bad shit on the internet? I think we, perhaps, lack the proper faith in the justice system to occasionally work.

  11. On a related note, while my faith in the judicial system remains unchanged, my faith in the average American taxpayer has been shaken considerably by the reaction to this trial.

  12. Jill – I served on the jury of a similar type of trial in Boston last year, and my experience totally supports what you wrote:

    In the home of a family notorious for drugs and crime, an 8 year old found a gun and shot and killed his 7 year old cousin. This all happened in the room of the 7 year old’s older brother, a probable gang member, where the two kids were playing. The prosecution tried to convict the mother on involuntary manslaughter, and trotted out everything they could find, but it was all circumstantial and the judge explicitly told us that we were not to consider the broader circumstances:

    “minutes before reaching a verdict, the jurors asked in a written note: “Does child endangerment comprise only the immediate circumstances surrounding the death, or can we consider the broader circumstances of the household.’’

    “Connors pondered the jurors’ question before they entered the courtroom, saying aloud: “I do not want this to be a lifestyle plebiscite.’’

    He then told the jurors, once they had filed back into the courtroom, that the charge of child endangerment “relates to the presence of a firearm in the home.’’

    But here’s the thing: he told us in response to a question. If we hadn’t asked, he wouldn’t have told. The jury system, at least as I experienced it, is way too random.

  14. Great article. At the risk of revealing that I live under a rock, I had never heard of Casey Anthony until the verdict and the subsequent explosion of outrage on my Facebook feed. As I read more about it, it seemed to me the jury had done exactly what it was supposed to do, but I couldn’t find anyone that agreed. I had thought I must have been missing something… glad to know I wasn’t.

  15. Kristen J.:
    At some point in life one should wake to the realization that law and justice are barely related to each other.IMO when that realization occurs is often directly related to how much privilege you have.So I categorize this “outrage” as a number of privileged people finally realizing that Oh Wait this shit is broken.And as you say…this only happens when those in power do not have their power reified by the system.I’m sure had this woman been a “proper” parent sentiment would have gone the other way.The involvement of the press in this case is one more reason I think the Constitution is broken.

    But can’t it be argued that “proper” parenting ( not leaving your small child in a pool by hirself to drown – Casey Anthony claim was that Caylee drowned in a pool and she panicked and tried to cover up the horrible accident) would have prevented the child’s death in the first place. If we believe Casey is innocent and Caylee’s death was an accident it was negligence on her part. I think people are willfully forgetting the outrage is that Casey partied not thinking her daughter was missing but KNOWING that her daughter was dead AND that she was pretending her dead daughter was missing.

  16. But no one charged her with negligence, or tried to actually prove that there was an accidental death due to her negligence. The prosecution introduced what evidence it could to try and prove an intentional murder. I understand the outrage, and it appears that she acted like a despicable person. But I’m not sure what that means the jury should have convicted her for.

  17. David: The constitution is broken because some people wrote bad shit on the internet?

    Why yes. I also understood “press involvement in the case” to mean “facebook statuses about the verdict.”

  18. After serving on a jury in early 2010 (for a case of far smaller magnitude) I’ve come to the view that it is impossible for me, in general, to realistically question how most juries came to their verdicts.

    In the case for which I was a juror, there were four charges; two counts each of making threats and threatening to use a deadly weapon against two victims, and a property damage charge. We found not guilty for all but the property damage charge, each for different reasons, e.g. one of the victims testified taht she didn’t believe the threat, which was one of the elements of the charge, so we could not possibly find guilty for that one.

    Through the years I’ve also learned to be careful about assuming how a person would (re)act to certain circumstances. History, my own personal and that of the broader world, has many examples where people were unjustly punished, even for things in which they had no involvement, because so much was improperly read into un/tangently-related actions. Not infrequently it involves differing cultural norms or unexamined privilege. I run afoul of these points often.

  19. But no one charged her with negligence, or tried to actually prove that there was an accidental death due to her negligence. The prosecution introduced what evidence it could to try and prove an intentional murder.

    This. Neglect or even manslaughter, but premeditated murder, with no bloody evidence of that? It couldn’t stick.

    Jennifer Ford btw, is amazing. She was so eloquent and unflappable in her interview for *gag* Nightline.

