Note to self: stop arguing with upset people.

No matter how much they act like they want to discuss the Casey Anthony verdict, people are lying. They want to gnash their teeth over the lack of justice and commiserate with others, and that's okay, but it's not the same thing.

They have no interest in an objective discussion of the high burden of proof for murder, why it's an uphill battle even when there's plenty of evidence, and how little actual evidence there was in this case.

They don't care about the legal difference between murder and manslaughter, despite its obvious bearing since the state had to prove that Caylee was intentionally killed (murder), and eliminate the possibility that Casey accidentally caused her daughter's death (manslaughter) and covered it up, or simply discovered the death and disposed of the body callously after the fact. In fact, just pointing this out is somehow proof to them that you've bought the defense's claim of a family conspiracy, even if you're simply pointing out the salacious suggestions that Casey doped her daughter so she could get away for a bit (which, again, would be manslaughter) or how cause of death can't be determined and leaves the door wide-open for reasonable doubt.

They don't want to talk about reasonable doubt at all, or what the state did or did not prove or the holes that allowed reasonable doubt to poke its head through. They hear "reasonable doubt" as "I think she's innocent!" rather than "There is a definite non-magical, non-crazy chance she didn't intentionally kill the kid, and that means we can't say 'guilty of murder'."

Suggest that being a skeevy person and a bad mother are not in and of themselves proof of murder, and they throw their hands up in frustration. And why shouldn't they? That was the crux of the prosecution's case--she's a lying liar who lies and she got rid of the body, ergo she obviously killed the girl. Personally, I think had they not muddied the water with murder charges that the evidence didn't support, and tried to stretch Internet searches on a shared computer into a smoking gun, they might have gotten a conviction on manslaughter--not because my armchair legal expertise is Harvard-quality, but because like everyone else, the jury wanted to see someone held responsible and Casey Anthony does come across as skeevy and a bad mother. It's easier to suggest that a shitty mother caused her child's death by being a shitty mother than to suggest that a monstrous mother intentionally killed her child when she could instead have just dropped it off with Grandma and Grandpa and taken off.

But anyhow, I should have realized this, because this is the same thing that happens every time a kiddie murder makes the news.

At least I'm not the only one: The Casey Anthony Verdict: The Jury Did the Right Thing [Time Magazine]

ETA: And now that infamous 84 Internet searches for "chloroform" is under fire. The former policeman behind the software used to come up with that number has come forward to say it's wrong--there was only one search, he contacted the sheriff's office and a prosecutor to give them the corrected information, and yet it appears prosecutors deliberately withheld that information from the defense.

So even if she hadn't been found not guilty, she would have walked.

Now Reading: Sizzling Sixteen

Sizzling Sixteen - Janet Evanovich [Stephanie Plum mysteries]

Because it's too hot to concentrate on big words, dammit.

Ever since the Plum series hit the double-digits, Evanovich has been phoning it in, but it was easy to forgive. She was still slipping some honest belly laughs into the books, they were still tough to put down (once you got past the phonebooth and into the middle), and nobody had high expectations--the series is blatant in its formulaic fun.

With book 16, though, it's more like she scribbled down a barebones outline of marks to hit and handed it to someone else to fill in the dots. Lulabonics moment? Check. Cluck-in-a-Bucket reference? Check. Morelli appearance even though she doesn't know what to do with him anymore? Check.

And as they tediously checked off Plum prerequisites and clichés, I waited for the first belly laugh. Instead, all I heard between the lines was the voice of Evanovich going through the motions: Stephanie and Lula, doughnuts, blah blah blah... Something goofy, something--eh, a lucky bottle. And an alligator. Sure, whatever.

So, has Evanovich checked out? She has other irons in the fire, but the Plum series is her bread and butter, and she may not be able to retire it even if she's lost interest and ready to call it quits. Or has she literally handed it over to a less-than-stellar ghost writer? (The rumor online is that Evanovich has handed over the Plum reins to her daughter.)

Personally, I figure she meant to set up a romantic triangle and instead wrote herself into a corner, and has yet to realize that getting out will require the unthinkable: character development!