Are the Casey Anthony jurors idiots?

Listen to Dave Ross Commentary: Are the Casey Anthony jurors idiots?

I get the feeling that a lot of people see the Casey Anthony jurors as a bunch of idiots. Here’s a sound byte from a bar as the verdicts were broadcast:

Listen to verdict reading

Not right — because she obviously killed her two year old daughter so she could party on, or so went the prevailing story line.

So were the jurors a bunch of idiots? Well, insofar as ordinary Americans sometimes behave like idiots, and jurors are supposed to be randomly chosen from average Americans, it is definitely possible. In fact, it’s deliberate!

Jurors aren’t supposed to be experts in our system.

This is our old love-hate relationship with the Constitution. We are not really comfortable with the idea of innocent-until-proven-guilty — EXCEPT when we’re caught by the red light camera, and then — it’s HOW DARE THE STATE punish me for what I obviously did.

Here’s what the judge said in his jury instructions. “The defendant is not required to produce evidence or prove anything… this case must not be decided for or against anyone because you feel sorry for anyone, or are angry at anyone.”

That’s our system.

We COULD change it: we could let the government lock us away whenever it wants.

Or we could have a system where you’re convicted by professional jurors who are willing to ignore sloppy police work, or maybe we could just hold trials in bars:

We could do that… in fact there’s a name for that… supporters of Amanda Knox would call that “the Italian justice system.”

Subscribe to the Dave Ross Commentary podcast