Posted on 07/06/2011 6:31:34 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Casey Anthony juror Jennifer Ford said today that she and the other jurors cried and were "sick to our stomachs" after voting to acquit Casey Anthony of charges that she killed her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
"I did not say she was innocent," said Ford, who had previously only been identified as juror number 3. "I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be."
The jury's jaw dropping not guilty verdict shocked court observers, but it was also a difficult moment for the panel, Ford said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. No one from the jury was willing to come out and talk to the media in the hours after the verdict.
"Everyone wonders why we didn't speak to the media right away," Ford said. "It was because we were sick to our stomach to get that verdict. We were crying and not just the women. It was emotional and we weren't ready. We wanted to do it with integrity and not contribute to the sensationalism of the trial."
Instead of murder, Casey Anthony, 25, was found guilty of four counts of lying to law enforcement and could be released from jail as early as Thursday.
Ford praised the jurors.
"They picked a great bunch of people, such high integrity. And there was high morale," she said. "We all joked. We are like a big group of cousins."
Casey Anthony Prosecutor: 'All Came Down to Cause of Death'
Earlier today, the prosecutor and an alternate juror agreed on why the jury had refused to convict Anthony: They couldn't prove how little Caylee Anthony died.
"It all came down to the evidence," said Florida state attorney Jeff Ashton on "The View."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
No, Justice Scalia and I are NOT wrong.
The defense counsel has a mouth. He can offer whatever spin he feels relevant to the jury as to why the defendant is not testifying.
We trust and require the jury to evaluate and consider and deliberate on all manner of complicated evidence.
The very simple fact of a defendant, such as the mother of a killed toddler who knows all the relevant facts of the toddler’s death, being unwilling to tell those facts to the jury is a RELEVANT FACT.
The essential function of the jury is to consider the relevant facts in deciding the verdict.
And you are completely wrong about what the Founders would have thought, as Scalia explained in what I quoted.
They didn't find a body....they found a skull.
A skull that had been tampered with by the meter reader.
The only thing that could be said _with certainty_ was that duct tape was found with the remains.
As to where the tape was placed on the body was pure supposition.
Yeah....it's a shame that the evidence was lost in that fetid swamp....but lost it was.
What I said is not contrary to law. That’s just the problem. The jurors, like some posters here, got it in their heads that they had to have specific proof of every step in the sequence of events. That is wrong. You can prove that Casey did it beyond a reasonable doubt while still not knowing what time she did it or what her precise motions were.
>>In my parent’s day if they needed a baby to quiet down, they would slip a little bourbon and honey on a pacifier.
I believe ‘Zanni’ is a play on words for Xanax (pronounced: Zan ex)
“Hey Casey....who’s taking care of Caylee?”
“Xanni!” [wink wink]
So I believe she was looking for a way to tranquilize Caylee so soundly that she would be free to pursue “Bella Vita” (Beautiful Life) for hours on end from such annoying distractions as a wide-awake child.
And, in some way (chloroform, probably, with duct tape over the mouth so she awakes with a whimper instead of a scream), something went wrong and poor Caylee died.
Then Casey dumped the body and hoped that the long lost Zanni would be blamed as a “baby stealer” and everyone would sympathize for the poor mom who has to suffer alone in her trek through the Beautiful life.
<<
So how are you celebrating this decision?
And in your mind this is not murder? At least negligent homicide?
I don’t understand your grandstanding and mocking others who want (and were denied) justice.
You can say there was not enough evidence. That is a complete crock of shiiite.
Exactly right.
The prosecution was much too ambitious. They wrote a check they couldn’t cash.
There have only been two women executed in Florida, and both were serial killers.
Sadly, mothers kill their children too often, yet are never given the death penalty.
This case had a political element to it, probably because of the media attention.
They should have simply pursued manslaughter ONLY, not as a fallback to Murder 1 with death. The jurors couldn’t shake that.
>>Yet many here are essentially saying they want to give the state more leeway to convict.
It’s closet statism.
<<
We’re all statists now. I see. You told me I would fit in in Russia, China and Iran.
Do you never tire of making a complete ass of yourself, in defense of a cold-blooded baby murderer?
Shame on you.
Nobody has defended Casey. Not Hannity, not Levin, not Rush, not Hedgecock, not me.
Please stop being so emotional. You are now telling lies.
I admit that I am invested in my argument because, clearly, I’m not getting thru to people. I’m just going to let it go.
>>I admit that I am invested in my argument because, clearly, I’m not getting thru to people. I’m just going to let it go.<<
You have failed miserably. I think you are making a wise decision.
Essentially? Yeah, sure.
No, what people are saying is that any grown-up with a modicum of common sense could have arrived at a just verdict with the evidence presented. The fact that you see it otherwise should give you pause.
It’s closet statism.
I'd post what I really think of that slur, but I've just recently used up my yearly profanity.
Good post. But I think juries do hold it against the defendant, even when instructed not to do so.
I personally would try not hold it against anyone, only because I know how the state prosecutors will try to lie and twist to get their conviction.
