I haven’t followed this at all. But apparently it’s big big news.
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Casey Anthony acquitted — 19 Comments
I wonder if the prosecution overreached and did not allow the jury to find her guilty of a lesser charge (eg, second degree murder).
Looking at this and the OJ case, one wonders about the quality of prosecutors. Could they be political hacks?
We taking wagers on which reality show will offer her six figures within a year?
I wonder if the prosecution overreached and did not allow the jury to find her guilty of a lesser charge (eg, second degree murder).
No. They charged her with murder, manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse. Those were answered with “not guilty”. The jury could have gone with manslaughter, but didn’t. The only thing that stuck was 4 charges of lying to the law, total of 4 years in jail. She’s already served about 3.
Makes me wonder about how her defense was funded. She doesn’t have it, and I doubt her parents have that size assets even if she hadn’t accused Dad of ‘sex abuse”. Does Orange County pay its public defenders by the hour? How did this case earn, much less merit, its gargantuan media coverage?
My local public defenders have <300 new cases apiece each year, are paid $70K/yr, and work less than 30 hrs per week; they are allowed to have private-pay clients as well.
I haven’t followed terribly close, but as far as I can tell, the prosecution failed to make a case. No cause of death? I would struggle with finding someone guilty of murder or manslaughter without one, even if I believed she was guilty (I do).
My wife has followed the case pretty closely. She felt the prosecution had made a case for manslaughter but not child abuse or muder. She was very surprised when the jury found her not guilty on that charge.
Well, our justice system is imperfect, but it seems to me that big trials like this get entirely too much coverage, particularly by the media (Cable TV especially.) I watched one segment on Fox where they had these legal experts all procaiming that the prosecution had an airtight case for murder one. That kind of opining during an important trial is quite inappropriate, IMHO. These cases should not be tried in the court of public opinion. This woman may be innocent, but will undoubtedly face quite a lot of poisonous public scorning after she gets out of prison, which , as I understand it, will be about a year from now.
The Television’s said she was gulty of murder all this time … and now she’s not guilty what gives? Crazy world!!!!!
I have followed the case very closely. I don’t think I realized how invested I was until today when the verdict came down. I was absolutely shocked — horrified.
I am so sure that Casey Anthony either killed her daughter directly (most likely) or found someone to do it (less likely as it would involve someone else who could be a liability, and for all her sociopathic tendencies, she’s pretty smart (not intelligence-wise but shrewd and street smart. Which is how she has amazingly gotten away with all that she has).
I find it unbelievable that the defense could proffer theories completely made up of whole cloth: an accidental pool drowning plus childhood molestation by her father AND brother (I do wonder just how much her parents were actually privvy to and wonder if they silently agreed to Jose Baez’s methods in belief that it was “only way” to insure reasonable doubt and free their daughter) without even a shred of evidence in support thereof. In fact, the judge specifically instructed the jury that due to a complete lack of evidence and/or proof of these theories, they could NOT consider either as true.
Yet ultimately, it seems that these fabrications are exactly what (at least, in part) the jurors believed. None of the jurors were willing to discuss with the press their thought processes. An alternate juror did, however, and in addition to admitting that he “agreed wholeheartedly) with the 12 jurors, he maintained it was an accident that got out of control — specifically a pool accident. There was not the slightest bit of evidence even offered to support these defense claims despite it being the core of their opening. With all the experts called, it seems the jurors believed only those that testified on behalf of the defense, and not one of the prosecution experts, despite their first hand knowledge and involvement as well as accreditations.
I honestly don’t think the Prosecution’s portrayal of Casey Anthony as a callous, self-centered playgirl living on the outer bounds of morality was what pursuaded me of her guilt. I found the circumstantial case presented by prosecutors to be very convincing. I have to say I was turned off by the easy manner in which the Defense threw Anthony’s family members (Mom, Dad, brother) under the bus while inventing theories with no basis in fact, but I guess the 12 jurors saw it VERY differently.
The big “creep factor” is that we pretty much know that Casey got away with murder and now, probably in just several days, a complete sociopath will soon return to live among us. Additionally, there is the unavoidable possibility that her family knew a lot more than was revealed. Most probably, we will never know if or to what extent they may have participated in the Defense’s red herring stories. We do know, however, that two parents who originally defended their daughter most vociferously , Mom and Dad were present for the reading of the verdicts and sat stone-faced with absolutely no visible reactiona nd then proceeded to immediately leave the courtroom. No sighs of relief; No joy for their daughter; no celebratory hugs for her. In fact, in the father’s last testimony on the stand, he actually gave away the fact that he believed it was Casey who killed the baby when he answered a Defense query about why his claims had changed from those 3 yrs. ago when the child first went missing and he said, “I never thought then that my daughter was capable of killing her own child.” The “then” is the key, and it pretty clearly infers that now he believes quite differently.
