Written by At approximately 2:20pm today, Casey Anthony was found not guilty by a jury of peers of the first three counts of her indictment, including First Degree Murder, Aggravated Child Abuse, and Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child. She was convicted of four counts of giving false information to an officer.
Casey listens to the verdict
The reading of the verdicts started a firestorm of comments on twitter (#caseyanthony) and Facebook. On person likened the reaction to “bloodlust”. I was surprised twitter didn’t crash from the billions of tweets being sent.
To the point of the post, it is extremely important to consider the difference between innocent and not guilty. When the trial began, the presiding judge gave the following instructions to the jury:
The People have the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not kill as the result of a sudden quarrel or in the heat of passion. If the People have not met this burden, you must find the defendant not guilty of murder.
That is exactly what happened this afternoon.
Casey was not found innocent, rather she was found not guilty. She was found not guilty by jury of her peers because there was not sufficient evidence to convict, though that doesn’t guarantee her to factually be innocent. In fact, I am one of the millions that believe she probably was guilty.
Regardless of how upset you are that she will one day be free, realize that this is exactly what the US legal system (not justice system) was established for. Florida didn’t live up to their obligation of proving guilt and the defense planted enough of a seed for reasonable doubt. The right decision was made, whether we believe it or not.
Finally, if you believe in a high power or in Karma, you know that if Casey truly did something, she will judged one last time. At the end of the day, you still have a little girl who died and a family in ruins. A year from now we will have moved onto the next sensationalized story, but Casey will continue to live with the fact her baby girl is dead.
