In half-hearted defense of the loud, perhaps they were horrified and terrified by the crime, and the mass media (not excepting social media) are crude devices for expressing, and understanding, emotions that we wish we could never feel.
Wherein I make obligatory irritable comment about the difference between innocent (which no jury decides) and not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I didn't follow the story closely, and the evidence seemed sufficient to rule Casey out as a potential babysitter. But an acquittal in a case that, from what I could tell, was purely circumstantial is just not shocking.
Maybe the slut-shaming prosecution trick doesn't work so well when the slut in question is a single mom with a dead child and a traumatic past.
Judging people who judge people.
You know, the Post can't come to your house and make you read it. You've got to try a bit, Parsimon.
I haven't followed the case closely but I was under the impression (possibly wrong) that she was pretty obviously guilty. What's surprising about people being outraged when someone gets away with murder?
I may try in a bit. I did look at the Wikipedia page for Caylee Anthony, and recognized the picture of the mom. I otherwise don't know a thing about this.
I have to do a couple of other things right now, though. If anybody has a link to a short description of the situation, that would be okay.
I am also outraged at the outrage, e'en though I might have voted to convict. Probably not.
Via the wonders of the web, I accidentally clicked on 5 minutes of Nancy Grace. Cops are ok sometimes, but not prosecutors or ex-prosecutors. I know it is in the job description to project certainty and perfect justness, but still.
Here ya go, parsimon.
So hey, knowing what you know now, if you were the prosecutor, would you go for the murder charge, or just felony child neglect? Seems like the latter would be a slam dunk.
3: I like the idea that someone on trial for murdering her child ought to be rendered sympathetic by the fact that she has a dead child.
The Menendez brothers didn't get sympathy for being orphaned.
Didn't they plead not guilty by some reasons other than not having done it?
The Menendez brothers didn't get sympathy for being orphaned.
They should have tried for panache instead of chutzpah.
Since the defense took the position that she didn't murder her child, I think it follows that it was worthy of sympathy.
I don't recall hearing anything about a motive, just lots of really weird circumstantial evidence. What was the motive supposed to be?
OTOH, I think DSK is being totally set-up.
Real disappointed in Lemieux.
I have no idea. I was just pointing out the most noted recent example of the old joke just in case 13 was too subtle.
18.2: Lots of people wish he could have got Talbot and Jagr, but I don't think they blame Lemieux that much.
After reading some of those details about DSK's accuser, I thought she must be a spy, except that surely a spy would be more careful.
Similarly, if she's a murderer, Casey Anthony was amazingly good at not leaving any evidence, while not behaving at all like someone who's trying to get away with murder. This is also what you would expect out of someone who's innocent, of course.
23 to CA or DSK?
The tidbits I heard re: DSK's accuser didn't do much, for me, to overcome the fact that the guy started with "It never happened! I wasn't there! I was at lunch!" and only switched to "It was consensual!" after he realized his alibi wasn't holding up.
24
The tidbits I heard re: DSK's accuser didn't do much, for me, to overcome the fact that the guy started with "It never happened! I wasn't there! I was at lunch!" and only switched to "It was consensual!" after he realized his alibi wasn't holding up.
You have a reference for this? In particular would any of these alleged statements be admissable at trial?
The current defense version (offered through leaks of course) seems to be that he stiffed a hooker.
12: So hey, knowing what you know now, if you were the prosecutor, would you go for the murder charge, or just felony child neglect? Seems like the latter would be a slam dunk.
Cripe. I have no idea. There seems to be some child neglect at hand, but I don't know what would make it count as felony-level, technically and formally speaking. Since I haven't followed any of this at all, I cannot say.
26: www.businessinsider.com/dsk-alibi-2011-5
admissibility depends on whether he himself said these things publicly or if they all came through his lawyers.
if you were the prosecutor, would you go for the murder charge, or just felony child neglect? Seems like the latter would be a slam dunk.
Not just murder, but capital murder. Whatever the merits of the prosecution's case (having deliberately ignored the news accounts, I'm not one to judge), it would have been disturbing indeed if the state had sentenced her to die based on circumstantial evidence and the flimsiest of forensic evidence. Not that it hasn't happened before.
Stanley judges all judgers who do not judge themselves.
I know it is in the job description to project certainty and perfect justness, but still.
Finding myself in rare agreement with McManus here. If providence confered upon me the power to strike 10 people permanently mute, Nancy Grace would probably make the list at #7 or 8, just ahead of Lou Dobbs.
