Place Your Bets: Casey Anthony Trial

[Seth]

Per my prediction --- not guilty on all charges, except lying to the cops! http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/loc ... 5780.story

Bam!

Kinda funny how you can be charged with a misdemeanor for lying to the cops while the cops cannot be charged with anything for lying to you during an investigation or interrogation, isn't it?

Remember kiddies, you have the right to remain silent...use it!

[Seth]

Yes, you can. However, the judge will make you take a long, long time to deliberate until the jury just flatly refuses to reach a verdict.

But, if the evidence is not strong enough for a conviction, why wouldn't you just vote to acquit? If you were on trial, would you want jurors to abstain because while they thought there was a reasonable doubt, they surmised that you probably did it?

And, as far as giving prosecutors another chance - the prosecutors have all the resources they need. They have the team of law enforcement officers that investigated the crime and made the arrest, expert witnesses by the boat load, laboratories, all sorts of stuff, all on the taxpayer dime. How many chances do the fuckers need to make a "better case?"

Maybe just one more.

I would reverse that burden, and I would suggest that if a juror is leaning toward finding that "technically" the prosecution seems to have produced enough evidence to convict, that the juror should abstain and force a mistrial. That way, the typically underfunded and out-gunned defense can have another chance to fight the typically extortionately over-charged case.

I think a mistrial, and a retrial, because a single juror refuses to vote to convict and the others refuse to vote to acquit constitutes double jeopardy, or ought to.

The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove, to the jury's unanimous satisfaction, that the defendant is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. If the prosecution fails to achieve this at the first trial, the defendant should go free and never be subject to trial again. A jury should not have to vote unanimously to find the defendant "not guilty" because the defendant is PRESUMED to be not guilty unless and until the prosecution proves otherwise.

Therefore, a single holdout on a jury should conclusively and finally affirm the defendants presumptive lack of guilt because the prosecution failed to convince EVERY juror of her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

To give the prosecution try after try at a presumptively innocent defendant, using the unlimited resources of the state, is to abuse the defendant's right to a presumption of innocence. Prosecutors should get ONE SHOT at convicting a defendant, and if they fail, for ANY reason, to get a unanimous verdict of guilty, the defendant should go free and double jeopardy protections should attach.

This has the benefit of forcing the prosecution to only take up cases it can prove, and to do everything possible to prove their case the first time around and prevent them from taking two or more bites at the pie to try to salvage their prosecutorial record.

Only juror misconduct or tampering should cause a mistrial, and ALL evidence in the possession of the police should be required to be admitted or forever barred.

The prosecution rightfully lost this case because it did not meet its burden of proof, regardless of whether Anthony actually murdered her child or simply engaged in a botched cover-up of an accidental death.

[Warren Dew]

Let's say I am on the jury and I think she is guilty but the evidence is technically not strong enough for a conviction. Can't I abstain and force a mistrial so that the prosecution can have another chance to present a better case? As a single juror I have the power to manipulate the case somewhat. That is a lot of power. More than the attorneys and more than the judge.

You are not supposed to do that. As a juror, you are supposed to decide based on the facts presented.

Could you do it anyway? Sure, especially if you don't tell anyone that's what you're doing. But then, you can also vote to convict someone you think is innocent because you don't like their skin color, too. That doesn't mean you should.

I don't think it's more power than the lawyers or the judge. The lawyers get to decide what evidence to present; the jurors can't do anything about evidence not presented. Lawyers can also purposely present things in a confusing way, or use a lot of procedural motions to confuse the opposition's evidence.

The judge ought not have any power to influence the case - he's just there to enforce the rules - but if he wants to abuse his powers, he can of course influence the case immensely, by being unfair about what evidence to admit from which side and such.

[Coito ergo sum]

I just can't see what the rationale would be to not acquit if the evidence is not strong enough for a conviction.

I mean, the logic must be "I just know" he/she is guilty, but they couldn't prove it. So, I'll not acquit...

