The facts about Florida’s justice system

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Carol Forsloff - Florida leads the nation on the number of death penalty exonerations, and perhaps it is this fact that gives juries pause when they have to make a decision about guilt or innocence in a first degree murder case.

Tonight as people rattle the cage of justice, seeking answers for their disappointment about the Casey Anthony verdict of not guilty, the facts are these about Florida.  Since 1973 Florida has the record of the number of people found guilty of murder who were later exonerated, according to the Death Penalty project.

Florida with 23 exonerations  is followed by Illinois with 20, Texas with 12, Oklahoma with 10 and Louisiana  and Arizona each with 8.

In addition there is now forensic evidence that Texas executed an innocent man.   Cameron Willingham was convicted of the 1991 act of setting fire to his house and killing his three children, for which he was executed in 2004.   After receiving a report from a national arson expert, the Texas Forensic Science Commission,  determined that the original investigation of Willingham had been flawed and that it could not conclude arson caused the fire.  The New Yorker substantially covered this finding in 2009.




















































































138 people have been freed from death row since 1973.  Florida’s record is high in comparison with the rest of the states.

In the meantime, some conservative criminal experts wonder about Florida’s justice system and its unfairness in relationship of drug abuse sentences in relationship to more serious crimes.  The problem is the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing law. The Orlando Weekly wrote about Scott Earle, a prisoner in Florida who got a minimum 25-year sentence for possession of more than 28 grams of Percoset, a prescription drug.  He had no previous criminal history and was given a life sentence, similar to what is given to those who commit first-degree murder.

Mob mentality, media sin and response to Casey Anthony verdict

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Carol Forsloff - The Orlando Sentinel in Florida covered the case against Casey Anthony for three years, and that coverage has been bastardized with opinion arguments by other newspapers, bent on making judgments far too soon in a fashion that demoralizes the fabric of our justice system.

It is that tendency to create a mob mentality that is likely at the core of the media’s lingering demise and lack of public trust.  It is the tendency on all sides to make judgments before the facts are in.  This has been true in criminal cases and politics, where it’s the latest  sport to follow the popular view instead of the facts themselves.

Objectivity has been lost in many ways, from the Andy Weiner saga to the Casey Anthony case.  Weiner’s public career is ruined, his marriage likely frayed, and his personal life in disarray because the amount of media focus along with judgment made more melodrama than fact for entertainment.   The titillation about the sex itself was of far more consequence than understanding the nature of the behavior itself and how in many ways it has gripped so many folks.

In the Casey Anthony trial, and the background before it began, much of the media focused early on Casey’s alleged guilt.  The back story of how decisions are made for trial had little focus when the fun was in the description of an alleged baby killer, made worse by the fact that it was a mother accused of killing her child.

Public response reveals, however, that the truth is lost in the lie fostered early on, a lie that Casey Anthony was guilty of killing Caylee before the facts were known and sorted out by experts.  People took the sides that had been outlined by the media, reinforced by talking heads on television too.

Those who care for justice, and for the long-term welfare of the news and the true preservation of American values, hesitated to give their public views.  There were experts early on, like Kim Iannetta,  a behavioral profiler, who cautioned folks should wait and not crucify Casey Anthony, as was happening in the press.  Instead her analyses focused on the kind of behaviors that develop aberration in families and the learning we can derive from understanding those behaviors.   The courts, she pointed out, are the true places where decisions are made.

Decisions should also not be made by the press who have not been given the authority to establish one’s guilt or innocence, as occurs in a court of law.  It is not their Constitutional position.

When the decision was announced that Casey Anthony was found not guilty of killing two-year-old Caylee, the commentators issued their surprise and interviewed the people all around the courtroom who gave the same response.  Surprised they were, and we should not therefore be surprised when the truth about the law is lost in the maze of media  hype.  Those of us who focused on case elements to demonstrate how the system works were pummeled by page-view hounds who looked for ego strokes instead.

American justice outlines a process that may not always seem fair when folks don’t understand just what that process means.  In the case of Casey Anthony, the goal was to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  When doubt is reasonable, the legal innocence is fair.  The moral guilt or innocence has other judgment apart from human view, the pain and suffering that occurs in trials such as these.  It also comes in other ways we must now trust and remember as we do, that judgment always comes in its own way.