Casey Anthony found Not Guilty

[DrFaroohk]

I guess I'll be one of the few people who goes against the grain on this one, and say that I absolutely believe that Casey Anthony killed her daughter. I can't say whether it was premediated or not, but it seems obvious to me that the little girl died at her mother's hands.

It's fine to believe what you want. I believe she did it too. I believe lots of things about people that may or may not be true, and it's my right to hold these beliefs.

It is NOT my right, or anyone's right, to act upon a belief that may or not be true in a manner that insists it IS true, and royally fuck up someone's life based on a belief.

In other words, if one makes a habit of mentally convicting someone based upon their beliefs alone, one should stay away from the jury pool.

[Racket_Man]

now there are alligations of possible witness tampering

witness tampering

[Andara Bledin]

Sorry, I meant to say other than the lying. She was found guilty of every count of lying through her teeth to pretty much everyone about everything. They had no trouble agreeing to that.

^-.-^

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

[*]4 counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer[/list]

Not a single one of those could possibly be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Everything that she told the police before the trial was proven to be a lie when her testimony on how the events played out was entered in the courtroom transcripts. This testimony was what gave the reasonable doubt required for her to be found not guilty of the charge of Murder One.

So since this was given on the stand AND given under oath to be "the truth", everything previously said to the police is therefore a lie in the eyes of the court.

She was found guilty of that.

[Andara Bledin]

I also don't believe that the prosecution tried to "go for the gold." There were several other lesser charges the jury could've convicted her on, but decided not to.

According to 13 News Orlando, these are the charges that were brought against her:

• First-degree murder
• Aggravated child abuse
• Aggravated manslaughter of a child
• 4 counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer

Not a single one of those could possibly be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. They went for more than they had more than circumstantial evidence against. If they'd chosen to go for straight child abuse and manslaughter, it would have been a different story. It's possible they might have been able to get a guilty on something as high as second-degree murder. But for first-degree, you have to prove intent and deed.

As for someone whose child died accidentally not lying... Anthony lied about everything, and had been doing so for, likely, her entire adult life at least. That anybody would expect her to not lie about something like this baffles me.

This quote from the Mama Mary Show blog sums up a lot of how I feel about people who think they know what happened:

I do not envy any jurors who get assigned to a high profile case like this. Outsiders, like me, become self-proclaimed experts on the case, because we think we get all the facts from what is relayed to us via the media, but reality is that none of us in the peanut gallery know every single piece of evidence. There are many factors we are not privy to as we sit inside our glass house houses watching the news.

^-.-^

[boringscreenname]

I guess I'll be one of the few people who goes against the grain on this one, and say that I absolutely believe that Casey Anthony killed her daughter. I can't say whether it was premediated or not, but it seems obvious to me that the little girl died at her mother's hands.

The prosecution tried to use forensics, involving the trunk of her car smelling like a dead body, having a suspicious stain, trunk air full of chloroform, a hair with a "death band" around it only known cause being from hairs of a decomposing body. Apparently a lot of the evidence they introduced was of the type that had never been used before in court such as air samples and death band. They had the body (reduced to a skeleton), 15 houses away, wrapped in a laundry bag (from the house), in a Winnie the Pooh blanket (from Caylee's bedroom), with duct tape (that apparently stopped being produced in 2007 and was made in Ohio) and unlikely to be found around town at anyone else's house, and possibly a heart shaped sticker on the duct tape and they found heart shaped stickers in the house, and then analysis of deleted computer searches for chloroform, neck breaking, shovel, how to make chloroform, acetone, made in between looking at pages Casey Anthony looked at (her Myspace) during a time period that the prosecution used their rebuttle to prove her mother was definitively at work during March of 2008. (They brought in her work records that showed her entering info at a work station at the exact time the searches were being made at home.) The skeleton was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt the girl was seen wearing in photographs. They had cellphone records to prove Casey Anthony stayed in the vicinity for 4 hours that day when she claimed she was going to go to work (at a job she'd been faking the existence of for 2 years)

Unfortunately, Caylee was said to have died June 16, 2008, the body was recovered December 11, 2008 after 5 months in the heat of Florida and the body was found in an area that had been flooded by a hurricane. There was absolutely no organs, skin, tissues remaining by the time they recovered it. Just bones and hair (with duct tape around the head). Only the collar and some decals of her shirt were still there, I can't recall what they had of the shorts. Any chance of DNA or fingerprints from the body or the materials that wrapped it was gone by then.

