Two Interesting articles:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2081590,00.html
The Casey Anthony Verdict: The Jury Did the Right Thing
By John Cloud Wednesday, July 06, 2011
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Casey Anthony, center, flanked by her attorneys Jose Baez, left, and Dorothy Clay Sims, reacts upon hearing the jury's not-guilty verdict at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla., on July 5, 2011
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Casey Anthony is guilty of many things. She is an enthusiastic liar. She was an indifferent mother. She mooched off her overindulgent parents for years. Even after her daughter went missing, Anthony partied and got a tattoo. But the state of Florida did not make a good case that Anthony murdered her daughter. In acquitting Anthony, the jury made the right call.
In his closing argument on July 3, one of the prosecutors, Jeff Ashton, said that a combination of chloroform and duct tape killed Caylee Anthony. But he couldn't say which came first, the chloroform or the duct tape; his team was never even able to prove that chloroform had been used. Caylee's corpse was found with duct tape on her face, but the tape had no fingerprints or DNA. And so Ashton, in his closing, had to resort to a passive accusation: "That tape," he said, "was placed there for one singular purpose. This murder was premeditated." But who, exactly, placed the tape? And who premeditated it?
(See photos from the Casey Anthony trial.)
Anthony got off because the prosecution couldn't answer such questions. Because the prosecutors had so little physical evidence, they built their case on Anthony's (nearly imperceptible) moral character. The prosecutors seemed to think that if jurors saw what a fantastic liar Anthony was, they would understand that she could also be a murderer.
And yet, why would Anthony kill her daughter? When Caylee died in 2008, her mother was young and blithe, 22-going-on-16. Anthony lived with her parents, dated lots of guys and wasn't thrilled about having to care every day for a two-year-old. And so, she chloroformed the girl? Or duct-taped her face? And then, after Caylee died, Anthony stuffed the body in her trunk, let it rot and dumped it in the woods? And the mother did all this just so she could party? Jurors were stuck in the position of convicting Anthony only if they diagnosed her as a psychopath first.
(See why the media trial for Casey Anthony is now beginning.)
Anthony's attorney, Jose Baez, presented another theory. His was also implausible. He said Caylee had accidentally drowned in her grandparents' pool — and that Anthony didn't tell authorities because she feared her father and Caylee's grandfather, George Anthony, 59. Baez said George had molested his daughter when she was a girl. He said the family panicked after Caylee's body was found in the pool and decided to stage her death as a murder. Baez said that Anthony's various lies were meant as a cover-up.
Virtually no evidence exists to support this account — one that George denied in court. But Baez understood that he didn't have to provide evidence for his theory. As in any other case, the prosecution had the burden of proof: it had to show that Anthony killed Caylee. Baez didn't have to show how she might have died otherwise. But his ornate pool-drowning-molestation-cover-up theory could help provide doubt for a jury bewildered by all the evidence.
(See "How the Casey Anthony Murder Case Became the Social-Media Trial of the Century.")
Ashton and his colleagues were never able to show how Caylee died. Much of the prosecution's evidence came from examining remnants of Caylee's little corpse. Her bones had been gnawed by animals, and the remaining bits of unwanted flesh and clothing were scattered by storms and vermin.
So how did Caylee die? Baez has said because authorities settled too quickly on the theory that Caylee was murdered, they may have missed evidence of how she might have died otherwise. A family quarrel that turns into a beating? Maybe Anthony left Caylee in the car too long and then panicked? The Casey Anthony trial offered few answers. It provided neither justice nor clarity.
Murder cases occupy a unique place in the American judicial arena: they require inflexible scientific evidence even as they elicit primal emotions. In the unsolved death of Caylee, the dearth of evidence means that all that unresolved emotions will continue to haunt an audience that had grown obsessed with the trial of her mother since jury selection began on May 9, almost two months ago.
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2081590,00.html#ixzz1RKKxf1f3
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Check it out:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43651613/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
Juror: Casey Anthony verdict was the right one
Prosecution failed to prove murder beyond reasonable doubt, alternate juror says, but admits questions remain unanswered
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.Advertise | AdChoices.Video: Alternate juror defends not guilty verdict
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NBC, msnbc.com and news services NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 2 hours 17 minutes ago 2011-07-06T12:03:55
Share Print Font: +-An alternate juror in the Casey Anthony trial on Wednesday defended the not guilty verdict over the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
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..Russell Huekler, who did not play a part in deciding the case but who sat through all the evidence, told NBC's TODAY that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
"I definitely agree that they did get it right. I support that decision whole-heartedly," he said, speaking from St. Pete Beach, Florida.
