Casey Anthony case: Respect the jury, BUT she's most likely guilty.

[RBInMaine]

Many of us have seen good chunks of the trial and the undisputed evidence. A jury has an abstract and objective duty to vote not guilty if they feel there is a reasonable doubt. As at least one juror has said, that doesn't mean she thought Anthony was "innocent". It is an abstract standard.

What is undisputed is that Casey Anthony is a pathological liar who for at least a month did not report her child missing. What is undisputed is that she persisted and persisted in her lie that some fictitious babysitter was the last person to have seen her and must have kidnapped her or knew that she had been kidnapped. What is undisputed is that then along came the absurd story that her father tried to make a drowning accident like a murder without a single shread of evidence to support such a wild claim. What is undisputed is that the child's face was ductaped, that the child was in a laundry bag her mother had, and that the child was wearing clothing and wrapped in a blanket that came from the mother, as well as the connection with the brand of ductape to which the mother had access. What is undisputed is that cadaver smell was in the mother's trunk. What is also undisputed is that the mother craved the free party and boyfriend life she could no longer have with a child. And THERE is your MOTIVE. Selfishness has been the motive of murders of all kinds including MANY similar cases. Put it all together and apply COMMON SENSE. It was a strong case that points to the mother and NO ONE else, and the state would have brought the case if they didn't believe it was a strong one. Again, use common sense. And don't forget, she WAS convicted of lying repeatedly to investigators. Does an innocent person do that? VERY unlikely.

If the jury honestly in the end needed more evidence to reach a criminal verdict of guilty in this case, we must respect that. But that in no way shape or form means that this pathological liar and obviously very very selfish and dysfunctional person did actually not do it, and nor does it mean that many or maybe all of the jurors didn't believe that she PROBABLY did it. All indications are that they thought she likely did it, but just that there was not quite enough evidence to convict. * I'm willing to bet that if she was tried in civil court for wrongful death, she would be found responsible. There is a lower standard in civil cases.

[KamaAina]

1. Tried in civil court for wrongful death

Now there's an idea! Wonder why no one ever thought of that before? :sarcasm: Of course, she isn't rich like You-Know-Who, so it'd be best to wait until after she cashes in with the inevitable "If I Did It"-style book. :eyes:

[sharp_stick]

2. Guilty of what?

I think that's where the crux of the argument was in favor of acquittal. The prosecution overcharged in a massive way going for a potential death penalty in a case where they had no cause of death and no solid motive.

I think they could have gotten her if they had of charged her with manslaughter or maybe even second degree murder with a chance to drop to manslaughter. When they pushed for first degree murder and then didn't deliver any really hard evidence they doomed their case because the defense had a much easier time arguing "reasonable doubt".

It's all speculative of course, even with all the could have, would have and should have's we'll never really know.

[RBInMaine]

10. No cause of death? Ductape the face to suffocate or poison. No motive? SELFISHNESS is a POWERFUL and

VERY common motive. That was EXACTLY OJ's motive and that of MANY murderers, especially when parents kill their own children. And this was done in a way common for a woman, according to many other cases. Men usually use blunt force. Women more often drown in some way, or suffocate them, or poison them. I agree that maybe if they had gone for a lesser charge they may have been more successful.

[Hepburn]

12. Both defense and prosecution forensics pathologists could not give a cause of death...

...and YOU can???

:eyes:

[RBInMaine]

29. So you're saying that if decomposition eliminates exact cause of death you can't have a prosecution?

Look at all the serial killer cases where bodies have been found so decomposed that you can't show an exact cause of death. Does that mean you can't attribute those deaths to the serial killer? In this case, decomposition made it impossible to show the exact cause of death given the time lapse. But was do the CIRCUMSTANCES show? Duct tape on the face over the nose and mouth. Cadaver odor in the car. The child wrapped in a blanket and put in a laundry bag and dumped in a swamp. This child was killed and dumped with all kinds of connections to the mother in this fact pattern.

Are you saying that you are buying the crazy story that the child may have died accidentally, the mother panicked, and she staged it to look like a murder and kidnapping and murder by someone else? That is an absurd assertion that defies common sense. The child was killed, most likely suffocated and/or chloroformed based on the nature of the duct tape on the face.

