Casey Anthony

I have to start out by saying; I have not watched the trial of Casey Anthony nor have I become a part of the media frenzy surrounding this case.  However, as people all over the media and on Facebook tell me their opinion, I feel I should push back with mine.

In my mind there are three likely scenarios in this case:

Murder Most Foul

The young mother had a plethora of reasons for hating her daughter, and decided to terminate her in a very late term abortion.  Unfortunately, my understanding is that dozens of witnesses came forward and spoke to a very positive relationship between mother and daughter, so I find this pretty unlikely.

Manslaughter

The lack of sleep, stress of raising a child, and other general pressures caused Casey to snap and kill her child.  Possible I guess, but doesn't seem all that likely.

Death By Misadventure

Some terrible accident occurs that may or may not have been the result of negligence on the part of Casey, and the child dies.  The parent loses a grip on reality and makes up a series of lies to hide what has happened, with no clue how to make it right.

I don't know what happened, but I do know that I have a very hard time believing that a mother would plot to kill her little daughter and then do so in cold blood in a manner that would qualify her for the death penalty.  It just doesn't make any real sense.  It is not in keeping with typical human behavior.  Also even a stupid person would realize that if you just flat out kill your child, sooner or later someone is going to ask questions or find the body.

If you are going to take the time to plan a murder why not simply make it look like an accident?  Let the kid drown in the bath tub, or swimming pool.  Let the kid fall from an open window.  Putting masking tape over their face and dumping their body in a trash bag is clearly not much of a murder plan.

But I don't want to become just some other pundit expressing a baseless opinion about this case.  What I want to talk about first off is America's need for blood.  The number of otherwise normal people baying for an execution is really quite disturbing.  Even if she actually plotted and actually murdered her own child, do we really need to execute her?  Is she going to get released after 30 years in jail, have another kid and then murder them?  Execution should be reserved for war crimes, crimes against humanity, serial killers, and utterly heinous acts.  Something like this?  I don't think so.  And let's also be clear, the only countries in the world who still execute people suck.  We should not be striving to be like the Middle East, third world counties, or Communist China.

I'm also a little sick of people talking about this woman getting off 'Scott free.'  Really?  Scott free?  In any realistic scenario, she is going to have to live with the death of her child forever.  Then the assholes who judge this woman are going to make her life terrible for at least a decade or so.  She isn't going to be able to get a real job, so she is just going to have to write an autobiography or sell the movie rights because between that and welfare, is the only likely way she is going to make any kind of money any time soon.  And let us not forget she has already served close to three years with a death sentence hanging over her head.

I think what I find most sad about this event is that the media have chosen to spend hundreds of hours of television time milking this story in every possible way.  Not interested in the troops dying in our two wars, not interested with trying to fix the economy that the Republicans fucked up, not talking about the gun crimes happening every day in the inner cities of America, not concerned with actual world events.  No, instead we are turning the tragic story of this death into headline news for months.

People are so sick, I saw a news story this morning where random people were actually traveling to the spot where the child's body was recovered to see it 'for themselves.'  I mean really?  What kind of sick fuck travels across the country to see a place where a child's corpse was recovered?

In conclusion, if we are to pretend that people are innocent until proven guilty, we need to put a stop to trial in the media.  And as usual, the American media need to get back to the 'good old days' of journalism, and reporting actual news rather than creating a media circus and then reporting on themselves.