Casey Anthony is not guilty of first degree murder...

[Master Yoda]

Yep, I said a week. Six days . . . not going to split hairs. Point is, she could have been sentenced concurrently and gone home as quickly as the jail could process her out, which would have been today or tomorrow at the latest.

There was nothing more the judge could do to keep her in jail any longer, given the punishment set forth for the crimes for which she was convicted.

Gotta make room in the jail for all those other Florida felons. :lookaroun

Sorry. I missed that part. I caught the month to 6 weeks line.

 

[tizzo]

3. Yeah Casey's DNA was not on the duct tape. NEITHER WAS CAYLEE'S!!! Explain that? She decomposed all over the duct tape for 6 months, without leaving a trace of DNA?

I had an additional problem with this piece of evidence. The prosecution surmised from the fact that the mandible and skull were attached that the duct tape had been adhered to the skull. They surmised from this that the duct tape must have been adhered to face before decomposition occurred. It doesn't seem logical to me that duct tape adhered to intact tissue, and undisturbed during decomposition, would end up adhered to the skull once decomposition was complete. Remember, they didn't say the tape was lying on the skull, it was adhered to it, firmly enough to keep two bones together that would not ordinarily remain near each other.

4. Only a few people testified that the trunk smelled like death. An equal number of others testified it smelled either like trash, or they didn't smell anything at all. You can't just "conveniently" ignore half of the testimonies.

I took particular issue with the assertion of the uniqueness of the smell of human decomposition. Human tissue is not chemically different from any other animal tissue, and therefore it is illogical that the odor given off by human decomposition should be different than any other animal decomposition. They had expert after expert testify that the smell was unique, but I couldn't bring myself to believe them.

There were some other areas, too, where it seemed very clear to me that the prosecution was trying to confuse the jury:

1. When trying to impeach Cindy Anthony about the searches, they had someone testifying that she was logged on to her computer during the time she was supposed to be at home doing the searches. That same person testified that if the computer was idle for more than 15 minutes, it would not log her out, but would "lock" requiring her to "log back in" before she could continue working. I know exactly what she was talking about because our computers do the same thing. However they tried to leave the impression with the jury that when the computer automatically locked, the logs would not reflect that the user was logged in, which if true would have proven that Cindy was at work when she claimed to be at home. The problem is, the impression is false. When a PC is locked, the user remains logged in, and the audit logs would reflect that they were logged in the entire time, with no login or logout events recorded in the log. Basically they showed that there were no login/logout events during that time period, and tried to make the jury believe that that equated to proof that she was at work, which is not the case.

2. Again trying to impeach Cindy. She had testified that there was a day when she arrived home and saw that the pool ladder was left in place, which was sufficiently remarkable that once she got back to work, she called her husband at his work to ask him about it. Prosecutors pulled phone records from the family home, and from George's personal cell phone, neither of which were involved in the call Cindy claimed to have made, and tried to tell the jury that the absence of a record of this call in either of these phone records proved that Cindy was lying about making the call, and therefore about having found the ladder in place. Worse, when on cross examination Baez tried to ask the witness about phone records for either of the phones involved in the call he was shut down because it was during the prosecution's rebuttal, and he wasn't allowed to introduce any new evidence.

3. They also had someone search the hard drive for remnants of deleted files, trying to find instances of certain search strings that Cindy claimed to have searched for. These searches found no instances of, for example, chlorophyll, bamboo, or a couple of other things she said she searched for. The clear implication was that the absences of any of these strings proved, or at least suggested, that Cindy hadn't searched for any of those things. However, again as a result of knowledge that I personally have that most people may not, I happen to know that the absence of data doesn't prove anything. The theory is that when you delete something on your hard drive, it doesn't actually get erased, the FS just marks it as available to be used - or more accurately removes the existing marker saying that it is unavailable. Once that happens, the data might not be overwritten for days, weeks, months, or even years. But it might also be overwritten within seconds. The bottom line is that absence of specific data from anywhere on the surface of a hard drive doesn't prove, or even hint at, the data never having been there, and that particular testimony should never have been allowed to be presented in that way.

 

[The Mom]

The US does not have the third verdict option that many countries have - 1. Guilty 2. Not Guilty 3. Not Proven IMO, #3 would apply here. But, it doesn't coincide with our innocent until proven guilty premise, so we don't use it.

