Those of us who followed the trial were always confronted with what may well be the most exasperating of dilemmas in human discourse: the gap between what did in fact happen and the arguments of those who keep spinning us conflicting narratives regarding what they insist happened instead.
Apparently, our legal system is predicated not on finding out the objective truth but on which side’s argument [partly subjective, partly objective] is most convincing. In other words, while Casey almost certainly did kill Cayle [or was somehow involved in her accidental death] the state’s argument did not prove this…objectively.
Or, perhaps, even more exasperatingly, it did not prove it, “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Well the problem is that regardless of whether you know she was involved, if you don’t know how involved, then you can’t say whether it was 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree murder…But personally it would seem there needs to be a condition for such cases…if it is clear that someone did do it, or was involved to a degree, then there should be 4th degree murder, which means involvement of unknown nature…and then a punishment of years restricted to some amount but subject to adjustment by the judge as to the observation of probable degree of involvement or something…IDK
Fuck Nancy Grace. Infact let’s make it a threesome on CNN where I Fuck Nancy Grace and Casey Anthony at the same time. After the act I would post that shit all over the internet and make millions.
Wow that sounds hot…
The title of the porno would be called, “Taking a bite out of crime.”
I follow Baudrillard in saying, “Nothing happened.” In the same way that Baudrillard famously says “There was no Gulf War”, I say “there was no ‘actual’ murder”.
Whenever we make conjectures about “what actually happened” we are reinforcing the idea that there is some substance behind this massive pageant, and of course there isn’t.
This is an absolutely terrifying proposal. It makes me want to vomit.
It also reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld talking about WMDs: “There are known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns.”
I think we’re seeing a formula (like the formula for a sitcom) develop, where in these nationally publicized trials, the defendant against all odds is ultimately acquitted. O.J. walks. Bill Clinton doesn’t get impeached. Roger Clemens doesn’t go to jail. Cayce Anthony gets acquitted.
This seems to me to be an interesting change in the history of “show-trials.” Think about hangins’ in westerns and medieval times. Or Christians in the lion’s pit if they don’t recant. It doesn’t matter whether the person is innocent or guilty, there’s going to be a hangin’. The trial and execution are largely matters of entertainment (hence show-trials).
The most telling example is this strange paradox in testing to see if a woman is a witch. If you want to figure out if a woman is a witch, you throw her in the lake. If she floats: she is a witch, and you must burn her. If she sinks: she is not a witch, but she has drowned.
So when we think of show-trials in the past, we imagine a world where guilt is a ambiguous or irrelevant, punishment is doled out, and if there were no punishment, the people would be sorely disappointed. If there is no hanging this weekend, the villagers might realize they would like more bread, and decide to revolt.
Now, I think today we have a different situation. I’m not saying that there is some evil genius or “elite” who has rigged the Cayce Anthony case. Hyperreal culture is more organic than that. I am only saying that it kind of makes sense that today’s show-trials often end in acquittal.
It makes sense precisely because there was no actual murder of Cayle Anthony. There is no Event because You Are the Event. (i.e. In Time Magazine there is no Person of the Year because You are the Person of the Year).
Imagine that Cayce Anthony was found guilty. If this had happened, all the ambiguity around “what actually happened” would dissolve. She did it and of course she did it. Clearly she was:
She would be punished. There was a crime, and there is a sentence. But this does not work today. Look at Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden, victims of predator drones. It’s all totally uninteresting. Not at all “seductive.” There was actually a bipartisan backlash against the killing of Bin Laden.
I think now, unlike in medieval times, it is more entertaining for the accused to be acquitted than to be executed. You could probably trace the switchover from modernity to postmodernity along these lines. In 1920, Saco and Vanzetti get the death penalty. (I don’t want to try and address the Stalin-era showtrials, which seem to be a very different phenomena. Let’s stick to the US.) Saco and Vanzetti are the first big show-trial of the 20th Century. They are called “anarchists,” they are accused of robbery and murder. All over the world anarchists and leftists are up in arms, things get very political. A perfect show-trial, every interest group gets a stake in it. Saco and Vanzetti are found guilty.
Then perhaps the turning point comes in the 1970s. Nixon is never actually acquitted or found guilty, he preemptively resigns. Or maybe you could make a case with the investigation of the Kennedy assassination that we see pop culture losing its taste for the public execution (of Lee Harvey). We’d rather have the ambiguity of an acquittal back. It’s the “Shadow of a doubt” part that makes for good television. Acquittal is not innocence, it’s a titillating ambiguity.
