Phil's Garden GrowsI am kind of stunned in the excessive interest in the Casey Anthony murder case. People knocking each other over to secure a seat in the courtroom. What about this case interests people so much?
If I were to choose a trial I'd want to sit in on, it would be the Charles Manson trial. Although I have to admit, spending time with Charlie might be more than I could bear.
What about you? What true crime story interests you most?
What courtroom would you like to sit in--at any time/place in history, not just today?
33 comments:
I would pick the Stanford White/Harry Kendall Thaw/Evelyn Nesbit trial from the early 20th century.
I actually considered flying to Chicago to see a day or two of the Family Secrets trial a few of years ago. I would have loved to have been in the room for that bad boy.
I agree. The Casey Anthony thing is just sad and sleazy. New Yorkers of a certain age will get the reference when I say she's the Alice Crimmins of today.
What courtroom would I like to sit in? Yeah, Charlie was a good choice as that case held me way more than most modern trials.
From a historical perspective, maybe the Nuremberg trials...though again I don't know if I could bear it for long.
Jeff M.
Although mystery/crime fiction is one of my favorite genres, very few "real life" cases pique my interest. I wouldn't want to be present during a murder trial, some of that evidence is extremely graphic. (I don't like fiction to be too graphic either, I usually skip over the nasty bits.)
If I had to name one...either Emma Goldman's extradition hearings, or Scopes. But nearly any important Supreme Court hearing would probably be enough to get the blood boiling.
I never thought Kennedy would swing so far to the right. He was my only hope of some decent decisions.
The trial that never happened that I would like to have witnessed: Lee Harvey Oswald's trial.
The trial that did happen that I would like to have witnessed was one that was vastly overshadowed when it occurred by the OJ Simpson trial (the first one), and that would have been the trial of Melvin Hanson who, along with John Hawkins, founded Just Sweats, then embezzled it into bankruptcy. They moved on to insurance scams and at last murder. The Murder Hustle
Oh, what a good point. Trials that never happened. Another post.
True Crime is really just too much for me. I can neither watch it nor read it. My wife does watch some of the court TV cases, and I've watched a few things about serial killers because I use the information in psychology classes, but generally I avoid it. I actually sat as a juror on a case of shaken baby syndrome one time. It was probably the most gut wrenching experience of my life. I never want to do it again.
The Trial of Richard Nixon in the Senate.
What I would have given...
Jeff M.
My daughter is a real true crime fan. I bet sooner or later she does a non-fiction book on one.
Oh, yes, Jeff.
And one with all the crooks on Wall Street that have nearly brought the world to its knees.
The one that will never happen; when both sides of the political aisle are brought up on charges of not protecting the American worker and not only giving our money to Wall Street without stipulations on what they could do with that $700 Billion, but not precluding them from doing what Goldman Sachs did the other day (and announce they were cutting 230 NY jobs while adding several thousand overseas).
Actually, on second thought, I'd prefer to witness the executions.
Goldman Sachs has to be the worst although how about the mining company which had two sets of books in that mining disaster last year.
I think the Casey Anthony trial (I'm not watching nor am I the teensiest bit curious) is all about consumption of sleaze. How much can you tolerate before you remember that at the heart and soul of this wretched case is a dead little girl. People listen or watch it because it makes them feel better and/or superior about themselves or their own situation. That's my view, anyway.
My favorite legalities were the Watergate hearings in all their peculiar spectacle. Thank God that television had the right idea to televise them. I watched every day, couldn't get enough.
But when it comes to trials, I vaguely remember watching the
Kennedy cousin rape trial which was, obviously, a miscarriage of justice. This was fascinating to me because I don't think I'd ever seen an actual criminal trial before.
Tials of history? I would have liked to be in the courtroom when the assassins of Lincoln minus Booth, were tried. All of them.
Also if Lee Harvey Oswald had lived. What a trial that would have been.
L. Ron Hubbard was tried in abstentia in France for fraud and found guilty. I'd loved to have been there if he'd had the guts to show up. Then there was the trial of his wife and 10 or 11 other followers for numerous crimes against the government. She went to prison, taking the fall for her cowardly husband.
A very dangerous group of people. The stories I've heard....
Goldman did what this illustrious government let it do; any loan shark in the world would've made them agree to terms favorable to the lenders before handing over the cash. This government handed it over and then begged and now they're surprised at the result?
The government should be lined up and shot first, then the clowns at Goldman Sachs.
Neither party gets to walk this one back, no matter what drug Chris Mattews is taking (his crying about "tax breaks" for the rich are a couple years too late). I haven't forgotten the $38 BILLION excused by the government for bailed out Citibank.
Any of them that went along with that bailout should be shot.
