Guilty Until Innocent

I have to confess up front that I despise tabloids and sensationalistic journalism. For that very reason I ignored the Anthony trial as much as possible. It looked to be another "OJ" trial where the media blew absolutely everything out of proportion and Americans got way too wrapped up in a court case that they won't care two bits about in a month. It became very difficult to ignore the trial a couple of days ago, however, when my entire Facebook feed page and most news pages blew up with the news of Casey Anthony's acquittal. It seemed about 80% of the FB posts I read were expressing outrage over the jury's verdict.

Maybe Casey Anthony is guilty. I don't know. Certainly the "facts" presented by the media painted her in a not so good light. But, I didn't watch 2 seconds of the trial, and even if I had I was not privy to all of the information and evidence that the jury was. For that reason, I trust their verdict. I have heard several jurors come out in the last day or two and say that they really don't believe Casey Anthony is innocent, but at the same time there was not enough evidence to prove her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It sounds to me like the jurors did their job very well and maybe the prosecution didn't. Again, that's speculation since I didn't watch the trial.

What astounded me in all of this was that the vast majority of people decided a long time ago, before hardly any evidence was submitted, that Casey Anthony was guilty. Those same people never wavered in their opinion, whether they reviewed evidence or not, and thus expressed outrage at the verdict presented by the jury who had listened to every second of the case and reviewed every piece of evidence.

Quick legal lesson: "Innocent until proven guilty" is not in the US Constitution like so many seem to think. You have the right not to incriminate yourself and you have the right to a trial by jury, but presumption of innocence is not a standard for every legal case. According to the US Supreme Court in 1978 (Taylor v. Kentucky), the presumption of the innocence of a criminal defendant is best described as an assumption of innocence that is indulged in the absence of contrary evidence. It is not considered evidence of the defendant's innocence, and it does not require that a mandatory inference favorable to the defendant be drawn from any facts in evidence. So, there is no requirement that the jury view the defendant with a prejudice towards innocence. In some special cases, the judge may give instructions to the jury to presume innocence if the judge feels the jury might be swayed by extenuating circumstances rather than the facts of the case, but that is not a requirement, nor is it part of every case.

That said, no matter how much we USAmericans tend to harp on and on about "innocent until proven guilty," reality shows we actually follow "guilty until proven innocent and even then we'll feel there was a miscarriage of justice." Can you name me one high profile case where the defendant was acquitted and everyone was happy? Of course not. There's always wailing and gnashing of teeth. Why? Because we want justice for the victim. And I agree with that!

But, even when there is no "victim" we still tend to follow the same mentality. Think of the whole Cam Newton nonsense from the last few months. Alabama fans wailed about how he "got off" and were absolutely convinced he's guilty even with no evidence to the contrary. Auburn fans, on the other hand, largely seemed overly-defensive, almost as if they, too believed Cam was probably guilty but they were going to defend him anyway. The vast majority of sports pundits and fans not associated with either school pretty much chalked him up as guilty. Now, I'm not an Auburn fan, but I'm asking, "Where's the evidence to declare him guilty?" The NCAA did a complete investigation, which may still be going on. I'm not sure. But no evidence has come out to say he's guilty, and certainly the NCAA would've lowered the boom by now had they found anything, yet we declare him guilty anyway.

Again, I understand we want justice. And I understand our legal system is sometimes flawed. We should work to overcome injustice. Jesus was very much an advocate for helping those unable to help themselves, especially when society prevents them from getting a fair shake. Taking Jesus' words of caring for the "least of these" and his love of children, if you truly care about Caylee Anothony, let me encourage you to stop wailing about it on Facebook and actually do something. No child should be victimized. Yet, sadly, it happens all too often. Caylee Anthony, unfortunately, is not a unique situation. According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) report to Congress in 2010, almost 5 children die each day from child abuse and neglect with 75% of those being under the age of 4. Reported abuse cases show that 9.3 per 1,000 children experience abuse and neglect in our country. 33% of those are 3 or under and 3/4 of those would be under age 12. This abuse occurs over all races and socioeconomic statuses. In fact, 44% of reported victims were white, 22.3% were African-American, and 20.7% were Hispanic. There were oover 20,000 children in the state of Alabama who experienced some form of reported abuse in 2009.

I put all of that out there to say wailing about "injustice" and saying hateful things about Casey Anthony accomplishes nothing. Even saying how "sad" you are for Caylee accomplishes nothing. If you really want to make a difference, find a way to help all of these other children who are suffering abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, Caylee is beyond our ability to help and God is tending to that precious child now. Let's allow this to be a true Romans 8:28 moment and let God bring something good from Caylee's death by spurring us to help those we still can.