Her parents were and remain in a no-win situation. They lost the absolutely adorable granddaughter whom they supported and who was the center of their lives. Whatever excuses they have previously been able to muster to rationalize their daughter’s transgressions, they can no longer deceive themselves about who and what she really is. This daughter and her attorneys happily implicated her family to save her own skin, and her mother, at least, revealed her degree of desperation as she clearly lied in court in an attempt to appease her daughter who now only looks at both her parents with disgust and contempt. The neighbors in their community want them out, and they are now public personalities whose child is now regarded by most of our society as the worst of the worst: not just a child-killer, but a mother who killed her own and then blithely returned to her morally corrupt lifestyle. I can’t imagine suffering through all they have, having to face the depth of depravity in their own daughter while losing their beloved granddaughter, and then being very publicly implicated in the horrific murder of this child which frees this daughter. Their family has been torn apart and yet I suspect they might welcome Casey back if she deigns to someday again acknowledge this mother and father who prioritized the murder of their granddaughter over her potential involvement and subsequent arrest which very inconveniently disrupted her life.
The other Defense attorney, Cheney Mason, used his time at the mike solely to lambaste the media, professional lawyers who served as commentators, and other “talking heads” for their prognostications (almost all uniformly supporting the Prosecutors) and participating in “media assassination” of Casey Anthony.
This case is a prime example of the imperfections of our system. It also appears that it reveals the effect of modern CSI television series, in which evidence with DNA is always available to trace and solve a murder mystery so neatly within an hour. What heretofore has been considered strong circumstantial evidence cases no longer hold the same degree of credibility.
The fact is Casey Anthony is some piece of work and has a very long history of lying, manipulating whomever is necessary, stealing from family (including her aged grandfather who resides in a nursing home let alone her parents), and apparently finding no act too odious if it enables her to live as she wants to. She seems to have gotten away with murder because she disposed of her daughter’s body in a flooded swamp where it wasn’t found for 6 months, and only after being exposed to the elements, eaten by predatory animals who dragged pieces of the skeleton hither and thither, and which ultimately resulted in the washing away of all traces of direct evidence (i.e. DNA).
There are those who now speak of the prospective riches that await her via books, movie deals, celebrity and personal appearances. That may very well be true. But she is still the same psychopath with a sweet, innocent appearance who managed to perpetrate all manner of criminal activities; that will not change. I have a strange feeling that she will reappear in the news sometime in the not too distant future as she compulsively steps over the boundaries of our law-abiding society. I’m almost sure of it. I somehow doubt she’ll again be able to pull off a second act similar to this first one.
You’re free to loathe Casey Anthony until your dying day, it doesn’t amount to proof of any act or acts. Anthony wasn’t charged with stupidity, heartlessness or excessive sexual urges. She was charged with murder, and acquitted.
Mixed emotions. I did not follow the case, and tried to ignore the media’s ad nauseum fascination with it.
On one hand I am pleased to see the various braying jackasses in the media proven wrong in their pre-verdict mutterings.
On the other, I hate to think that she walks if she did the crime.
There would seem to be some significance to the fact that the jury only deliberated only ten hours. Clearly, there was not too much difference of opinion there.
I don’t know anything about the jury, except for one fact. The Court uprooted 12 people from their homes in the St Petersburg area of Florida and moved them to the Orlando area for six weeks to try the case. Presumably they did this for the convenience of the Court and the Lawyers. That does not seem right, and I am surprised that it is legal. Although I am not suggesting that it was a factor in the verdict, I expect the jury was one pissed off bunch of people by the time this circus turned to them.
I wonder if she will survive prison. There are a lot of predators who will be locked up with her, and believe that she is a child killer, because they were told by the Media that she is.
She’s guilty as hell, and the prosecution failed to prove it.
I don’t want to live in a country where “It’s obvious she did it!” is grounds for a conviction.
The bail bondsman’s theory makes the most sense to me. Apparently, Casey’s new boyfriend wouldn’t permit the baby to spend the night in his apartment while he was boinking Casey. And Casey couldn’t dump the baby off on grandma while she spent the night with the boyfriend without grandma lecturing Casey about her responsibilities as a mother. Casey just didn’t want to listen to that. So Casey forced the baby to ingest some substance to induce sleep. With the baby sleeping in the car, Casey could then spend the night boinking the boyfriend. But the baby accidentally overdosed. And Casey panicked.
But there was no confession, no eye witness to the crime, no cause of death, no DNA evidence, and the forensic evidence was flimsy. It’s a case where I think almost everybody believes Casey was complicit in the baby’s death, including many on the jury, but the prosecution just couldn’t convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt by connecting the dots on a bunch of circumstantial evidence.
I see both sides. It’s both a victory for the judicial system because the prosecution failed to meet it’s burden of proof to convict her, so she was not convicted. On the other hand, a baby is dead and the mother was almost certainly complicit in some way. The mother was negligent at best and malicious at worst (if you believe the prosecution).