Anyway, Casey lied and said her daughter was taken by a person she now admits never existed when confronted 31 days after Caylee was last seen. So it wasn't just a matter of not reporting her kid missing that she partied during, she also lied and made up fictitious people to explain where the kid was both before and after the 31 days. A nationwide manhunt ensued, a woman with the same name as the fake kidnapper lost her job and had other issues in her life (that she is now intending to sue Casey for). Casey's friends testified Casey never seemed at all upset, sad, in shock, or any other sign of grief/distress during the 31 days she supposedly knew the kid was already dead. (Her defense being that she drowned accidentally.) She lived with her boyfriend, she went out, and she got a tattoo. She sat very calmly and told very complex, detailed lies to the police officers investigating her daughter's disappearance (all of which is recorded.) She told detailed, complex lies to her parents and her brother during jailhouse visits/phonecalls about Caylee being taken (videos of which was shown to the jury.)

Everyone admits it was a circumstantial case. But the medical examiner felt the manner of the death was homicide because accidental deaths are reported by parents and the body was hidden and disposed of in an area described as a trash dump. The prosecutors felt the way the body was disposed of showed how the person who got rid of the body felt about her, that that person felt she was trash. They claim no one but Casey had access to all the items involved. No one else seemed to gain from the death. They painted that Casey drugged Caylee with chloroform to knock her out (not suffer) and then suffocated her with duct tape over mouth/nose.

Most people find there is no other realistic conclusion than that Caylee died by Casey's hand, however yes, there was no evidence of WHERE Caylee died, no CAUSE of death was definitively determined (only that the bones showed no trauma). The issue basically became, if this child died in a non-criminal manner, why try so hard to hide the body, why research items possibly associated with the child's death, lie about the child being alive, kidnapped, or whatever other things, and not even appear to grieve the loss of this child.

I also don't believe that the prosecution tried to "go for the gold." There were several other lesser charges the jury could've convicted her on, but decided not to. The jury also had a say in her sentencing. I just flat-out do not believe they could have done a good job in the relatively few hours that they spent deliberating. They did not take enough time with it, period.

[Andara Bledin]

They don't even have enough evidence to prove the girl was murdered, much less that any particular person was guilty of it. That portion should never have gone to trial.

^-.-^

[kiwi]

I don't believe there was enough evidence to prove she murdered her. I can't say if I believe she was the one to physically kill her but I do believe she was involved.

As I watched the trial I doubted she would be convicted.

[Andara Bledin]

Actually, yes. It happens all the time that prosecutors think they have a lot more case than they really do. It sucks that there are people who end up not being punished for the things they actually can be proved to have done.

In this particularly case, because of the state of the body when found, there was no way to prove there had even been negligence, much less murder, so taking it to trial for that was a very poor decision, particularly since it frees Anthony from being tried again unless the known facts change drastically enough that they can get around double jeopardy. They should have just gone after her for the shit about lying and obstructing, which she was actually guilty of, and tried for something less likely for a jury to balk at, despite the lack of evidence, like child endangerment or similar.

Of course, it's possible that they figured that they'd never have a case to get her even for something as relatively minor as that, so they threw in the top dog charge so that they wouldn't have to fight to prove the lesser charges because everybody was distracted with the big ones. Plus, nobody would have paid the least bit of attention had they just gone for the lying and obstructing, so that's something else to think about.