The danger of this verdict is juries saying that in cases where decomposition makes it impossible to show an exact cause of death you can't have a prosecution. That is crazy. Indeed, there have been successful prosecutions where no body was found at all. It is given that after a certain time the person is assumed dead. People are asking for cases to offer up perfectly available reams of evidence or you can't have a prosecution. Well, that defies the nature of the world. The real world is not CSI on TV.

[sharp_stick]

20. Not really

no pathologist has offered a cause of death, the fact that the remains were skeletal wouldn't allow them to find it.

Not being all that much into the case I probably am not close enough to place blame but I told my wife quite some time ago that trying for the death penalty was going to be a mistake.

[cbdo2007]

22. I thought OJ's motive was jealousy??!?!

Do you have examples where selfishness has ever been the recorded motive for murder? I could see it being a reason for neglect and even abuse, but I can't see selfishness causing someone to kill someone else, when it isn't usually an aggressive emotion.

Then your post is funny cause you say "No cause of death?" and then you say "suffocate OR poison" - so you admit that the cause of death is in question, which is exactly what led to her acquittal. If you were in their position you would have found her "not guilty" also, based on your own argument and logic.

[RBInMaine]

28. Jealousy and spite are based entirely on selfishness. OJ is an ultimate narcissist who was both

angry because he was snubbed and felt he had exclusive rights to his ex wife, and he was a control freak. ALL based on SELFISHNESS. He is all about OJ.

[cbdo2007]

15. the charge - I think that's a key here that not many people see.

They went for all the glory by charging her with first degree murder, when there are a bevy of other charges they probably could have convicted her on. Obviously, SOMETHING happened and obviously the mom knows what that was and was probably somehow a conspirator/participator in it....They should have charged her with other lesser crimes that were more of a sure thing, than gone for a first degree murder charge with even a tiny bit of questionable evidence.

[Hepburn]

16. Amen...n/t

[Quixote1818]

23. I agree and I think them listening to the media drumbeat and Nancy Grace

that it was an easy case went to their heads. The one thing they need to learn from this is medias perception of a strong case and reality are two very different things. Those jurors were not corrupted by the lynch mob media and I am sure the prosecution had that crap on every day and it probably went to their heads so they thought "lets go for the jugular, lets go death penalty, Nancy Grace and her audience know she is guilty and so of course the jury will too". Big mistake!

[polichick]

3. True - "not guilty" is not the same as "innocent." Having served on a jury...

in a federal case, I know how seriously jury members take their instructions - they try to follow the letter of the law.

As one jury member has said regarding this case, they wept and were sick to their stomachs after giving the verdict.

[rocktivity]

4. I think Casey's jury, like OJ's just wanted to get the hell out of there.

They couldn't possibly have intelligently evaluated what evidence they did have.

:headbang:
rockvitity

[seaglass]

27. Yeah it was interesting to me that one of the jurors said she could

believe more that an accidental drowning happened and that George Anthony was involved in the cover up.

This was not based on any evidence. She believed George Anthony's involvement based on his demeanor. But somehow Casey's behavior was just "bad behavior" and didn't mean she was guilty of anything.


“I can walk from here to there and make it happen,” she said of the defense’s theory of an accidental death by drowning in the family pool.
...
The 31 days of no report that her daughter was missing and partying was not significant, the juror said. “It looks very bad. The behavior is very bad. But, bad behavior is not enough to prove a crime. It’s not,”
...
George Anthony was a factor in the jury's decision, she said. “Because he was clearly dishonest. He was evasive,” she said, indicating that he switched from side to side. “He was being difficult,” she said, wondering why he could not just answer the questions asked of him. She also indicated that she felt he was involved in the crime in some way. “I think he was there,”


http://www.huliq.com/10473/juror-3-casey-anthony-trial-speaks-abcs-nightline-video

My theory - the jury believed the defense argument without any evidence and they called it a day.

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. No "Rumpole of the Bailey" fans left?

That's sad.

As the Old Bailey hack always said: "There is a single golden thread running through the web of English Criminal Law which is that the burden of proving guilt rests with the prosecution ... a man shall be presumed innocent until proven otherwise."

[Hepburn]

13. Raising hand....

...I LOVE Rumpole!!!!!! :hi:

[Davis_X_Machina]

25. My mom and dad made a special trip to see the Old Bailey...

...in person when they were in London a few years ago. Couldn't find Pomeroy's wine bar, but they did have their picture taken in front of the building used for the exterior of 25B Froxbury Mansions....

