The Casey Anthony Effect?
We’ve all heard of the CSI Effect, the theory that watching CSI on television causes people who later sit on juries to unrealistically expect more from prosecutors than just the testimony of a jailhouse snitch before they’ll convict.
I wonder what effect watching on television the public vilification of the jurors who rendered the not-guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony trial might have on future jurors in future cases. As Juror No. 12 told her husband before going into hiding: “I’d rather go to jail than sit on a jury like this again.” But hey, why go to jail or into hiding when you can just convict?
After all, when is the last time a jury was publicly excoriated for convicting someone the State told them to convict, even though there are undoubtedly many juries who deserve such excoriation?
The words of one of the jurors, Jennifer Ford, should give encouragement that many of our neighbors can rise above the Madame Defarge lynch-mob mindset. As Ms. Ford so well expressed it: “If they want to charge and they want me to take someone’s life, they have to prove it. They have to prove it, or else I’m a murderer too.”