She’s been found not guilty, so drop it.

I didn’t follow the Casey Anthony trial.

I read about the case about a month ago and it sounded like a horrible tragedy, similar to a handful of other horrible tragedies in recent news. Last week I happened to be in a place where they were showing a live broadcast of the judge reading the jury’s verdicts. There were seven separate charges, but the gist of it seemed to be not guilty on killing her daughter, guilty on lying to the cops.

The most disturbing thing about the broadcast was watching the “people on the street” interviews that happened immediately after the verdicts were announced. And by interviews I mean, the mob outside of the courthouse frothing at the mouth and screaming into the microphone when it came anywhere near them.  The “interviews” went on for quite a while, and more than a few crazed yahoos had a chance to yell threats about what they’d do to Casey Anthony if they met her in a dark alley, or proclaim that the justice system is broken, or lament the travesty of justice that had occured, or that you bet your ass they would have voted differently.

And this week, this happened. From News9.com: 

CHOUTEAU, Oklahoma — An apparent case of mistaken identity almost cost one Oklahoma woman her life. The Chouteau woman says someone tried to kill her because she looks like Casey Anthony, who, as of July 14, was still jailed halfway across the country in Florida.

The Casey Anthony trial was not a reality TV show, and the audience does not get to vote in the outcome. We have a set process with lawyers, aids, a judge and in this case, a twelve-person jury. And. We. Were. Not. A. Part. Of. It. We do not get to help decide this one, and we do not get to take justice into our own hands because the jury didn’t give us blood.

The jury members may or may not have thought that Casey Anthony killed her daughter. But whatever they thought of her guilt, the fact of it is we are innocent until proven guilty in this country, and the jury decided that there was not enough evidence to prove that Casey Anthony was guilty. That’s what is so wrong about the words, threats and actions of the crazed yahoos – they decided that what they *thought* was enough to justify a guilty verdict and evidence be damned.

As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t followed the story, and what I know about trial procedure (and pehaps the entire field of US  law) could fit into the period at the end of this sentence. So I couldn’t tell you if I believe that the jury made a good decision. We have to assume that they followed the regulations of current trial process and gave an honest decision based on the available evidence.

So that’s it. Drop it. Stop with the Dexter jokes, stop with the whispering about conspiracies, stop with the calls for vigilante justice. It’s disgusting, and it reflects poorly on all of us.

Weekend Events

So, this was a heck of  a weekend.

Saturday marked the end of my 30DaysofBiking, so no more posts about bike rides to the grocery store or McFlurry runs. I know…you’re crazy disappointed. It was a good experience, especially because I was pushed to ride in weather that I normally would have avoided.  Now I may be less likely to skip traveling by bike in the face of inclement weather; riding in rain wasn’t really that big of a deal. I’m still probably not going to be a winter rider, though.

On Sunday we braved the cold to see the Heart of the Beast Theater’s (HOBT) May Day Parade on Bloomington Avenue in Minneapolis. We arrived early – 11:45am (we rode our bikes even though it May 1st and I was like 30daysofbiking is totally over and I don’t have to ride if I don’t want to but parking is going to suck so let’s bike) - to stake out a spot and watch the crowd arrive. There’s always great people-watching at the May Day Parade. I think I viewed most of the parade through the lens of my camera since this is the first time I’ve gone with the fancy DSLR. Of course that means I came home with about 500 photos, which may take a day or two to filter through. 

And then there was the twitter explosion at about 9:20pm last night. I’ve learned about huge breaking news on twitter more times than I can count now. The most recent instances that burn in my memory are the riots in Egypt, the attempted assasination of Gabrielle Giffords, the earthquake in Japan, and now the death of Osama bin Laden.  Last night someone tweeted a message to this effect: “Daddy, where were you when you found out about OBL?” “On the couch in my underwear with some cheetos and my iPhone, honey.” Oy, so true.

I’m not really processing the whole “hey, that terrorist leader who we’ve spent almost 10 years tracking is finally dead” thing that everyone is going on about today. My first reaction last night was shock, then joy that we had finally achieved our goal, then a sharing of elation, good cheer and snark on twitter (Trump wanting to see the death certificate, the undermining of the royal honeymoon, how President Obama must have been giggling at the Correspondent’s dinner, etc.), and a fleeting feeling of vindication for the victims of 9/11, the service members who have died or been injured in the search for bin Laden, the civilians in the Middle East who have died as a result of the last 10 years of conflict. Then I felt grief for all of the loss of life, the waste that has happened, and will probably continue to happen. I followed that up with a solid five minutes of overanalyzing all of my reactions of the past hour.

It’s good that we’ve officially closed this chapter, and now I’m waiting to see what the fallout is going to be. It IS a huge effing deal, and I want to see how this new information going to affect our men and women serving in the Middle East, how it’s going to affect our nation’s budget and priorities, the upcoming elections in 2012, and people’s perception of terrorism, security, the United States, Islam, President Obama, the military, the Middle East. Osama bin Laden has been a huge part of our lives…what’s going to happen now? Sorry, no words of wisdom or deep insights. Just questions today.

Congrats to Simon Singh

Simon Singh has won his defense against the British Chiropractic Association’s libel lawsuit.

Rebecca Watson from Skepchick breaks the story ——-> here.

And someone has already been kind enough to update Simon Singh’s Wikipedia page:

In 2008, Singh was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for criticising their activities in a column in The Guardian. A “furious backlash” to the ongoing lawsuit has resulted in the filing of formal complaints of false advertising against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period, one national chiropractic organization ordering its members to take down their websites, and Nature Medicine noting that the case has gathered wide support for Singh, as well as prompting calls for the reform of English libel laws. On 1 April 2010, Simon Singh won his court appeal for the right to rely on the defence of fair comment. On 15 April 2010, the BCA officially withdrew its lawsuit, ending the case.

The legal fight took a LOT of money on Simon Singh’s part, and I would like to thank him for his dedication, effort and willingness to see this court battle to its end. Also a giant thank you to him and to all of his supporters (here, here and here) for sparking the larger issue of UK Libel Reform, which has affected – and continues to be able to affect – people world-wide. 

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References are available on the wikipedia website for the claims and assertations made in the wiki post above.

Whistleblower Justice – Win!

I blogged earlier about the prosecution of Nurse Anne Mitchell in the Winkler Whistleblower case.  To review, Nurse Mitchell was fired from her job and brought up on charges of “improper use of information” when it was discovered that she reported a doctor, Dr. Rolando Arafiles, for engaging in questionable medical practices and hawking his own company’s alternative medicines at Winkler County Memorial Hospital.  It was a breathtaking display of retaliation.

Hubby just forwarded me a link to an article from the NYTimes (from February 11th – bad biodork, not following up on my own stories) – Nurse Mitchell was acquitted after only four days of testimony and 1 HOUR of deliberation by the jury.  She was found innocent of harassment.  As the NYTimes article stated “The jury foreman said the panel of six men and six women voted unanimously on the first ballot, and questioned why Mrs. Mitchell had ever been arrested.”

Now Nurse Mitchell and Nurse Galle (who was originally brought up on charges along with Nurse Mitchell, which were later dropped at the prosecution’s discretion) can turn around and get to work on their civil lawsuit* gainst the county, hospital, sheriff, doctor and prosecutor, which accuses all of those parties of vindictive prosecution and denial of  First Amendment rights.

Good luck, ladies.

*The link to the civil lawsuit was found at abcnews.go.com