The burden was on prosecutors to prove their theory: that Anthony suffocated her daughter by placing duct tape on her mouth and nose, wrapped her in a Winnie the Pooh blanket and black trash bags, kept the body in the car’s trunk until the odor was too strong, and then dumped it in the woods near her house.
Legal analysts say prosecutors could not tie Anthony definitively to Caylee’s death. Prosecutors had no DNA, hair samples or other physical evidence that would do so.
They introduced controversial forensic techniques, such as an air-sampling method never before used in a criminal court case.
The researcher who pioneered the technique said the smell of decomposition filled the trunk of Anthony’s car. A defense witness countered that the smell could have come from food that had been found rotting in the trunk.
Karin Moore, a law professor at Florida A&M University, said the state’s case was circumstantial.
“Did they prove the manner of death? Did they prove the cause of death?” she said. “The state relied a lot on emotion.”
The case didn’t come apart so much as it never came together. And the prosecutor’s closing statement that “Somebody in that house killed Caylee” was pretty clear in being an admission that they were not certain that Casey had killed the little girl. You can’t get a jury to go beyond reasonable doubt when the prosecution itself has reasonable doubts.
Not sure why they charged her, knowing they had only circumstantial evidence. I’m not even close to being an expert, but it seems like they should have held off on charging her, tapped her phones and her family’s phones and wait until she slipped up and did something incriminating.
Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s guilty as sin of something even if this was an accident gone bad or premeditated murder, but the state didn’t get over the hump of reasonable doubt. They didn’t have the evidence and they knew it and gave it their best shot with lots of emotion and character attack. That’s the way it rolls sometimes.
The prosecution proved the case. The jurors are idiots IMO.
"Yesterday’s stunning verdict in the Casey Anthony trial has revealed a number of rifts in public opinion. While the overriding public opinion seems to be of stunned outrage, there are a few iconoclasts who feel that justice was served by the jury’s decision of not guilty on the charges of murder. But another, more secondary topic that has been just as hotly debated in the wake of the verdict has been the media’s role in this case. And Casey Anthony Defense Attorney Cheney Mason left little doubt on his true feelings evidenced by his gesture here."
"Shortly after the verdict had been reached yesterday, Mason spoke to the media covering this gruesome and sad story and chose to vilify the very media to which he was speaking. Apparently he wanted to be crystal clear on how he felt about the press, and felt that he needed this particular gesture to get his feelings across. Stay classy Cheney Mason!"
There’s one prosecutor who will never realize a political career.
The ‘case’ got polluted when the defense was allowed in opening statement to ‘criminally’ accuse George Anthony of putting his ..... into his daughter’s mouth before he sent her off to school. THEY were NEVER required to PROVE this accusation....
IF you are a ‘father/grandfather and a woman decides to off her child you have been put on NOTICE it is potentially your FAULT.
Casey Anthony was convicted of four counts of lying to the police. What kind of questions did she lie about? If they were questions about the whereabouts of her child and she lied then why? Obviously to cover up what she did to her. Jurors can’t find her not guilty of murder when they then convicted her of lying about what happened. It’s just not logical. No wonder they call it Flori-duh.
IMO Casey did a masterful job of diverting the investigation with her month of avoiding family and then another couple of months claiming a kidnapping. All the smoke and mirrors allowed the body to become so decomposed that there was no chance to prove how she died. Then her lawyer could come out and suggest a pool drowning with no evidence to back it up. It was a brilliant strategy.
As an attorney, I do have a problem with defense counsel throwing around lies in opening statements, stating “this is what the evidence will show” and then never presenting any evidence of those assertions. But, once again, it was a brilliant strategy.
The case was lost when the 7 women jurors heard the mother lie about searching for choloroform on the computer. That told them she wanted Casey to get off.
There was overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Casey killed the girl.
Seems to me that knowing your kid is in a plastic bag half submerged in a swamp, while spending over a month partying and telling people she is with a runaway baby sitter, is at least child neglect.
Or maybe you can't abuse a child if they are already dead?
Further, lots of people have been convicted solely on circumstantial evidence. Often far less than was introduced here.
I think the ground rules are motive (check), access (check), and means (check); Prosecution's closing was that ONLY Casey had all three.
Finally:
I can accept a verdict while still believing that the jury, for some reason, simply wanted to set her free going into the case.
However, if momma Anthony does not serve serious jail time for blatant perjury I'll have to revisit that acceptance.
As to emotion..."daddy and little brother raped me", "daddy hid the body", and "don't you understand my f&*%!ng involvement here?" are all pretty emotion laden statements.
And, there's much being made about imaginary friends, jobs, and fantasies in general, how come no one thought of that before the trial and determined Casey was too nuts to be held responsible?
NOTE: To everyone who thinks Casey was guilty, yet celebrates this as a case where “the system worked”...
Because of our legal system, it is unavoidable that guilty people will go free. I would rather see guilty people go free than innocent people convicted.
But this is not a cause for celebration, and not a fact to be accepted gladly.
It is a tragic and unfortunate reality. Caylee is still dead.
If justice was denied for Caylee (as I believe it was in this case), it is certainly not a “good” thing. If the murderer went free, the system did NOT work. It’s just that we have no better alternative system of justice.
This is the best system that’s ever been devised.
Maybe it’s not time to rejoice as much as accept the solemn fact that sometimes murderers go free.
The case “came apart” because the jury came from public schools that no longer teach critical thinking and from watching too many CSI shows. As a result, they assumed that every case is solved by DNA and no one should ever be convicted on circumstantial evidence, no matter how overwhelming.
IANL
