For more than four weeks, America didn’t need reality television.
Watching every minute of the Casey Anthony trial became a national obsession thanks to the ongoing newsfeeds on local new channels, CNN, FOX, Headline News and countless other media outlets. We couldn’t get our Weather on the 9s in Tampa Bay or our Weather on the 1s in Orlando because Bright House Networks tuned in to live coverage all day long.
The trial had an O.J.-esque quality about it that many Americans couldn’t seem to turn off. It eerily mirrored the O.J. Simpson case of the 1990s minus the dramatic beginning of a slow-moving white Ford Bronco chased by police cars but resulting in the divisive and surprising verdict of not guilty.
I wasn’t one of those Americans who stayed glued to the trial. I was okay with updates, but I couldn’t make myself stare at the goings on of that courtroom hour after hour.
That’s not to say I didn’t see any of it at all. I’d catch a glimpse of testimony at the gym (yes, they had sacrificed ESPN for Headline News) or when I was flipping channels. But I typically avoided it. I wanted to know what was going on in the world not just in that courtroom in Orlando.
The fascination dumbfounded me. Casey Anthony wasn’t a celebrity before she was charged with killing her two-year-old daughter, Caylee; and her family really wasn’t extraordinary when it came to the Orlando elite social scene.
Yet, day in and day out, the trial was all over print, broadcast and web media and photos of Casey’s reactions to testimony and Cindy Anthony’s wardrobe of sleeveless shirts bombarded every news website.
This issue of Watermark was put to bed, as we say, on the very day that the jury found Casey Anthony not guilty. I should say on the day she was found not guilty on the charges that really mattered. Jurors figured she wasn’t a murderer just a liar. There was too much reasonable doubt, we learned, to convict the young mother for the death of her daughter.
As word trickled out earlier in the day that a verdict was coming, my cell phone and the phones of my co-workers hummed to life with texts from people who had seen the news updates on television. Several co-workers watched the verdict live on a streaming webcast while others logged onto print media sites for that breaking news scroll.
When we learned the verdict, social networking sites became abuzz with disbelief and members of the courtroom audience had their surprised reactions caught on cameras.
I couldn’t help but be fascinated by our strong reactions.
Immediately, a swarm of postings on Facebook condemned the unidentified jurors for making a major blunder and letting a murderer go free. Others suggested grand gestures of leaving a porch light on in support of the poor, deceased Caylee which confused me since lights were supposed to be displayed at 9 p.m., a time when it gets dark and lights typically come on anyway.
Others shared that our judicial system worked just as it was supposed to: an unbiased jury went on the evidence presented in the courtroom and made their decision correctly based on what they knew.
The most fascinating of all, for me at least, was hearing later that the prosecution considered portraying Casey as a lesbian as a way to sway jurors toward a guilty verdict an assassination of character, of sorts. It scares me there are people who still think using a person’s sexuality perceived or real as a weapon for an argument for guilt.
It wasn’t permitted, but it shows just how far we still have to go.
As the history book closes on the new trial of the century, maybe we, the jurors and the Anthony family can get back to some form of normalcy. Because let’s face it: it’s only a matter of time before the next high-profile crime captures our attention and we forget all about those roses for Caylee and the anger we may or may not have for those who may or may not have been involved in a crime.
