JOPLIN, Mo. —
Like a lot of people, I was disappointed and surprised by the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial. I was expecting Nancy Grace’s head to explode on live TV.
I know it’s wrong to expect, and even hope, for someone’s head to explode no matter how annoying that person (and, by extension) that person’s head is, so I would like to go on record as saying I’m sorry that I wanted to see Nancy Grace’s head explode on live TV.
But you have to admit, it would have been the coolest thing ever.
Instead, after the verdict Nancy, who likes to remind people that she is a lawyer and a former prosecutor, remembered where she came from and recalled her love of the American justice system that drew her to a career in the legal profession in the first place and calmly said: “I disagree with the verdict but I respect the job the jury did and now I must accept its decision. Now that the trial is over, I think it’s time that I move on and use this show to help people and to highlight the true injustices that occur in this country every day.”
What Nancy did was throw — to use a legal term — a conniption fit.
She ranted, she raved, she blamed the jury, she blamed the judge, she blamed Casey, she blamed Casey’s attorneys and she blamed Anthony Weiner.
OK, she didn’t really blame Anthony Weiner, but I just wanted to type his name one more time.
The one person Nancy didn’t blame was herself. The woman has been talking pretty much nonstop about Casey Anthony and her obvious guilt for three years. I’m thinking that when a jury in a court of law decided Casey Anthony was not guilty, it would have been nice if Nancy would have at least acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, she might have been not exactly correct in her assumption of Casey Anthony’s obvious guilt.
Look, I really didn’t keep up with the Casey Anthony trial, so I have no idea if she should have been found guilty of murdering her daughter or not.
My wife and 13-year-old daughter, who did keep up with the trial, assure me that Casey Anthony, in fact, should have been found guilty.
But she wasn’t.
Unlike Nancy Grace, I’m not an attorney and I’m not a former prosecutor, but I have covered more than my share of jury trials and the one thing I learned is the quickest way to lose money is to bet on a jury.
I’m guessing Nancy Grace, if she didn’t already know that, knows that now.
To be fair, Nancy Grace was not the only legal “expert” to smugly talk of Casey Anthony’s obvious guilt. You couldn’t zip through the TV remote without running into some attorney, or former judge or Food Channel chef going on and on about Casey Anthony and her obvious guilt.
And when the verdict was announced, like Nancy Grace, not one of them said, “Gee, I was wrong to assume that a jury would see the same thing that I saw. The jury has spoken and I accept its verdict.”
Nope, like Nancy Grace, they all looked for someone to blame for having the gall to make them look like idiots.
One legal “expert” I saw on CNN even suggested that perhaps it was time to change the way our country’s legal system works.
When the legal expert said that, I laughed at first. See, I thought I was watching “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. But when I realized the guy was serious I sort of got scared.
And then my head almost exploded.
MIKE POUND is a columnist for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe. Contact him at mpound@joplinglobe.com.
Opinion
Nancy Grace got it wrong, wrong, wrong
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Seeing yourself as the world sees you
