TWIOT: Trial by Nancy Grace Is Not in the Constitution, Folks

If she got away with it, don't blame the jury
Photo Credit: The Inquisitr

I don't know much about the Casey Anthony trial. I will admit that from get-go one. What I do know is that an innocent child is dead, and the primary suspect, her mother, was acquitted of most of the serious charges brought against her in relationship to that death. I also know that both of those facts put together have made a lot of people very, very angry, including shrill talking head Nancy Grace. It's always fascinating to see such an uproar over what people perceive as miscarriages of justice, because so many opinions come out that range from misinformed and ignorant to surprisingly salient and mindset-changing. Usually though, it's the former opinions that get the most play, and that's a shame.

Some of the more ignorant mindsets place the blame for this solely on the jury, as if they were a cabal of 12 people who conspired to set Casey Anthony free. They're wrong. The jury can only go on the evidence and arguments presented to them, and they have to be, unlike Grace and many other people who are pissed at this verdict, open-minded. If this case were decided on Grace's horrible blame-fest of a show, then Anthony would have been executed in the same way she was accused of murdering her daughter a millisecond after she was named a person of interest in the case. That's why Grace is perhaps the worst of the talking heads on television. She isn't interested in justice, she's interested in flambeing people for the heinous crime of murdering pretty white girls from affluent households. She conveniently forgets the fact that in America, you're innocent until the state can build a case against you to prove beyond the shadow of any doubt that you are indeed guilty.

That's the way it should be. The state or the plaintiff has to be the ones who need to be able to prove wrongdoing. If it were the other way, the jail population would make what it is right now look like fucking Siberia for one, and the percentage of people who were wrongly incarcerated would be at the very least tripled what it is now.

Granted, that isn't to say that I think Anthony is innocent of murdering her daughter. Again, I have no real opinion on the matter because I didn't follow the case. From what I do know, the fact that Caylee was found in Anthony's car (thanks, Adam B.!) in the woods, mouth duct-taped and such, and that Anthony waited a whole month to report that her daughter was missing, I'd probably make the assumption that yes, she's at the very least guilty of gross criminal negligence and should spend the rest of her life being fingerblasted against her will by an inmate named Mullica. But that's the thing, I didn't hear the arguments that the jurors heard. Apparently, either the defense was extremely good or the prosecution fumbled the ball like they were Roy Williams₁ streaking into the end zone against the Saints on Thanksgiving.

And to hammer home the point even further, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Nancy Grace doesn't care about Caylee Anthony or finding justice for her. I think she just gets off on seeing people be punished, or sating her own bloodlust. If she had cared about Caylee, she would have gone into this with an open mind, like the jurors did. She would have lamented that she thought Anthony was guilty and that the prosecution did a poor job presenting their case. She wouldn't have been making proclamations like "The Devil is dancing" and the like that suggests she's going to go all Rorschach on Anthony when she gets out of prison a year from now.

Again, my point isn't that Casey Anthony is innocent and we should leave her alone. No way. In my limited knowledge of the case, I feel like she probably did it. However, getting mad at the jury isn't going to do anything. Wanting to maim, kill or do whatever to Anthony isn't going to do anything (although I will admit, that picture of Dexter that's been floating around is fucking funny). Putting your porch light on isn't going to do anything.

Here's what you can do though. You can donate money to charities that help end child abuse in all its forms. You can petition the media to pay attention to EVERY child that is murdered or neglected by his or her parents, not just the cute, privileged ones. You can stop channeling your anger at the jury, and maybe channel it at the prosecutors in the state of Florida for fucking up what should have been an open-and-shut case to bring closure to the death of an innocent girl. And the best thing you can do is ignore Nancy Grace so she goes away.

Believe me, the sooner that shrill harpy is gone from the public consciousness, the better it is for everyone.

1 - Cowboys schadenfreude is never not funny. God I love ripping on them.

A Dubious Anniversary

One of the real victims from that fateful weekend
Photo Credit: Slam Wrestling

Today marks one of the most dubious and shameful dates in pro wrestling history as four years ago, Chris Benoit, once hailed as one of the greatest technicians of all time, threw away his legacy and traded it in for one of a psychopathic murderer as he completed his cowardly actions by hanging himself on his Bowflex. In the days prior, he had murdered in cold blood (although most likely not of sound mind) his wife, Nancy (known as Woman in her performing days) and his seven-year-old son Daniel.

There are some among us wrestling fans who refuse to believe Benoit murdered anyone and instead want to paint him as a murder victim. They're on par with 9/11 Truthers in terms of lunacy in my opinion. There are others who show an astonishing level of cognitive dissonance towards the events and choose to honor Benoit with the other fallen stars of pro wrestling, as if he deserves a place in the pantheon with Eddie Guerrero, John "Earthquake" Tenta, Randy Savage, Curt Hennig, Rick Rude and the countless others who died before their time. I honestly question their myopia at the very least.

That always brings us to the question that gets asked and asked again ad nauseam - is it okay to like Chris Benoit's work in the ring? Can you hate the man for what he did and still enjoy the art he produced? This might be a bad comparison since he was never convicted of anything, but that's like asking yourself if you can still laugh at the Nordberg character in the Naked Gun movies knowing that OJ Simpson most likely killed his ex-wife and another innocent man. You can come up with all the reasoning in the world for either side, but at the end of the day, it's a moral debate that has no real answer. To that end, I feel like Benoit's history in wrestling is there, and will always be there. I guess I'm fine with enjoying his work in the ring, but I draw the line at any real tributes of him as a man, if that makes sense.

If there's one really good thing that came out of all of this, it was the increased focus on head trauma and concussions that came out of it. When they did an autopsy on Benoit, they had found that his brain was practically melted, due to concussions suffered in the ring. Whether it was repeated attempts at doing a flying headbutt from the top, taking unprotected chairshots to the head, taking a million and a half German suplexes a match or anything else he purveyed in his high-impact style of wrestling, Benoit was the antithesis of a safe worker. Thanks to his example of what not to do, WWE has started to clean up their in ring product. It took Impact a while before they got the picture, but they've thankfully gotten the picture. Even the indies are starting to slow down a little bit, although they're still bad when it comes to working a style that prevents concussions and head trauma. Don't get me wrong; I would much rather have Nancy and Daniel Benoit alive right now and the WWE getting the same message, but sadly, this was an impossibly hard lesson to have to learn. It really sucks.

And it also doesn't excuse what Benoit did at all. Yeah, he wasn't of sound mind, but it was all his fault. Notice that several other guys who had similar issues to what he had didn't snap and kill their families. A man needs to be responsible for his own actions, or else why believe in free will? Why have laws? Why have a court system? Still, the spotlight shed on concussions and even drug use was an important one to shine in the wake of the nasty shit he did.

So, in closing, I'm going to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Nancy "Woman" Benoit and Daniel Benoit, the two real victims of that heinous weekend four years ago. Those are the people we need to remember with fondness today as we mark this dubious anniversary. As for Chris? Well, my mother always told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, not to say it at all.

Let's leave it at that.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!