To paraphrase Blackstone, it’s better to let 10 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one innocent man. Had the jury convicted her, I’m not sure it would have been a wrongful conviction, but I’m pretty sure by not convicting her a woman who either negligently or intentionally killed her baby will soon be free.
I haven’t been following the case, but the fact that she engaged in partying soon after her daughter’s death/murder is not relevent.
Someone else asked, what it more likely, that a mother killed her child and went out and partied? Or that she didn’t, but went out and partied after her child’s death? It would really depend on the person in question. It wouldn’t say anything either way.
I have no idea whether or not she is guilty. I have no idea whether or not she looks guilty. But she was not on trial for catastrophically bad judgement. She was acquitted of murder.
Frankly, I’m more disturbed that the prosecution wanted to put her on death row when they couldn’t prove a cause of death, as one of the other commenters said. And the charge of “lying to the police” is always dicey because it can mean lying about *anything*, not just the case in hand. Look at Martha Stewart.
@CSimon:
“An alternate juror did, however, and in addition to admitting that he “agreed wholeheartedly) with the 12 jurors, he maintained it was an accident that got out of control – specifically a pool accident. There was not the slightest bit of evidence even offered to support these defense claims despite it being the core of their opening.”
You seem to be misunderstanding the nature of the American justice system. It is not the job of the defense to prove innocence. It is the job of the prosecution to prove guilt. It’s an enormously important distinction and the basis of “innocent until proven guilty”.
The onus is on the prosecution to prove their case. The defendant has every right to stay completely silent through the trial without it reflecting badly on them. Casey Anthony was under no obligation to prove that any alternate theory. The defense had a responsibility to prove that it was not true and that their version was true. They failed.
You don’t have to like what you’ve seen of Casey Anthony. But the fact remains that the prosecution had the obligation of proving their case and they failed. The defense only had the responsibility of showing that the prosecution is wrong, nothing more. It’s a vital protection for the citizenry and the jury was quite right to act in that way.
So now we have a white female O.J.
I wasn’t following the case closely, but I didn’t hear anything that led me to believe that anyone else could have been involved with Caylee’s death. So Casey was found not guilty for the reasons others have posted above, which is how our system of justice works, but there is no one else who will be found responsible for child’s death, either. So sad.
Maybe someone who has been following the case knows this: who is the child’s father, and was he involved at all with his child’s life?
No one can know(except the defendant) what really happened but if I had to make a bet in Vegas I would have to go with the defendant being somehow responsible for the child’s death. On the other hand, if I had been on the jury I might have found her not guilty.
I spent the July 4th weekend at a beach house with a group that included 2 lawyers and a person that had read a book on the murder. The trial was discussed a lot. Here’s what I remember of the opinion of the lawyers:
Strong capital murder prosecutions need a clear-cut cause of death. Because of the length of time the body was exposed to the elements the cause of death was impossible to determine.
The prosecution seemed to have concentrated too much on the capital murder charge — which was weak — and the lesser charges suffered as a result.
Anthony was charged with First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, Aggravated Child Abuse, Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child, as well as lying to the police. Lumping all these together may have been a mistake. Ordinary people, such as juries, might have difficulty with the logic. In the mind of most, child abuse is not the same as murder. No one testified to ever seeing the woman being cruel to the child; there was no history of child abuse. Thus the charges seem to be contradictory. The prosecution seemed to be saying that the death of the child was ALL of those things but, hey, you’re either a mere child abuser or you are a murderer and should be charged accordingly. The same goes for manslaughter — to the non-legal mind either it’s murder or it’s manslaughter — not both.
The prosecution seemed to be acting up during the trial, i.e., body language and facial expressions of amazement and amusement during certain defense testimony. The defense seemed to be more careful about not engaging in theatrics. The jury may have been angered by the prosecution’s indiscretion.
During the trial I caught snatches of coverage on Fox, MSNBC and CNN. Fox was the only channel where I saw anyone take the side of the defense in the debate/discussion. Several times on CNN and MSNBC I saw the leading defense lawyer portrayed as an incompetent fool. I wonder how they feel now?
My own opinion is that the prosecution probably knew the capital murder charge was weak but was driven to bringing the charge because of public opinion arising from sensationalism and the resulting political considerations. The motive for the lesser charges was CYA.
I’ve seen the trail compared to the O.J. Simpson trial. Except that they were both trials for murder I don’t see any valid comparison.
@ Liz July 6, 2011 @ 11:05 AM
Thank you for your instruction, but I am keenly aware of who bears the burden of proof in criminal trials.
