How did Jose Baez, the lawyer for Casey Anthony, win this most difficult of trials? The chattering class wants to know. Pundits from one end of the coast to another had her convicted and on her way to death row. They’re all hungover today, nursing a sense that something, they are not quite sure what, went horribly wrong.
The folks best able to tell us what happened in that courtroom aren’t talking. It was refreshing to see all 12 of the jurors in the case boycott the post-trial press conference organized to take place the verdict was reached. CNN showed row...
July 6, 2011
You are disappointed, aren’t you? Perhaps even enraged. Why no verdict since the O.J. Simpson case has so offended you. Of course, O.J. murdered his ex-wife and her lover. Of course, Casey Anthony killed her toddler so she could party. Today’s verdict is another example of why the criminal justice system is a sick joke, a cruel hoax. You could of resolved this case in a bullet’s time. And you would have, wouldn’t you? You would have done so in the name of righteousness.
In case you have actually had to work for a living and have not yet heard, a...
July 5, 2011
I was late to develop an interest in the Casey Anthony case in Florida. A jury deliberates today on whether she murdered her toddler. If she is found guilty, she faces the death penalty. The case is a long way from the jurisdiction I call home. I have no dog in the fight.
What caught my eye was the fighting outside of the courtroom among folks clamoring for a ringside seat at the trial. The New York Times reported that people were taking vacation time to go and to sit in the room to watch the proceedings. Clearly, this trial strikes a popular nerve.
The State of Florida...
July 5, 2011
It is not at all clear to me why the Founding Fathers matter. I understand the significance of the colonies’ break with Britain. And the creation of a new secular order, a federal government of limited powers binding together independent states, endures today. But resorting to the founders, their intentions, their ideas, and their ideals, is a pernicious form of question-begging. I say we ought on Independence Day to consider seriously our own commitment to liberty. We sell it cheaply when we defer to those long dead, as though they had decided fundamental truths for all...
July 4, 2011
July 3, 2011
Now that the dust is settling in the Casey Anthony case, trial watchers are going to feel all dressed up with no place to go. I say head to Mangum,...
July 2, 2011
Dominique Strauss-Kahn was all smiles yesterday as he strolled out of a Manhattan courtroom, the conditions of his pre-trial confinement reduced to...
July 1, 2011
Tim Moynahan has been practicing law longer than many readers of this post have been alive. He's a hero of mine, and so I asked him to read my new...
June 30, 2011
James “Whitey” Bulger a hero? Not really. Not ever. He stands accused of murdering 19 people, and has a list of charges longer than...
June 29, 2011
I learned many years ago never to reject a gift given by a prosecutor. So yesterday, after a jury was selected and we were about to begin evidence...
June 28, 2011
The federal government might have James “Whitey” Bulger, 81, in custody, but Bulger, an alleged former crime boss accused of...