The media was quick to act as judge, jury and executioner of Casey Anthony. To them, there seemed no possibility of a not-guilty verdict, no presumption of innocence, no need indeed for the prosecution to actually prove their case.
“The devil is dancing,” said Nancy Grace, the former prosecutor turned commentator on CNN Headline News, who in many respects led the media lynching before the verdict even came in. “There’s no way this verdict speaks to the truth.”
“But this is our jury system,” she said.
As veteran attorney Alan Dershowitz put it, before this weekend and not even referring to this case, “I call them Nancy Grace prosecutors. She behaves on her TV talk show as if there’s no such thing as innocence; everybody arrested is guilty.”
I have seen comments that this is another OJ Simpson, but those commentators missed critical differences between that verdict and this one. In that case, there was an overwhelming amount of direct physical evidence that tied OJ Simpson to the murder of his former wife.
In that case, the defense had to get the jury to overlook the physical evidence and render a verdict. Fortunately for the defense, they had a willing accomplice in that feat, incompetence on the part of the LA Crime Lab, a police officer with an apparent motive, who may have in fact planted evidence, and sheer incompetence on the part of the prosecutor to do things like ask Mr. Simpson to try on a glove that had been sitting in the sun and had therefore shrunk.
That, coupled with the Rodney King incident, made it ripe for a jury nullification verdict to send a message to the authorities.
No such dynamic exists in this case. This is simply a prosecution that perhaps overreached, that failed to get over the reasonable doubt hurdle. There was no direct evidence tying Ms. Anthony to the crime, despite what people would like to believe and despite what people may believe in their heart of hearts.
People’s reaction to the verdict is understandable, you have a very innocent and vulnerable victim and a mother who behaved oddly following the disappearance and death of her daughter.
Some have used her actions and lies after the fact as evidence, but that is a dangerous proposition.
Do we know that because Ms. Anthony lied to authorities that she killed her daughter? No, we do not.
Do we know that, because she was not acting as a grieving mother should, that she killed her daughter? No, we do not.
The case of Cameron Todd Willingham should give people pause. Mr. Willingham’s children were killed in a fire in Texas. Investigators determined it to be arson. Witnesses saw Mr. Willingham partying it up after their death and assumed that he had done it.
Mr. Willingham, based in part on that testimony and in part on faulty science that determined that the fire was arson, was convicted and ultimately executed.
Now, after the fact, new scientific methods call into question the arson fire, suggesting that investigators misread the clues. Without arson, there is no murder.
Now, how do you explain Mr. Willingham’s behavior? We have in our minds a presupposed way for people to react to horrific news, as though we were all cookie cutters, and everyone who behaves outside of that realm is considered suspect.
In this case, you have two other possible, indeed plausible, explanations. Ms.Anthony reacted that way out of panic, or maybe she reacted that way out of some sort of psychosis. In jury instructions, when there are two competing reasonable explanations for a behavior, you must choose the one that favors not guilty.
And that is simply what has happened here. It is equally plausible that this was an accidental drowning, and that the mother might have been negligent, leaving her daughte,r for instance, unattended as she partied? She then panicked and tried to cover it up. Or perhaps her boyfriend or even her father had induced her to do so.
The problem in this case is that we simply do not know. We do not know how the girl died. And we do not have any idea who killed her.
Her mother’s actions were irresponsible, but that does not mean she killed her.
Look no further than the prosecution’s closing case, in which the lead prosecutor showed the jury two side-by-side images. One showed Casey Anthony smiling and partying in a nightclub during the month Caylee was missing. The other was the tattoo she got a day before her family and law enforcement first learned of the child’s disappearance.
“At the end of this case, all you have to ask yourself is whose life was better without Caylee?” Burdick asked. “This is your answer.”
The problem is, that’s speculation, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the mother killed the child. And that’s the problem.
People’s reaction is based primarily on three things. First, Caylee was a completely innocent victim. Second, the mother’s reaction was not in line with how people think they would react. Third, the media coverage convinced people of the guilt.
In the end, the prosecution’s case could not hold up and did not match the hype.
For one thing, there was no direct evidence linking Ms. Anthony to her daughter’s death. Quite frankly, the burden was on the prosecution to prove their theory: Ms. Anthony was alleged to have suffocated her daughter by placing duct tape on her mouth and nose, wrapped her in a blanket and black trash bags, kept the body in the car’s trunk until the odor was too strong, and then dumped it in the woods near her house.
And what evidence did they have? There was no evidence that Caylee’s body was in the trunk of the car. The prosecution tried to introduce an air-sampling method (which, by the way, had never been used in a criminal case previously), and argue that the smell of decomposition filled the trunk of Ms. Anthony’s car, but that was countered by that the smell simply could have been food rotting in the trunk.
The key to this case was that the jury was able to get beyond the emotion of a little girl dying and rely on the evidence before them in this case. The prosecution did a great job of showing that Ms. Anthony lied and that she was a bad mother, but they were unable to prove she had killed her daughter.
