nancy grace is poisoning american journalism

...somewhere in abaddon on a frigid october night in 1959, the young tabloid-demon let forth a thunderous petition to the empty sky and birthed its fire breathing progeny. the demon vowed to set her daughter forth to destroy american journalism and when this broodlings name is mentioned it turns the blood of the virtuous to ice and the corrupt and panderous come running to kiss the fishermans ring fasted upon her cold, bony right hand. the demon deceivingly named her seed… nancy grace.

ok enough.

anyone who knows me, is well aware of my undying hate for - above all else - these two things:

1. the unapologetic melodramatics like ben gibbard
2. the post-peter Jennings prejudicial news outlets that have become ravingly popular in the last few years. (i.e., sean hannity, rush limbaugh and the demon spawn nancy grace)

i always knew nancy grace was full of shit, but just recently its been making my blood boil. for instance, casey anthony… at first i thought it was just because i live in orlando, because this case was getting more airtime and local exposure than the $3.00 gas at the ferncreek and colonial chevron, and was really starting to wear on everyone’s intellect. but then the paragon of journalistic integrity, the soul-squandering sinner herself, nancy grace broke the story nationally and was officially the first to jump on the missing girl bandwagon, as she always is. Iidon’t feel like i need to explain the details of the case to you, as im sure you already know them, but if you don’t, go to casey anthony’s wikipedia page, yes, you read that correctly, casey anthony’s wikipedia page.

okay so now that you’ve read up on floridas latest white-trash celebrity, you probably are wondering the same thing i was: how can casey anthony get charged with murder 1 and aggravated manslaughter for one child whos body has not been recovered for evidence on said murder? i did some research on WestLaw and the legal library my law office has and came up with some interesting facts. two words: corpus delicti, or “body of crime”. not a literal body, but a figurative one:

“…refers to an act or omission to act (failure to act), and it also requires criminal agency to be in the mind. That is, there must be intent, criminal negligence, or strict liability.”

black’s law dictionary (6th ed.) refers to corpus delicti as:

"…the fact of a crime having been actually committed."

so in this case the grand jury found evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that casey anthony did in fact commit murder under the corpus delicti definition. im not sure how i feel about this. what if, because of nancy graces speculative journalism and unearthing myspace photos of “tot mom alleged sexy partying!” - which was an actual headline on her show under the heading of BREAKING NEWS - that the jury actually finds casey anthony guilty, zaps her in the next life and then a week later they find caylee hanging from a ceiling fan by her pigtails in some pedophiles house in casselberry? what then, oops? understand im not defending casey anthony’s actions by any means because the simple fact is shes a moron and the worst parent since andrea yates. my point is: we don’t need nancy grace spewing her rhetorical vomit swaying the publics opinion about parenting and the judicial system to understand these facts. any marginally responsible parent wouldve done everything she didn’t do. the florida state attorneys office has been throwing the book at casey anthony since late july and nothing has stuck, theyve got to be proud now, but really, what if? but i can see through all of this. first of all, there are 390 people on death row in florida and only one is a woman. in fact, florida has only executed two women in the modern era, so heres my point: the state attorneys office pushed for murder on the chance she gets charged by the grand jury, the state can finally hold her on remand and save getting her bail posted (which so far totals at $1,000,400) by no-named yahoos wanting to jump on the celebrity bandwagon along with our friend nancy. which brings me to my next point; the only thing about this case that makes me angrier than nancy grace is the jackasses nosing into this anyway they can just to get a little free airtime. as if dan newlins giant forehead and thinning, wispy, crypt-keeper hair wasn’t enough to attract attention to the Morgan & Morgan law firm, john morgan has to get his melting face on the tabloid circuit representing zenaida gonzalez in a defamation suit against casey anthony.

we are walking into dangerous territory here. when you expose a local case like this nationally before any court proceedings, you run the risk of not being able to find an unbiased jury. look we all know that oj simpson shouldve been rotting in a cell over a decade ago, but honestly, do you really think the jury in his most recent case wasnt biased? to be fair, i wouldve sent him to jail anyways, biased or not. but by nancy grace insisting that this girl killed her daughter before the grand jurys indictment hearing, is it possible that there were a few people on the jury who actually believed her and ignored the reasonable doubt they may have ever had? i believe so. watching nancy grace should be an expellable bias in voir dire hearings. anyways, the whole point to this is that she should be taken off the air, or at least start practicing sound journalism. personally id like to see her tried for jury tampering in addition to her wrongful death suit of melinda duckett, who was another florida mother of a missing boy who pulled a hemmingway after being grilled live on grace’s show. secondly, ambulance chasing attorneys have no place sticking their nose in a capital murder case under the guise of a defamation suit just to get noticed, and third and most important: theres a landmark presidential election going on and it seems that on some days it gets overshadowed by tabloid news.

im seeing similarities between the timing of this case with the 2008 elections and the carlie bruscia murder in sarasota during the 2004 elections. these cases are blown out of proportion as a political distraction. children are reported missing and get killed by their parents every day - whether intentional or accidental - more often than once every election year, this is the sad truth. lets at least put a spin on this if its going to be in the public eye for so long, lets actually relate the nonsense media hype to politics for once and see if makes an impact. im going to say that little caylee is this years political groundhog, just as in 2004 it was carlie bruscia. if punxsutawnee phil can predict six more weeks of winter maybe the fate of these little girls can predict the outcome of the political climate. could a dead caylee mean mccain takes the presidency? or could finding caylee alive mean a win for obama? i guess well have to tune into “headline news” to find out.

if you think this is taking it to far, youre right it is, and no thanks to ms. grace who has practically made it this way. down with speculative journalism and trash media! the irony behind all this is that she actually co-authored a book entitled: “Objection! -- How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System” in which she referred to defense lawyers as "pigs" and compared defense attorneys to Nazi concentration camp guards. i take this personally because i work in a firm that deals solely in defense for medical malpractice suits and it is hard, respectable work, much more than i can say for her work on her television show where she has been blatantly one sided on issues, ignoring the facts presented and in a few instances humiliated when it all gets thrown in her face. for example, melinda duckett, the duke lacrosse rape case and elizabeth smart owning her on live tv insisting that she was sticking her forked prosecutorial tongue where it didn’t belong.

in short, do yourself and everyone else a favor if you watch nancy grace, turn it off and take a stand for responsible journalism and watch anderson cooper, who may just be the last great television journalist.