Nancy Grace seems to prefer a justice system based on the principle of guilty until proven executed. Then, still guilty!
||
"Stretched length is thought to correlate to erect length, the team wrote." via
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28
26: www.businessinsider.com/dsk-alibi-2011-5
The quoted claim was
IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, better known as DSK, was having lunch with his daughter at the time when the sexual assault he is alleged to have committed supposedly took place, his lawyers say, ...
which appears to be technically correct given that the initial police account (later revised to place the alleged attack earlier) had the alleged attack taking placing around 1 pm:
The New York Police Department arrested Mr. Strauss-Kahn at 2:15 a.m. Sunday "on charges of criminal sexual act, attempted rape, and an unlawful imprisonment in connection with a sexual assault on a 32-year-old chambermaid in the luxury suite of a Midtown Manhattan hotel yesterday" about 1 p.m., Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman, said.
So this "evidence" seems completely worthless to the prosecution. It is not DSK's job to prove he is innocent it is the prosecution's job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty. This seems completely impossible given the prosecution itself apparently believes the accuser is a pathological liar.
It's almost as hard for me to believe that he'd stiff a hooker as that he'd rape a hotel maid. He's a politician.
33: Two thoughts. First, what is the strength of that correlation? Second, how did they write the grant for that one?
how did they write the grant for that one?
With their startlingly long ring fingers.
"We're going to get a ruler and measure dudes' penises after pulling on them really hard. It's fine cause they'll be unconscious and we are scientists so that makes it not creepy."
"And we're going to Korea, so the Port Authority can't call the cops on us this time."
35
It's almost as hard for me to believe that he'd stiff a hooker as that he'd rape a hotel maid. He's a politician.
Nevertheless that is the current defense story :
Meanwhile, defense sources described a different scenario, in which DSK admittedly engaged with the maid in a consensual, sex-for-money exchange in his Sofitel suite, with no force involved -- and she turned against him only when he stiffed her.
It does seem like asking for trouble. But since
Multiple investigators for the defense and prosecution have confirmed that they believe the maid was turning tricks at the hotel, and prosecution sources have even accused her of continuing to "entertain" male visitors while in a DA safehouse.
some sort of hooker/client dispute seems likely.
13: I like the idea that someone on trial for murdering her child ought to be rendered sympathetic by the fact that she has a dead child.
Forgetting the law for a minute, this is the tension that generally has one of these cases transfixing the nation every few years. History's greatest monster or legitimately bereaved person being subject to the added crushing indignity of accusation? Call it Lindy Chamberlain syndrome*. Who was that with the husband a few years back, Laci Peterson, Patterson? I think people love to try out their "cheater detectors" on this grand test. Of course the information they have is crap--but they just *know*.
*Anybody taking this as an opportunity to go on about Meryl Streep's attempted accent will be hunted down and shot. You have been warned.
44
42.last: Voice of experience?
Nah, I always collect in advance.
As I responded to my one FB friend who was flipping out about the Anthony case: I think this is a lot more worthy of our attention and opprobrium.
I just read the Wikipedia article. It's enough evidence that would pile up over the course of a cop show and leave the viewers with no dissatisfaction as to its conclusion, but still mostly circumstantial; the physical evidence is lousy, and the search-history, while pushing me over to spectatorially thinking she did it, doesn't put it beyond a reasonable doubt.
33: as we know, they should have drawn regularl spaced dots on the penises to confirm equal stretching along the continuum. Wouldn't want the stretched penis to neck.
Or: to be more accurate, they should have given each of the subjects a gentle hand job to get a truly accurate reading, and measured volumetric displacement to confirm. Science!
People,
People who judge people,
Are the unStanliest people,
In the world.
But the children...
Won't someone think of the children?
No, because of our liberal pride,
We hide the judging inside.
Now prosecutors,
Are very illiberal people;
They're the judgiest people,
In the world...
I haven't been following this one at all, but got into a conversation with one of the architects next door. His wife is following it, and he watched just a bit. And saw some pretty unprofessional behavior on the part of the prosecution team.
It's fairly safe to say that in general a lawyer can't win a case -- you needs facts and law for that -- but they can sure lose one.
I have no opinion on what happened in this one.
Well, I have no opinion either. Or no informed opinion, certainly.
I'm outraged by the outrage, and disturbed by the sense of personal grievance of which Stanley speaks. Makes me think of pitchforks and of lynch mobs and such; makes me wonder about the source/cause of the anger and anxiety that is being channeled/manipulated by the likes of Nancy Grace and similar media mavens.
At the same time, I'd like to avoid a certain crowing (or even triumphalist) tone over this verdict. Given that this was a capital case, and I'm vehemently opposed to the death penalty, I guess I'm fine with it (or at least, I'd be a lot less than fine with the jury's verdict if it had gone the other way).
And yet. And yet. A two-year old child died (whether by design or by accident, and I suspect accident, actually), and her parent/guardians figured they would not report it, and just let it go? I mean, wtf?! That's quite seriously messed-up, and so far beyond our usual (and mutually shared, I like to think, because I'm not a libertarian) sense of the parent-child obligation, that the scary judgmental-anger doesn't really surprise me. Child neglect at the very least, imho, and there's something really off about this whole thing.
