Category Archives: Criminal Injustice

UPDATE III: Jeff Ashton: Class Act in the Classless Casey Anthony Case

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Logic, Pop-Culture, The Courts

What a class act is Florida’s Assistant state attorney Jeff Ashton. What magnificent closing arguments he delivered in the case of the through-and-through sociopath, Casey Anthony. What a stellar presentation of evidence, rebuttal of the defense’s pie-in-the-sky’s clashing theories of the crime, and slap shod, ad hoc, invent-as-you-go narrative.

Ashton etched in evidence an identikit of the classic sociopath. Casey Anthony had never told the truth in her short life; had never done a day’s work in her life, and expected constant gratification and thrills at every turn. It’s a great shame that a man with as rigorous a mind as Ashton’s is retiring. I don’t blame him. Reason and reality, increasingly, will be lost on younger juries, who now inhabit a parallel, electronic universe where idiocy is normalcy.

One criticism of Ashton: His slurping of bottled water was annoying; he ought to have been supplied with glasses of water for his hard work.

Another is his theory of the day of the crime. It was well-done, but a little narrow for the morons in the jury box to grasp. Mommy dearest departed with her daughter, who was never again seen alive. It is, however, possible, even likely, that this wanton woman, a sociopath—who kept telling her parents she had a job, a babysitter, but had neither and was lying and stealing to keep herself in the loop of club life—lost it with the child, and climbed into her in a fit of rage.

The murder of Caylee Anthony was no accident, but it could have been committed in an unplanned manner too. Casey is clever, but she is also a bitch in rage (and in-heat). The child was probably spirited and willful, and this woman (now letting down her hair, primping and preening as though on a red carpet) had had enough of her child’s willfulness, and of the responsibility her (pretty liberal) parents attempted to foist on their difficult daughter.

“I have never been able to figure out why someone would cover up an accident by putting three pieces of duct tape over the nose and mouth of a child and then dumping him in a swamp. When children die of accidents, people call for help; that’s how it works in the real world, not in fiction.” (Ashton on CNN)

Rather than do the job with which they were entrusted, and deduce a logical sequence of events from the powerful evidence provided by the prosecution, the Millennial moron juror interviewed took elements of the profile and the evidence as discrete, atomistic items rejecting her duty to apply some deductive thinking. As I’ve said, short of a YouTube clip, nothing would have convinced these clods of the Anthony woman’s guilt.

Casey’s victory is about “winning”… in the Age of the Idiot.

[I can’t find transcripts of Closing. Can anyone send these?]

UPDATE I: I give your Dean Eckstadt, alternate juror. He instantiates most everything I said about the Millennials, some of who sat on this case. “Like, from the pictures, she seemed a good mother to me. Like she’s innocent. Like, it is what it is.”

I called this justice in the age of YouTube and I told you that there is something deformed about many younger Americans’ mindset and mentality, some of whom debuted on the jury. I’ve witnessed it in the young people with whom I am forced to deal in my interactions—narcissistic, informal, disrespectful to their elders and betters; they conflate how they feel with how things should work, they are the center of the universe, lazy, often incompetent, slow, can’t follow any logical, sequence or algorithm, conflate the personal and the professional. On and on. In short, Dean Eckstadt.

Behold another such specimen: Russel Heuckler. Not as young but as limited.

UPDATE II (July 11): “In Florida, there are two possible penalties for first-degree murder — life in prison without parole or the death penalty.” Also, as I understand it, there are two phases to a trial. The other, highly opinionated, young female juror doing the rounds, indicated that what weighed on her ability to deliberate was the fact that the prosecution had sought the death penalty. She was, however, prohibited from judging the evidence with the recommended penalty in mind. Moreover, the jury did not have to recommend the death penalty. When the sentencing phase commenced, they could have recommended life in prison. Not unexpectedly, Mike Huckabee was not apprised of this distinction. The man is a simpleton. Always has been.

In any event, the jurors currently proudly touting their exquisite sensitivity had flouted the Judge’s instructions in the matter of distinguishing the deliberation from the penalty phase of a trial. To these simple, Millennial minds, everything was enmeshed. And, of course, there was no footage of the act…

UPDATE III (July 11): And Greta keeps a straight face. I give you the YouTube youth vote on Jury Duty.

UPDATE VI: Justice In The Age of YouTube (Innocent whiffs of Chloroform)

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Intelligence, Justice, Law

“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” was the jingle that captured the legal argument that undergirded the OJ Simpson case, one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in the annals of American justice. Here’s the adaptation for the Casey Anthony case: “If it wasn’t uploaded on YouTube you must acquit.”