Anyhow we are fully in the current trend of shocking acquittal by the time O.J. comes around.
I think this may be because as long as Cayce Anthony is not executed by the “real” state, WE get to be the executioners. WE get to construct our own stories about what happened to the kid.
It remains to be seen what will happen to Julian Assange. Personally I hope he gets acquitted. I think the work he’s doing is very important and good. It’s sort of a different situation with him from Cayce Anthony (as show-trials go) because everyone understands that Assange is not actually being tried for rape. The rape trial is simply a ploy to extradite him somewhere he can be tried for espionage or something. If Assange is found guilty of rape, I still maintain that he will be acquitted of espionage, precisely because the formula for show-trials ends in shocking acquittal now. It’s as predictable as the last 5 minutes of an episode of House.
Interesting prognosis and describing you got there. You might be onto somthing there.
The absurdity of modern culture seems to have many faces. Today’s show trials is just one face. I like your writing style.
Have you ever notice modern society’s inherent need to be distracted? Distracted from what? Distracted from itself. Everybody likes a good distraction.
I figured as much would come, it does seem like it would be rather hard to assert that somebody should be punished by adjudging degree of involvment (especially on the basis that degree of involvment could be asserted in the first place…)…how would one judge such…it just doesn’t seem possible…a rather hypothetical possibility when I think about it…Theoretically possible to result in good(if assumed it would), practically not possible at all…higher tendency to not work if ever…
Alot of it is typical the only thing that is aired are things that are outrageous, which then lends to people being enraged, and could overall lend to stupid attempts at correcting things such as my own thought above about 4th degree murder…
Well don’t sell yourself short. What you’ve described is actually kind of the way things go in a civil suit. A civil suit is where the plaintiff is a person (person v. defendant), as opposed to a criminal suit where the state brings the charges (state v. defendant).
In a criminal case you have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but in a civil suit this isn’t necessary. In a civil suit it is actually OK if there is some reasonable doubt about the defendant’s guilt. All the plaintiff must do is prove that it is more likely that the defendant is guilty than innocent. So, to relate a civil suit to your idea, if you do know the defendant is somehow involved, then more likely than not they can be found guilty in a civil suit.
Often there is a criminal suit filed by the state AND a civil suit filed by some private individual for the same crime. A big difference between the two is that in a civil suit the punishment for guilt is usually some amount of money being awarded to the plaintiff rather than jailtime or death.
If you look back at the O.J. case, O.J. gets acquitted in the criminal court but is actually penalized in civil court. I remember people saying things like, “Well, he got acquitted in the criminal case, but at least they nailed him in the civil suit.”
Well that makes sense I would say as long as the likely hood is above 50% (not numerically necessarily you could just say more likely than unlikely) otherwise anything is possible to some degree and as such all people brought to trial could be charged to some degree…Anyways the thought on 4th degree murder was sort of a stream-of-conscious blurt…I didn’t really think it out much…
In Scotland, there are three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty and not proven. For all practical purposes though, not guilty and not proven are the same thing: the defendent is neither fined nor imprisoned.
[Some call it the, “not guilty but don’t ever do it again” verdict.]
Instead, it is thought that a “stigma” will follow the defendant.
Of course a stigma will follow Casey Anthony too. “Yeah”, but some protest, “all the way to the bank”.
What intrigues me about cases like this is the exasperating gap between “what did happen” and “what we think we know happened”. I have always seen this as a crucial component in the configuration of Gods.
Unlike mere mortals God knows all. So there is no question of anyone ever getting away with murder. And, unlike mere mortals, God is all powerful. So there is no question of the guilty being punished.
Thus this reinforces my contention that Gods are basically the mother of all psychological defense mechanisms.
Many fail to see that incarceration is not the only form of punishment. There is natural social punishment…unfortunately even of those who didn’t commit crimes…as such simply being tried can be a social death penalty regardless of criminality. As such it would seem best to leave these things unpublicized unless deemed necessary by the judge in order for accurate punishment perhaps or, Ok’ed by the defendant. not to say C.A. didn’t deserve it…though who really knows…
The philosophy of pornographic lust. You should check that shit out. It’s cool man. It’s so deep you might cum all over yourself when your done checking into it.
The beauty of certain social punishments of say being poor is that there can be unity of the larger group…such that it is not really much of a punishment, just an exclusivity away from the Ignorant-Better-than-thou Club, who’s many luxuries are really weakening factors anyways.