If no one else is interested in continuing, let it die, for those who are, continue your discussions.



Honestly, it wasn't plain enough to convince a rational jury who was there through the entire trial, who witnessed the emotions and events that went on in that court room.

Guess because antisemitism was on the rise and generally accepted by the masses in 1096 During the First Crusade and 1290 in Spain that means that they were correct, right? and what about people who accused others of witchcraft in the Inquisition? in many instances there was such a belief that some were witches that people were murdered without trial, i mean it was OBVIOUS they were meddling in the dark arts.

The way I see this is the movie 12 Angry Men. In the justice system, you have to be sure without a single doubt that the defendant is guilty before convicting them. The defense provided a outstanding, believable argument that seeded doubt in the jury. And as such she can not be convicted.

She might be guilty, she might now. We may or may not know in the future. All we can do now is put faith in the justice system which is one of the fairest in the world, as you can see here. In many other countries Casey would have been executed even if there were fishy details. In this country, she actually had the chance to prove herself innocent in the face of the public. Who knows, maybe she's not guilty. In which case our justice system has again been proved one of the best in the world.

EDIT: Thinking about it, perhaps that defense was not so good after searching it on the Internet. There is a pretty big likelihood this'll go down as a failure of the justice system. But what can you do, at least she got a fair trial!

the prosecution messed up big time and lots of pundits and lawyers said early on they shouldnt have tried for the death penalty and for first degree murder. there are very high standards for those and since the case was circumstantial evidence (albeit strong) they should have tried for a lesser charge. i have no doubt in my mind that she either killed the kid deliberately or on accident. you dont go out and party and do all the things she did when you kid is missing on top of not even bothering to report it and blaming it on a made up baby sitter. this squarely rests on the prosecutors being idiots and glory hounds. i hope they all get disbarred.

I could give you a whole well thought out and well explained reason why I think she's guilty, but honestly im just too disgusted with the whole thing right now to get into it. What I will say is I do think she's guilty, I do think she should be punished to the full extent of the law, and im disgusted with the fact that once again our justice system somehow managed to royally botch up another one. Everything in this country is so screwed up right now it makes me both ashamed and afraid to live here sometimes.

Once again proving that the Truth is no match for a really good lawyer and a few technicalities.

Sherlock Holmes' success was mostly based on circumstantial evidence. And yes, I know he's a fictional character.

I don't know whether or not she's guilty, I do know that the media paid way too much attention to it. I haven't seen anything about the crisis in Greece on American news, but at least I know about that court case I don't care about.

Your right about that, the American media tends to latch onto a story like this ride it for all the ratings its worth, when the sad truth is crap like this happens every day.

How do you know they botched it up though? What if the jury made the right decision, and saved an innocent woman from going to jail?
You have no way of knowing, and yet you've decided that because the jury's response was contrary to your own, the only conclusion is that THEY were wrong.

I have no idea whether she did it or not, but getting so worked up about something that you can not know doesn't help anyone.

The evidence, while verywell convincing of her murdering her daughter, were too vague, therefore she was not guilty. If the jury used common sense then she would be convicted. Of course, though, common sense maust be suspended so the cold hard facts can move in for trials such as this.

Also, the fake [censored] the defense threw at the jury in the beginning, although the judge told them to ignore it, had a strong effect on her fate for the good of her.

IMO this whole thing is over blown. she killed her daughter/she didn't. IRDC

The prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony directly killed her daughter. Since the burden of proof was on the prosecution, she was found not guilty. It's that simple.

The system isn't broken because of that, that is the system. If you don't like that then there's ~194 other countries in the world. Some of them place the burden of proof on the defense, some of them will outright shoot you for the meer suggestion of criminal activity. I have no preference as to which kind you go to, but if you think something is wrong with the justice system based off this trial then you're in the wrong justice system, because it worked just fine.

She waited 31 days to tell the police that her daughter was missing. Instantly defined as guilty, no matter what.

Concerning that, I wouldn't doubt it if a new law was written specifically to make sure it's illegal to show that much neglect.