  20. I can’t fault the jury or the system. While serving on a criminal jury, my fellows and I were strictly enjoined by the judge that we could not vote our feelings or our instincts. We could only vote the law, and the law said that our vote had to depend on whether or not the prosecution had made its case based on evidence. If the prosecution had not used evidence to make its case beyond reasonable doubt, we had to acquit the defendant.

    We were a seriously mixed economic, education, and social bag, and yet we all took the judge’s instructions absolutely seriously and, despite many of us feeling the defendant was guilty, we did not believe the prosecutor had made its case. We followed the law. Probably there are juries out there who don’t, but I read the comments afterward from some of the Anthony jurors, and they voted the law. They didn’t feel the prosecution had made its case beyond reasonable doubt, and even though they felt Anthony had done *something,* according to the law, they had to acquit. Poor shmucks. They did exactly what the system asked them to–as we did. I believe most juries do.

  21. I was having a long discussion with my lawyer sister the other day about jury selection. We were talking about how the ways the judges and lawyers get to decide who sits on a jury results in only certain viewpoints ever being allowed to be represented on a jury. The idea is that jurors should be as “neutral” as possible, willing to decide the case only on the facts presented. I don’t know how I feel about the idea of a “neutral” viewpoint’s existence, but I do think that this Jury oversight is the reason we can have public unpopular verdicts like this.

    Also, I’m having trouble focusing on this comment because I keep wondering if my favorite author actually reads Feministe.

  22. @Azalea – Hmm…in my area the “proper” parenting crap is mainly about her being a “slut”, not having a husband…yada, yada

    @David – suprisingly, I think the Constitution is broken because the media is allowed to interfere with the judicial process. Not because people can talk about the trial.

  23. Jill wrote: “for the record, I think Anthony probably did do it, but that’s pretty irrelevant to the point of the article.”
    Why do you think she probably did it. What evidence are you drawing upon? You underscore the lack of evidence in this case – doesn’t this lack inform your own judgement?

  24. Linda, I agree with Jill upon this point. The jury said themselves that there just wasn’t enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt. However that is not to say there was evidence enough to convince them that she may have been guilty.

    Aren’t people allowed opinions these days?

  26. DoublyLinkedLists:
    I was having a long discussion with my lawyer sister the other day about jury selection. We were talking about how the ways the judges and lawyers get to decide who sits on a jury results in only certain viewpoints ever being allowed to be represented on a jury. The idea is that jurors should be as “neutral” as possible, willing to decide the case only on the facts presented. I don’t know how I feel about the idea of a “neutral” viewpoint’s existence, but I do think that this Jury oversight is the reason we can have public unpopular verdicts like this.

    Also, I’m having trouble focusing on this comment because I keep wondering if my favorite author actually reads Feministe.

    Who’s your favorite author?

  27. Paraxeni: This.Neglect or even manslaughter, but premeditated murder, with no bloody evidence of that?It couldn’t stick.

    Jennifer Ford btw, is amazing.She was so eloquent and unflappable in her interview for *gag* Nightline.

    How about a black woman with less evidence was convicted without a jury (so someone who should nwo better by legal standards) of murdering her children, mainly based on being a bad mommy because there is not proof of murder. There is no murder weapon or cause of death. Here is the link if you want more information:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/29/AR2009072901790.html?fb_ref=NetworkNews

    “Jacks said her three youngest girls died in their sleep.”

    “…medical examiners could only speculate on exactly how they died,…”

    “Jacks told detectives that she did not call for help because she “didn’t want to get into trouble.”

    So why is this woman guilty and Casey Anthony not guilty when no one could prove either of them murdered anybody when they were tried under the same burden of proof with only circumstantial evidence?

  28. Azalea:
    “Jacks said her three youngest girls died in their sleep.”

    Triple sudden infant death syndrome with “infants” 5, 6 and 11 years old. How very plausible.

    Also, why not extend your second quote a bit to put it in context:
    “Although medical examiners could only speculate on exactly how they died, one thing was certain: The girls did not simply drift into death.”
    and
    “Weisberg agreed with prosecutors that the three youngest girls — Aja Fogle, 5, N’Kiah Fogle, 6, and Tatianna Jacks, 11 — were strangled, although medical examiners could not definitively say strangulation was the cause of death because the bodies were so decomposed.”

