Casey Anthony
Today, the American public vented its collective frustration across the various social media sites and news outlets when the jury in the Casey Anthony trial acquitted her of murdering her daughter (along with some other serious charges). They did find her guilty of some lesser charges, but those were not enough to sate the tremendous thirst for justice that the people had. This is with good reason, because, if for nothing else, the case concerned the death of a two year-old girl. A two year-old girl is not capable of running a Fortune 500 company so she can't be a suit-wearing asshole smoking a cigar and fucking the public and her employees over at the same time. She isn't capable of robbing a bank. She isn't capable of breaking into someone's house and stealing their valuables. In all, a two year-old girl isn't capable of much that could be held against her aside from probably being annoying at times or not behaving or some other trivial nonsense. So it's understandable that people would be quite interested in the outcome of the trial.
What really got them going is that the two year-old girl was the daughter of a very young mother who appeared to have offed the kid because it interfered with her lifestyle, which is a reprehensible enough thought to have about your child sans the killing part.
The general consensus of the people is that Casey Anthony felt her daughter to be enough of a burden to "require" murder. This is because Casey Anthony told a lot of amazingly intricate lies during a month of behavior that is typical for a single girl in her early twenties when the reality of the situation was that month included her daughter being "missing." Also, it's because the remains of the child had duct tape over the mouth and nose, and that internet search history indicated someone was looking up how to make chloroform. It didn't help, as well, that several people were pretty certain they smelled that nasty decomposition odor from Casey's impounded car which would point to the body having been there for enough of a time. Needless to say, Americans were out for someone's head and it really, really seemed to be Casey who was at fault here.
During the course of the trial, all manner of things were presented as evidence and people found out the extent of Casey's lies. Experts were brought in to comment on the smell from the trunk of the car. Casey's father and brother were accused of molesting her. Casey's mother claimed she had been doing the searching for the chloroform. It was a general mishmash of opposing viewpoints and, apparently, a lot of conjecture from the side of the prosecution (which is not to say the defense has clean hands). What it really came down to was this: the cause of death could not, for certain, be determined.
A lot of courtroom dramas and movies make a big point out of reasonable doubt, burden of proof, etc. If someone is found dead with a knife wound in their chest and a murder weapon with DNA on it is found close to the scene you can safely determine that the person was stabbed to death and move on to the task of locating the responsible party. Casey Anthony's defense played upon the uncertainty about the cause of death by claiming the kid had drowned in the pool and that a panicked grandfather/mother combo covered it up. A lot of people are really angry at the jury and with the justice system but those groups actually did their jobs with what they were given. They observed the evidence presented and made their decision because they possessed a reasonable doubt about it.
The prosecution in this case did a masterful job of bringing to light how much of a douchebag Casey Anthony is/was. As stated earlier, it may be typical behavior for a girl of her age but it doesn't change the fact that she lied grossly. It doesn't change the fact that she pranced around like a girl who didn't have a kid, free of any concern for a month while her daughter was missing. It's so easy to believe she murdered her daughter because she's a bad person. So the idea of her feeling maladjusted as a result of her daughter, knocking the kid out with chloroform, then placing the unconscious body into the trunk of her car with duct tape over her mouth and nose is completely acceptable due to this perception. You can't convict someone on emotional suppositions, however.
Personally, I feel that she killed her daughter. I realize, though, that I am going off of my emotional response and my public perception of her. I don't know she's guilty and nor does anyone else. The circumstances presented make it highly likely, though not certain. What's truly sad here is what I mentioned in the beginning: a two year-old girl is effectively an innocent and she's dead. She was probably defenseless to what happened, be it a murder, a drowning or whatever else. We'll never truly know what happened nor how it happened and we'll never know that whomever is responsible for the girl's death gets punished.