You said that you were not following the case closely. That shows in your remarks. Mr. Baez and his team must provide as vigorous a defense as they are able against the case the prosecution presents. However, Mr. Baez is obligated to support his own declarations. In his opening statement, Mr. Baez presented theories that had zero basis in fact; not even in any reference by anyone related to the case: family, friend, law enforcement, attorneys, or even foes. To be specific, he proffered the theories that both George Anthony(father) and Lee Anthony(brother) had molested Casey as a young child which was the reason she lied. He also claimed George was directly involved, had found the body in the pool where she had accidentally drowned and he, a former policeman who knew all too well that law enforcement doesn’t charge murder for accidental deaths. He additionally accused George of the coverup and the discarding of Caylee’s body in the swamp. He also had choice words for the meter reader, Ray Kronk, about whom he devised a fantasy that this man found Caylee’s body, didn’t report this, and removed it from the swamp where it had been discarded, kept it for 4 months or so (somewhere) and then returned it to the swamp after which he called the police for the purpose of collecting the $250,000 reward (which, by the way, as per conversation with her parents on videotape presented, Casey thought would have been better used to pay her bail then serving as an incentive to find her missing child). This latter supposition was proved invalid by foreensic science and forensic anthropologists determining how the body had been eaten and chewed on by animals (photos of chewed on bones included) and by the distribution of the bones over a large area, and by the amount of vines AND roots that grew through her hair. There was also the videorecording of Kronk’s boss making the report to authorities after he first found it.
Mr. Baez conscientiously avoided presented even the smallest bit of truth regarding his assertions about George and Lee Anthony, about any molestation, nor any drowning, let alone George’s involvement thereof, save for one hearsay statement by some woman who claimed she had an affair with George Anthony.
The notable absence of even a shred of proof caused the judge to specifically instruct the jury not to consider any of these Baez claims as there wasn’t a speck of proof to support them.
It’s one thing to present proof of reasonable doubt. It’s quite another to invent pure fantasy in order to CREATE some doubt.
I think the outcome was in large part a result of two things: the “CSI effect” that has permeated our culture to such a degree — that is, the effect of so many television series which open with a mystery, then have characters discover virtually impossible forensic evidence (as the CSI who actually inspired the original CSI series and continues to consult on on the show, put it: “like finding an eyelash in a big field”) thus neatly providing DNA and the key to discovering who the murderer is — nice and neatly in less than 1 hour’s airtime!) The advances in DNA technology are close to miraculous, but they have severely impacted people’s perception and common sense to the point that solid circumstantial evidence, considered in individual pieces, and as a whole, has been diminished to the point that many people no longer consider it valid. And there was A LOT of circumstantial evidence which as a whole, pretty much proved that no one else BUT Casey Anthony COULD HAVE killed this child and discarded her.
The second reason, it appears to me, is a misunderstanding of the “reasonable doubt” standard of evidence required to find the accused guilty. It does not mean any doubt whatsoever. It is intended to be sufficient doubt in a reasonable person’s mind such that they cannot find the accused guilty.
It is interesting that only one actual juror (#3) has come forth to say that the verdict had her and most of the others in tears (men and women). And she specifically wanted everyone to know that by voting not guilty, she did not mean to say Casey Anthony was innocent! What does that tell you? Maybe that the prosecution’s case was indeed strong enough to make them (at least her) to believe that Casey is guilty. The prosecution did not have “enough” proof. Enough proof? Like irrefutable DNA-tested evidence? The circumstantial facts — all corroborated and proven, examined by numerous experts, and meticulously collected by law enforcement agencies did implicate only one possible murderer: Casey was the last person who saw Caylee alive, she was the last person to have Caylee with her between that last time the tot was seen alive and the time she disappeared, and the last thing she seemed to be interested in was reporting her missing daughter, let alone providing any true and reliable information to find the child (nevermind nonstop outrageous lies fully intended to mislead her parents and law enforcement) do not make her a murderer but the but they clearly indicated at minimum the manifestation of consciousness of guilt and a whole lot of evasive action). She was the only one with access to the supposedly wrong size clothes that were with the remains, and Caylee’s baby blanket, not to mention the car that “smelled like death” — not just to lay persons (although her mother, a career nurse, and her father, a retired policeman could hardly be called lay people) and scientists who studied decomposition –the bacteria, odor, etyology, timeframe for decades, but also to trained cadaver dogs. And finally she was the only one who also had access to the garbage bags in which the remains were found (they matched the ones in her home, the laundry bag in which all that was encased, and the very rare duct tape that has not been manufactured for years, is very distinctive with the manufacturer’s name printed on it and it matched the roll of duct tape in the house. Oh, and one last thing: Casey’s new boyfriend did not want the child around and staying at his place when they were together.
Though I can’t prove absolutely to 100% complete certainty beyond any possible doubt whatsoever, it sure convinced me that there was no one who could have killed Caylee BUT her mother.
But all this evidence was not enough for the jury, and that’s what mattered. I find it amazing — but “them’s the rules.”
As I wrote in earlier comment, I believe Casey is so troubled, and with this acquittal and having “pulled one over” on everyone, she will be more arrogant, more bold in her twisted thinking, even more guilt-free and less rational that she can’t will be caught again. We just don’t know how much damage whe will wreak before that happens.
