What is an Acquittal?

Unfortunately, our justice system isn't perfect. I'm sure that throughout the history of our country, there were any number of innocent people, who were convicted and guilty ones, who were acquitted. These decisions were made by juries and by judges.

In the case of Casey Anthony, I think something went terribly wrong. The jury was given directions from the judge to follow. For a case as complicated and serious as this one, the jury should have taken more time to deliberate thoroughly. Perhaps the death penalty shouldn't have been entered by prosecution.

In the end, the jury just didn't feel there was enough evidence to make a guilty decision. Casey Anthony is, no doubt guilty, in some way for the death of her daughter. What's done is done. We hope it doesn't happen again.

@Cupcake15 -I think that many of these defendants that receive these famous acquittals do not go on to live a normal life afterwards especially if the general public felt that they got away with murder.

Some of these defendants have to live in seclusion and change their appearance and even name as in the Casey Anthony case because they are so reviled that their personal safety is at stake.

So although many felt that a defendant like Casey Anthony was given a fair verdict, her life outside of prison will not be anything like it was in the past because now everyone knows her name and it will difficult for her to hide.

If she tries to make money on her case, then the public will boycott the station or the company that offered the deal. So I don’t the road ahead will be easy for her especially since she is indigent and OJ Simpson at least had sizeable assets he could live on.

@Icecream17 - I don’t understand the verdict in that case either. With the Scott Peterson trial, there was much less evidence and he got convicted. I think that the problem with the verdict lies in the jury.

There were reports that many on the Casey Anthony jury were against the death penalty although they were death penalty qualified. It is easy to second guess decisions now, but in my opinion these types of jurors should have never been allowed to sit on this jury.

I also think that another famous acquittal case was the infamous OJ Simpson murder trial. Here there was bloody evidence and a lot of DNA evidence and he was still acquitted. Some legal analysts were even wondering what the role of celebrity plays in acquittals like this. Sometimes a jury can be awestruck by a celebrity defendant like this and not convict based on factors that have nothing to do with the trial.

I think that is what happened in that case. Like in the Casey Anthony trial, there was a large percentage of the general public that felt OJ Simpson should have been convicted. Many feel that his conviction of another crime ten years to the day of these murders was a type of karma because they really threw the book at OJ Simpson in that trial and will likely never be released from prison for a crime that was not as significant as the murder charge.

@Suntan12- I agree with what you are saying and I believe that having cameras in the courtroom really makes these criminal court procedures so dramatic. People were riveted by the Casey Anthony case because the circumstances were so horrific that the public could not believe that someone could do something like this to their own child.

I don’t think that a not guilty verdict means that the person is innocent of the crime; I think that it means that the jury did not feel that they had enough evidence to convict the defendant. A lot of legal analysts were scratching their heads when this verdict was read and the one thing that they all agreed on is that some juries are now looking for no doubt in criminal cases rather than beyond a reasonable doubt.

I think that television programs like CSI have made more juries prejudicial in cases like this where the circumstantial evidence is much stronger than the forensic evidence. I wonder how defendants got convicted before DNA evidence developed? The interesting thing about this case was that the jury believed the entire defense argument although there was no solid proof and rejected the prosecution argument even though there was solid evidence to the contrary.

I have to say that probably one of the most famous acquittals have to been the Casey Anthony trial. I don’t think that there has ever been a verdict as controversial as this one. Much of the polling data suggests that over 90% of the public believes that Casey Anthony had something to do with her daughter’s murder and cannot understand the jury argument for acquittal.

The prosecutors were so sure that there was premeditation on the part of Casey Anthony that they upgraded the charges to include capital punishment. This was mainly a circumstantial case with some forensic evidence that left a lot of unanswered questions.

The general public believed that Casey Anthony was guilty because she not only did not report her daughter missing for thirty one days but in addition there was duct tape found on the little girl that the prosecutors argued was placed on the little girl before she died.

Most people hearing this evidence understands that these actions are not consistent with an accident as the criminal defense lawyers claim. I also have my doubts about the jury verdict, but after the jury votes to acquit there is really nothing you can do but accept the verdict.