Casey Anthony acquitted; ‘CSI effect’ sways jury

For years now, America has been following the Casey Anthony trial with bated breath. The public watched as the prosecutors and defense made their cases, listened to the witness testimonies and mulled over the evidence as we watched the events unfold on TV. On Tuesday, the chaos of media coverage finally came to a head when the court delivered their verdict: not guilty.

The shockwave of public outrage will, no doubt, reverberate for many weeks to come. Dennis Romero, a writer for LA Weekly, said, “We haven’t seen this much public outrage over a the jury’s allegedly shortsighted decision since a man named O.J. Simpson was widely believed to have gotten away with murder right here in L.A.” The fury is justified — despite the strong circumstantial evidence, the jury has acquitted Anthony and let a guilty person go free.

A large part of this misguided ruling is due to the “CSI effect,” a psychological phenomenon that refers to how crime shows such as “Bones” or “Law and Order” have raised jury member’s expectations of forensic science, particularly with respect to crime scene investigation and DNA testing. Because of these unreasonable standards for physical evidence, a number of court cases have ended with an acquittal despite overwhelming non-forensic evidence (a ruling most recently seen in the Durst case in Galveston back in 2004, when a man accused of beheading his neighbor went free because prosecutors didn’t have the victim’s head). The phenomenon highlights how many jurors may have unrealistic expectations and choose instead to perpetuate the misconception that forensic science is somehow infallible.

Though Casey Anthony will still be sentenced this Thursday on a conviction on four counts of giving false information to law officers, such a ruling ignores the greater crime. There’s more than enough circumstantial evidence surrounding Anthony to get a conviction, but popular media has bred ridiculous expectations for physical evidence for jurors. The ruling does a disservice to justice, and the courts have let the death of an innocent 2-year-old go unpunished.