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I wonder if the prosecution overreached and did not allow the jury to find her guilty of a lesser charge (eg, second degree murder).
Looking at this and the OJ case, one wonders about the quality of prosecutors. Could they be political hacks?
We taking wagers on which reality show will offer her six figures within a year?
I wonder if the prosecution overreached and did not allow the jury to find her guilty of a lesser charge (eg, second degree murder).
No. They charged her with murder, manslaughter, and aggravated child abuse. Those were answered with “not guilty”. The jury could have gone with manslaughter, but didn’t. The only thing that stuck was 4 charges of lying to the law, total of 4 years in jail. She’s already served about 3.
Makes me wonder about how her defense was funded. She doesn’t have it, and I doubt her parents have that size assets even if she hadn’t accused Dad of ‘sex abuse”. Does Orange County pay its public defenders by the hour? How did this case earn, much less merit, its gargantuan media coverage?
My local public defenders have <300 new cases apiece each year, are paid $70K/yr, and work less than 30 hrs per week; they are allowed to have private-pay clients as well.
I haven’t followed terribly close, but as far as I can tell, the prosecution failed to make a case. No cause of death? I would struggle with finding someone guilty of murder or manslaughter without one, even if I believed she was guilty (I do).
My wife has followed the case pretty closely. She felt the prosecution had made a case for manslaughter but not child abuse or muder. She was very surprised when the jury found her not guilty on that charge.
Well, our justice system is imperfect, but it seems to me that big trials like this get entirely too much coverage, particularly by the media (Cable TV especially.) I watched one segment on Fox where they had these legal experts all procaiming that the prosecution had an airtight case for murder one. That kind of opining during an important trial is quite inappropriate, IMHO. These cases should not be tried in the court of public opinion. This woman may be innocent, but will undoubtedly face quite a lot of poisonous public scorning after she gets out of prison, which , as I understand it, will be about a year from now.
The Television’s said she was gulty of murder all this time … and now she’s not guilty what gives? Crazy world!!!!!
I have followed the case very closely. I don’t think I realized how invested I was until today when the verdict came down. I was absolutely shocked — horrified.
I am so sure that Casey Anthony either killed her daughter directly (most likely) or found someone to do it (less likely as it would involve someone else who could be a liability, and for all her sociopathic tendencies, she’s pretty smart (not intelligence-wise but shrewd and street smart. Which is how she has amazingly gotten away with all that she has).
I find it unbelievable that the defense could proffer theories completely made up of whole cloth: an accidental pool drowning plus childhood molestation by her father AND brother (I do wonder just how much her parents were actually privvy to and wonder if they silently agreed to Jose Baez’s methods in belief that it was “only way” to insure reasonable doubt and free their daughter) without even a shred of evidence in support thereof. In fact, the judge specifically instructed the jury that due to a complete lack of evidence and/or proof of these theories, they could NOT consider either as true.
Yet ultimately, it seems that these fabrications are exactly what (at least, in part) the jurors believed. None of the jurors were willing to discuss with the press their thought processes. An alternate juror did, however, and in addition to admitting that he “agreed wholeheartedly) with the 12 jurors, he maintained it was an accident that got out of control — specifically a pool accident. There was not the slightest bit of evidence even offered to support these defense claims despite it being the core of their opening. With all the experts called, it seems the jurors believed only those that testified on behalf of the defense, and not one of the prosecution experts, despite their first hand knowledge and involvement as well as accreditations.
I honestly don’t think the Prosecution’s portrayal of Casey Anthony as a callous, self-centered playgirl living on the outer bounds of morality was what pursuaded me of her guilt. I found the circumstantial case presented by prosecutors to be very convincing. I have to say I was turned off by the easy manner in which the Defense threw Anthony’s family members (Mom, Dad, brother) under the bus while inventing theories with no basis in fact, but I guess the 12 jurors saw it VERY differently.
The big “creep factor” is that we pretty much know that Casey got away with murder and now, probably in just several days, a complete sociopath will soon return to live among us. Additionally, there is the unavoidable possibility that her family knew a lot more than was revealed. Most probably, we will never know if or to what extent they may have participated in the Defense’s red herring stories. We do know, however, that two parents who originally defended their daughter most vociferously , Mom and Dad were present for the reading of the verdicts and sat stone-faced with absolutely no visible reactiona nd then proceeded to immediately leave the courtroom. No sighs of relief; No joy for their daughter; no celebratory hugs for her. In fact, in the father’s last testimony on the stand, he actually gave away the fact that he believed it was Casey who killed the baby when he answered a Defense query about why his claims had changed from those 3 yrs. ago when the child first went missing and he said, “I never thought then that my daughter was capable of killing her own child.” The “then” is the key, and it pretty clearly infers that now he believes quite differently.