  29. Blacky: Triple sudden infant death syndrome with “infants” 5, 6 and 11 years old. How very plausible.

    Also, why not extend your second quote a bit to put it in context:
    “Although medical examiners could only speculate on exactly how they died, one thing was certain: The girls did not simply drift into death.”
    and
    “Weisberg agreed with prosecutors that the three youngest girls — Aja Fogle, 5, N’Kiah Fogle, 6, and Tatianna Jacks, 11 — were strangled, although medical examiners could not definitively say strangulation was the cause of death because the bodies were so decomposed.”

    Without a cause of death how can you prove murder, you don’t even know HOW they died isn’t that an essential part of murder the way a perosn died? A dead body doesn’t mean murder all on it’s own.

    Infants are not the only ones who die in their sleep, there are instances of older children dying in their sleep, some of hem already have health problems, some don’t. You can’t prove that Jack’s children did or did not have health issues that could have caused them to die in their sleep. All of this is speculation and opinions, not fact.

    Plausibility doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is fact and point blank that judge ruled with his heart and feelings not the case presented to him with all of the facts. Remember in defending Casey it has to extend to people who *may* have murdered their children and called it an accident of ALL races, no matter how “plausible” their defense is.

    So again with FACTS (not your opinion or what was plausible) tell me how it is KNOWN that JAck’s committed murder but that Casey’s not guilty verdict was correct.

    You can’t, it was the same thing and the justice system failed in Casey’s trial OR it worked but somehow Jacks was wrongfully convicted and should be let free.

  31. Kristen J., you are against freedom of the press because there’s some creepy media out there? That doesn’t strike me as a terribly progressive stance; in fact, it strike me as pretty much the opposite. If you don’t like x,y,z forms of media, how about you not watch or pay for them and persuade others to do the same? How about you write letters and exercise *your* voice instead of insisting upon repression of the voice of the press?

  32. lol, I’m against freedom of the press. Sure, any restrictions on the press = against freedom of the press. Alas, no…its important to balance rights including the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy against the right to a free press. Right now the balance is off.

  33. Azalea – I think you’ve misunderstood my original point. The only thing I was commenting on was the prosecution’s insistence on premeditated murder, with death penalty. That was where this case fell down. They could not prove murder, or intent to murder, and that was why they couldn’t convict her of premeditated murder, and sentence her to the death penalty.

    That was what I was saying, I was sure it was clear enough. The jurors are on record as saying any other lower charge would have stuck, but because she was being tried for (again) premeditated murder, and there was no evidence of premeditated murder, they could not legally convict her. No cause of death, no material evidence linking her, no evidence that she planned to kill Caylee etc. It was a flawed case from the start. She’s now served her time for the causes relating to obstruction of justice.

    The case you’ve mentioned was irrelevant to my point, however if a woman has three dead children in her house? That’s a lot easier to convict on. Corpses in a house are far from ‘circumstantial’. Pretty sure anyone would be sent down for that. In fact, several women in my country (white, wealthy, one was a solicitor) were sent to jail for ‘murdering’ several of their children. Sent down for a long time, with no evidence of a crime purely on the basis that a (lying male) doctor had said “It has to be murder, it’s not possible for SIDS to affect that many children in one family”.

    They were eventually found innocent, sadly that was too late for one, who had suffered the tragedy of losing her children, and then being branded a murderer. After four years in prison she could not cope with life outside again, and drank herself to death.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Clark

    A woman in my local area was convicted of killing her neighbour’s child, again with no evidence to support that. She too has finally been released, after several appeals.

    The difference in these cases is that there appeared to be evidence to support the charges. That’s the job of a jury after all, to see if the evidence fits the charges.

    Your claim “convicted without a jury (so someone who should nwo better by legal standards)”” makes no sense. Jurors are not legal experts, they are lay people, peers. People are often screened out if they have some legal training/knowledge, because the court wants a “Jury of [defendant’s] peers”, normal people. How are average Joes and Janes supposed to “know better”? They’re just people, people who mess up sometimes because they’re fed bad evidence. (see the cases I mentioned above)

    And again, one missing child who ends up dead in a ditch=/= 3 corpses lying for months in the same house as their mother, dead children who appear to have been strangled (probably some cricoid damage) but are too decomposed to definitively tell. Are you saying you honestly think they all died in their sleep at once?

    However suspect Casey may seem, that is orders of magnitude worse. Your scenario, sudden death, means either 3 young girls either died all at once and the mother did nothing about it, or they died one by one as the body(s) of their sisters lay there. Doesn’t quite seem plausible to me either. You can’t say “If Casey is innocent then Banita must be too, or if Banita is guilty then so is Casey!” life, and law, does not work like that.

