Wednesday, August 24, 2011

OJ All Over Again?

If you live in the United States today, you have heard something about the Casey Anthony trial.  Two year old Caylee Marie Anthony, daughter of Casey Anthony, went missing three years ago.  Deputies have confirmed that the last time Caylee was seen by anyone, other than her mother, was on June 15, 2008.  It is not until just recently this year that the case became the “center of the media” and people started taking an interest in it.  Although it may not be the intentions of the media, their constant coverage is providing Casey Anthony with so many opportunities and attention from the public.
            Society is seeing flashbacks of the 1995 OJ Simpson trial.  These two trials show shocking similarities with the same devastating outcomes.  They gained public attention because of the obvious circumstantial evidence proving their involvement in the crime.  Our country would be distraught to see the same effects come from the Casey Anthony trial as the OJ Simpson trial.  This could result in Anthony’s fame from multi-million dollar interviews and book endorsements, just like what happened with Simpson.  For them to make money off of these cases is sick.

Many followers of these cases are beginning to scrutinize what the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States stands for.  In these particular cases, the Fifth Amendment has essentially let the accused off with murder.  The way the amendment has applied to both the OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony trials is not the way the Constitution intended it to be.  Double jeopardy has prevented Simpson from going on trial a second time and will do the same with the Casey Anthony case.  I would rather take away the laws of double jeopardy than have the lives of innocent people be taken, and have the guilty murderer be found not guilty only because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove it the first time around.  It is not right to let a guilty person get away with murder, or anything else for that matter, if detectives are able to provide the evidence after a non-guilty verdict.  If later evidence comes to prove that Anthony for a fact is guilty, she cannot be tried again.  Majority of the time, the amendment serves justice and works for our judicial system, but these cases are the exceptions.
            With what has come of the Casey Anthony case, the only good thing we can hope for is the attempt for Caylee’s Law.  People are petitioning to make a law that basically states that if your child goes missing, you have to report it within 24 hours of their disappearance.  There is no reason to not report a missing child right away, so why shouldn’t we have a law to support that?  If this was a current law, this case could have ended differently.  Caylee Anthony could still be alive if police were searching for her before she was killed and it was too late.
            Whether people like it or not, Casey Anthony is getting her fame from this case.  There are a lot of people in this world that absolutely despise the women, but at the same time, people will pay the money for the interviews and pay to buy any book she wrote if she happened to do so, all out of curiosity.  I believe that something needs to be done to prevent cases like this to be possible in the future.  Whether it alters the Fifth Amendment, or new laws are made, change is needed.  No one should ever be able to get away with murder in the United States of America.

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