"Kind of makes you scratch your head."
Casey Anthony was found "Not Guilty" (which 'doesn't mean innocent') and Jerome Earsland gets life. Just using common sense, Casey Anthony probably killed her own kid and Jerome Earsland killed a would-be armed robber.
I can see the jury's point of view in the Anthony case. The prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused actually committed the crime.
I can see the jury's point of view in the Earsland case. The defendant went beyond the bounds of the Make My Day law by unloading his gun into the unconscious, unarmed kid that came into the pharmacy to rob him.
But the dead kid bought and paid for those bullets when he entered the store with two others to commit armed robbery, right? And the mom did everything exactly wrong if she really didn't kill her daughter.
Maybe it's not fair to make a comparison between these two unrelated cases. But I can't figure out a reason not to compare them. There is something fundamentally wrong with the system that sentenced one person to life while the other walks away free. Yet each was afforded due process under our law, and was judged by a jury of their peers. The system seems to have worked exactly as it was designed to work, and produced two wrong answers that when compared and contrasted to each other seem really, really wrong - to the point of bizarre.
I'm not sure that there were any right answers concerning either of these cases. In the Anthony case, the prosecution didn't meet prima facia requirements. In the Earsland case, he didn't do the right thing either. Maybe juries need more flexibility than the Yes/No, "Guilty" or "Not Guilty" choices they are given.
But in the context of these two cases, the 'system' we all believe in and live under seems to have blatantly failed.