    You say you want facts? The fact is that one person being found innocent of murdering her child, does not make every woman accused of murdering her children innocent by proxy. If Casey had been found guilty then would you accept that Banita Jacks was guilty too? Because you do realise that you’d pretty much have to, given the argument you’ve put forward here.

  34. Argh sorry, misheard “Convicted without a jury” as “convicted with” so ignore the bit about the jurors. Apologies.

    Was there ever a reason given why Ms Jacks turned down an insanity plea?

  35. Azalea, in the case you mention *three* children supposedly died in their sleep of unknown causes at the same time. Had Casey Anthony had two other children who both died at the same time as Caylee, I suspect that her accidental death claim wouldn’t have given anyone reasonable doubt.

  36. Paraxeni:
    Argh sorry, misheard “Convicted without a jury” as “convicted with”so ignore the bit about the jurors.Apologies.

    Was there ever a reason given why Ms Jacks turned down an insanity plea?

    Insane people don’t realize that they are insane. Having dead bodies in your home doesn’t mean you are the reason those corpses are dead, period. People of all ages die in teir sleep, it isn’t called SIDS after a certaIn point and when you can’t pinpoint a cause of death you can NOT definitively say the cause was homicide. Beyond a resonable doubt means having motive (intent) and having proof. There was no proof, not even a cause of death in Jacks trial. It is the same thing, your feelings about someone having a corpse (or three) in their home is why your reaction was to convict. Read the article, the judge himself admits it was circumstantial and that he too pretty much used his common sense.

    Casey claimed that she hid Caylee’s body in her car for a long time, Caylee’s DEAD body. She said her daughter died of an accident and she then went on to celebrate this death with her partying and whatnot. A jury said there was no proof, even after she lied about Caylee being missing, about talking to Caylee and
    about a minority babysitter kidnapping her there was no reaosn to believe she killed her daughter.

  37. Esti:
    Azalea, in the case you mention *three* children supposedly died in their sleep of unknown causes at the same time.Had Casey Anthony had two other children who both died at the same time as Caylee, I suspect that her accidental death claim wouldn’t have given anyone reasonable doubt.

    Oh I think it would have, the number of children don’t offer proof. Teh issue here was : is the death a homicide or not and the answer is unknown. Without that answer you have failed the burden of proof according to our justice system because you can’t even proof that it wasn’t an accident. The defendant doesn’t have to prove it was an accident, the prosecution does and they never could if the body is too badly decomposed.

    Again I say, that system sucks ass. Look at how many innocent minorities are exonerated after spending a decade and some change n jail or on death row based on circumstantial evidence of killing ONE person sometimes a perosn they didn’t even know and look at this case where circumstantial evidence allows one to go free. I see a problem, a big ass problem with that. Her sexual history has nothing to do with her being a bad mom, people were furious that others have been convicted on LESS.

  38. Have you all ever heard of the Marybeth Tinning case? There are some…screwy things in the way the legal system works sometimes. And more than that (although I’m not sure how this relates, to be honest;) there is something to be said about people’s willful ignorance of what’s right in front of them.

    also TAMORA PIERCE OMG.

  39. THANK YOU for clarifying that for me. I saw people being completely outraged and comparing it to OJ Simpson, but I couldn’t articulate why I wasn’t so upset. Certainly the verdict was surprsing (even to her lawyer–he was apparently just trying to avoid the death penalty), but not necessarily wrong, considering how the trial went.

    And though I think she’s guilty, I am grimly satisfied because it all really works out. People are insisting she’s “getting off,” I greatly disagree. There are reports that she can’t live in Florida anymore, she has to be under police protection to avoid being killed, she’s been in prison for three years already, she has a gap in credit and a bad reputation which will make it next to impossible for her to get a loan for a house or a job, her family is against her.

    I almost think this is crueler. Send her back to jail at this point, where she will be cared for and protected from being lynched by an angry American public.

  40. @Azalea
    They put the reasonable in reasonable for a reason. The idea of three children of markedly different ages all dying of SIDS at once is not reasonable.

  42. Azalea: Um, if they’re five, six and eleven, that isn’t SIDS. The letters stand for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and the kids weren’t infants. And healthy kids over a year old do not just die in their sleep. I think the one case I’ve heard of where a kid died in their sleep involved monoxide poisoning.
    If the house was monoxide free and none of the girls had any chronic illnesses or heart defects, I’d definitely consider that a possible homicide. (And if the girls did have heart defects, a case for child neglect could be made.) In both cases, I have to wonder- if they were innocent, why did they hide the body/ bodies?

