OCR Text |
Show OPINIONS VOLUME HI . ISSUE 2 WWW.UVUREVIEW.COM JULY 18, 2011 Tilting atparty pictures Reactions to Casey Anthony may be under stands le, but they are also auixotic By JOHN-ROSS BOYCE Opinions Editor "It is far worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free." -Justice John M. Harlan II July Fourth is the annual celebration of our nation's independence. But the fifth of July in this Year of Our Lord 2011 seemed to be a much more significant date for many outraged Americans and one Florida woman, Casey Anthony, who is no doubt pleased with her new-found freedom after almost three years in jail. Casey Anthony, of course, is the young lady you've seen all over the cover of magazines like "People" and "Globe". You've heard her name all but formally voodoo-cursed by television pundits such as Nancy Grace. On July fifth and for a couple of days after, Anthony's name was all over your Twitter and Facebook feeds, as people expressed outrage and dismay that she has been found not guilty of the murder of her two year old daughter Caylee. Caylee Anthony disappeared on June 16th, 2008. In the six months between when she was last seen alive and when her skeletal remains were discovered in the woods near the Anthony family home, her mother participated in a "hot body" contest, got a tattoo that says "Bella Vita" and posed for the kind of cliche hyper-sexualized, pseudolesbian photos that we have all come to expect from the most obnoxious and stereotypical variety of party girl. She borrowed a shovel from a neighbor and drove around with a suspicious bottle of chloroform in the her trunk. An itinerary including Jell0 shots and getting some tacky ink done doesn't sound like the actions of a concerned mother frantically searching for her lost child. Such actions are definitely not typical of someone who has just lost the fruit of their loins to death's cold hand. They sound like the actions of someone who got pregnant at an inconvenient time in her life, decided she didn't want to be a mother and then killed her child in order to be free of her parental responsibilities. Gut feeling? Casey Anthony probably murdered her child. So, why then, has Casey Anthony been released from prison? If it seems like she is responsible for the untimely death of her toddler, why is she out walking the streets, free to get more bad tattoos and take more tasteless photos? Because, thankfully, we live in a society where people are not executed on "seems". We don't convict another person on a "gut feeling" - even if that gut feeling is probably correct. Our legal system and our constitution dictate that certain events occur before someone is strapped into a chair and zapped with 2, 450 volts of electricity on behalf of the state, such as the state proving beyond proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused-in-question is actually guilty. However, the disconnect between what should happen and what actually occurs can be very wide indeed. Jurors are human. They sometimes make decisions based on emotions, rather than on the data in front of them. When feelings override facts, people are wrongfully convicted, or even wrongfully executed. Between 2000 and 2010, 55 Death Row inmates have been exonerated of their crimes and released. Obviously, not every one of these individuals were put on death row because overzealous jurors who were more eager to convict than they were to weigh evidence and arguments. But it does mean that there is still room for gross error in the legal system. It means that a juror who is going to weigh in on an accused person's culpability without letting their feelings get the better of them is invaluable. In this particular trial, the jury did not feel as though they could not sentence her to death based on the evidence exhibited by the prosecution. "I did not say she was innocent," said juror Jennifer Ford in an interview with ABC News. "I just said there was not enough evidence." Indeed, most of the prosecution's evidence was circumstantial and could not be directly correlated with the murder. Did Casey Anthony react to her daughter's disappearance by partying and going on shopping sprees? According to evidence and testimony, yes. But that only proves she is a bad mother. Not a murderer. Did authorities find evidence of decomposition in the trunk of Anthony's car? According to testimony, they did. But experts could not determine whether the decomposition was human or whether it was simply garbage. Were strange internet searches like "how to make chloroform" and "neck-breaking" discovered on Anthony's computer? Yes. But Anthony's mother, Cindy, attested in court to have made those searches. Even if she is lying under oath, the prosecution has chosen not to pursue a formal perjury charge against her. What the prosecution had, was a lot of strange, suspicious circumstances which could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Anthony committed the murder. Even the child's body did not yield enough proof to convict. In a statement made to the Associated Press, Florida State Attorney Lawson Lamar said "the delay in recovering little Caylee's remains worked to our considerable disadvantage." When Casey Anthony was declared "not guilty" of murder, most people reacted angrily. They referred to the trial as "0 J. 2" on Twitter and called for fictional vigilante serial killer Dexter Morgan to somehow jump out of the TV and take matters into his own hands, as he and Miss Anthony both live in The Sunshine State. Cries of "Baby Killer" echoed all over the courthouse lawn. Death threats have been made to jurors, who have since felt the need to go into hiding. However, despite a compex, vicarious emotional need to see that justice be done in the name of little Caylee Anthony, the American public needs to stop howling for blood and remember why we have trials in the first place. A person's day in court is not just a formality on the path to punishment and vengeance. A trial is held to determine whether or not someone is culpable, not how culpable they are or what kind of punishment they should get. We should be thanking this jury who, in the face of a rabid national witch-hunt, did not kowtow to external pressure but instead honored the notion that, in this country, a person is innocent until proven guilty. Not the other way around. All of the pitchfork-waving is certainly understandable. A case where a mother is accused of killing her young is chock full of the kind of pathos typically reserved for a Greek tragedy. Add a veritable hurricane of media commentary which has already damned the woman and an American public ready to take the words of a talking head as Gospel truth, and it is perfectly understandable that the majority of the public is going to be seething with rage at the notion of a liberated Casey Anthony. It is understandable, but it is ultimately misguided. