Casey, OJ and the flawed jury system
By Ariel Gener
What the hell just happened?
Many – myself included – thought Casey Anthony would surely get the death penalty. Or, at least ‘life.’ All the evidence seemed to point to that. Majority of legal experts agree that Casey is guilty. Experts, professionals, scientists and doctors from at least seven state and federal agencies involved in the investigation agree that Casey is guilty. Did that matter? Nah!
Casey was declared “not guilty” of killing her then 2-year-old daughter Caylee by a “jury of her peers”. Clearly, America’s vaunted criminal justice system is not perfect, after all. It is very similar to the judging system employed in TV reality shows. In “Dancing with the Stars” or “So You Think You Can Dance”, the opinions of experts who have decades of education, training, and experience in dancing are very easily outweighed by the sheer number of votes of mere pedestrians – people who may not dance, nor even like dancing – but simply LIKE the stars or the contestants.
Was that fair?
A friend suggested we require IQ testing for jury members and election voters. It is an excellent idea but the ACLU will quickly shoot it down. They would deem that as “discriminating against the stupid”. Humor aside, I agree that everyone should have equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But not when it will affect the quality of life of everyone. The “one person, one vote” rule is disastrously flawed, statistically speaking.
Why? In humans, good qualities are rarer. Very few can be fast, strong, swift, etc. This is why we have the Olympics – to look for them and reward them. In the academe, very few are smart. That is why we have scholarships – to find them and reward them.
This means, the planet is populated by a majority of slow, weak, and marginally smart people. In any collection of people, at any time – the fast, the strong, the intelligent will always be in the minority. So, when we give the intellectually dim the same and equal power (“one person, one vote” rule in democracy) to impact and direct the lives of you and me – as in juries and elections – it could be a problem. Morons simply outnumber geniuses, as the Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson decisions show.
But is not democracy a great thing? Something we Americans cherish and actually impose on other nations?
Not always. Democracy is not for everyone. It would depend on what quality of society prevails at the time. Democracy was invented by the Greeks during a glorious time in history. There was an explosion of playwrights, artists, historians, scientists, philosophers, orators. Athens had Demosthenes, Plato, Pericles, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and other great philosophers. The majority of Athenians then were enlightened, patriotic and heroic. It was a time when a mere 300 Spartan warriors led by King Leonidas stood up to tens of thousands of Persian invaders.
“One person, one vote” at that particular time in history can be trusted. But not today. Not in 2011, modern-day, Jersey Shore-the-reality-show-admiring, paint-thinner-sniffing America. I love this great land. But the America of today is not Sparta of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th century BC.
You give morons today the same power as people with working brain cells, and you get verdicts such as the decisions that set Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson free.
Ariel Gener is a keen student of human behavior and military strategy. He has a BS degree in Biology from North Carolina and finishing his MD in Las Vegas this year. He also served in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps as a combat medic. He was born in Manila.
Look, it may be a controversial decision but it’s not the end of the world.
You are right, Alexander, it is not the end of the world. I just dont want to be the one to explain to little Caylee how she was killed, treated like garbage to be feasted on by wild animals and denied justice, and people like us are just “ok with it”.
We may not agree with the outcome but at least it was a decision made by a well-meaning jury.
More flawed are the people who monitored this story on a daily basis like it was Days of Our Lives. Don’t we have too much drama in our lives already that we have to add to it with a story like this? Patronizing crazy moms like Casey through the daily media hype is the hobby of people who lead mediocre lives and have nothing better to do than watch live soap operas.