It took 12 idiots 11 hours to decide to exonerate the (ALLEGEDLY) filicidal Casey Anthony, who was found “not guilty of first-degree murder and the other most serious charges against her in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter,” Caylee Marie Anthony. (CNN)

The evidence was overwhelming, if circumstantial (as in most murder cases). The prosecution presented the more intelligent, rational sequence of events, where motive, opportunity, and evidence all stacked-up against the sociopathic Casey Anthony.

Caylee was last seen on “June 16, 2008, but was not reported missing until July 15, 2008,” and then only by the child’s grandmother, Cindy Anthony, who “tracked her daughter [the accused] down and demanded answers regarding Caylee’s whereabouts.” Casey then led law enforcement officers on a wild-goose chase, during which this wicked young woman implicated another, non-existent, alleged child minder in an abduction.

All the while Casey Anthony was partying like there was no tomorrow.

The defense team was headed by a not-very bright Jose Baez, who threw everything but the kitchen sink at the 12 idiots who decided Casey Anthony’s fate. Wits were well-matched. From sexual abuse by George Anthony (Casey’s father), to the aforementioned grandpa having helped dispose of his drowned granddaughter body—the 12 bought it.

After all, we all know, from watching, CSI, that if a crime doesn’t happen as depicted in such series—where ample samples of DNA and incriminating footage always materialize —you must acquit.

This is the Age of the Idiot. The average individual seldom reads; he knows only what he sees. If he can’t picture something, he certainly cannot think about it in the abstract.

I expect that grappling with circumstantial evidence, which demands some level of abstraction in thinking, will become harder and harder for juries.

As far as living in ignominy goes: Casey Anthony’s jurors have made OJ’s jurors a little less lonely.

UPDATED I: “A reasonable doubt was turned into a reason to doubt”: this is how a CNN analyst put it very succinctly. It is a result, to an extent, of the commercialization of the adversary legal system.

UPDATE II: Judging from the thread on my Facebook Wall, we are doomed.

UPDATE III: Bill, it seems to me that you are mixing your political theories with the facts of the case. You seem to be following a formula that’s designed to please the requirements of a political philosophy, and not to serve justice. The defense always offers a competing theory of the events. And so it should. If the facts contradict this theory, then it is up to the jury to go where the evidence leads, and not where the world of possibilities lies. Divorced from reality is what this decision was.

I do think, though, that a circumstantial case—also what most murder cases are, apparently—should not carry the death penalty. DNA evidence should be required in order to mete capital punishment.

UPDATE IV (July 6): Incredulous on FACEBOOK. G-d help me: an ex-juror thinks that, coupled with the body, the possibility of a mother giving her kid (whose body turned up in a garbage bag) whiffs of chloroform doesn’t go toward reasonable proof of serious malice, in a court of law. This is the first time I’ve researched Chloroform in my LIFE, and I’m a mom. Thing is: I’m honest; people on this thread are engaged in mythical thinking. I know, as a mother, how effing awful a two-year-old can be, and my own daughter was a blessing—a sweet child by comparison to most American kids. As sweet as she was, she could drive me to distraction, and I was an evolved, married, non-partying mom …

UPDATE V: Imported from Facebook:

I’ve never watched Nancy Grace in my life. Now a lot of pundits, without explaining what irked them about the evidence implicating the only plausible suspect in the violent death her of daughter, are using this verdict to show-off their commitment to the Constitution. What a crock. Which relevant sections in this document would a conviction have violated? “The CSI Effect” captures this trial.

I do agree with the issue of overreach: the prosecution should have gone with a lesser charge and not sought death. “We’ll never know who killed Calley,” says Sean Hannity. Come again? I hope he gets that interview he’s bookers are probably seeking as I write. So is anyone here going to detail one-by-one the bits of evidence presented which they did not find credible? Is there perhaps a lead that was not followed? Another suspect? A violent boyfriend who was crazy about the narcissistic creep called Casey, and just had to have her for himself?

UPDATE VI (July 7): Some of the comments to this blog continue in this vain: “Rah-rah, revolution man. I’m so cool. I’m anti-government, and anti-authoritarianism. Therefore, the jury is cool. And anyone who goes against the state, even if the state presented the facts, is cool.”

As the libertarian who coined the verb to Nifong, and who was perhaps the only libertarian to defend Michael Vick based on propertarian principles, and one of the few to defend Michael Jackson—readers with attitude don’t impress me much. Facts sway me, not cool factor.

Enforcing Information Socialism

Business, Criminal Injustice, Law, Socialism, Trade

For violating laws enforcing information socialism, billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, innocent in natural law, could be incarcerated for decades. In their latest efforts to bring ruin to capital markets, SEC blood hounds have ensnared one of the country’s most powerful hedge-fund “impresarios.” MORE.

It’s easy to be thrown off scent when trying to divine the vague, ill-defined, unconstitutional laws under which the Securities and Exchange Commission hunts for corporate prey. Suffice it to say that the SEC operates with the understanding that competition in capital markets must proceed from a level playing field. All investors are entitled to the same information advantage irrespective of effort and abilities.