  43. Jared:
    @Azalea
    They put the reasonable in reasonable for a reason. The idea of three children of markedly different ages all dying of SIDS at once is not reasonable.

    Why does everyone keep saying SIDS? Seriously which one amongst those children count as an infant? People of all ages can die in their sleep, not just newborns and senior citizens. It is not usual but it can happen.

    Where was the reasonable doubt in Casey’s case? I se enothing reasonable about covering up an accident to make it look like murder, or pretending your dead white daughter was kidnapped by a minority, or keeping her dead body in the trunk of your car, or partying to celebrate her death. At what point does reasonable come in?

  44. Jen:
    Send her back to jail at this point, where she will be cared for and protected from being lynched by an angry American public.

    Lynched? By whom pray tell?

  45. The verdict supported my faith in juries. The alternate jurors and Jennifer Ford showed in their comments to the press showed how reasonable and level-headed and conscientious ordinary citizens who serve on juries so often are.

    Pet peeve: I noticed people on this thread throwing the word “circumstantial” around as if it means a case is weak. “Circumstantial” just means evidence that isn’t direct eyewitness testimony. For example, fingerprint or DNA evidence is circumstantial. Circumstantial cases can be very strong indeed. However, to support a conviction in a criminal case, circumstantial evidence must exclude every reasonable possibility other than those establishing the guilt of the accused. In the Casey Anthony case, the jury apparently concluded that the circumstantial evidence did not exclude beyond a reasonable doubt the possibility that Caylee died accidentally.

  46. Azalea: Where was the reasonable doubt in Casey’s case? I se enothing reasonable about covering up an accident to make it look like murder, or pretending your dead white daughter was kidnapped by a minority, or keeping her dead body in the trunk of your car, or partying to celebrate her death. At what point does reasonable come in?

    Reasonable doubt does not mean the person acted reasonably. It means that the jury had doubts about whether they were guilty, and the doubts were more than just that always-present feeling of “we can never know for sure, even if 6 people said they saw her do it, it might all be a giant conspiracy”. The fact that she covered up Caylee’s death or didn’t seem sad about it can be evidence of her guilt, but if that’s *all* your evidence it certainly leaves a lot of room for doubt.

  47. Azalea, sorry, I skimmed and thought you were the one saying SIDS. I thought it was a bad term for the situation but descided to use the terminology I (mis)remembered you using.

  48. To be fair, I brought up SIDS in the first place.
    Of course none of the children were infants, which makes them all dying peacefully in their sleep at the same time even more unlikely.

  49. Blacky:
    To be fair, I brought up SIDS in the first place.
    Of course none of the children were infants, which makes them all dying peacefully in their sleep at the same time even more unlikely.

    She didnt say they all died at the same time, she simply said they all died in their sleep. They weren’t healthy children they were malnourished. At best you had a child neglect case- not murder. You need intent to prove murder which they NEVER had.

    Although a healthy child or a seemingly healthy child above a certan age dying in their sleep is unlikely it is STILL very much so possible. Without proof to the contrary how do you decide that you *know* she did it without being emotional or biased against this woman? The judge admits to using his common sense, read the article it wasn’t proof that swayed him it was his own personal opinion that she had done it because she had three bodies in the house with her.

    I see not one difference in circumstances between these two cases except that there were two more children and Anthony is white, Jacks is black. They both had the dead bodies near them, they both claimed it to be accidents and they both had the bodies so long they were decomposed past the point of finding a cause of death.

    Those are the hardcore undeniable FACTS yet one woman is guilty of murder and the other isn’t. And even here people are insinuating that Jacks must have been guilty whereas Anthony leaves enough room for doubt. I call BS, Anthony is white and I guess that gives her a little more freedom for doubt. I think] they both killed their children based on the information I have seen on both cases.

    I am not buying it for two seconds that a woman who seemingly didnt even want her daughter would tae her from one pool, to another pool where she drowns while nobody is looking duct tape her mouth and throw her in the trunk while she figures out where to hide the body, party in the meantime and when people start asing ehr where teh baby is she reports her missing and says a minority woman kidnapped her throws off the entire investigation, lies every step of the way yet we are supposed to believe she is telling the truth when she says it was an accident? This, after she claims she had no idea where her daughter was or what happened to her.