I was surprised at all the cries of a miscarriage of justice which were hollered around the media yesterday. I watched some of O'Reilly's program last night and he was off the charts, shrill and suggesting that only an idiot could fail to convict Casey Anthony. I mean, no assumption that the jury had a better handle on the facts than those of us watching half-heartedly from the sidelines, or seeing only that which was sanitized and pared down through the lens of the press - just rail against the jury as if they must have been hoodwinked.

Who is more likely to have the facts straight? The jury, who watched ever minute of every piece of testimony? Or, those of us who saw only bits and pieces cut and packaged for the news?

[Coito ergo sum]

I am proud of the Casey Anthony jury. We hear so much these days about the idiocy of juries, and how only morons serve on juries, etc. We hear so much about how this verdict or that verdict shows that the system is broken.

So far, it appears that the jurors in the Casey Anthony trial comported themselves thoughtfully, understood their duty, and did it. They were able to take their personal "feelings" out of it, and decide the case based on the evidence.

One juror said, "I did not say she was innocent," said Ford, who had previously only been identified as juror No. 3. "I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be."

Think about that last sentence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be. That is a nuanced, thoughtful analysis - one that hits the nail on the head - the prosecution could not even say the child was murdered or how she died. The only way to convict Casey Anthony would be based on things other than proof that she actually did a deed that caused Casey's death. There was no way for this juror to say "Casey did X, with intent Y, and caused the death of Casey." Without being able to find that BASED ON EVIDENCE, then how can they convict?

All the pundits excoriating the jurors are taking a "just fry her" attitude, because of the way she acted AFTER the child's death. If anything would have been a miscarriage of justice, it would have been to convict her based on that sort of non-evidence.

"Everyone wonders why we didn't speak to the media right away," Ford said. "It was because we were sick to our stomach to get that verdict. We were crying, and not just the women. It was emotional and we weren't ready. We wanted to do it with integrity and not contribute to the sensationalism of the trial."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/casey_anthony_ ... d=14005609

"If there was a dead child in that trunk, does that prove how she died? No idea, still no idea." Ford told Moran. "If you're going to charge someone with murder, don't you have to know how they killed someone or why they might have killed someone, or have something where, when, why, how? Those are important questions. They were not answered."

"The prosecution failed to prove their case and there was reasonable doubt," Huekler said. "Again, they didn't show us how Caylee died. They didn't show us a motive. I'm sorry people feel that way. ... These were 17 total jurors. They really listened to this case and kept an open mind."

I have to say - big round of applause for these jurors. They provide a great example of the benefits of the jury system, and the advantages of an adversarial system of justice with the prosecutor having the obligation (in theory, if not in practice) of seeing that justice is done, and the defense has the goal of demonstrating that the prosecution does not have sufficient evidence to convict.

[Coito ergo sum]

Four year sentence. More than 3 years time served. She'll be out in weeks w/ early release. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/us/08anthony.html

[Warren Dew]

She'll be out next wednesday.

The sentence is actually completely bogus. The four counts of lying to the police all happened in the same police interview. The defense correctly argued that meant the sentences should be concurrent. Making them consecutive means that a single police interview could potentially result in an unlimited sentence - even hundreds of years, if they ask you the same question enough times and you give the same incorrect answer each time.

Seems like the lesson they're teaching is, never talk to the police, which isn't exactly a good lesson to teach.

[Coito ergo sum]

She'll be out next wednesday.

The sentence is actually completely bogus. The four counts of lying to the police all happened in the same police interview. The defense correctly argued that meant the sentences should be concurrent. Making them consecutive means that a single police interview could potentially result in an unlimited sentence - even hundreds of years, if they ask you the same question enough times and you give the same incorrect answer each time.

Seems like the lesson they're teaching is, never talk to the police, which isn't exactly a good lesson to teach.

Yes - well, she has already served over 3 years in jail, which they can't give her back, so they have an incentive to give her enough time so that it at least subsumes the time she has already served. Plus, there is almost no reason for her to appeal, since she has no money and stands to gain nothing from an appeal.

It is, of course, always a good lesson to NEVER talk to the police. They are out to get a conviction. They are never out to help someone suspected of a crime.

