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Voodoo Justice

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Wednesday saw the acquittal of the murder charges against Michael Castillo. His exoneration is not so quirky, but the fact that "voodoo evidence" cleared him is. Friends, the legal system has officially gone down the toilet.

Castillo got off due to new evidence in a case that has lasted since February of this year. He was arrested on Jan. 28 after having shot his "friend" Scott Kornacki with a Glock 9mm. Castillo's attorney argued that Kornacki was going to kill Castillo in order to animate a voodoo doll with his spirit. Pardon me, but what the hell is this?

Amazingly enough, the gun was proven to belong to Kornacki because a shell from the Glock was found in the ninja suit that he was killed in. Well, I know that the better part of my intelligent life has been spent fraternizing with voodoo freaks dressed in ninja suits.

The grand jury found in favor of the defendant 13-1. 13-1? At least one person had sense enough to realize that despite the overwhelming evidence that voodoo threats pressed Castillo to bust a cap in his buddy, he still did it.

People, listen to reason here. Castillo was hanging out with a whack job who was into voodoo, wore ninja suits, carried a Glock 9, and enjoyed hanging out on dark streets at pre-dawn hours. Are there any other clues that you need to find new friends? I would argue that Castillo was very nearly as shady a character as his cooky pal Kornacki.

Earlier in the case proceedings, Castillo had been released on court recognizance, only to be returned to jail after failing a mandated drug test. Our voodoo priest slaying hero was an addict. Not a man attacked in an alley by a random psycho, but a flake who shot his friend before he could be killed. Lord knows that once your spirit is forced into the form of a voodoo doll that life just isn't the same.

I need an aspirin. Thirteen out of 14 jurors were convinced that Castillo was not guilty. I'll yield this much: his attorney Jesse Smith may very well be 10 times slicker than Slick Willy, Bill Clinton, himself. It pains me to think of the feeble minds on that jury. It took little more than a perceived threat argument based on fanciful rituals to turn morality into an easily made judgment call.

Murder is murder, especially when the whole situation could have been dodged. The signs were obvious, the situation was eminent, and the killer's character wasn't exactly pristine. In today's day and age, society has been allowed to think that killing can be categorized, and that there are an endless number of ways to get off.

In the late 1980s, for example, a woman was found not guilty for killing her husband based on the "Sugar Daddy" defense. She argued temporary insanity due to her diabetes. I'm diabetic, and it would never drive me to kill someone. Furthermore, it would have occurred to me that when my ever-so-close companion mentioned taking my soul in order to animate a voodoo doll, the appropriate response would be turning tail and running the other way.

Granted, I'm not hopped up on drugs, so my mind's clarity is a bit of a leg up. However, let's get back to the real world.

Castillo shot a man in cold blood with definitive evidence to support the fact that he knew Kornacki's plans and could have saved himself. The world is in a downward spiral, an infinite regression in which people are marginalizing something so evil as murder. Whether Kornacki were to kill Castillo, or the reality, it's still murder.

Manson's occult-led murders weren't okayed because of a "delusion defense." He was sentenced to life because he was a nut. He thought he was bettering the world by weeding out the dung of society. Castillo thought he was taking the life of a murderer.

Guess what, Castillo, you killed someone. You took the life of a psycho and put that rabid freak down. Unfortunately, the murder never had to happen had you simply told the Five-0. You are an idiot. A lucky idiot who got off because a voodoo weirdo's lifestyle was so foreign and vile to a grand jury that they acquitted you.

More vile than that lifestyle however, was the murder. Next time a nut gets on the stand, let's put him in jail.