In July, Casey Anthony, a woman who (I believe) murdered her daughter, was set free. The evidence seemed somewhat straightforward: A young mother, who had been saying she yearned to be free of maternal duties, suddenly lost her daughter, Caylee, and reported her missing after a month. It was later discovered that Anthony had been partying and acting like a college student again, almost as if she felt she was free of motherly duties. After a short search, police found Caylee’s remains in a trash bag near the Anthony residence.

Anthony said Caylee was kidnapped by her nanny. That was a lie. She said she worked at Universal Studios. That was a lie. She said she had told two employees at Universal Studios about Caylee’s disappearance. That was a lie. She said she had spoken to her daughter in the month she was missing. That was a lie (because Caylee was already dead during that time). Finally, Anthony said she had been repeatedly sexually abused by her father and brother and was emotionally damaged. That, too, was a lie. After all this, one would assume a jury would be skeptical — to say the least — about the innocence of Casey Anthony. Nevertheless, the prosecution botched the case, and Anthony was set free.

At this point one would assume I am about to rail against the legal system, lambasting it for its flaws, its racism, its bias or whatever standard argument one would expect to hear from a liberal live-and-let-live person. On the contrary, I wish to explain why the U.S. legal system is one the best in the world, and how our nation is all the better for it.

When I hear complaints about the legal system, they are always from one end of the spectrum or the other: The system is too lenient or too strict. When a system becomes too strict or biased, cases like Davis’ or Amanda Knox’s are the result. The Knox trial took place in Italy, which has a truly corrupt system. After being convicted with less than stellar evidence, Knox, a young college student studying abroad, was sentenced by an Italian judge to 26 years in prison for the murder of her roommate. When the system becomes too lenient or favorable to the accused, cases such as Casey Anthony’s can happen.

For those inclined to decry the system we have in the U.S., they should remember that the system is built upon the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty, and that a conviction can only come when the evidence proves the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Anything less, and the defendant is not guilty — not necessarily innocent, but not guilty. Casey Anthony is a free woman today because the prosecution did not live up to their duty to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. No one will call her innocent — not even her family — for at the very least, she is a pathological liar (which is something her conviction did reflect).

On the other end, Troy Davis is dead because the prosecution did its job exceptionally well. It is not prosecutors’ job to put away the bad guys — that is not in their job description. What they needed to do, and what they did do, was prove beyond doubt that Davis was guilty. Although he might have been innocent, the judge, the jury and the Supreme Court had no doubt that he was not.

Finally, one must remember the system in the U.S. is not the justice system, it is the legal system. Justice is an ideal, a subjective opinion that varies from one person to the next, a concept of moral rightness based on ethics. Asking for justice is the equivalent of asking for happiness. One person may say justice for a murderer is death — an eye for an eye — where another person might say that a murderer deserves life in prison to sit with their guilt. A lawyer, no matter if they are a defense lawyer or a prosecutor, does the same thing: they see that the rights of an individual are upheld, and that the individual receives the fair punishments the law has established.

They do not seek justice; that job is reserved for Batman.

Jameson Joyce is a State News guest columnist and James Madison freshman. Reach him at joyceja1@msu.edu.