They do a lot of good for people that they don't suspect of crimes. But, once they get it in their mind that you are up to something, their goal is to convict you.

[mistermack]

And what part has the death penalty played in this decision?
The jury have a pretty unpalatable choice. They don't KNOW what happened. They can be pretty sure she colluded in killing her daughter. But convict, and you might be sending her to her death.

So what you're saying is, without a death penalty they would have convicted her even though they didn't know what happened? Oh, she's probably guilty, single parents usually are in these situations, let's convict her and get it over with? If that's the case, it's a good thing they have the death penalty to keep them honest.

The attractiveness thing cuts both ways, too. If Caylee hadn't been such a cute toddler, the press and public wouldn't have been so quick to convict Casey before the trial even started.

I thought it was a good decision by this jury. I'm making the point about how the death penalty can have an effect on a verdict. Not particularly in this case, but how it can happen that the possible death penalty CAN sway the balance in a case that maybe SHOULD have resulted in a guilty verdict.
It's highly probable that some people walk free who should be convicted, because of the chance of the death penalty.

[mistermack]

Then you say that the verdict would have been different for a black, old, or ugly person.

Yes, quite possibly for a number of reasons, and that's not contrary to them very properly finding her not guilty. Not the least reason is that the trial would not have been so elaborate, and the defense would not have had the resources to present its argument as deliberately and in as much detail, and with as much counter-expert testimony to controvert the prosecution's experts. If the trial had not received the media hype that it it did, and it wouldn't have if it was an inner city black mother, or a white single father (non-celebrity).

The situation would have been different, but not necessarily worse for the defendant. If it hadn't been for the publicity, the prosecutor would not have felt obligated to maintain the murder charge, and the whole thing would likely have been plea bargained down to manslaughter, or maybe even just child neglect given her insistence that she was innocent. The defendant's legal team would have had a lot less resources, but the prosecutors would have devoted a lot less resources, too.

That seems to be and opinion and nothing more. The opposite might be true. The prosecution may have seen it as a chance to get an easy murder conviction on their cv.
There seems to be something fundamentally wrong, that a prosecution can be influenced in this way. The level of publicity, or the chances of career advancement for successful convictions should have no part in making decisions about prosecutions.
It's a fundamentally bad system if that can happen.
.

[Warren Dew]

I thought it was a good decision by this jury. I'm making the point about how the death penalty can have an effect on a verdict. Not particularly in this case, but how it can happen that the possible death penalty CAN sway the balance in a case that maybe SHOULD have resulted in a guilty verdict.
It's highly probable that some people walk free who should be convicted, because of the chance of the death penalty.

In death penalty cases they always ask the jurors whether they would be willing to impose a death penalty, if it's legally warranted. If the juror says no, he's excused. So if the case is sufficiently clear - if there's 100% certainty - the person will still be convicted.

Given that, what I interpret you to be saying is that there may be a level of doubt where a jury would be willing to convict with life imprisonment but not with a death penalty. In that case, my opinion is the same. If there's enough doubt that the jury wouldn't convict in a death penalty case, then they shouldn't convict in a life imprisonment case either. You're still taking the rest of the person's life away from him.

I think this doesn't apply to Florida anyway, because the same jury makes both the decision to convict, and the decision on whether or not to assign the death penalty. If the jury wants to, they can convict and still refuse to recommend the death penalty, in which case it can't be imposed.

The situation would have been different, but not necessarily worse for the defendant. If it hadn't been for the publicity, the prosecutor would not have felt obligated to maintain the murder charge, and the whole thing would likely have been plea bargained down to manslaughter, or maybe even just child neglect given her insistence that she was innocent. The defendant's legal team would have had a lot less resources, but the prosecutors would have devoted a lot less resources, too.

That seems to be and opinion and nothing more. The opposite might be true. The prosecution may have seen it as a chance to get an easy murder conviction on their cv.

If there's no publicity, I don't think there's that much benefit to the prosecution.