The Caryl Chessman trial would have fascinated me. You guys may not remember the Red Light Bandit from the late 40's but Caryl Chessman was eventaully executed in the gas chamber in 1960 and never committed a murder or was accused of one. he was tried under Calif. Little Lindberg laws and accused of Kidnapping and rape. There were many "mistakes" and procedural errors in the trial, but Chessman acted as his own attorney, and tho' he was somewhat brilliant, if sociopathic, he got a bit too cute and ultimately screwed up his own chances. The trial would have been...I hate to say entertaining, so let's go with interesting, as would a number of his appeals. I reviewed his one fiction book (he wrote four books on death row, so talk about 'dead lines') here,http://crimeways.wordpress.com
The name is so familiar and yet I don't think I know the facts of the case. But I am very interested in it now. There must be a good book about it. Off to look and thanks!
try this link, Patti http://web.archive.org/web/20010215004622/http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics3/chessman/
I was either in high school or junior high when Chessman went on trial. I remember we had furious discussions about it in class. It was a case cause celebre of its day. I still say he was wrongly executed. He didn't kill anyone.
He did horrible things, but...
There was a 1977 TV movie about Chessman starring Alan Alda called KILL ME IF YOU CAN. They made the point pretty effectively that he should not have been executed.
Jeff M.
Chessman was quite the "cause celebre " against the death penalty. Eisenhower even had to cancel a South American trip because his case was such a cause. Re-examining the evidence today, chances are there were more than one Red Light Bandits, and there was certainly nothing in his past criminal activities to suggest Chessman would have turned to rape (although he just may have known who did)and the kidnapping law was pretty much rewritten to assure he'd be convicted of kidnapping, thus assuring he fell under the Little Lindberg statuets, add to that the facts that the procedural errors (the coourt reporter died before transposing his notes, and no one else could read his short hand, so Chessman was never provided with reliable court transcripts - his right - to write his appeals)would today almost guarantee him an acciutal, or at least a retrial. He was a bad guy, almost in a likeable way, and probably nothing more than a thief and burgalar. Then the way that the authorities in Calif. went about pretty much ignoring him and just wanting him to " go away" because he was an embarrassment to the system. It was quite a case, and I grew up in Pomona, CA, in L.A. County and can remember my parents talking abouty him up thru the 60's.
Annon, there was even a "pop" song by Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks (who would go on to become "The Band") called The Ballad of Caryl Chessman.
Not big on trials, but movies of them fascinate me, like the Klaus Von Bulow film with Jeremy Irons. Like Charles, I do my best to avoid jury duty in criminal court.
I was never called to duty till I moved to Philadelphia, and they kept trying to put me on capital cases, then dismissing me because I wouldn't give anyone the death penalty. I was called for duty at least six times by the city, and once federally. The last time, before I left Philadelphia, it was yet another capital case, and a very tough time at work where I was facing even more 60 hour weeks than usual, and my job, as always, was one which the work of thirty other colleagues depended on so they could do their work. And the case involved the murder of a cop, not altogether dissimilar to the murder of my uncle, then a cop. And yet, the defense and prosecution teams were particularly loathe to let me be dismissed for no obvious reason, and felt it would be persuasive to me to condescend to my work (I can call my job trivial, but even if it is (though, for example, it's pretty key to PBS and several other, private corporations with whom we have contracts), there are still thirty other people who can't do theirs if I don't do mine and particularly at that time a strain on the system if someone had to step in for me for a week or more).
Real trials are terrifying when you've had experience in the jury room. The basic idea behind the jury system is that a random group of twelve citizens will include enough people with enough sense to keep things on track. I think it works most of the time, but statistically, there will have to be the jury of twelve idiots.
My two favorite memories from jury service:
The man who said during voir dire that his wife was employed, but that he didn't know what she did or where she worked.
The woman who said during deliberations, "I think he's guilty [of rape]. Did you see that baggy suit he's wearing?"
I throw myself on the mercy of the court, Your Honor.
I cannot get on a jury to save my soul since my son is a prosecutor. The last time--the defendant had shot someone with a shotgun at point blank range while pregnant, I try to point out I was probably the most liberal person in the room, and still I was gone after the first round.
My favorite jury duty moment: During voir dire, the judge asked if anyone on the panel was currently serving, or had ever served, in the armed forces. The man in seat #6 stood up, saluted crisply, and said, "Proud member of the N.R.A., sir." The judge told him to sit down because the N.R.A. was not a branch of the armed forces. About ten seconds later, the defense attorney said, "We will thank and excuse juror number six."
Think he said that to get dismissed?
I've been called to serve July 26 (first time ever) ... Depending on the kind of case, I'll have to keep that N.R.A. bit in mind ...
Alan Alda in an anti-capital punishment movie? What are the chances?
I start jury duty on Aug 1. I've been on 5 juries over the years: 4 criminal cases, 1 civil. Two guilty, one not guilty (he was guilty, but a cop/witness failed to show), one mistrial. The civil suit was settled for what I considered a low dollar amount. I was foreman on two of those juries.
My son says in my county, any sign of an education will get you bounced.
Post a Comment