Casey Anthony, Justice, and You

If you heard a strange sound around 11:00 this morning (July 5) what you likely heard was the nation's collective jaw dropping as the verdicts in the Casey Anthony murder trial were read in Florida.

After the biggest media circus trial since the O.J. Simpson trial, the jury, after a deliberation of only 10 hours, returned Not Guilty verdicts on all the counts except for the "relatively minor" charge of lying to police (that this is a minor offense in the eyes of man can be the topic of a future post). After adjusting for time served, Casey Anthony could be back out partying before the end of the week.

The shock at the verdicts was palpable, and the pundit reactions were immediate and forceful. How could this happen?
Let me add this right here, I am not going to re-try the case here. I have my own thoughts, like everyone else, but my purpose is not to rehash or second-guess the jury's verdict.


As it was quickly pointed out, the jury (who collectively refused to talk to the media -- good for them!) did not say that Ms. Anthony was innocent, but only that the State failed to prove her guilt of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Hair splitting? Perhaps, but perhaps not.

Why does this concern us? For us Christians especially, the idea that justice has failed to be done in this case is at the forefront. We have a visceral reaction to the thought of a murderer getting away with his/her crime, especially when the victim was a child, and especially especially when the victim was the accused's own  daughter. If Casey is indeed, as the vast majority of people believe, factually (if not legally) guilty, then she is a monster of the worst sort and a picture of the depths of human depravity.

But what if she is not? What if the media and the for-hire legal news station contributors are wrong? To be perfectly objective, we don't know. Despite the police work and the legal team preparations and the arguments presented in court and analyzed ad nauseum by the cable news folks, we don't know what happened. We don't know all the facts, or who was lying and why. All that we seem to know for sure is that the Anthony family is deeply in need of God's grace and the work of His Spirit.

So how should we as Christians respond to today's verdicts? Three things came immediately to my mind after learning of the verdicts and they are these:

1. If Casey Anthony is actually, in reality, innocent, as a jury of her peers has concluded, then we can and should rejoice that justice was  done, and that an innocent mother, faced with the accusation of having done the absolute worst thing that a mother could be accused of doing, has been vindicated and will be able to get on with her life, though tragically minus her daughter, and we can pray that the Lord will use this situation in His way and His timing to convert this daughter of Eve, and redeem her from her sin and give to her life eternal.

2. If Casey is in fact guilty, and did kill her daughter, and somehow a skilled defense team, through the well-spun web of lies, re-directions, and massaging of evidence both circumstantial and forensic, has fooled the jury, and fooled the system, we can rest in the certain knowledge that they, and she, has most assuredly not fooled God. Like so many others who have duped the world, it remains an unalterable truth that "God is not mocked." "'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord" (Romans 12:19). The Almighty is not in the habit of forgetting, and though justice may be delayed, it is not avoided.

3. Let none of us think that we are, before the judgment bar of Holy God, any more innocent than Casey Anthony or Susan Smith, or O.J. Simpson, or Jefferey Dahmer, or any of the countless figures throughout history who are infamous for having done unspeakable things.

We are all sinners. The best of us are as worthy of death as the worst of us; and I don't mean just death by lethal injection or electrocution, but eternal death in an eternal hell. We are all lawbreakers, and were each "storing up wrath for the day of wrath."

But for us, Christian, God has been gracious. Jesus Christ, who, on the last day will serve as judge, jury, and executioner, has come down from the bench, and bared His own arm to the lethal injection of the wrath of the Holy God against sin. He took God the Father's just and righteous wrath, which is the sentence for all who sin ("the wages of sin is death") (Romans 6:23). 

We need not despair when it appears to us that justice has not been served. It will be, if not sooner, then certainly later.