The court of public opinion vs. the court of law.

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After reading the public reaction to the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial, all I have to say is.... *FACEPALM*.

It needs to be stated that the decision of any court of law is final, and the court of public opinion has no say in the matter whatsoever.

My question to the denizens of PPR: Why does the court of public opinion almost always reject the final binding decision of the court of law?

My take: It seems to me that the people that were yelling "GUILTY!" can not handle the truth. They do not listen to what they hear and they do not hear what they listen to.

I don't know much of anything about the case - not much into popular culture.

But "They do not listen to what they hear and they do not hear what they listen to." certainly describes a whole passel of humanity.

I think that a starting point is that many people approach media with a strong sense of credulity.

When new organizations report, "DSK arraigned on charges of raping hotel maid" they are prepared to accept that the charges are more likely than not to be true. Those who say, "let's wait and see," are often voices in the wilderness. When police identify an individual as a, "person of interest," people are all to ready to translate that as, "prime suspect."

News organizations are in the business of selling advertising, and in order to make their product attractive, they need to deliver an audience for that advertising. As a result, they don't deliver news, per se, but rather a service which includes not only the factual content of the news, but also the organization's editorial bias, and the "look and feel."

So, when a court turns around and reaches a decision that is inconsistent with the tone and substance of a previous content many people are left puzzling about how a trier of fact could reach that conclusion, without ever contemplating the full scale of evidence that the trier of fact (whether a jury or a judge alone) would have heard and considered.

There is no court of public opinion. That is just a metaphor. The only courts there are, legally constituted courts.

ruveyn

That is true. However, the general public seems to think they are Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

Mobile vulgus

We live in the age of the media mob, we also live with falible 'justice' systems.

History shows us that mistakes happen particularly in the case of 'political' crimes or where race, class or creed are percieved as factors. The media like flies on the proverbial are chasing audiences and sales, they are drunk on their influence and biased by ecconomic and editorial considerations - what do you expect?

peace j

I was very happy that she was acquitted. Not because I don't think she killed her daughter - I don't know and I couldn't care less - but because I find it extremely amusing whenever revenge-fetishist torch-and-pitchfork mobs don't get what they want.

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Same here. I find the "Revenge" mob comparable to a crowd of Romans at the Colosseum.

The court has ruled. There is not enough evidence for the mom being guilty, and thus they can't convict her. Courts are there to protect the citizens' rights, and one of them is assumption of innocence. If the prosecution couldn't find proof that a guilty person is guilty, it is the prosecution's problem. The same will happen to DSK, whatever the media thinks, whatever you and I think , the court will have to assume his innocence. Because if they would start convicting people without evidence just because it "really looks like it and the media agrees", the next person that is convicted through this method may be innocent.



You yourself have no first hand knowledge of what really happened to Caylee, so I do not think that you can be outraged by the ruling.

The "Court of Public Opinion" focuses mostly on the heinous nature of the crime, the behavior of the accused, and how cute the victim is or was.

The Court of Law focuses mostly on valid material evidence, expert testimony, and a rigid set of rules by which the juries reach their verdicts. Also, it is not just the defendant that is on trial, but the proficiency of the prosecution to prove its claims. In this case, the prosecution over-charged the defendant - they either ignored or forgot Occam's Razor, or the Rule of Parsimony. The words attributed to Occam are "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" ("Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"), although these actual words are not to be found in his extant works. This is also stated as "Claims should not be asserted beyond the supporting evidence".

The Prosecution asserted a claim of Capital Murder, without any valid material evidence that the victim's death was the result of an intentional act by anyone. Instead, they relied on assumption, behavior and reputation of the accused, innuendo, opinion, slander, and the (assumed) gullibility of the jurors.

They lost the case before the trial even started.

This case had very weak forensic evidence to link the murder to Casey.. but there is absolutely no doubt that the woman knew her child was dead. That means she was an active participant in either the death itself or the cover up or both. That is what has people really upset to see her walk free.

The verdict of 'not guilty' does not mean she is innocent. It only means the evidence used against her was not conclusive.

The reason why she walked free is because the prosecution did not charge her with less serious murder charges like negligent manslaughter (of which she is 100% guilty and the police investigative evidence all points to her being involved) and so the jury had no other option but to find her not guilty of 1st degree murder.

What really pisses people off is that she is getting away with being a part of this child's murder AND the fact that she is set up to make millions of dollars selling her story. The Judge sure is and the defense team too...they all got book deal offers already on the table. Casey herself on top of that was offered a million dollar + to make porn movies.

The legal system does not seek the truth; it seeks a convincing set of arguments.

Until you've been involved in the actual judicial process you probably wont understand it. As a Juror i've seen just how much lying, distorting and outright disinformation the lawyers push in order to get their way and how difficult it is for a jury to tell fact from fiction coming from the lawyers and on top of that trying to understand highly scientific evidence and police work (that is constantly being smokescreened and aggrandized by the lawyers).

They are ignoring the fact that Casey Anthony was found guilty on four counts of lying to the police, then, which is pretty much finding her guilty of the cover up.

As for "weak forensic evidence to link the murder to Casey", there was virtually no evidence that there was any murder at all.

Because courts DO NOT often get the matter right.

Innocent people go to jail.

Guilty people go free.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is by no means capable of punishing every guilty person...only those you can get enough hard evidence against.

This flows both ways. A lot of press can corrupt a jury pool to bias a jury. A lot of press can also ensure someone (e.g., OJ Simpson) can't just move on as if he got away with murder (literally). Juries are restricted as to what evidence they are allowed to see, and not always because it's bad evidence but because of clever lawyering by his defense counsel. Muddy the water enough and a jury can lose sight of the important matters.

The woman was found not guilty. I agree that the state really made a poor case. No doubt she's a bad mother, but did she kill her own kid? Maybe. A lot of people local to the case think she should burn. Others think they might be right, but must agree that the state could not prove it.

Sometimes bad people get away with their crimes.

Just wondering:

By the info just checked, the daughter was just 2 years old. By what has been said in some of the abortion toktok here, that does not reallyh qualify her to be a person - she is still in the category of worthless burden to her mother.

In which case surely it would be the mother's right to do whatever she saw fit about the inconvenience.

Surely the REAL crime here is that she did not properly dispose of organic waste.

everyone always lies at some point, if there is sufficient enough interogation then lies to the police would be natural, only real issue here is wheter you actively remember it yourself..