Her parents were and remain in a no-win situation. They lost the absolutely adorable granddaughter whom they supported and who was the center of their lives. Whatever excuses they have previously been able to muster to rationalize their daughter’s transgressions, they can no longer deceive themselves about who and what she really is. This daughter and her attorneys happily implicated her family to save her own skin, and her mother, at least, revealed her degree of desperation as she clearly lied in court in an attempt to appease her daughter who now only looks at both her parents with disgust and contempt. The neighbors in their community want them out, and they are now public personalities whose child is now regarded by most of our society as the worst of the worst: not just a child-killer, but a mother who killed her own and then blithely returned to her morally corrupt lifestyle. I can’t imagine suffering through all they have, having to face the depth of depravity in their own daughter while losing their beloved granddaughter, and then being very publicly implicated in the horrific murder of this child which frees this daughter. Their family has been torn apart and yet I suspect they might welcome Casey back if she deigns to someday again acknowledge this mother and father who prioritized the murder of their granddaughter over her potential involvement and subsequent arrest which very inconveniently disrupted her life.
The other Defense attorney, Cheney Mason, used his time at the mike solely to lambaste the media, professional lawyers who served as commentators, and other “talking heads” for their prognostications (almost all uniformly supporting the Prosecutors) and participating in “media assassination” of Casey Anthony.
This case is a prime example of the imperfections of our system. It also appears that it reveals the effect of modern CSI television series, in which evidence with DNA is always available to trace and solve a murder mystery so neatly within an hour. What heretofore has been considered strong circumstantial evidence cases no longer hold the same degree of credibility.
The fact is Casey Anthony is some piece of work and has a very long history of lying, manipulating whomever is necessary, stealing from family (including her aged grandfather who resides in a nursing home let alone her parents), and apparently finding no act too odious if it enables her to live as she wants to. She seems to have gotten away with murder because she disposed of her daughter’s body in a flooded swamp where it wasn’t found for 6 months, and only after being exposed to the elements, eaten by predatory animals who dragged pieces of the skeleton hither and thither, and which ultimately resulted in the washing away of all traces of direct evidence (i.e. DNA).
There are those who now speak of the prospective riches that await her via books, movie deals, celebrity and personal appearances. That may very well be true. But she is still the same psychopath with a sweet, innocent appearance who managed to perpetrate all manner of criminal activities; that will not change. I have a strange feeling that she will reappear in the news sometime in the not too distant future as she compulsively steps over the boundaries of our law-abiding society. I’m almost sure of it. I somehow doubt she’ll again be able to pull off a second act similar to this first one.
You’re free to loathe Casey Anthony until your dying day, it doesn’t amount to proof of any act or acts. Anthony wasn’t charged with stupidity, heartlessness or excessive sexual urges. She was charged with murder, and acquitted.
Mixed emotions. I did not follow the case, and tried to ignore the media’s ad nauseum fascination with it.
On one hand I am pleased to see the various braying jackasses in the media proven wrong in their pre-verdict mutterings.
On the other, I hate to think that she walks if she did the crime.
There would seem to be some significance to the fact that the jury only deliberated only ten hours. Clearly, there was not too much difference of opinion there.
I don’t know anything about the jury, except for one fact. The Court uprooted 12 people from their homes in the St Petersburg area of Florida and moved them to the Orlando area for six weeks to try the case. Presumably they did this for the convenience of the Court and the Lawyers. That does not seem right, and I am surprised that it is legal. Although I am not suggesting that it was a factor in the verdict, I expect the jury was one pissed off bunch of people by the time this circus turned to them.
I wonder if she will survive prison. There are a lot of predators who will be locked up with her, and believe that she is a child killer, because they were told by the Media that she is.
She’s guilty as hell, and the prosecution failed to prove it.
I don’t want to live in a country where “It’s obvious she did it!” is grounds for a conviction.
The bail bondsman’s theory makes the most sense to me. Apparently, Casey’s new boyfriend wouldn’t permit the baby to spend the night in his apartment while he was boinking Casey. And Casey couldn’t dump the baby off on grandma while she spent the night with the boyfriend without grandma lecturing Casey about her responsibilities as a mother. Casey just didn’t want to listen to that. So Casey forced the baby to ingest some substance to induce sleep. With the baby sleeping in the car, Casey could then spend the night boinking the boyfriend. But the baby accidentally overdosed. And Casey panicked.
But there was no confession, no eye witness to the crime, no cause of death, no DNA evidence, and the forensic evidence was flimsy. It’s a case where I think almost everybody believes Casey was complicit in the baby’s death, including many on the jury, but the prosecution just couldn’t convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt by connecting the dots on a bunch of circumstantial evidence.
I see both sides. It’s both a victory for the judicial system because the prosecution failed to meet it’s burden of proof to convict her, so she was not convicted. On the other hand, a baby is dead and the mother was almost certainly complicit in some way. The mother was negligent at best and malicious at worst (if you believe the prosecution).
To paraphrase Blackstone, it’s better to let 10 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one innocent man. Had the jury convicted her, I’m not sure it would have been a wrongful conviction, but I’m pretty sure by not convicting her a woman who either negligently or intentionally killed her baby will soon be free.
