Stop Helping
A lot of people are outraged by the acquittal of Casey Anthony. I didn't follow the case so I have no idea how to feel. But I did catch a bit of the press conference with her lawyer, Jose Baez.
He went off on an odd tangent: "I think that this case is a perfect example of why the death penalty does not work and why we all need to stop and look and think twice about a country that decides to kill its own citizens."
I'm missing the connection. His client got off on the most serious charges, so we don't know what punishment she might have received. Is Baez simply arguing since he believes she was innocent and she might have gotten the death penalty, that shows what a bad idea it is? I think most people looking at the case got a very different lesson.
I've got plenty of problems with the death penalty, but I don't think a bizarre screed from Jose Baez will help the cause.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
3 Comments:
Misdirection is the stock-in-trade for criminal defense work. It's easy to get caught up in it while speaking off the cuff. Your link accurately captured my impressions of him -- mediocre (or worse) trial lawyer from a technical standpoint, but tenacious enough to bull through that to provide a spirited defense. I still think Nancy Grace was the best thing that ever happened to him or his client. Absent her relentless media pressure, this is a manslaughter-pled-down-by-public-defender case that makes page 4 of the Miami Tribune. Instead, the prosecutors rushed to trial with a flimsy circumstantial case for capital murder. A great deal of credit is owed to the jurors, who took their jobs seriously rather than bowing to public opinion.
Is Nancy Grace the reason I had to hear about this case everyday. Its a terrible tragedy when a little girl is killed but how many tragedies go unreported everyday while this one sucks all the air out the newscasts. (Note- I don't want all the unreported tragedies to be reported)
Its got to the point when I automatically stop listening when the usual suspects start talking- Dan Abrams, Star Jones, Gloria Allred, Screamer Nancy grace, etc...- I know its just some pathetic horrible tragedy (or sometime stupid sex scandal) thats going to be blown up in to ultra-reality TV.
Walter Cronkite and the other old men who read the news back in the the day were far from perfect but they are fucking Einsteins next to this stuff
The immediate sense I take from the quoted passage is "My client is guilty, but got off because she might have gotten the death penalty had she been convicted." I don't know the context of the statement, but what else could he be saying. Maybe: "See, the possibility of the death penalty did not deter my client from killing her own child."
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