Wrote the New York Times this morning, “The defense had argued from the start that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool and that the death was concealed by a panicked George Anthony and Casey Anthony. It was unclear if that version of Caylee’s death swayed jurors. But the circumstantial nature of the prosecution’s case seemed to be insurmountable.”
They continue, “Here was no direct evidence tying Ms. Anthony to the death of her daughter. Forensic evidence was tenuous, and no witnesses ever connected her to Caylee’s death. Investigators found no traces of Ms. Anthony’s DNA or irrefutable signs of chloroform or decomposition inside the trunk of Ms. Anthony’s car, where prosecutors said she stashed Caylee before disposing of her body. The prosecution was also hurt by the fact that nobody knows exactly when or how Caylee died; her body was too badly decomposed to pinpoint cause of death. And it permitted Mr. Baez, Ms. Anthony’s lawyer, to create a reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds — despite the prosecution’s relentless portrayal of her as a callous liar who sought to kill Caylee so she could lead a carefree life of boyfriends and bars. “
Ms. Anthony’s lawyers made a couple of interesting comments.
Jose Baez argued that the acquittal of Ms. Anthony is a good example as to why we should not have a death penalty because it often involves a rush to judgment. “We all need to stop and look and think twice about a country that decides to kill its own citizens,” he said. Indeed, look no further than the Todd Cameron Willingham case for a lower profile corollary to this one. In that case, in Texas, the researchers screwed up and the jury rushed to judgment and a likely innocent person was executed.
Moreover, Cheney Mason is right to criticize reporters for their presumption of guilt.
“I can tell you that my colleagues coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television to talk about cases they don’t know a damn thing about,” Mr. Mason said.
That, more than anything else, is what has led the public outrage, as they have been told this woman is a child killer. When a group of dispassionate jurors evaluated the evidence, they failed to reach the same verdict.
In the end, perhaps she did it and got away with murder as some are alleging now. Or perhaps she simply lacked the sophistication to articulate herself in a socially acceptable manner, panicked, and got caught in a bunch of lies. Who knows.
The system worked her. The goal of the system is to give a person a fair trial and force the state to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. They failed in that and Ms. Anthony is entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Better 100 guilty men go free than an innocent one put into prison – is that not our mantra? To hear people talk, though, you would think that standard has been turned on its head.
Perhaps if the media would simply cover complex trials more honestly, and without the advocacy, we would be in far better shape.
Nancy Grace was right, this is our jury system. And this time, despite all the efforts to contaminate that system, the system worked.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
A proper verdict, but will over-zealous prosecutors learn from it ? Will police learn to investigate crimes with an eye toward finding the truth, instead of closing the case ? We will never know the truth and there will never be justice for “The People” in this case because police and prosecutors are more concerned with their media image and case closure rates !
The prosector in this case made a very telling statement during the trial, and said to the jurors something to the effect that “you can determine whatever scenario you want as to what happened”. Right there was an admission that the evidence did not exist to prove murder/manslaughter or exactly how the little girl died.
However, the defense was shameful in this case as well, in positing the irrelevant theory of the defendant being an abused child. Both the defendant’s father and brother’s reputations were smeared to no good purpose – there was absolutely no proof of abuse and this theory was irrelevant to the killing.
IMHO, neither the prosecutor nor defense attorney have anything to brag about. The prosecutor was not objective, overcharging the case. The defense offered huge amounts of irrelevant evidence that apparently the jury did not consider in its verdict (based on interview w alternate juror #14). The judge in the case should have had a better handle on controlling the evidence and his courtroom.
And I have to wonder if cameras in the courtroom played a part in the prosecution overcharging this case. When huge publicity surrounds a case and the media becomes involved, it seems as if the legal system becomes perverted and nothing but a media circus. I found a good deal of the media coverage offensive, silly, and unprofessional.
Regardless of the verdict she was still responsible in some way for her daughter’s death, either through negligence or actually doing the murder herself. Admittingly the prosecution over reached and should’ve gone for a lesser charge. Like OJ, anyone fair minded knows she’s responsible for Caylee’s death.
Despite the verdict, Casey Anthony will be dead in 10 years. Karma catches up with people. I think she would have had a better life in prison. She may enjoy her lifestyle as a porn star ([url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/06/casey-anthony-gets-porn-offer_n_891339.html[/url]) for a while, but that won’t last.
Look at OJ. He thought he got away with murder. Eventually he was dealt the sentence he deserved in the first place.
[img]http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/32000/O-J-Simpson-in-Jail-32100.jpg[/img]
I once followed a murder case in California, and the judge instructed the jury that circumstantial and direct evidence have equal probative value. I have always found this issue interesting since it is counter intuitive to most people.
I thought this was a pretty strong circumstantial case, so I googled the judge’s instruction to the jury in this case, and there was no similar instruction as to how to the weight of circumstantial evidence. I searched further and found the state of Connecticut’s jury instruction guidelines, and found a long section on criminal jury instructions regarding the weight of circumstantial versus direct evidence.
