If you're looking for some sense of validation as to whether your expert hunch that Casey Marie Anthony is innocent or guilty, seek life elsewhere.
It's amazing how one jury verdict in a murder case in Orange County can suddenly bring out all the greatest legal minds in Western Civilization. In the span of a few seconds, that sorority girl you saw at Salty Dog on Friday night dry-humping a jukebox she thought was Matthew "It's-Always-a-Good-Time-to-Take-our-Shirts-Off" McConaughey has become Twitter's preeminent judicial procedure scholar. (To her credit, she did pass the bar - a few of them, actually.) Before you know it, she'll be before the U.S. Supreme Court arguing against your favorite overly-cut-off shirt UF intramural all-star in the landmark case Blowhard v. RabbleRabble with Chief Justice Barry Zuckerkorn presiding.
Let's be clear: A murder case in itself is never a laughing matter. A little girl is dead, and, in the eyes of the law, no killer has been found responsible. A family has been destroyed, and jurors who are only guilty of fulfilling their civic duty - a duty most of us would try to avoid like those people who knock on your door on Saturday morning asking you if you would like to find Jesus - now live with a ridiculously unfair sense of fear for their safety.
But to see the American public magically turn into either God's gift to the legal profession or into a walking, breathing Christian Bale meltdown is just...well...jocular...and expected.
To all those who feel the unnatural urge to tell everyone in earshot how you just "knew" the jury would come back not guilty because, unlike those uneducated troglodytes, you just know the ins-and-outs of "beyond a reasonable doubt" and "burden of proof," we're going to give you a big, fat, here-comes-the-next-Michael-Clayton gold star! It takes a real fire-tested barrister to put themselves through the intense legal training required to render such a sound decision (that's more than 270 "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" episodes!). You and all those at Shady Acres following the case on pins and needles can waltz with joy.
For those of you who just cannot bear to live another minute knowing that Casey Anthony is not going to spend the rest of her life being a human hackysack for Big Bertha and Teardrop Trish, we're going to let you in on a little secret. It may seem like the day will never come, but rest assured, as long as we have Tennessee, Arkansas and any state ending in "-irginia," in the Union, Nancy Grace will find you another Darwinian defect to sink your teeth into and feel better about yourself. The empty void you are now feeling will soon be filled by another episode of "Dancing with the Stars" and "The Real Housewives of Menstruation County."
But until that moment comes, feel free to actually resume your everyday lives. Go back to your Farmvilles and your Angry Birds. Go back to demanding that the ghosts of Jesus Christ and George Washington come down from the heavens to "take our country back." Go back to your honor student children who are just the pride and joy of your Dodge minivan bumper.
But then again, no court in this country will convict you of excessive tool-ishness.
That's, of course, until Nancy Grace takes the case.