Huekler laid out three reasons:
•The prosecution "didn't present the evidence that would have sustained either a murder charge or a manslaughter charge."
•They also failed to show a motive. "We and I kept waiting to see what was the motive — "just being a party girl" did not show why she might have killed Caylee, he said.
•And the prosecution was also unable to say "how did Caylee actually pass away."
Asked whether Huekler thought Anthony, 25, was innocent or if he had reasonable doubt she was guilty, he said: "Definitely reasonable doubt for myself."
Video: Last days in jail for Casey Anthony? (on this page)
Huekler said the "$64,000 question" was why did Anthony fail to report her daughter's disappearance and tell lies to police.
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.But he said it was important to remember that "the lies just didn't start with the death of Caylee" but several years before that. "I personally think this family was dysfunctional," he said.
Speaking to TODAY, Jeff Ashton, one of the lead prosecutors in the case, said the verdict was "not easy to hear" and he thought he had "mouthed the word 'wow' about five times."
"We were all that shocked," he said.
Video: Prosecutor: I was ‘shocked’ by verdict (on this page)
Ashton said he did not think the defense's account of Caylee's death — that she died accidentally in a swimming pool — was true.
"I cannot believe that's what happened ... but again, beyond reasonable doubt is a high standard," he told TODAY.
'A rather important deception'
Ashton said that Casey Anthony's mother Cindy might face prosecution for perjury in the case for what he described as a "rather important deception that obviously was proven to be so by the other evidence."
He said he did not think the truth would ever be known "even if Casey got out of jail and wrote a book" about it because he would not be able to believe what she said.
It remains unclear where Casey Anthony will go if she is released from jail, but her former fiance Jesse Grund told TODAY there was "no way" she would return to live with her parents.
"She's going to have money ... she's going to have that partying lifestyle she so craved," he said.
During the case, the defense accused the defendant's father, George, of molesting her.
Anthony has been in jail since her October 2008 arrest on first-degree murder charges. She avoided a possible death sentence thanks to her acquittal on the murder count. The case began in July 2008 when Caylee was reported missing.
She is waiting to learn if she could spend her first night out of jail in almost three years since she was first accused in the case.
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.Anthony was only convicted of four misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators Tuesday, and it's possible that Judge Belvin Perry could sentence her to time already served for those crimes at a hearing Thursday.
The four counts of lying to sheriff's deputies each carry a maximum sentence of one year. Since she has been in jail for nearly three years already, she could walk free.
The trial became a national sensation on cable TV, with its CSI-style testimony about duct-tape marks on the child's face and the smell of death inside a car trunk.
After a trial of a month and a half, the jury took less than 11 hours to find Anthony not guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse.
'Ecstatic'
Tears welled in Anthony's eyes, her face reddened, her lips trembled, and she began breathing heavily as she listened to the verdict.
"I'm very happy for Casey, ecstatic for her and I want her to be able to grieve and grow and somehow get her life back together," defense attorney Jose Baez said Tuesday. "I think this case is a perfect example of why the death penalty does not work ... Murder is not right, no matter who does it."
Many in the crowd of about 500 people outside the courthouse reacted with anger after the verdict was read, chanting, "Justice for Caylee!" One man yelled, "Baby killer!"
Given the relative speed with which the jury came back with a verdict, many court-watchers were expecting Anthony to be convicted in the killing, and they were stunned by the outcome.
Prosecutors contended that Anthony — a single mother living with her parents — suffocated Caylee with duct tape because she wanted to be free to hit the nightclubs and spend time with her boyfriend.
Defense attorneys argued that the little girl accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool and that Anthony panicked and hid the body because of the traumatic effects of being sexually abused by her father.
Anthony's attorney Cheney Mason blasted the media after the verdict.
Video: Defense team criticizes pundits (on this page)
"Well, I hope that this is a lesson to those of you having indulged in media assassination for three years, bias, prejudice and incompetent talking heads saying what would be and how to be," Mason said.
"I'm disgusted by some of the lawyers that have done this, and I can tell you that my colleagues from coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television and talking about cases that they don't know a damn thing about."
The jurors — seven women and five men — would not talk to the media, and their identities were kept secret by the court.
NBC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.