  50. Esti: Reasonable doubt does not mean the person acted reasonably.It means that the jury had doubts about whether they were guilty, and the doubts were more than just that always-present feeling of “we can never know for sure, even if 6 people said they saw her do it, it might all be a giant conspiracy”.The fact that she covered up Caylee’s death or didn’t seem sad about it can be evidence of her guilt, but if that’s *all* your evidence it certainly leaves a lot of room for doubt.

    I don’t have much doubt at all that she killed her daughter. You’d have to believe that she took her from one pool because she ws tired and put her in another pool and left her there unattended thinking it would all be fine and whenever the hell she came back to take her out of the pool she found her dead. You’d have to believe that she “panicked” and put ducttape on her mouth and put her in the trunk. That her panick was then over because she then went on to party and have fun- celebrating she was finally free of motherhood. You’d then have to beleive that when people started asing about Caylee that her panick returned from vacation and she lied to cover up the accident that she covered up to loo like murder, over and over and over again. At one point trying to pin it on a woman who had absolutely NOTHING to do with it . Let me repeat this SHE TRIED TO SEND COMPLETELY INNOCENT WOMAN TO JAIL FOR THE ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF HER DAUGHTER THAT SHE COVERED UP TO LOOK LIKE MURDER.

    Where in there do you find “reasonable” doubt of her guilty? I don’t see it. What I do see is sympathy for a white woman who had a child she didnt want at a young age and using that sympathy to exonerate her of murder.

  51. @Azalea

    In the Jacks case, the mother withdrew her four children from school, admitted to starving them and keeping them locked in the house for months, told police that her daughters were possessed by demons, and claimed that three of them died in their sleep within a week of one another — even though those three had ligature marks on their neck and the coroner said the cause of their deaths was “most likely” strangulation, and the fourth daughter had stab wounds and was found with a knife next to her body. Even then, the judge acquitted Jacks of first-degree murder in relation to the fourth daughter because there wasn’t enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the daughter had inflicted the wounds on herself or that Jacks had inflicted them in self-defense. Even if there was doubt about whether the girls died of strangulation or starvation, deliberately starving your children to death is first degree murder.

    This is a very, very sad case, but I don’t think it’s comparable to Casey Anthony’s situation. I think Banita Jacks would have been much better served by entering an insanity plea, but she refused to do so against her lawyers’ advice. Why her defense lawyers didn’t insist on having her evaluated anyway is anyone’s guess, but that’s where I think the injustice really lies.

  52. As to Casey Anthony — look, do I think she probably did it? Yeah, I do. But the law requires more than that. That jury saw all of the forensic evidence, it watched and listened to all of the witnesses, and it received detailed, strict instructions as to what it had to find — and how sure it had to be — to convict her. I’m a pretty cynical person on the whole, but I’ve been incredibly impressed (and frankly, a little surprised) by the juries that I’ve seen — every single one of them has taken their responsibility very seriously, and has tried very hard to follow the judge’s instructions and to carefully consider all of the evidence in a case. This jury knew the importance of this trial, and the comments of the few jurors who have spoken to the media reflect a lot more thoughtfulness and rationality than a lot of the reactions I’ve seen from the “but she was definitely so guilty!” crowd following the verdict.

    Remember that reasonable doubt is not that you think it’s more likely than not that she’s innocent (that’s the burden in most civil trials). Reasonable doubt can exist even if you believe there is a high probability she did it (the clear and convincing evidence standard, which is used in some other situations). Reasonable doubt is that there is doubt that is more than mere speculation, doubt that would give you pause when making the most serious decisions in your life. It’s easy to think that a defendant is so clearly guilty when you’re reading only the most sensational part of the evidence in media reports that have given the case whatever spin they feel like. It’s very different when you’re sitting in a courtroom through weeks of conflicting testimony and persuasive arguments from both sides, trying to evaluate whether a person should be stripped of their liberty and sent to prison — or whether they should live or die, in death penalty cases.

