ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, NJ: Casey Anthony, the woman accused and found not guilty of killing her young daughter, has been the object of intense enmity, astronomical press coverage and, for want of a better word, a smear campaign. What was one of her "despicable" actions which caused the devil to dance? She was photographed smiling, drinking and enjoying herself supposedly after her daughter had been missing for days, if not weeks. The actual date and time the photo was taken wasn't provided in coverage of her odious activities.

Why were the spectators outside the courthouse crying for her blood? You could compare them to those in the coliseum rooting for the lions. People who go to murder trials expect to hear gory details and come away shaking their heads. It's fodder for the gossip mill and avoids the usual cares of the day; the economy, mortgage foreclosures and bankruptcy filings. In other words, it's a distraction. But when the death of a child is seen as an opportunity for raising one's profile, whether in a professional or personal manner, there is great reason for concern.

We live in a country ruled by laws not rowdy crowds that have been whipped up by media frenzy, sound bites and distasteful and mawkish poses of outrage. We do not send people to their deaths because they are young, foolish and fail to show what we believe should be incredible grief.

Let's look at another case in 1980 where a child was missing, never found and the mother was charged with its murder. The mother, Lindy Chamberlain, related her belief that her nine-week-old baby daughter had been taken from the family tent during the night by a dingo, a wild dog in Australia. The mother, at trial, was viewed as unemotional and it was this stoicism which moved the jury to sentence the mother to life imprisonment in 1982. Years later, bits of the child's clothing were found in a dingo lair area and the mother was exonerated. But she was convicted on her lack of emotion and that is the truly astonishing fact here.

Another case, that of Andrea Yates who killed her five children by drowning them in her Texas home was also whipped up in some media. She admitted to the killings and this was seen as cold-blooded premeditation by people who refused to believe she was psychotic and suffered from severe postpartum depression for which she had to take antipsychotic medications.

An expert hired gun for the prosecution testified that she, obviously, had seen a TV show which had the same killing theme and she had emulated it. She was sentenced to life imprisonment and only after the expert admitted his testimony was "materially false" when it was pointed out that no such TV episode had aired on the show in question was she granted another trial. This resulted in confinement in a state psychiatric hospital. But the pundits were crying out for blood all the while the original trial was on.

Yes, some mothers do kill their children, but more mothers don't and we can't allow our emotions to hold sway over our ability to reason. Courtrooms are for evidence and deliberation, not media where profile is everything and the quiet and reasonable don't rule.

Here's my audio interview on this case: http://reportergary.com/2011/07/the-psychology-of-the-casey-anthony-trial/