^-.-^

[IDrinkaRum]

What I'm wondering is, did the prosecutors think they had enough evidence to actually convict her of 1st degree murder and get her sent to death row?

Sure, the media had convicted her, and there really couldn't have been people who hadn't at least heard the barest bones of the case out there.

And was there really a woman on the jury who said she couldn't judge anyone as that was God's prerogative? (Or something like that?)

I know they had to put together a trial after she was in jail/watched/investigated for 3 years, but really ....

[Andara Bledin]

Perhaps it shouldn't be murder in the first degree. But is there NOTHING we can do about people who lie and change their stories, like Casey, or people who were obviously intending to cause harm, like the guy in my local news? Just let them go free? Really?

If the prosecutors hadn't pinned all their hopes on a charge they couldn't possibly support, then perhaps they'd have gotten a conviction on some lesser charge that was legitimately provable.

The fault of the defendant "getting away with it" (which is bullshit, anyway, so put your pitchforks down... we're not a bunch of bloodthirsty savages), is entirely the fault of the prosecution and no one else.

^-.-^

[blas87]

We just had a local murder case with the same "Not Guilty" verdict, soley based on there not being "enough evidence" to get a guilty verdict.

Granted, it was a much, much different situation, but it irritates me nonetheless. The local one is about two guys, both were really drunk at a college bar last year, one started a fight with the other, the other tried to leave and escape but was found and followed, and the first guy smashed his head against a brick wall and killed him.

Two jurors now in the Anthony case have come out and said that they felt she truly was guilty, but couldn't prove it. Many people in this local case in my neck of the woods are saying that they have no doubt the guy in question INTENDED to kill the other guy, but couldn't prove it.

It's still not right. Perhaps it shouldn't be murder in the first degree. But is there NOTHING we can do about people who lie and change their stories, like Casey, or people who were obviously intending to cause harm, like the guy in my local news? Just let them go free? Really?

[AdminAssistant]

I post something about this on Facebook a while back, basically saying that this is how our legal system works. Although it isn't perfect, it's actually a pretty damn good system with lots of protections for the accused that aren't granted in other countries. That the 'court of public opinion' shouldn't have any legal standing. Something like that.

Last night I got a message from my BIL saying that my attitude toward the case bothered him, and he gave a strange hypothetical situation..."What if that were your nephew?" Which is just ridiculous. So, I had to come up with a defusing reply. But still....really?

[guywithashovel]

If new evidence arises that points to Casey, there definitely is the issue of double jeopardy. However, it is sometimes possible to find loopholes that allow you to get around that.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/04/...death-for.html

The above link is an example of such a case. This is the case of Tim Hennis, which was a pretty popular case back in the 1980s. There was even a movie made about the murders and the resulting trials. It is called "Innocent Victims."

Basically, a woman and her two children were murdered in their home, and Tim Hennis became the prime suspect. He was put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to death. He spent three years on North Carolina's death row appealing his conviction, and the state supreme court eventually awarded him a second trial. He was acquitted at this second trial.

Years later, some DNA from a vaginal swab on the murdered woman was tested (she was raped before being murdered), and the DNA was proven to belong to Tim Hennis.

The family of the murder victims wanted to go after him, but weren't sure if there was anything they could do since Hennis had been acquitted and trying him again would amount to double jeopardy.

However, Hennis was in the army at the time the murders were committed, so they found a loophole that allowed them to try him in military court. Hennis was called back into military duty to face trial on the rape and triple murder. This time, he was convicted and sentenced to death once again.

[IDrinkaRum]

Should the prosecution have waited a few more years before bringing a trial? To find some more substantial evidence?

From what I've heard, the defense brought in experts that were engaged by the prosecution, but were never questioned because their experiments didn't come to the conclusions the prosecution wanted. So the defense used them to say that even the prosecution's own experts couldn't agree on how Caylee was killed.

And because they went ahead, had this trial and she was found not guilty, even if they found out Casey really did kill Caylee, there is nothing they can do due to double jeopardy.