If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the courtoom.
| Status: | abefroman wins! | |
|---|---|---|
| Topic: | Jose Baez tearing apart the prosecutions case |
This trial, like all trials, is being conducted at public expense. As such, the public has a right to know what's going on and watch the proceedings. Because the crime is so heinous, it seems like the public is a lot more interested in this trial than other ones, but the volume of attention doesn't mean there's any less right for the public to know.
The public's rights are important, but a trial is also about protecting the rights of the defendant. One of those is to have an unbiased jury of their peers decide the case. If the prosecution uses the media to poison the jury pool, the fairness of the whole affair is called into question.
A fair trial is everyone's goal here. One of the ways we ensure fairness is through transparency. Whether Casey Anthony is guilty or not, we can watch and judge the fairness of the trial itself, thanks to the proceedings being public. If everything were held behind closed doors, we would have no way to judge if it was being conducted fairly.
Transparency can be achieved without letting the trial devolve into a witch hunt. The media reports the case in the most sensational way possible to get ratings. The defendant deserves to have a jury of people who haven't already made up their minds.
Calling it a witch hunt is a little extreme. The case has been in the media for a while, but I don't think the circus really started until after the trial was going on, anyway. At that point, the jury had already been selected.
Final Tally:
1 vote for abefroman0 votes for burrito
I just wonder how fair of a trial Casey Anthony can get with this much media attention. It seems like a lot of people had already made up their minds before the case even started. How many on the jury were already tainted by the media coverage?