CASEY (Anthony) DIDN?T STRIKE OUT, YET THERE?S NO JOY IN MUDVILLE

Frank.Farley, Ph.D

Our national pastime used to be baseball, and the poem ?Casey at the Bat?, (Casey being a great hope from Mudville), was a poetic anthem for the sport. Are televised criminal trials today the new national pastime? The attention to the Casey Anthony trial might lead you to think so. In the world of that trial, Mudville was the courtroom AND the nation. And most of Mudville was, in a twist from the poem, pulling for Casey to STRIKE OUT. It didn?t happen. Oh my god, who could believe she hit a home run! Out of the park!. Her stocky Jose-6-pack combative team captain Jose Baez led the defense effort. The defense team manager/player Cheney Mason, older, professorial, was deadly boring at bat, though he seemed to know the game well from years on the diamond. The street-fighter in-the-game guy on the one hand and the cerebral moves-master hanging back, on the other, and the both of them hanging witnesses and prosecution players, was a powerful one-two.

The prosecution team seemed less interesting somehow, but in the final inning got more emotional, team captain Jeffrey Ashton tearing up, and maybe that was wrong to do at that moment with a jury that was all cried out with more tears likely to come in their deliberations. This jury knew the vale of tears which they and Mudville had been through, and they were in desperate need of a clear, solid, rational, understandable summary of the case against Casey. The EVIDENCE, not the emotion. A life was at stake. The defense had already exhorted them to focus like a laser on the evidence only. This trial could not be tried on feelings, but the prosecution didn?t get it and brought emotion into their summary.. They tried to arouse powerful emotions over the idea of Casey killing her loving daughter, for what, to have more time for fun! Maybe that absurd proposal was a hail Mary pass (oops, wrong sport). There was so little comprehensive, credible and understandable evidence to show in this trial, so that play was the prosecution?s last chance. This jury had spent six weeks mired in the mud of this case, where the strength of evidence didn?t get much better as things went along, and the most heinous of crimes, infanticide, couldn?t be resolved. Neither the prosecution nor defense could pull all the various threads of the case into one compelling account,.In the face of such high uncertainty, and with the gallows in the background, reason prevailed with the jury.

Most of Mudville was not joyful over this, verdict, but another trial will come along in the national sport, and maybe things will be different. In human behavior, often we can?t explain or understand everything, nailing down exact cause-and-effect. Much is elusive despite our desire for certitude, and some things are chance, not amenable to a courts rules of evidence.

This deadly serious game is over. Casey won at bat. Courtroom culture, high profile trials, CSI, the battles of lawyers, and the TV and media coverage have now become even more our national pastime. There are endless deadly games ahead in this evolving national sport.

You?re Outa-Here!

There were several things about this trial that deserve the penalty box (oops, wrong sport again!), both inside the courtroom and in the media circus outside in the nation. I?ll just touch on a few fouls that I find personal.

1. The QUALITY OF THOUGHT concerning human behavior and motivation.This was often shallow or bizarre. Nowhere did I see a scientific psychologist in there charged with sorting out all the statements and odd behavior. My fave here was the prosecution?s theory of Casey?s motive to murder. It broke down into two parts. 1). ?Kill for Fun?. Casey wants more fun so Caylee requires killing.. In the final minute of the trial Casey is shown dancing. .2). ?The Pre-Emptive Strike?.Caylee is nearing a stage of mental development where she is capable of ratting out her mom?s lies (as if people around Casey know nothing of her lying ways) so Caylee needs killing. This of course ignores Casey?s great expertise in the lying game, which she could well teach to her loving daughter. This motive in total is unsupported by any sound psychological base, (unless Casey is diagnosed as seriously mentally ill, or Caylee had such a difficult temperament that could trigger a mom?s homicidal rage, with no evidence for either that I know of,) , yet was advanced as a KEY PIECE of the prosecution?s summation.

2. THE OK CORRAL CONSULTANTS. Some of the expert opinion was all over the map on some issues, with serious shoot-outs.. Was this sometimes hurting rather than helping justice? Should unproven theories or unproven techniques be allowed into a murder trial? I say no.

3. ROLE OF THE MEDIA. It?s the media pundits that concern me. Lawyer pundits dominated of course. Few seemed to be objectively evaluating the evidence but rather tilting to the prosecution. I saw few independents or contrarians, but usually lemming lawyers running in the same direction. If you heard one it often seemed that you had heard them all. As a psychologist who has studied human behavior for decades, I was struck by the frequent lack of understanding and insight into human behavior, motivation, and thinking, e.g., many seemed highly impressed by the prosecution?s theory of motive! I would hope that in future media trials, TV and all relevant media would engage a much wider range of professions for punditry which would better inform the public and lead to a variety of insights greater than we saw in this coverage. The media could help us all by using extensive court-room experience rather than good-looks and youth as key selection criteria for the dozens or hundreds of lawyer pundits. I would like to hear from truly seasoned attorneys with hundreds of trials on their CVs. Practical trial experience with some significant psychological training would add dramatically to the quality of punditry in a trial as complex and psychological as this. The public deserves no less.

Frank Farley, Ph.D is L.H.Carnell Professor at Temple University, Philadelphia, and former President of the American Psychological Association. frank.farley@comcast.net Ph (215)668-7581.