[bemildred]

6. Oh good.

:popcorn:

[Quixote1818]

7. I am still not convinced

I keep thinking of hit and run drivers and politicians who try to cover up mistakes. It's very possible there was an accident (which some of the jurors believe) and because she was a spoiled, stupid, blundering idiot who had a history of lying about almost everything, she was afraid to tell anyone in the same way many people will accidentally hit someone and then drive off. My brother was hit and killed by a hit and run driver. It was a girl who had just started driving. She was also seen drinking the following week but from what I understand it was to drink her sorrows away. I never had any animosity for her because I knew she was young and naive and probably very scared.

Unless she fesses up we will never know for sure what happened but with no motive it's very possible she was just an idiot who made a bad situation worse by trying to cover it up. This happens all the time. Simply way too little evidence to convict.

On Edit: Actually almost everything you listed as "un-disputed" was actually disputed by expert witnesses.

[RBInMaine]

14. Did you hear the tapes of this woman? She is VERY self-centered. Rarely does someone fail to report

an "accident," and no one with any common sense couldn't conclude based on how that body was found that this was a killing. And she went to such lengths to lie about it making up story after story. The accident theory doesn't make ANY sense. If it was an accident, especially as the defense asserts, the grandfather would have tried like hell to revive the child and would have called the EMT's.

[Hepburn]

18. Let's see...

...self-centered and failed to report an accident...lied about her conduct.

Oh, yeah, definitely a Murder One case...:sarcasm:

[pipi_k]

8. Even her own parents

think she's guilty of killing the kid, judging by the way they left the courthouse after the verdict. They didn't make one move toward their daughter to congratulate her while she and her defense team celebrated.

Murder? Who knows. Cindy did go to great lengths to protect her daughter from Capital Murder charges.

But, unlike many other cases I've seen where the parents/family of the accused vehemently DENY their loved one is guilty of anything, this family knows that Casey was capable of, and most likely did, kill her child.


It will be interesting to see when, or even if, this family ever accepts Casey back again.

[Little Star]

11. I was surprised to hear that today.....

when Baez entered the court room for the sentencing he gave a fist up/muscle salute toward Cindy and she gave him a nice big smile. I think that there is a possibility the Anthony's were in cahoots with the defense strategy all along. We shall see.

[WolverineDG]

26. "In cahoots"

:wtf: Baez did his job, as opposed to the State which relied on the media to whip everyone up into a "Burn the Witch" frenzy to fill in the gaping holes in their case.

dg

[alsame]

9. I didn't follow this case, but I do know that if I sat on a jury there

would be no way I could convict someone of murder without very strong, solid evidence. Not circumstantial evidence, not bizarre behavior or disreputable character. The prosecution would have to remove all doubt from my mind before I could find someone guilty.

[Bunny]

17. Hopefully you'll never be a juror then.

The standard is not removal of 'all doubt', it's beyond a reasonable doubt. And circumstantial evidence often makes for the strongest cases, when it's tied together in a coherent manner.

[alsame]

21. Thanks, I did mean reasonable doubt. But without a cause of

death, place of death or time of death, I think the prosecution would need very substantive evidence to convince beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was guilty.

Based on what I heard from the jurors who have spoken out, this is what happened. And I respect their decision.

[RBInMaine]

31. You are asking for unreasonable standards. Given the time lapses and decomposition you can't expect

these factors to be able to be precisely pinpointed in all cases. Notwithstanding, there is TONS of circumstantial evidence, which is GOOD evidence, to show the child was killed and did not die accidentally which is an assertion that defies logic and common sense.

[RBInMaine]

19. Circumstantial evidence is as "strong" as direct evidence. Rarely are there eyewitnesses or crimes

caught on video tape. Remember, forensic evidence IS "circumstantial" evidence. The world is what it is. Not every case hands you "perfect" evidence.

Beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't mean there can't be SOME doubt. There can be. Also, our population is wanting CSI/TV type evidence for so many cases now. You can still have a strong case without all that. This was a STRONG case. Maybe not enough for this jury, but it was a damn strong case. Put all the facts and circumstances together, apply COMMON SENSE, and it points to the mother very clearly.

[alsame]

24. I don't know how strong the evidence was or wasn't, but the

jurors apparently did not feel a case was made. They're the ones who heard every word and saw every bit of evidence, not me. And I respect their decision.

[RBInMaine]

30. I said I respect the decision right up front. Just that it doesn't mean she's innocent. She probab-

ly is guilty, and it was a strong case regardless of the verdict.