It seems to me that an appropriate response to a headline like this is profound indifference. Who cares what Nancy Grace thinks about the Casey Anthony case?
Of course, lots of people do care. I know because when I was combing through the day's news items, “nancy grace casey anthony” was the number one trending search on Google this morning.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of Nancy Grace’s opinions, however, and why they matter to people, let’s run through the Cliff’s Notes of the Casey Anthony trial--just in case you haven’t been following it.
Anthony, 25, was accused of knocking out her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, with chloroform, suffocating her with duct tape, stashing her in the trunk of her car, then dumping her in the woods.
The defense claimed that Casey Anthony, who lied about several details regarding the disappearance of Caylee, came from an abusive family and that her father covered up Caylee’s accidental drowning in the family pool by dumping her body in the woods.
On Tuesday Casey Anthony was found not guilty of all charges except lying to the police.
Nothing about this case is clear. There are no good guys. The grandparents are clearly as bent and narcissistic as their female offspring. All of them do their best impersonation of human beings, but end up looking little better than mirror-gazing monkeys miming outrage and remorse.
Something is clearly missing in that family.
In a just universe Casey Anthony would have been genetically incapable of reproduction.
If conscience was truly universal, or even better, God-given, then she and her family would never sleep peacefully again.
Unfortunately, it’s not a just universe, and nothing is God-given save what we give God.
Enter Nancy Grace.
Pundits like Ms. Grace are designed to stand in for your average Jane Q. Mom. Everything about Ms. Grace, from her sensible post 40s hairdo to her judgmental but vaguely righteous gaze, shows she is a surrogate for the modern day white middle-class mother.
Of course, in order for her to be a proper representation of the ideal American mom, she has to be imbued with the right amount of institutional authority. No problem, not only is Ms. Grace a snap judge of character mixed with a dollop of moral outrage, she is a bona fide lawyer.
Mother knows best plays best with a J.D. following your name.
There’s no particular problem with this sort of substitution, I suppose, but it’s important to realize its limitations.
Our justice system is finely tuned to avoid snap judgments and unjust prosecutions. It fails at that sometimes, and sometimes it swings too far in the other direction, as it may have done in this case.
I want someone to pay for Caylee Anthony’s heinous murder too. But we have juries to protect against emotional judgments. Neither mothers, fathers or victims get to decide who is guilty. If they did, a lot more innocent people would fall at the end of a rope.
Bad judgments just come with the territory.
What do you think of the Caylee Anthony verdict? Does Nancy Grace have a right to be angry?Tell us in the comments.
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