Casey Anthony Found Not Guilty

The big news of the day is that Casey Anthony was found not guilty of all of the significant charges levied against her (murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter), leading the social media world into a tizzy. Listen, I don’t pretend to know all of the facts, and I haven’t a clue what my outlook would be if I were on the trial, and I was forced to look at things based on the concrete evidence and without all of the biases (intentional or not) that you come across with the media.

And truth be told, many famous court cases that have been considered lucrative or “slam dunks” are actually viewed pretty inaccurately when you look at the facts. For all of the people who chastise the McDonald’s coffee lady, saying that it’s ridiculous to sue for coffee being hot, many of them probably don’t realize that McDonald’s served their coffee at a substantially higher temperature than other establishments and that over 700 people had suffered burns of varying degrees from McDonald’s coffee over a ten year period. This woman, who was nearly 80 years old, suffered third degree burns and had to undergo skin grafting. And even the Michael Jackson/child molestation case strongly suggested that the family of the young boy in question had a criminal history (and future) and had behaved in a suspicious and unusual manner. So I certainly understand that things are not always as clear cut as they appear.

However, what I do know is that when I look at that infamous photo of two year old Caylee, lying in bed with her cheek resting on her hand, my heart absolutely breaks. This young girl – still a baby, really – was taken from the world and I don’t feel like her death got the justice that it deserves. Even if we give Casey the benefit of the doubt here, and we believe her story, her death still went unreported for over a month. And what’s the result? She was found guilty of misleading police. Please.

Sure, the evidence was circumstantial, but the circumstantial evidence was still pretty overwhelming. This is a woman who did something wrong. Perhaps we’ll never know if she murdered her daughter, or if her parents helped her cover it up, or if her father did abuse her, but there’s no doubt in my mind that she did something that she’s not paying for.

I don’t believe Caylee Anthony received justice. And that’s a tragedy.