If she is actually guilty, then the jury DID botch it. So much evidence was presented towards guilt, and very little in defense. Those of us who think she's guilty see this verdict as a travesty of the system itself. Those who believe she is innocent can be content that she was released. You can't get angry when you take the neutral side.

There isn't a law like that yet? :huh:

I didn't follow the trial too closely but from what I have read and heard she definitely sounded pretty guilty.

It's a pretty specific law.

And she sounds guilty, to be sure. It's just a flaw (or virtue, depending on how you look at it) of the American justice system that requires the defense to be found guilty without reasonable doubt. She seemed completely guilty, but as long as that small amount of doubt is there because the prosecution couldn't support their case enough, she goes off. It might have been better for them if they didn't attempt such serious charges. When one brings the threat of the death penalty into it, you need a [censored] ton of irrefutable evidence if you want to succeed.

Plus it's not like the case is over. If any good evidence pops up later, she's right back in court. Cases like this aren't always just dropped. They're just put on indefinite suspension.

I don't know, honestly. Up until I found out earlier, I was rather sure that she was going to be convicted due to the strong prosecution and weak defense, but... yeah.

What honestly concerns me a little is how little time the Jury spent debating it. It was only 10 hours, and they never asked to review evidence or any such thing. I've also heard that one of them has a cruise to leave on tomorrow and one of them "didn't like to judge people".

Even throwing out those last two things, such little thought put into her being found innocent worries me a little (and it would worry me too if she was found guilty is such a short time as well, I guess, with the huge amount of evidence used in the case.)

:confused:

Edit: Proditus, though, she didn't just escape the death penalty, she escaped *any* penalty there would be in relation to the death or her daughter. She can't be re-tried for it, either, that's called Double Jeopardy. Basically, even if they find a confession later, she can't be tried in court for it. (Well, unless she wants to, but that's nigh impossible) :unsure:

Well remember that the individual jurors are all thinking about the case as the trial is going on. By the time their sent away for deliberations, they probably have an opinion on the charges. If they were all on a similar page about the charges in question, it wouldn't have taken them long to sort out the disagreements and come to a decision.

Double jeopardy doesn't apply if they find new evidence. So someone needs to get off their ass and find some real evidence.

Even then, I don't know. It just seems a little short for all the evidence provided that they'd only deliberate for that long.

Another thing that worried me a little was Casey's reaction to her acquittal. She was crying up until it, and at that moment the happiest look ever crossed her face, though I suppose that's just normal emotion processing. :shrug:

Edit:


Double jeopardy does still apply, sadly."...were police to uncover new evidence conclusively proving the guilt of someone previously acquitted, there is little they can do because the defendant may not be tried again (on the same or similar charges.)"

Basically, if she *did* murder her daughter, she's officially gotten away with it.

It was probably short because the Jurors most likely agreed on the major points. Jurors only take as much time as needed to reach a unanimous decision, if their all on the same or a similar page, the foreman could quickly and efficiently guide the jurors through the charges and reach a decision on them. There is no need to go through the evidence unless the jury is in disagreement over the charges.

Yeah, I know. I guess I'm just a little irked that not even one person figured there wasn't a reasonable doubt. :sadvaultboy:

The major problem with the prosecution's case was that they didn't have evidence directly linking Casey to the crime. They had disputable evidence of decomposition in Casey's car, the duct tape could have come from the anthony home, and etc, but they couldn't show that Casey did it. Given that the family was portrayed by the defense as being habitual liars, that would also call into question for the jurors the reliability of several witnesses. Another thing to consider is that at some points the defense had some solid experts to argue against the prosecution's evidence, and if the jurors aren't sure who to believe then you have doubt. If you were sitting in court, with no exposure to the media, there's plenty that could have made you doubt if Casey did it.

Well, there are new charges they could file with new evidence. She may not get death, but she could still do major time. With the new evidence.

I doubt they'll find any new evidence. The only person who would know where to look is Casey, and she isn't going to self-incriminate.