You must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt…
Because of that keystone concept in our criminal law, Casey Anthony will go free despite widespread belief that she is guilty of killing her daughter Caylee.
As I sit here in my living room, I can hear the TV in the other room beaming the prattling of commentators about what the jury did or did not understand, and I can imagine Nancy Grace and Bill O’Reilly pontificating for days about our justice system. I think I will not watch them.
The reasonable doubt standard is so engrained in our thinking that we often forget its possible consequences. It may mean that a criminal goes free because the government cannot prove its case. I am told that Scottish criminal trials include a verdict of Not Proven instead of Not Guilty. That idea would be helpful in cases like Casey Anthony’s.
Indeed, an accused should go free if the government cannot prove guilt. That’s so easy to forget, especially in a case which the media has turned into something that makes a circus look like a Quaker meeting.
In my more than 26 years on the Circuit Court bench in Livingston County, presiding over hundreds of criminal trials, including one of the most notorious murder cases in the state’s history, I gained a healthy respect for the common sense of jurors. I may have disagreed with a few of the verdicts, but in only one case that I can think of did the system break down. That particular case resulted in a hung jury, and the defendant was convicted in a second jury trial. Justice was ultimately done.
For the most part, in those few cases where I would have rendered a different verdict, I could nevertheless see where a reasonable jury might see things differently. In short, during my tenure on the bench I came to respect the common sense and wisdom of jurors in criminal cases. That’s why, since I did not hear all the evidence, I am loathe to pass judgment on the Casey Anthony jury verdict. Those 12 citizens heard it all. I trust them more than I do some of the talking heads that populate our flat screens these days, handsome or pretty as they may be.
But I did listen to some of the final arguments and came away with some impressions. I was struck by the logic of the defense team as they went over the evidence, and, perhaps because I used the same words at customary jury orientations, I nodded my head emphatically when Casey’s attorney reminded the jurors that probably, possibly, likely, may be were not words that could accompany the word guilty when they made their decision.
I was turned off by one prosecutor’s suggestion that the heartless way Caylee’s body was disposed of proved her mother’s guilt. Assuming that the mother did indeed dump the duct-taped body herself, it certainly demonstrated a coldness that turns the stomach. But if you prove that Casey Anthony was an unfit mother, a heartless parent, a promiscuous tramp, and a liar, you still have not proved that she killed her daughter. She may have, she possibly did, she probably did … I doubt we will ever know.
The Casey Anthony case is not the only one in which a high-profile prosecution has melted down. We have watched in astonishment as the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the powerful Frenchman accused of raping a maid in a New York hotel, has apparently collapsed because of startling revelations about the alleged victim.
It seems that the prosecutors are faced with the same dilemma that initially confronted the government team in the Anthony case. They have a weak case. One suspects that after the Anthony acquittal the New York prosecutors will have even more motivation to dump their case.
The two cases were weak for different reasons. In the Anthony trial there was a lack of evidence—indeed virtually no evidence of murder by the defendant. There were a lot of suspicious circumstances, but they did not add up to proof of murder by Casey Anthony. In the Straus-Kahn case there was direct testimony by the alleged victim that he raped her. However, prosecutors learned after the arrest that the accuser was a serial liar, that she allegedly was a prostitute, that she had a $100,000 bank account, and that she told a jail inmate connection that she hoped to make a financial killing on the case. What jury would believe her tale of rape?
The Anthony case was remarkable for its lack of evidence, period. The Strauss-Kahn case apparently lacks credible evidence that the sex act involved was forced and not consensual. Strauss-Kahn, then head of the International Monetary Fund and a possible candidate for President of France, is a noted roué and has been accused of forcing himself on women before. Still, while he may have, possibly did, probably did, there appears not to be evidence that can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It looks like he will walk.
Although our criminal justice system, recognizing the almost overwhelming power of the government and the possibility of abuse of that power, is tilted in favor of defendants in many ways (as well it should be), one cannot at times help but feel sympathy for prosecutors. They must play the hand they have been dealt. They cannot invent evidence.
Often cases, as in these two, are weak because prosecutors lack evidence or because witnesses are not available or are just not believable. The government must exercise its best judgment in deciding to proceed or not. My experience has been that generally prosecutors do a good job, just the same way a criminal defense lawyer does. It is a deeply satisfying professional experience to preside over a trial that pits competent lawyers against each other in the adversarial search for truth, and I have had that experience in the vast majority of cases.
The fact is that our American criminal justice system works, and works well. We must never forget that the jury is the greatest bulwark we have against the threat that a powerful central government inevitably poses. How many acquittals have there been in Putin’s Russia? Communist China? Cuba? I won’t even mention North Korea.
Yes, our justice system is flawed, as is every human institution, and sometimes in highly publicized cases, things go awry, as in the O. J. Simpson trial. The Casey Anthony trial was not such a case. No matter how unsatisfying the trial was, or how many mistakes the armchair lawyers will find in the way the prosecutors handled their case, and no matter how many questions went unanswered, justice was done. If there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt, Casey Anthony had to be acquitted, and she was.
Hurray for jurors.