 

[Tater48]

This is why anyone involved in law enforcement is excluded from a jury. You have experience with criminals, arrest procedure, etc that will color your opinion as to guilt or innocence, above and beyond the evidence actually presented by the state. You are not a jury of her peers - you have more knowledge about crime than the average person.

I'm not sure how the Jury selection / Voir Dire works over in Florida, but I have served on 2 Felony juries and one misdemeanor jury, along with a couple of JP/Traffic court juries, all occurring during my tenure as a Peace Officer for the State of Texas. Here, it is not an automatic strike for either side based on your Law Enforcement experience.

 

[Laura]

3. They also had someone search the hard drive for remnants of deleted files, trying to find instances of certain search strings that Cindy claimed to have searched for. These searches found no instances of, for example, chlorophyll, bamboo, or a couple of other things she said she searched for. The clear implication was that the absences of any of these strings proved, or at least suggested, that Cindy hadn't searched for any of those things. However, again as a result of knowledge that I personally have that most people may not, I happen to know that the absence of data doesn't prove anything. The theory is that when you delete something on your hard drive, it doesn't actually get erased, the FS just marks it as available to be used - or more accurately removes the existing marker saying that it is unavailable. Once that happens, the data might not be overwritten for days, weeks, months, or even years. But it might also be overwritten within seconds. The bottom line is that absence of specific data from anywhere on the surface of a hard drive doesn't prove, or even hint at, the data never having been there, and that particular testimony should never have been allowed to be presented in that way.

Baez did cross examine though, saying that exact same thing.

I do think Casey made the search though, seeing as the website visited just before the search for chloroform was her boyfriend's Myspace...where he was talking about chloroform....and the fact that it would have been odd for her mother to leave work, go home and do random internet searches, and then go back to work.

 

[tizzo]

Baez did cross examine though, saying that exact same thing.

I do think Casey made the search though, seeing as the website visited just before the search for chloroform was her boyfriend's Myspace...where he was talking about chloroform....and the fact that it would have been odd for her mother to leave work, go home and do random internet searches, and then go back to work.

I agree. I was just pointing out that the prosecution lost a considerable amount of credibility with me over things like that.

 

[The Mom]

I'm not sure how the Jury selection / Voir Dire works over in Florida, but I have served on 2 Felony juries and one misdemeanor jury, along with a couple of JP/Traffic court juries, all occurring during my tenure as a Peace Officer for the State of Texas. Here, it is not an automatic strike for either side based on your Law Enforcement experience.

I was excluded because I was friends with a police officer in FL. :lol: In RI, they excluded people who were related to anyone in law enforcement. At least when my jury was being chosen.

 

[Tater48]

I was excluded because I was friends with a police officer in FL. :lol: In RI, they excluded people who were related to anyone in law enforcement. At least when my jury was being chosen.

Surely each state and each Judge is different. My wife was once excluded by the D.A., because she was married to me. I had a Judge tell me one time that if it was up to him, there would be a policeman sitting on every jury. Sadly, he is no longer a judge here, but he is my Congressman now.

 

[Crockett]

On a side note, a 64-yr-old grandmother was arrested for spraying her grandson in the face with a water hose. While the grandson is completely fine, at least our justice system is making it a priority to halt the real evil-doers.

Okay, back to talking about innocent Casey now.

 

[The Mom]

On a side note, a 64-yr-old grandmother was arrested for spraying her grandson in the face with a water hose. While the grandson is completely fine, at least our justice system is making it a priority to halt the real evil-doers.

Okay, back to talking about innocent Casey now.

Not innocent - not proven guilty.

 

[The Mom]

Surely each state and each Judge is different. My wife was once excluded by the D.A., because she was married to me. I had a Judge tell me one time that if it was up to him, there would be a policeman sitting on every jury. Sadly, he is no longer a judge here, but he is my Congressman now.

I should have stated that in general, criminal defense lawyers will exclude anyone associated with law enforcement - as long as they have enough exclusions left.

Of course, it could also have been the judge who stopped to chat while I was out in the hall that made them pass me over. :lookaroun

Also, how large is your city?

 

[Tater48]

Also, how large is your city?

I live outside of, but worked in and was called for jury duty in Houston.