I totally did not intend to write about trust and the swimming pool the same day the Casey Anthony verdict came down. That was unintentional...and interesting.
I am tired of people saying that they can't judge Casey because God is the only Judge. Yes, God will judge Casey (and all of us) for our actions. I'm also irritated when non-religious people throw God into it. Really? If you're so concerned about God judging Casey Anthony, what about God judging you? Just sayin.
Do I think she did it? Yes. Maybe it was an accident. But because your baby dies in a pool or in an accident doesn't mean you have to put THREE pieces of duct tape over her mouth and toss her body in the woods. There are better ways to handle it.
Accidents happen. I get it. I know it. But the fact that she didn't report her daughter missing for 31 days? Which is why I was glad to see that someone created a petition to create Caylee's law. According to the website, "there should be a new federal law created called Caylee's Law that will make it a federal offense for a parent or guardian to not notify law enforcement of a child going missing in a timely manner." And I agree.
I'm not a perfect mother. And I admit it. I lose my temper. I even lost a kid once. My five year old ran off at the Minnesota Children's Museum. Not so much ran off, more like hid. But after not seeing him run in the area he was playing in for 2 minutes, I began to panic. I sent my husband searching for him because I was staying with the younger two. When my husband came back empty handed, my heart sunk. I felt dizzy. I felt like I was going to throw up. I grabbed an employee who radioed over to other employees that we were looking for a 5 year old with brown hair and blue eyes. They radioed back that they were already looking for a boy with that description (in my panic, I failed to ask my husband if he'd already contacted an employee). I yelled for him, I hollered, I screamed. Husband went looking on other levels of the museum.
Just then, the employee who stayed with me saw a kid wearing the clothing I described. He said he saw a little boy peek around a corner of a "ant farm maze" and yelled his name. And it was my little boy.
He said he was "just hiding like an ant" as I hugged and kissed him. I was TERRIFIED. It was only minutes but it felt like hours. And I was emotionally drained after that short amount of time. Needless to say, we left the museum. No more fun for the day.
I understand being terrified...but why didn't she contact someone? I couldn't imagine going out and partying while my child was missing. That just boggles my mind. Maybe they didn't have enough proof for murder. But there was neglect. That's for sure. And the fact that she smirked after the verdict was read? She's guilty. She knows it. And she just got away with murder.
For those of you who say you can't judge Casey, would you be willing to let her babysit your children? Think about it. And quit jumping on the parents who are upset at the verdict.
Yesterday was a sad day for good parents everywhere. And a sad day for little Caylee. She didn't deserve it and she doesn't have justice.
Nonreligious people bring up God because a) we are trying to speak to you in terms you understand, that you claim to BE about, and b) because not all nonreligious people lack spirituality. I think religious people don't appreciate it, because they perceive it as their faith being thrown back in their face. They would not always be far off in this.
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong, but I am supposing the following: You are not a lawyer. You are not a judge. You are not forensics. I'm guessing you didn't even follow the case closely enough to gather all the details (don't worry, neither did I). My point is that you are missing vital pieces of the puzzle and this prevents you from passing a fair judgment. For instance, duct tape. From what I understand, forensics determined that this was placed on the body AFTER decomposition (and, it wasn't even admissible as evidence for reasons dealing with tampering). What this would indicate is that it was not the cause of death. Who even knows why it was placed on the body... maybe to try to make her death look like a murder to incriminate someone else? Who knows. All WE can do is speculate. This is why we are incapable of judging her correctly. This is why "only God" can. He is all-knowing, and THE judge of us all, right? So, leave this one in "His" hands. To the rest of us regular folks, it's still a mystery.
No one is saying Casey Anthony was a good mother or made smart choices. What we are saying is that we can't prove she is guilty of cold-blooded murder against her child.
So, I will continue to jump on parents upset about the verdict. They don't understand justice. They are just lynch mobby, torch wielding angry people without the slightest clue as to what happened. That's called "ignorance".
You tell me exactly how Caylee Anthony died and then maybe we can start to re-examine who the murderer might be (if she was indeed murdered at all). When our rage takes over our judgment, it makes for a scary world.
Be careful what you wish for. If you want people to become convicted based on emotions and circumstance, the next person tried could be you. In a system of witch trials, none of us are safe. Thank God that's not the country we strive to live in. Thank God this is America.
I am going to have to break this into several comments- we are discussing this in my criminology class, so I will copy and paste my own interpretations of the evidence presented from that rather than re-write it. But it does illustrate my opinion, fully.
