Saturday, July 2, 2011

Has television turned Anthony case from titillating trial to sleepy saga?

I am aware that some people in our society are getting all worked up over that criminal trial currently taking place in Orlando, Fla. – that of Casey Anthony, the 25-year-old who faces the possibility of spending the rest of what could be a long life in a Florida prison.
ANTHONY: CNN made her trial deadly dull

We’re talking about a dead girl. Her daughter, as a matter of fact. Caylee wasn’t quite three years old when she died back in 2008.

THIS CASE ALSO has a young, attractive woman as its source of venality. It even gives us the possibility that this woman tried to pull a scam on police by initially reporting her daughter as a missing child.

That status lasted for some five months, until her body eventually was found. Casey was arrested a couple of months later – although she continues to insist, “I didn’t do it!”

She’d have us think that the real injustice here is that she has been put on trial in Orange County, Fla., circuit court, rather than have police continue to try to find the “real” killer of her kid.

Not that many people are that sympathetic to her. Just a few weeks ago, I had various relatives in town for a memorial service for my late mother. At one point, several of my aunts engaged in small-talk, and it turns out several had been following the trial up to that point.

THEIR CONSENSUS? CASEY did it. She was a young “party girl” who was tired of being a mother and wanted her “freedom” back. For all I know, that may well be what a majority of the nation thinks.

I really don’t think anything.

Because I have to admit that I have grown to detest this case. Not Casey Anthony. But the case itself. I want the trial to end, and I really don’t care what the verdict is.

Perhaps it is BECAUSE of the fact that Cable News Network has been providing live coverage of the courtroom activity, ALONG WITH pundits EVERY single evening.

THAT DAY’S COURTROOM activity will be dissected for every minute detail no matter how little actually happened that day. As if the legal analysts who get interviewed by the CNN news anchors during courtroom breaks don’t provide enough superficial analysis of what is happening.

A part of me really believes that this live broadcast coverage is taking what could be a sordid criminal trial and turning it into legal mush. Maybe part of it is because we’re seeing all the technical analysis that is turning a titillating tale into deadly dull dreck. If this is what broadcast cameras do to a criminal trial, perhaps we in Illinois are better off without them.

This coverage has managed to make this trial ever so boring. I have tried forcing myself to watch. But I just can’t take it anymore.

I’ve given up. I’ll wait until I read a newspaper headline with the verdict before I pay any further attention to this case.

WE’RE AT THE point where I’m literally watching significantly less of CNN (and I didn’t really watch much of them to begin with) because I don’t want to have to endure their coverage of this criminal trial. So I’m missing out on their news coverage in general.

I don’t care. I just want it to end.

This amidst the reports coming out of Florida on Friday that there may well have been perjury during the testimony.

Who’s to say just what the jury itself believes? It will be interesting to see how much of all this legal drivel they are taking in. And also how they will feel about their work schedule.

FOR IT SEEMS that Judge Belvin Perry has decided he doesn’t care if we’re entering a holiday weekend. Jurors will get Saturday off, but will have to sit through closing arguments on Sunday.

That makes it 99.9999999 percent guaranteed that jurors will be locked in a backroom at the Orange County courthouse on Monday, deliberating Casey Anthony’s fate.

Wouldn’t it be ironic (or maybe stupidly sad?) if jurors were able to return a verdict on that date? Casey Anthony could learn on Independence Day whether or not she will continue to have her personal freedom.

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