Casey Anthony and American Injustice

Foreword: I have not been closely following the Casey Anthony case but, I was surprised the jury found her not guilty of murdering her infant daughter. With just my gut instinct, I believe Casey got away a crime and justice was not rendered.

And with that being said:

Where I work, a trusted and respected gentleman exclaimed in the aftermath of the Casey Anthony not guilty verdict:

This is the end of justice in our country and the end of our civilization; and it started with the OJ non-guilty verdict.

Familiar with my blog, he challenged me to blog about this issue - the miscarriage of justice in USA. The sub-topic of course would be how all this started with the OJ trial.

First, I quickly reminded him the tainted legacy of American justice was birthed long before OJ.

For example, there have been thousands (if not more) unpunished lynches from the word go, church bomb killing of four black girls that remain unsolved; the Rodney King verdict - that led to the LA riots; Abner Louima - the innocent Haitian who was forcible beaten and sodomized by NYPD; and Angel Alvarez, 24, an innocent man shot 23 times (and lived) by cops.

And you may recall the police sanctioned (ooops my bad we made a mistake) killing of innocent Amadou Diallo:

In February 1999, four New York City policemen searching for a rape suspect knocked on Amadou Diallo's door to question him. When he came to the door he reached inside his jacket, at which point the officers shot at him 41 times, hitting him with 19 bullets. The object Diallo was reaching for turned out to be his wallet.

My point:

To reiterate, outrage with justice has a long history. What is telling, is how Americans select certain cases to capture our national attention; and how certain other cases conveniently fly under the radar.

Dick Wald, professor of journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a former ABC News president comments:

"Pretty blond girl dies somewhere in a resort island in the Caribbean, and the whole world gets fascinated. You have to be blond and pretty and there have to be other interesting aspects. We are a society of people who look for novels in our general appreciation of life."

Need I say more?