Trust me. I just went thru a situation where there was a false accusation. I have battled the state. It can be daunting. Which is why I am so adamant about limiting the state’s power.
This is correct.
In my view, the prosecution should have charged her with negligent homicide.
They could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
- the remains were Caylee's
- that foul play was involved
- that Casey was culpable in the foul play.
The evidence as to the second and third points are circumstantial. If the jury were permitted to consider the reasonable implications of the fact that Casey was in the position of the most knowledge of the specific circumstances of Caylee's death and refused to speak, taken together with all of the evidence of the behavior of the defendant pointing to consciousness of guilt and the lies she told about Caylee's whereabouts, then the jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Caylee was a victim of foul play and that Casey was culpable in Caylee's death.
The element of evidence of premeditation and intent for a capital murder charge was to me a bridge too far, but that Casey was culpable was demonstrated by the circumstantial evidence and could support a verdict of negligent homicide, which would not require evidence of premeditation beyond a reasonable doubt.
Who the hell is doing that?
If they had found her guilty I'd have kept my mouth shut and smiled inwardly.
But if I was on the jury, I would have voted the same they did.
The State failed to prove it's case (Murder One) beyond a reasonable doubt....pure and simple.
As the medical examiner stated, duct tape anywhere on that child's face spells homicide, a capital crime. Therefore Murder 1 was the appropriate penalty
Since, as you admit, "the jurors couldn't shake that," they were not reasoned and based their verdict on their emotions and lack of critical thinking skills. They also applied the wrong legal standard by moving the goalpost of reasonable doubt to any doubt at all, as the alternate juror specifically stated.
Just because you are good with this abomination don't expect the rest of us to jump for joy.
>>The State failed to prove it’s case (Murder One) beyond a reasonable doubt....pure and simple. <<
Says you. Obviously, many reasonable people disagree with you.
We are so far away from the Founder’s ideals that it is pathetic.
she’ll be dead within five years. Then she will have to answer to God.
Casey would have had a much easier life in jail then she will have on the outside.
Yes, I know that happens, and there is some research to support the claim that juries will give it all the more weight precisely because they are instructed not to.
However, some counsel are convinced that juries scrupulously follow this instruction to the perversion of proper justice. One of them is Andrew McCarthy of National Review who offered his experience on this at the Corner and also appears to agree with me and Scalia:
Juries, in general, are much more responsible than they are given credit for being. They tend to follow judges’ instructions very conscientiously. In high profile cases, judges tell them not to taint their fact-finding by reading, watching, or listening to the coverage, and they comply. More significantly, they really do follow the directive that the defendant has a right not to testify and that they therefore cannot draw an inference of guilt from a defendant’s decision not to take the stand. This is a truly remarkable thing. Before absolving someone of committing a terrible crime, people want the defendant to look them in the eye and convince them that he/she did not do it. Yet, we tell jurors that to take that commonsense position is to violate a defendant’s constitutional rights. So, hard as it is, jurors usually bend over backwards not to hold a failure to testify against the defendant.Just to be clear, I’ve never liked this interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, which is a “refinement” of the criminals’ rights revolution of the sixties and seventies. To me, the Fifth Amendment means an accused has a right not to be compelled to testify, not that the accused has an additional right to deny the jury, the prosecutor, and the court the ability to draw the perfectly reasonable conclusion that, if there were a plausible explanation consistent with innocence, the accused would have provided it. But that ship sailed half a century ago, and even though it remains a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw, the law says jurors can’t draw it . . . and it is a law that jurors scrupulously follow in my experience.
And she WAS guilty of those 31 days of non-reporting.
That is called Gross Negligence (culpa lata).
But that is not what she was charged with.
I was disappointed when it became clear that all the prosecution had was that they were going to prove that Casey was a liar and a bad person.
The defense conceded that in their opening statement and yet the prosecution trundled on day after day pursuing that now moot point.
I kept waiting for the evidence that would that would nail her....but it never came.
One more thing...If a guilty murderer got away free...the system didn’t work.
It is an unfortunate evil byproduct of an imperfect system (although the best system so far) of justice.
Nothing to gloat about or ridicule others over.
I had the same conclusion. I don’t think murder was proven. I’m not entirely convinced that Casey deliberately killed Caylee. I’m not convinced George wasn’t involved. I’m not convinced Kronk didn’t mess with the remains, including the duct tape.
Involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide were more appropriate.
Also, they had the motive wrong if it was murder. Nobody kills their kid so they can party. George and Cindy always cared for Caylee while Casey partied. Prosecution should have suggested that Casey’s motive was her desire to keep the child from her parents, whom she had recently had disagreements with. Blame the overzealous prosecution for seeking the death penalty, and for trying to introduce shitty forensic evidence.
Law is not supposed to have emotion. It is supposed to be unbiased. The media, with their history of lying, got the public hysterical about this case from day 1, so much so that they couldn’t even find an unbiased jury in Orlando. If you are upset with the shoddy jury, blame the media.
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