After a bit of searching, I found a somewhat similar case with a black mother and daughter. The mother's current story is that she found the girl dead after a weekend away from the house and put her in the garbage. As with Caylee, there's no clear evidence whether the girl was killed or died of starvation and dehydration on her own. The mother originally claimed the girl had been abducted and was missing, but unlike Casey, she broke under police interrogation:

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/crime/l ... found_dead
http://blackandmissing.wordpress.com/20 ... hya-woods/

Well, there's definitely evidence that the authorities expended less effort on this case than with Caylee: this girl was right there in the garbage, but the police still didn't find her until the mother told the police where she was. Their initial search must have been pretty perfunctory.

They also didn't charge her with murder - just manslaughter and neglect. Looks to me like how the Caylee case would have been charged if the prosecutor hadn't decided to overreach due to the publicity.

As for her defense, we can't know exactly what resources have been expended, but two years later, it hasn't reached trial yet. And the defense did find about the boldest defense they could given the facts that are already known - "mental condition other than insanity":

http://www.escambiaclerk.com/xml/xml.as ... d=45850191

It hasn't been plea bargained away, but this mother is certainly facing less severe charges than Casey did, and the prosecution certainly didn't treat it as "an easy murder conviction".

There seems to be something fundamentally wrong, that a prosecution can be influenced in this way. The level of publicity, or the chances of career advancement for successful convictions should have no part in making decisions about prosecutions.
It's a fundamentally bad system if that can happen.

I certainly agree with that. I think the problem there is that, in most states, prosecutors are either elected or they are on a career path to elected office, so publicity is important to them. The federal system seems to be better because most federal prosecutors are career prosecutors, and they are appointed rather than elected.

[amused]

There are thousands of similar cases like this all the time. The only reason this one made headlines is because the media decided to produce those headlines, for profit. The cherubic picture of the victim probably led to the decision to promote this story over the others.

[mistermack]

Even though I'm against the death penalty, if I found myself facing jury service and wanted to do it, I would answer yes to the question.
My reasoning is that a jury should not be loaded in that way, and that even though I'm against it in principle, and would vote to abolish it, there would still be cases where I would vote to impose a death sentence as a juror.

So I don't think that asking the question really achieves the desired result in real life.
People don't always tell the truth, even jurors.

Maybe I'm a bit hypocritical on the death penalty. I would vote to abolish it because nothing is worth the risk of killing of an innocent person.
But if I was on a jury, and I had no doubt whatsoever of the guilt, and the crime was horrible, I would vote for death in that circumstance. (probably).
What the possible death penalty would REALLY influence with me would be the element of doubt.
It's hardly ever cut and dried, and with the death sentence looming, I would have to be absolutely convinced, with virtually no doubt at all, before I would convict.

If it was just life imprisonment, you have the chance of being cleared later, so I would not need such overwhelming proof to convict. I'm sure there are many more like me.
I certainly wouldn't disclose what I thought before a trial. I would just agree that was prepared to impose the death sentence. I wouldn't be lying.

I always thought that the only system for imposing the death penalty that I would vote for, would be one where, if it turned out that an innocent person was executed, then the whole jury and the judge should be automatically executed themselves.

They would then, I am sure, give proper consideration to the phrase "reasonable doubt".
.

[Warren Dew]

It's hardly ever cut and dried, and with the death sentence looming, I would have to be absolutely convinced, with virtually no doubt at all, before I would convict.

If it was just life imprisonment, you have the chance of being cleared later, so I would not need such overwhelming proof to convict.

And my opinion is that if a juror is using the excuse, "you have the chance of being cleared later", he shouldn't be voting guilty, no matter what the penalty is.

[laklak]

Florida has only two possible sentences for capital murder; death or life in prison without parole. Capital murder is defined as either 1st degree or felony murder. After conviction there is a penalty phase, when evidence may be presented that may not have been allowed in the original trial, previous convictions or other aggravating or mitigating circumstances, for example. The jury recommends either life or death, but in both cases the judge may overrule the recommendation. Though this is vanishingly rare, there is the possibility that even with a recommendation of life in prison the judge could still impose the death penalty.