    You’re absolutely right that, in general, white people get an easier ride in the justice system. There can be no argument on that point. A lot of the problem comes before the trial phase, when police and prosecutors are making decisions about which crimes to investigate and which suspects to charge, but juries aren’t infallible either, and they can absolutely harbor conscious or unconscious racial bias. I’d like to see the justice system do more to address that issue (for example, by eliminating preemptory challenges to potential jurors, where counsel can keep someone off the jury without having to show a reason for them not to be on it). Is it more likely that Casey Anthony would have been convicted if she was a woman of color? Yes, without a doubt. But I don’t think the solution is to convict more white people on questionable evidence. It’s to convict fewer persons of color when the evidence doesn’t warrant it.

  53. Esti:
    As to Casey Anthony — look, do I think she probably did it?Yeah, I do.But the law requires more than that.That jury saw all of the forensic evidence, it watched and listened to all of the witnesses, and it received detailed, strict instructions as to what it had to find — and how sure it had to be — to convict her.I’m a pretty cynical person on the whole, but I’ve been incredibly impressed (and frankly, a little surprised) by the juries that I’ve seen — every single one of them has taken their responsibility very seriously, and has tried very hard to follow the judge’s instructions and to carefully consider all of the evidence in a case.This jury knew the importance of this trial, and the comments of the few jurors who have spoken to the media reflect a lot more thoughtfulness and rationality than a lot of the reactions I’ve seen from the “but she was definitely so guilty!” crowd following the verdict.

    Remember that reasonable doubt is not that you think it’s more likely than not that she’s innocent (that’s the burden in most civil trials).Reasonable doubt can exist even if you believe there is a high probability she did it (the clear and convincing evidence standard, which is used in some other situations).Reasonable doubt is that there is doubt that is more than mere speculation, doubt that would give you pause when making the most serious decisions in your life.It’s easy to think that a defendant is so clearly guilty when you’re reading only the most sensational part of the evidence in media reports that have given the case whatever spin they feel like.It’s very different when you’re sitting in a courtroom through weeks of conflicting testimony and persuasive arguments from both sides, trying to evaluate whether a person should be stripped of their liberty and sent to prison — or whether they should live or die, in death penalty cases.

    You’re absolutely right that, in general, white people get an easier ride in the justice system.There can be no argument on that point.A lot of the problem comes before the trial phase, when police and prosecutors are making decisions about which crimes to investigate and which suspects to charge, but juries aren’t infallible either, and they can absolutely harbor conscious or unconscious racial bias.I’d like to see the justice system do more to address that issue (for example, by eliminating preemptory challenges to potential jurors, where counsel can keep someone off the jury without having to show a reason for them not to be on it).Is it more likely that Casey Anthony would have been convicted if she was a woman of color?Yes, without a doubt.But I don’t think the solution is to convict more white people on questionable evidence.It’s to convict fewer persons of color when the evidence doesn’t warrant it.

    My call wasn’t to convict more white people but when there is a clear evidence thatr points towards guilt not to allow racial biases to influence.

    Casey Anthony admits to not wanting to be a mother. She admitted (after being caught in her lies) that she had known all along her daughter was dead. It is wholly unreasonable to beleive a person who tries to pin an ACCIDENTAL DEATH as MURDER on an innocent person had nothing to do with the dead person’s cause of death. It completely removes common sense out of the equation and THAT is what has me upset. As I sad, I believe Jacks killed her daughters and I believe Anthony killed her daughter Caylee. There was no sob story for Bonita Jacks, no other person she tried to pin it on. Even without an insanity pela herself it is hard to beleive she was even capable of standing trial, this happened here in SE DC and I can tell you her own neighbors were all over the news expressing their concern for her mental health and some had made moves to express concerns over it LONG before she took her daughters out of school.

    The justice system is broken, a person who more likely than not committed a crime, had motive and could be placed with the dead body shouldn;t be allowed to walk free. Manslaughter was on the table for Casey but the jury let her go on that one too. Why? They bought her story, hook line and sinker. They felt sorry for her. By the end of the trial it wasn’t even about Caylee anymore it was all about Casey Anthony’s life and future and not what she’d done.

    Those same jurors would have come back with a guilty verdict for a black person and if the person Casey accused of kidnapping Caylee ever stood trial she’d be in jail with NO evidence to prove ANYTHING.

    We talked about white female priviledge before on this site and this is a clear cut example of it, because had Casey been a minority or a man she’d be in jail and nobody would be talking about how she or he should have been found not guilty due to lack of evidence.

