Church Upset With Casey Anthony Verdict Holds Mock Retrial
A mock retrial of Casey Anthony’s court case that was held as part of a Cleveland church’s worship service ended in a hung jury Sunday.
Twelve church members who attended In Touch With Christ Christian Center in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sunday were chosen as “jurors,” WJW-TV reported. The “judge” was Associate Pastor Una Keenon, who is a retired municipal court judge in the community of East Cleveland.
The acquittal of Anthony of culpability in her daughter Caylee’s death has touched off a firestorm of reaction, including a recent USA Today/Gallup poll that shows 2 in 3 Americans believe Anthony definitely or probably murdered her daughter. She was released from a Florida jail on Sunday.
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"Would it be better for [Casey Anthony] to go to death row and be killed for killing her child when she didn't? Because if that maybe is in there, then I would say 'no, it's not fair,' " Keenon told the mock-jurors and congregation.
Eight of the jurors said "guilty," and four said "not guilty," WJW-TV reported.
Lead pastor, Bishop Prince J. Moultry, told The Christian Post that he wanted to present a message that was both spiritually and legally informative. There was a time for open questions during the service.
“After the [Casey Anthony] trial, people from my church were asking me 'how can 12 people see all the facts and come to that conclusion?’ I wanted to do the mock trial to help people understand how the judicial process works and also to ask ourselves how do we respond, because we are supposed to be the voice of God," Moultry said.
Moultry, who said he was angry after the real Anthony case verdict, thought his church jury's verdict would be a unanimous "guilty." However, Keenon outlined the legal aspects of reasonable doubt well and pointed to the many innocent people in jail because of incorrect rulings.
"I pleaded not guilty because like Rev. Keenon said, it goes behind the facts of the case and they didn't have 100 percent of the facts saying that she was guilty," said Darius Coleman, who served on the mock-jury.
"I feel like even if she didn't murder her child by her own hands, she played a part in it, so she's guilty by association, so that's why I voted guilty for her," Tamika White told WJW-TV.
Moultry said the most important message from the service on Sunday was to show the need to protect children in the Cleveland area. "This baby’s physical presence was taken away in a very gruesome way, but many babies who are living today are not able to enjoy being a child," he said.
The In Touch With Christ website states that Moultry received the 1995 FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award for his "fight against drugs, gangs and Black-on-Black crime." Also, he has received recognition for his “Adopt–A Corner” program designed to "take the neighborhood back from drug dealers, one corner at a time."