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN•ROSS BOYCE AND CARLY MONTGOMERY/UYUREVIEW We used to decide a person's guilt without enough evidence in the seventeenth century. We grew out of it. Wikiserious: Wikipedia looks for its place in higher ed By ANGELA ROBERTS Opinions Writer When I want news, I go to NPR. When I want to know an address, I go to Google. But when I want the big picture and a few details, I go to Wikipedia. Last week, Wikipedia held its first academic conference in Boston, MA. Wikipedia was bold enough to face the very crowd that most often disdains them and then had the guts to ask for help, gathering professors, Wikipedians and successful students together. The Wikipedia in Higher Education Summit convened to encourage professors to use Wikipedia as a platform to teach research methods to college students. Several schools like Western Carolina University have had success in using "Wikipedia Ambassadors" to work with professors on giving college credit for providing Wikipedia content. One CONTACT student made her professor proud when she wrote a Wikipedia article about a Peruvian writer, Mario Vargas Llosa, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, resulting in over 120,000 readers of her Wikiarticle. Like this student, students at UVU can also make our professors proud by using Wikipedia. My favorite part of going over the syllabus on the first day of class is when the professor talks about the final research project and yells, "don't use Wikipedia as a source!" I always grin to myself. I'm here to politely disagree. Wikipedia is a credible tertiary source, meaning that it is a summary of other primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is great for fast fact checking. For example, everyone knows when D-Day is, unless you're experiencing a temporary brain lapse and can't even remember the name of your best friend in first grade. Wikipedia is a good start for a research project as a means to understanding the big picture. However, anyone who believes that Wikipedia is the end all, be all of research is sorely mistaken. Every source must be evaluated for possible biases, misrepresentations and errors. The common phrase "don't believe everything you read" existed long before the Internet. If you can't find a fact represented from several primary and secondary sources, then take it with a grain of salt. Wikipedia's goal is to be a neutral, referenced encyclopedia with notable and verifiable knowledge. The fact that anyone can edit articles, though alarming to many academics, works for Wikipedia because the authors don't claim to know everything. They only claim to be summarizers. Let's be honest, how many of our illiterate citizens would actually want to edit Wikipedia? Very few people who barely made it out of high school with a diploma are going to find it fun and entertaining to edit an encyclopedia. Even if an anomaly occurred and someone without a college education contributed, and worse case scenario, they ended up completely botching an article, the many editors and readers would certainly find the vandalism and correct it. But on the other hand, the fact that many people without a high school diploma find the articles in Wikipedia helpful and useful is a service that our democratic society needs. Just because anyone can edit Wikipedia doesn't mean that everyone will. In fact, according to a self-reported Wikipedia survey, the average contributor is male, aged 18 to 35 with at least an undergraduate degree, and has no wife or children. Just the type of people qualified to do the job. Sad and lonely as they may I OPINIONS EDITOR OPINIONS DESIGNER I jrboyce@gmail.com andreawhatcott@gmail.com JOHN-ROSS BOYCE ANDREA WHATCOTT be, they are most likely not set out to dupe the masses. Last, a quick word about how (NOT) to credit Wikipedia in a paper. To be brief, do not ever under any circumstances put Wikipedia down on your Works Cited list. This doesn't mean you can't read it, it just means don't quote it word for word. If you do and your professor doesn't fail you, then UVU really does have the most lenient academic policy in the country. Wikipedia is simply the tool you need to find credible sources. You wouldn't cite the Encyclopedia Britannica for the date of D-Day, so don't cite Wikipedia. Learn how to use Wikipedia's footnotes and you won't ever be tempted to credit Wikipedia. With the amazing invention of Internet links, all you have to do is click to find your reference. At most, you might have to Google a book and go to the library to read it, which is an exercise that will make your English teachers proud and may even earn you a good grade. So stop whining that your professors won't let you reference Wikipedia and actually learn how to research like the people who write Wikipedia articles. When looking for peerreviewed articles for your fifteen page senior thesis, don't expect to find them on Wikipedia. But when you're curious as to how many pipes are in the organ at the Austrian Church of St. Nikolaus, Wikipedia can be a great tool. (There are 2400 pipes, by the way.) In conclusion, Wikipedia is a credible source for what is considered to be common knowledge and is a great tool for finding perfect primary sources. Used as such, both the academic world and the common crowd can find peace and happiness in their research methods. |