I haven’t been following the case, but the fact that she engaged in partying soon after her daughter’s death/murder is not relevent.
Someone else asked, what it more likely, that a mother killed her child and went out and partied? Or that she didn’t, but went out and partied after her child’s death? It would really depend on the person in question. It wouldn’t say anything either way.
http://partialobjects.com/2011/06/how-does-entering-a-hot-body-contest-suggest-casey-anthony-is-guilty/
I have no idea whether or not she is guilty. I have no idea whether or not she looks guilty. But she was not on trial for catastrophically bad judgement. She was acquitted of murder.
Frankly, I’m more disturbed that the prosecution wanted to put her on death row when they couldn’t prove a cause of death, as one of the other commenters said. And the charge of “lying to the police” is always dicey because it can mean lying about *anything*, not just the case in hand. Look at Martha Stewart.
@CSimon:
“An alternate juror did, however, and in addition to admitting that he “agreed wholeheartedly) with the 12 jurors, he maintained it was an accident that got out of control – specifically a pool accident. There was not the slightest bit of evidence even offered to support these defense claims despite it being the core of their opening.”
You seem to be misunderstanding the nature of the American justice system. It is not the job of the defense to prove innocence. It is the job of the prosecution to prove guilt. It’s an enormously important distinction and the basis of “innocent until proven guilty”.
The onus is on the prosecution to prove their case. The defendant has every right to stay completely silent through the trial without it reflecting badly on them. Casey Anthony was under no obligation to prove that any alternate theory. The defense had a responsibility to prove that it was not true and that their version was true. They failed.
You don’t have to like what you’ve seen of Casey Anthony. But the fact remains that the prosecution had the obligation of proving their case and they failed. The defense only had the responsibility of showing that the prosecution is wrong, nothing more. It’s a vital protection for the citizenry and the jury was quite right to act in that way.
So now we have a white female O.J.
I wasn’t following the case closely, but I didn’t hear anything that led me to believe that anyone else could have been involved with Caylee’s death. So Casey was found not guilty for the reasons others have posted above, which is how our system of justice works, but there is no one else who will be found responsible for child’s death, either. So sad.
Maybe someone who has been following the case knows this: who is the child’s father, and was he involved at all with his child’s life?
No one can know(except the defendant) what really happened but if I had to make a bet in Vegas I would have to go with the defendant being somehow responsible for the child’s death. On the other hand, if I had been on the jury I might have found her not guilty.
I spent the July 4th weekend at a beach house with a group that included 2 lawyers and a person that had read a book on the murder. The trial was discussed a lot. Here’s what I remember of the opinion of the lawyers:
Strong capital murder prosecutions need a clear-cut cause of death. Because of the length of time the body was exposed to the elements the cause of death was impossible to determine.
The prosecution seemed to have concentrated too much on the capital murder charge — which was weak — and the lesser charges suffered as a result.
Anthony was charged with First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, Aggravated Child Abuse, Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child, as well as lying to the police. Lumping all these together may have been a mistake. Ordinary people, such as juries, might have difficulty with the logic. In the mind of most, child abuse is not the same as murder. No one testified to ever seeing the woman being cruel to the child; there was no history of child abuse. Thus the charges seem to be contradictory. The prosecution seemed to be saying that the death of the child was ALL of those things but, hey, you’re either a mere child abuser or you are a murderer and should be charged accordingly. The same goes for manslaughter — to the non-legal mind either it’s murder or it’s manslaughter — not both.
The prosecution seemed to be acting up during the trial, i.e., body language and facial expressions of amazement and amusement during certain defense testimony. The defense seemed to be more careful about not engaging in theatrics. The jury may have been angered by the prosecution’s indiscretion.
During the trial I caught snatches of coverage on Fox, MSNBC and CNN. Fox was the only channel where I saw anyone take the side of the defense in the debate/discussion. Several times on CNN and MSNBC I saw the leading defense lawyer portrayed as an incompetent fool. I wonder how they feel now?
My own opinion is that the prosecution probably knew the capital murder charge was weak but was driven to bringing the charge because of public opinion arising from sensationalism and the resulting political considerations. The motive for the lesser charges was CYA.
I’ve seen the trail compared to the O.J. Simpson trial. Except that they were both trials for murder I don’t see any valid comparison.
@ Liz July 6, 2011 @ 11:05 AM
Thank you for your instruction, but I am keenly aware of who bears the burden of proof in criminal trials.