  54. Pingback: Lynch Mob? Seriously? « The Ethical Slacker

  56. Azalea: The justice system is broken, a person who more likely than not committed a crime, had motive and could be placed with the dead body shouldn;t be allowed to walk free. /snip Those same jurors would have come back with a guilty verdict for a black person and if the person Casey accused of kidnapping Caylee ever stood trial she’d be in jail with NO evidence to prove ANYTHING. We talked about white female priviledge before on this site and this is a clear cut example of it, because had Casey been a minority or a man she’d be in jail and nobody would be talking about how she or he should have been found not guilty due to lack of evidence.

    As I said, I agree that it is way more likely that Anthony would have been convicted if she was a person of color, and I think that’s deplorable and something the justice system needs to fix. But I absolutely would have been upset if that had happened, because there just wasn’t enough evidence for a conviction.

    The disagreement we’re having here is about the burden of proof in criminal trials. A “person who more likely than not committed a crime, had motive and could be placed with the dead body” should ABSOLUTELY walk free, because reasonable doubt requires you to be MORE SURE than “more likely than not”. We don’t put people in jail when it’s 51% likely they did it and 49% likely they didn’t. I know that “reasonable” can mean different things to different people, but it has a very specific meaning when we say “reasonable doubt”. That meaning probably wouldn’t line up with the way we think about something being reasonable in other areas of life, but in the criminal justice system it’s an incredibly high standard. And don’t forget that the burden of proof is, as it should be, on the government. The defense isn’t required to prove ANYTHING.

    The reason that high standard is so important is that if you’re concerned about miscarriages of justice and about innocent persons of color being sent to jail, then we need to be EVEN MORE VIGILANT about the burden of proof in criminal trials. Our society is incredibly prosecution-friendly — the fact that someone was arrested or is being tried makes most people think they are guilty, and people tend to believe prosecutors and police almost blindly. Since we know that the criminal justice system is disproportionately likely to target minorities, it’s even more important to make sure that we’re holding it to account. The accountability mechanisms worked the way they were supposed to in this case — let’s figure out how to make that true for defendants of color rather than being upset that it worked here.

  57. Esti: As I said, I agree that it is way more likely that Anthony would have been convicted if she was a person of color, and I think that’s deplorable and something the justice system needs to fix.But I absolutely would have been upset if that had happened, because there just wasn’t enough evidence for a conviction.

    The disagreement we’re having here is about the burden of proof in criminal trials.A “person who more likely than not committed a crime, had motive and could be placed with the dead body” should ABSOLUTELY walk free, because reasonable doubt requires you to be MORE SURE than “more likely than not”.We don’t put people in jail when it’s 51% likely they did it and 49% likely they didn’t.I know that “reasonable” can mean different things to different people, but it has a very specific meaning when we say “reasonable doubt”.That meaning probably wouldn’t line up with the way we think about something being reasonable in other areas of life, but in the criminal justice system it’s an incredibly high standard.And don’t forget that the burden of proof is, as it should be, on the government.The defense isn’t required to prove ANYTHING.

    The reason that high standard is so important is that if you’re concerned about miscarriages of justice and about innocent persons of color being sent to jail, then we need to be EVEN MORE VIGILANT about the burden of proof in criminal trials.Our society is incredibly prosecution-friendly — the fact that someone was arrested or is being tried makes most people think they are guilty, and people tend to believe prosecutors and police almost blindly.Since we know that the criminal justice system is disproportionately likely to target minorities, it’s even more important to make sure that we’re holding it to account.The accountability mechanisms worked the way they were supposed to in this case — let’s figure out how to make that true for defendants of color rather than being upset that it worked here.

    I know about the burden of proof, but there were also lesser charges that she walked on.

  58. The lesser charges she was acquitted of were aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse, which had many of the same issues with lack of evidence that the murder charge did. She was convicted of the four counts of lying to police, which there was clearly sufficient evidence to prove.

  59. Azalea: I forgot about the malnutrition- good thing the judge didn’t. I think the difference between Anthony and Jacks is that there was no evidence that Caylee was abused. Jacks abused her children by starving them, verbally abusing the eldest, and possibly physically assualting them. Once someone starts abusing, they can’t and won’t stop, unless the victim removes themselves (or is removed). And abuse usually leads to death. So it’s logical to assume that if children start dying within an abusive household the abuser is responsible for their deaths. If there was no previous history of abuse, but one of the parents is acting very erratically, things are a lot less clearcut.
    Personally, I’d really like to know who Casey was covering for. If she didn’t do it, it’s possible that one of her boyfriends killed Caylee.

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