All I've heard is the name. I've also heard there was some child murder case that was making the news, but I didn't know the two are connected. And that's in spite of the fact that I read the headlines of the Post and News every day at my bodegas.
Also: all I really needed to know about the Sunshine State, I learned from Flannery O'Connor.
That's some scary place.
26: Even if "he stiffed a hooker" the question remains whether the alleged hooker consented to being stiffed. Opportunity for crime does not make it less criminal & whilst it is good that the legal system is such as not to go easy on those setting up opportunity of crimes, it's not commendable behavior to fall for a set-up. One is hard pressed to paint a beautiful picture of somebody thinking he can run into a stranger with genitalia that match one's sexual persuasion and proceed to make use of that somebody's genitalia. Which is probably all of the reasons the defense needed to proceed with a ferocious focus on the morality of the stranger.
[Yes, I'm bored.]
When I'm bored and tired I offer opinions that are being offered simultaneously by 7 M other people on 1M or so other blogs.
I'm bored and tired most of the time.
I should point out that DSK's brief has publicly denied that money changed hands. Therefore, either they quietly briefed the press to get the idea out there, or else the Murdoch Post just made it up. Both possibilities are credible.
Maybe both. One journalist met another at the coffee machine and an anonymous source was born.
I should point out that DSK's brief has publicly denied that money changed hands.
Huh. That's an odd choice for them to make -- impromptu prostitution seems like the only plausible story other than rape. It looks like he'll get away without a defense, but if he'd needed one at all, I'd want to be able to tell a prostitution story if I were him.
A woman in my office sat down at her computer yesterday after lunch and five seconds later said "Oh my god! She was found innocent! I can't believe it! And put her head down on the desk, seemingly weeping. I don't want to go full "I don't even have a TV" here by saying "Who? Casey Anthony?" in a world where search engines exists, I knew there was some sort of trial of an irresponsible woman who must have murdered her children because she is so irresponsible, but I would not have been able to tell you her name or where she lives. Anyway, this was pretty awkward and I just went out in the hall without responding to my coworker's anguish.
impromptu prostitution seems like the only plausible story other than rape.
Or "Impromptitution", as we call it down at the Mineshaft.
I should point out that DSK's brief has publicly denied that money changed hands
A pedant would suggest that if you promise to pay a prostitute and then don't, your money has not changed hands. Surely even a French lawyer would not have the brass balls to try and get away with that one.
"in which DSK admittedly engaged with the maid in a consensual, sex-for-money exchange in his Sofitel suite, with no force involved "
So he admitted he comitted a crime, yes?
64: maybe they can add Bill Clinton to the team.
64: I was wondering if that was the story.
65
"in which DSK admittedly engaged with the maid in a consensual, sex-for-money exchange in his Sofitel suite, with no force involved "
So he admitted he comitted a crime, yes?
He hasn't admitted to anything, stories leaked by "defense sources" aren't evidence. And IANAL but it is unclear that a crime was comitted. If he didn't explicitly offer money what is the crime? Well I suppose adultery is still technically a crime in New York but the law hasn't been enforced for so long that it seems questionable that it is still valid.
I don't even have a Casey Anthony.
A pedant would suggest that if you promise to pay a prostitute and then don't, your money has not changed hands.
An accountant, on the other hand, would consider it an expense accrued at the point of intercourse.
As an aside, if your kid dies, you ought to have your lawyer with you before you talk with the police. They arent there to help you.
73: I find it hard to believe that most parents would react that way (requesting a lawyer present). I'm not disputing it's good advice. I just can't see a lot of parents, who believe they didn't do anything wrong, refraining from speaking to the cops without a lawyer. (Not to mention the social opprobrium it would invite. "Did you hear they lawyered up right away?!")
74:
I agree. But, everything you say in your emotional chaotic state will be used against you. Later when you think it through and remember the correct sequencing of how everything happened, they will call you a liar.
A police officer involved in a fatal shooting never makes a statement until 48 or 72 hours later. You are an idiot if you dont follow the same procedure.
infants-death-has-suffered-enough-grandmother-says-1167224.html?printArticle=y">This guy would probably be a lot better off today if he'd remembered that the police weren't there to help him.
Update: Verbatim quote from co-worker mentioned in #61, six days later, attempting to initiate conversation with male co-worker from China:
"You know Casey Anthony? The one with the little girl? She's getting out. Isn't that.... (unable to finish sentence because of rage)"
Update: My co-worker is now talking about how there may be some justice after all, since some volunteer group is going to sue Casey Anthony for half a million dollars because they spent lots of time. Sure, she is a pathetic unemployed person in debt to her world-class lawyers, but she's going to get a fortune from selling her story to magazines or something. Quote, "the idea that she'll ever have any money is disgusting".