You said that you were not following the case closely. That shows in your remarks. Mr. Baez and his team must provide as vigorous a defense as they are able against the case the prosecution presents. However, Mr. Baez is obligated to support his own declarations. In his opening statement, Mr. Baez presented theories that had zero basis in fact; not even in any reference by anyone related to the case: family, friend, law enforcement, attorneys, or even foes. To be specific, he proffered the theories that both George Anthony(father) and Lee Anthony(brother) had molested Casey as a young child which was the reason she lied. He also claimed George was directly involved, had found the body in the pool where she had accidentally drowned and he, a former policeman who knew all too well that law enforcement doesn’t charge murder for accidental deaths. He additionally accused George of the coverup and the discarding of Caylee’s body in the swamp. He also had choice words for the meter reader, Ray Kronk, about whom he devised a fantasy that this man found Caylee’s body, didn’t report this, and removed it from the swamp where it had been discarded, kept it for 4 months or so (somewhere) and then returned it to the swamp after which he called the police for the purpose of collecting the $250,000 reward (which, by the way, as per conversation with her parents on videotape presented, Casey thought would have been better used to pay her bail then serving as an incentive to find her missing child). This latter supposition was proved invalid by foreensic science and forensic anthropologists determining how the body had been eaten and chewed on by animals (photos of chewed on bones included) and by the distribution of the bones over a large area, and by the amount of vines AND roots that grew through her hair. There was also the videorecording of Kronk’s boss making the report to authorities after he first found it.
Mr. Baez conscientiously avoided presented even the smallest bit of truth regarding his assertions about George and Lee Anthony, about any molestation, nor any drowning, let alone George’s involvement thereof, save for one hearsay statement by some woman who claimed she had an affair with George Anthony.
The notable absence of even a shred of proof caused the judge to specifically instruct the jury not to consider any of these Baez claims as there wasn’t a speck of proof to support them.
It’s one thing to present proof of reasonable doubt. It’s quite another to invent pure fantasy in order to CREATE some doubt.
I think the outcome was in large part a result of two things: the “CSI effect” that has permeated our culture to such a degree — that is, the effect of so many television series which open with a mystery, then have characters discover virtually impossible forensic evidence (as the CSI who actually inspired the original CSI series and continues to consult on on the show, put it: “like finding an eyelash in a big field”) thus neatly providing DNA and the key to discovering who the murderer is — nice and neatly in less than 1 hour’s airtime!) The advances in DNA technology are close to miraculous, but they have severely impacted people’s perception and common sense to the point that solid circumstantial evidence, considered in individual pieces, and as a whole, has been diminished to the point that many people no longer consider it valid. And there was A LOT of circumstantial evidence which as a whole, pretty much proved that no one else BUT Casey Anthony COULD HAVE killed this child and discarded her.
The second reason, it appears to me, is a misunderstanding of the “reasonable doubt” standard of evidence required to find the accused guilty. It does not mean any doubt whatsoever. It is intended to be sufficient doubt in a reasonable person’s mind such that they cannot find the accused guilty.
It is interesting that only one actual juror (#3) has come forth to say that the verdict had her and most of the others in tears (men and women). And she specifically wanted everyone to know that by voting not guilty, she did not mean to say Casey Anthony was innocent! What does that tell you? Maybe that the prosecution’s case was indeed strong enough to make them (at least her) to believe that Casey is guilty. The prosecution did not have “enough” proof. Enough proof? Like irrefutable DNA-tested evidence? The circumstantial facts — all corroborated and proven, examined by numerous experts, and meticulously collected by law enforcement agencies did implicate only one possible murderer: Casey was the last person who saw Caylee alive, she was the last person to have Caylee with her between that last time the tot was seen alive and the time she disappeared, and the last thing she seemed to be interested in was reporting her missing daughter, let alone providing any true and reliable information to find the child (nevermind nonstop outrageous lies fully intended to mislead her parents and law enforcement) do not make her a murderer but the but they clearly indicated at minimum the manifestation of consciousness of guilt and a whole lot of evasive action). She was the only one with access to the supposedly wrong size clothes that were with the remains, and Caylee’s baby blanket, not to mention the car that “smelled like death” — not just to lay persons (although her mother, a career nurse, and her father, a retired policeman could hardly be called lay people) and scientists who studied decomposition –the bacteria, odor, etyology, timeframe for decades, but also to trained cadaver dogs. And finally she was the only one who also had access to the garbage bags in which the remains were found (they matched the ones in her home, the laundry bag in which all that was encased, and the very rare duct tape that has not been manufactured for years, is very distinctive with the manufacturer’s name printed on it and it matched the roll of duct tape in the house. Oh, and one last thing: Casey’s new boyfriend did not want the child around and staying at his place when they were together.
Though I can’t prove absolutely to 100% complete certainty beyond any possible doubt whatsoever, it sure convinced me that there was no one who could have killed Caylee BUT her mother.
But all this evidence was not enough for the jury, and that’s what mattered. I find it amazing — but “them’s the rules.”
As I wrote in earlier comment, I believe Casey is so troubled, and with this acquittal and having “pulled one over” on everyone, she will be more arrogant, more bold in her twisted thinking, even more guilt-free and less rational that she can’t will be caught again. We just don’t know how much damage whe will wreak before that happens.