ReplyDeleteAs to religious statements: I think what I always think about them: It's something to make people feel better about things they do not understand. I make no assertions as to if it is right or wrong- because it's not my place to say that a concept which has neither been proven nor disproven in any empiracle way is incorrect or valid. I do however feel that people often use this in various forms covering various religions to sooth themselves- which is fine. Whatever gets you through the night.
I, however, believe in real justice. And if you want real justice for Caylee- you wouldn't be so quick to condemn her mother. I'll get to that in the next comments.
I do not think that we, the American public have enough evidence to say: yes, I think she did it or no, I don't think she did it. The court did not have enough evidence, and in spite of the media push on this- the evidence was not there.
ReplyDeleteSitting through endless hours of Nancy Grace foaming at the mouth makes no one qualified to assign guilt or innocence here- and yet, this is exactly what the American public has done. I mention her, purely because she has made it a mission to deliver a "Guilty by media" verdict since this case began: this is wrong and this is dangerous. She is not, however, the only so called journalist that is guilty of this problem.
Let's take a moment to look at her qualifications, in particular, before I get to my thoughts on the actual case: in her defense, she actually has some. She was a former Special Prosecutor, handling felony serial cases, mostly. Serial rape, murder, child molestation cases. In my eyes, however, this makes her reaction to the verdict worse. She has apparently given up on actual justice in favor of media sensationalism.
As to actual justice, here, let's break the situation down, with the very scant, circumstantial evidence we do have- what points do we know:
ReplyDeleteWe know that we had a young mother in bad situation: her being a victim herself, of family abuse was speculated. It was speculated so much so that both her father and her brother were DNA tested in paternity of Caylee.
From a forensic psych standpoint, in viewing the footage of her mother, we can observe that yes, she's prone to histrionics, likes to be in control, and sees absolutely nothing wrong with that. (re: her admission that she was calling every day, etc.- this is not normal parental behavior of an adult child.) If you look at any of the footage of this woman from a psychological standpoint: there are dozens of red flags in her expression, demeanor and more that should be cause for further investigation. In this, I mean to point to a potential motive: you've got a controlling person, emotionally manipulative and her daughter has allegedly been sexually abused at the hands of both her husband and her son for possibly decades. It is not at all uncommon for a person in this situation to be in denial, then when confronted with glaring evidence to first try to emotionally manipulate the victim, blaming the victim to buy their silence, and then resorting to methods to discredit them. It seems very possible that may be one potential motive in this case. There are also numerous reports of Cindy Anthony attempting to contact Casey while she has been incarcerated- and Casey wouldn't let her. This is also consistent.
We also know that Casey had on many occasions expressed being overwhelmed. Many people point to her going out and partying as "inappropriate": but she was a 22 year old mother, potentially living in an emotionally abusive situation: so, what's "normal" for one may not hold in this case.
Down to evidence, we know those searches were made by Casey Anthony's mother- by her own admission. She had an answer for everything: the chloroform searches were due to her dogs and the wrong term getting keyed in, the "neck breaking" may have been a youtube video she stumbled upon, but when pressed about the frequency or the searches that she couldn't explain away but were still related: flat denial. She also claimed that the stains in the car were there when they bought it. However, some might suggest that Cindy Anthony was merely trying to defend her daughter: No. Bear in mind who did everything in her power to point the finger at Casey in the first place: her mother.
ReplyDeleteThe prosecution also made a huge deal of the heart shaped stickers. Let's talk about that for a second: some forensics people said there were, others said they could find no trace of this on the duct tape itself.
What about that duct tape? It belonged to Casey Anthony's father, George.
I could go on but my point is this: the media decided that this was another instance of infanticide by mother and refused to look at what the evidence indicated. Just patently refused. While I would speculate that it was likely that Casey did know what happened, I would also say that if you truly seek justice for little Caylee here, you'd not be upset at this verdict, and you certainly would not be pushing for punishment of what was likely, just another victim of this seriously dysfunctional family.
Justice should never be blood for blood, and it shouldn't be carried out based on the media, and had the verdict come down as "guilty"- that would have been precisely all that happened here. People are ranting and blaming the jurors but the fact is this: the evidence was not enough to convict.
I'm going to ask you this: if you were the defendant in a criminal case, would you want to live in a world where if the media determined you were guilty, regardless of how poor the evidence was against you- you were convicted and sentenced? Because I know that I wouldn't.
My only comment is that I cannot comment without a bias. I was abused by my mother as a child and this gives me very strong and ugly thoughts about the whole situation. I cannot be unbiased. I prejudged her from the very beginning because of her lies and not reporting her missing daughter. That's all. No excuses for me...I cannot not judge. Let God judge me too...He is the only one that knows what is truly in our hearts.
ReplyDelete