Would you be more for ”Innocent until proven guilty” if you found yourself arrested?
Given the recent Casey Anthony case many were on the train of ”guilty UNTIL you prove you are innocent”. Imagine you were driving, breaking no laws and a prowl car gets on your tail and won’t let off. Then comes the bubble gum lights and the blip of the siren and you know you have been “fanged” but you do not know why. You pull over ready to get your information and stuff ready and ask the cop what you did, but he/she tells you to stay in the car, hands where ne/she can see them. Shortly 3 to 4 more prowl cars show up lights going and they get out guns at the ready. They order you out with hands locked behind your head. You are frisked, and told that you are arrested for robbery and assault. You are thinking “what the hell?” You find out that you match the description of an assailant that beat a jewelry merchant down and stole a case of very expensive jewelry. When you are questioned, you find the time the crime happened you were somewhere else, but you could not prove it; you have no alibi. You are all over the evening news as the main suspect in the so-and-so jewelry heist. If people interviewed by the news crew were saying things like you should rot in prison, or worse because the jewelry owner was well liked in the community, would you feel a little different about being seen as innocent until the State proves you are guilty? You know you didn’t do it, and you hope sooner than later they know you didn’t do it. How would about being assassinated by the press as the crook even before you had the trial? Being perceived as guilty every evening until the charges get dropped or you go to trial and get acquitted.
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I believe in innocent until proven guilty, unless we’re talking caught in the act with a smoking gun. Even then, one never knows.
The truth is stranger than fiction!
I am big on not making assumptions, and I have realized that almost every time I have made a rash assumption I have been wrong!
Assumptions are very dangerous and something the human mind just loves to do.
I believe your senerio of the wrong identity, does not really compare to Casey Anthony.
In your question, if you were the officers, what other procedure would you have taken, other than that of the officers? A lot of people look a lot alike. The only way to prove the guilty from the innocent is for the officers to do what they did. I do believe that the officers should have made positively sure that you were the robber(at the scene), before the handcuffs and taken to interrogation.
In the case of Casey Anthony, the majority of the public believes she got away with murder and she probably did. The real problem with the jury, was that the state did not prove she actually killed and hid her daughter. There was no direct connection to convict her. Suppose the jury had convicted her and she was sent to prison for the majority of her life? Then, later evidence proved that someone else was the guilty party?
Juries are unpredictable. This jury made a decision on the facts of the case, presented to them.
The circumstantial evidence was just not enough. There were many still unanswered questions in this trial. Like, why her father did not call the police, when he recovered her car at the tow in lot and smelled a decaying body? That should have been a move that he made, but did not and you ask yourself why? It’s a possibility that the whole family may be involved in this little girls death and the investigation is not over…....not by a long shot.
@john65pennington I believe your senerio of the wrong identity, does not really compare to Casey Anthony.
In your question, if you were the officers, what other procedure would you have taken, other than that of the officers?
The part of the Anthony case I was seeing the parallel in was not the trial, the jury, or the outcome, but the perception of John Q, the guy on the corner. Sure, the cops have to do what cops do. If the victim gave a wrong ID, or the witnesses got it mixed up then the cop will in turn, get the wrong info and be looking for the wrong guy as in the Brian Stow case. I am more thinking the evening news says In the beating and robbery of “well-liked” local jewelry merchant Larry Lunchmeat a suspect was apprehended. The police released his name as ____________ from insert town here. It slam bang that man/woman DID IT! Before there is a trial or anything John Q has made his mind up. So many times I hear ”If he didn’t do it, why was he/she arrested?”. I just wonder if it were them would they be so in favor of people jumping to the conclusion of guilt and the news basically reinforcing that fact nightly.
Casey Anthony case was treated like that because everyone wanted someone to take the blame for the kid who died.
While for your scenario. I’ve been in that place several times but since I am one of a kind only the matching face could not mean anything else than a trip to the station and a few hours spent there.
But I do support innocent until proven guilt because everyone needs to be treated with some respect even though most have doubts about them.
I don’t honestly think it has ever been innocent until proven guilty. Guilty until proven innocent seems to be the reality. Although I DO NOT think Casey Anthony is innocent. The prosecution over reached. No one who is missing a child and waits 30 days to notify the authorities. Hopefully karma pays her a visit.
When it comes to Casey Anthony trial coverage, Scot Safon will be one of the most important figures determining what viewers see.
Safon is executive vice president of HLN. He oversees the channel whose Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell have devoted many hours to the case of the Orlando mother accused of first-degree murder in the death of her daughter Caylee.
. . .
How big a deal will the Anthony trial be for HLN?
“It’s a gigantic deal for us. It’s a case that has been very important to our audiences since the early developments in the case. Nancy Grace has done a ton of coverage. It really strikes a chord with people who watch us. We get active audience feedback. It’s true across the country. It’s not a regional-interest story.”
—Scot Safon
Orlando Sentinel.
The pre-trial conviction and execution of Casey Anthony by HLN made many rich people richer, just as it was orchestrated to do.
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