The verdict in the Casey Anthony case determined her innocent of murder, but it seems the public has come to their own conclusions. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll after the verdict found that 64% of Americans believe Anthony “definitely or probably murdered her daughter, Caylee.”
Casey Anthony was acquitted of murder charges, accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
She was released from the Booking and Release Center at the Orange County Jail on Sunday, but
her whereabouts are largely unknown.
Casey Anthony’s attorney Jose Baez confronted the public outrage surrounding the verdict in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera.
“We need to start respecting the jury verdict and decisions that the juries make,” Baez said.
People have reacted to the verdict with what one of Anthony’s lawyers, Cheney Mason called a “lynch-mob mentality.” A woman was attacked two weeks ago in Oklahoma just for looking like Casey Anthony. Another man in Pennsylvania has been the recipient of death threats over Facebook simply because he shares her name. Florida Judge Belvin Perry has even delayed releasing the names of the jurors who acquitted Anthony in light of the public outrage.
On Sunday, Anthony was escorted to a waiting SUV by two sheriff’s deputies armed with semi-automatic rifles. Mounted patrolmen and police cruisers were positioned in the street to hold back the streetside protesters, bearing signs and shouting at the passing vehicle.
“This is O.J. Number 2,” one woman said to ABC News outside the courtroom on the day the verdict was read.
“She’s gone, she’s safe and elaborate plans had to be made to keep the people away from her,” Mason told NBC’s Today Show. “Her life is going to be very difficult for a very long time as long as there are so many people of the lynch-mob mentality.”
Baez argued that the media has played a big part in depicting Anthony as guilty and altering the public view of her before and during the trial. “Pundits and media personalities have no right to try and alter the life of any individual because of what they think may or may not have happened,” he said.
“The main reason that people are reacting so strongly is that the media convicted Casey before the jury decided on the verdict,” said Dr. Carole Lieberman to ABC News, a forensic psychiatrist in the department of psychiatry at UCLA. “The public has been whipped up into this frenzy wanting revenge for this poor little adorable child. And because of the desire for revenge, they’ve been whipped up into a lynch mob.”
What do you collegiettes™ think? Do you agree with the verdict? Post your thoughts on the trial in the comments box below!
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