I hate to sound like I’m piling on here, but it’s O.J.’s fault.

You can’t turn on the national news, especially on cable channels, without feeling like it’s all Casey Anthony, all the time. The coverage often is gavel-to-gavel, the smallest details reported breathlessly, as though there were any doubt of the eventual outcome.

She’s guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Unless the jury has a sudden, mass attack of brain damage, they’ll convict. It’s pretty obvious Casey Anthony is a sociopath and a pathological liar and, aside from having no conscience, isn’t all that bright.

I am not, by the way, violating the Constitution by saying that. The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is a legal, not a moral, one. Were I on that jury, it would be a different thing for me to say she’s guilty now. But I’m not; I’m just a guy with an opinion, albeit one I’m pretty confident in.

What’s most disturbing about the blanket coverage of the Anthony trial is that it even exists. Were she a poor woman of color, or were her victim not as cute, we wouldn’t be seeing much about it. The fact is, similar murders happen every day in this country and you don’t hear much about them. They usually are a consequence of poverty and class. Those are subjects most Americans don’t give much thought to and most national news media types, being upper-class, aren’t interested in. To too many of the people who make news decisions on the national level, a minority member committing filicide is a ho-hum thing. It’s one of the more blatant examples of racism and classism in our society.

But when they find a case they can latch onto, like Casey Anthony or Scott Peterson – another really stupid murderer whose case was covered ad nauseum, largely because his victim was cute and pregnant – you can’t get away from the coverage.

Here’s where O.J. comes in. On the brains scale, O.J. wasn’t much smarter than Casey Anthony. But he was able to afford really good lawyers and, combined with deeply inept prosecutors, a bad judge and a jury that set a new standard for cluelessness, there was a huge miscarriage of justice. Because O.J. had led a charmed life, the murder was particularly gruesome and it was so likely he’d be convicted, it made for great TV on several levels. Ever since, the national media have been waiting for a new O.J. case to come along. They’d love to have those kinds of ratings again. But they just have to settle for Casey Anthony.

It’s too bad that so many people were so affected by what they saw in the Simpson trial, because it really didn’t give an accurate picture of the court system and how it works. The fact is, the criminal trial system is one of the founding fathers’ most ingenious ideas. Yes, there is the occasional O.J. verdict, and innocent people get convicted. It’s not perfect. But for something designed by human beings, it works pretty well.

And it works well despite the total lack of understanding most people have of it. The biggest misconception people have is that the court system determines guilt. That’s wrong; it determines whether guilt can be proved. That’s why guilty people get acquitted; it might be obvious, from a common-sense standpoint, that they did it, but from a legal standpoint the prosecution couldn’t prove it.

And there are “technicalities” in the law, but there are reasons for those too. Things that seem to us like subtleties of legal process exist to safeguard that very process. The founding fathers knew that truth is a moving target; no human system is going to infallibly find it. But the jury trial system provides the best opportunity anybody has yet constructed to find the truth. Thus, the integrity of that process must be protected, even if protecting that process means a guilty person occasionally goes free.

Take the protection against self-incrimination, for example. Everybody’s had an experience where their words have been twisted to make it sound like they admitted to some sin. Imagine if, instead of being accused of admitting to taking the last piece of pizza, you were accused of admitting to a murder. Obviously, when the stakes are that high, the protections are that important.

And I’ve been consistently impressed by juries. The O.J. jurors notwithstanding – and it’s hard to say whether they were stupid or hoodwinked or simply shirked their duty and acquitted him despite the evidence – most people who serve on juries want to do the right thing. And they work very, very hard to do it. People really rise to the occasion. And they often do so despite a real distaste of some of what they have to see and do. I’ve seen jurors all but turn green when they see police photos of murder; hearing a child testify to sexual abuse can drive you to drink. But jurors hunker down and do it every day in this country. And most of the verdicts they render are just.

“The law is an ass,” according to a character in Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” That is sometimes true. Like any system that seeks to apply rationality to the human heart and mind, neither of which is particularly rational, the law can be wrong.

But keep in mind, it’s one of the big reasons America has lasted more than two centuries. And it’s one of the reasons that this country has been, and remains, the hope of the world. Remember that when you watch the seeming weirdness of the Casey Anthony trial. I may be proven wrong, but my guess is that in the end, she will get justice.