In a word, information socialism.

Rajaratnam had not violated the rights of other shareholders or potential buyers. There is no natural right to a guaranteed profit, nor is there a right to be shielded from losses. And there most certainly is no such right as a one that guarantees to the collective information the individual has worked hard to obtain and optimize.

UPDATE III: Libya: My First Liberal War (Bravo Bernie)

Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Democracy, Drug War, Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, The State, War, War on Drugs

Obama’s war against Libya is my first liberal war as a resident of the USA; I was living in Canada during the Kosovo campaign (here). Americans may be used to waging war on the world, but this brand of Exceptionalism (here) is a shock to the sane person’s system. Most countries—I’ve lived in a few—do not go to war with the regularity the US does. As it was once noted, here, “a brave nation fights because it must; a cowardly one fights because it can.”

To tell you the truth, the overall zeal to attack Iraq (see “Tuned-Out, Turned-On, And Hot For War”) in 2003, was on a par with the enthusiasm currently being expressed for defending the amorphous entity we call “rebels” (whose Egyptian compatriots are now performing hymen inspections on women (here). Back then, with the exception of some, not all, libertarians and lefties, the justifications advanced by the retread liberals known as neoconservatives were wholly embraced. By popular demand, MSNBC, CNN, and the New York Times (This means you, Judith Chalabi Miller, now at FoxNews) adopted a similar faux patriotism devoid of skepticism and serenely accepting of every silly White House claim.

As to the casus belli, nothing has changed. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn), McMussolini, Newt Gingrich, FoxNews, Juan Williams, and others, all solemnly intone about the massacres that where in process when Obama began strafing Libya. Let us presume that it is the US’s role to stop injustice wherever it occurs and vet the world’s leaders; where’s the evidence of these killing fields? At least when President Bill Clinton bombed Kosovo in 1999, also without the formality of the comatose Congress’s approval, there were those disturbing images. Now we hear nothing but assertions and the childish terms: “the dictator” is killing “his people” repeated ad nauseam à la the slobbering over Egypt.

I suspect that the average Libyan has fewer encounters with representatives of the state than the average black man living in New York. (“According to a report in The Times last year, there were a record 580,000 stop-and-frisks in the city in 2009. Most of those stopped (55 percent) were black.” I know, harmless fun when done in a “good” country like ours.)

The American Managerial State is so much more efficient in encroaching on its citizens than are these tin-pot dictators, whom we have built-up into mega-monsters in our infantile, Disneyfied minds. In Libya, some baksheesh is likely to make a bureaucrat disappear. Given the US’s record-breaking incarceration rates, the average American is more likely to be jailed, harassed or have a threatening encounter with the state’s emissaries than your average Egyptian under Mubarak (who chased the Brotherhood, mainly).

Tell me, who killed Carol Anne Gotbaum? (or Baron “Scooter” Pikes?) Gotbaum met her demise not in a Pakistani or Saudi airport, but in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor. There are lots more like her. Let’s worry about our own tyrants.

Naturally, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Joe Lieberman, the Fox and MSNBC phalanx—all approve of Obama’s paternalistic war in Libya. The rigor mortis Right, in particular, has protested the operation not on points of principle, but on timing, strategy, mission statement and the degree of control exerted by Über America: Obama entered the fray too late, he’s relinquishing the National Greatness agenda by sharing the cockpit with the Europeans, only when the US leads the world in a military operation can any good come of it, blah, blah, blah.

UPDATE I (March 28): STRONGMAN BIDEN. I’m sure it’s a mere coincidence—a statistical anomaly, when it comes to the interface between Americans and their leaders—but in the “good country” (USA), those doing the Vice President’s bidding can lock up a reporter in a closet for hours “after he was invited to cover a Florida political fundraiser because they did not want him talking with the guests.” Onward to fix Libya!

UPDATE II: Democrat Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) adds another point to the limited litany of complaints against BHO’s war: The Great Communicator didn’t convey his (magnificent) message effectively. Repackage the message and all will be well again.

And I was worried for a moment.

No mention of America’s sink hole of a debt.

UPDATE III: BRAVO BERNIE SANDERS. The Democratic senator from Vermont, a man of the far left with whom I seldom agree, puts up an opposition to BHO’s Libya adventure, on the Dylan Ratigan Show: “We have lost thousands of lives in Afghanistan and Iraq [for naught], and trillions of dollars.”

And here’s Bernie’s pivotal point, put in precise language:

“I would hope that the president will tell us [in his address later today] that, if our friends in Europe (France ad Italy), and the UK, feel very strongly about this issue, that they will do what they want to do. But I am not enthusiastic about the US getting into yet another conflict given the other two wars and $ 14 trillion in national debt.” More or less.

Sanders went on to spoil this common sense with his usual eco-energy silliness.