Here is the link: http://www.jud.ct.gov/ji/criminal/part2/2.4-1.htm
Here are some excerpts: [quote]There are, generally speaking, two kinds of evidence, direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence is testimony by a witness about what that witness personally saw or heard or did. Circumstantial evidence is indirect evidence, that is, evidence from which you could find that another fact exists, even though it has not been proved directly. There is no legal distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence as far as probative value; the law permits you to give equal weight to both, but it is for you to decide how much weight to give to any particular evidence.
There is no reason to be prejudiced against evidence simply because it is circumstantial evidence. You make decisions on the basis of circumstantial evidence in the everyday affairs of life. There is no reason why decisions based on circumstantial evidence should not be made in the courtroom. — State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Criminal Jury Instructions http://www.jud.ct.gov/ji/criminal/part2/2.4-1.htm%5B/quote%5D
[quote]I found a good deal of the media coverage offensive, silly, and unprofessional.[/quote]Perhaps a better description would be “offensive, silly and professional”. The media succeeded in getting you to read it!
Lock her up and throw the key away , or hang her , that will save us taxpayers some money .
[quote]Regardless of the verdict she was still responsible in some way for her daughter’s death, either through negligence or actually doing the murder herself.[/quote]
On what basis can you support that claim? I SUSPECT you are correct in your assumption, but I personally don’t know it BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. The problem here is the body was disposed of in such a way as to remove a good deal of forensic evidence. For instance, there is the possibility the child was drugged so she would sleep while Mommy was partying, but was given too large a dose and died. Or the child could have been left unattended and drowned in the pool by accident. Who knows? But that is the point – you cannot convict someone on suspicion, but must convict them on EVIDENCE OF A CRIME – which just didn’t exist in this case.
I would have been very surprised if the jury had brought back any verdict other than the one they did. What surprises me is how clueless the prosecution was. It is possible the prosecution knew more than what was revealed in court… but were not permitted to present as evidence – but I don’t think that is the case, since the DA specifically said they presented ALL THE EVIDENCE THEY HAD.
[quote]Perhaps a better description would be “offensive, silly and professional”. The media succeeded in getting you to read it![/quote]
If you watched the news, you had no choice but to be inundated with the details of this case ad nauseum. However, if cameras had not been allowed in the courtroom, my guess is we would have had a lot less news coverage on this entire matter. Cameras in the courtroom is a very problematic/controversial issue…
[quote]I thought this was a pretty strong circumstantial case…[/quote]
Actually it wasn’t a strong circumstantial case – there was just too much guesswork that had to be done to determine how the little girl died (even the prosecution admitted this). And unfortunately that was due to the way in which the body was disposed of, and how long it took to find it. I think that is the part that is so bothersome – that the defendant may have gotten away with a crime bc she was smart enough to know how to dispose of the body in such a way as to remove forensic evidence…
She is lucky that she was not tried in Yolo County because over here it means get a conviction at all cost! The prosecutors over here would have spent millions of dollars hiring “Expert” Witnesses to testify and say whatever conclusion that they could dream up at the time.
E. Roberts Musser: You seem so sure of yourself. Many juries would have convicted her, given the circumstantial evidence. Juries have convicted people of murder on the basis of less circumstantial evidence. Also, she could have been found guilty of a variety of lesser crimes. One can’t always second-guess these things; there is an arbitrary element involved in judgment. Complete proof is always elusive. Direct evidence can be misleading — eyewitness testimony can be mistaken and DNA evidence can be planted.
I’m informed about the nuances and technicalities if the law, as the contributors to this post has outlined them. At the end of the day, there is a small child, who apparently died a horrific death, and no-one is held accountable. C’est dommage.
You ultimately have to prove a case with evidence, not hunches and guesses. The prosecutors were unable to do so. These protections are there to prevent innocent people from being put in prison. The real truth is all we really know is that the woman lied to authorities.
And she was sentenced to four years in prison for that, though she will be out later this month due to time served.
You assume I have a problem with the verdict, David…. I did not say that… what I’m saying is that a little girl is dead, who shouldn’t be… y’all argue about the game that is “justice”… are you saying that the child’s death was “just”?
I assumed that based on your assertion that “no-one is held accountable” which would imply that you think that someone should be.
There are a lot of unjust outcomes in the world, the girl’s tragic death is one of them. That does not mean that the justice system which focuses on criminal liability is completely at fault. Now some have argued that the prosecutors overreached pushing for first degree murder and the death penalty. Perhaps had they charged her with manslaughter they would have convicted her. I don’t know. It’s a tough case to determine.
[quote]Also, she could have been found guilty of a variety of lesser crimes. [/quote]
Ah, but that was the problem. The prosecution overcharged in this case. Had the prosecution been more conservative, and charged the defendant with something akin to negligent homicide, they would have been much more likely to obtain a conviction IMHO. The problem with this case is there really was no evidence to differentiate whether this was an “accident” or “murder”. From circumstantial evidence of the mother’s actions post-death, circumstantial evidence could have perhaps inferred negligent homicide – but unfortunately that was not one of the options as to counts charged.
The prosecution, in this case, must have been so wrapped up in the publicity of this case, that they lost any kind of objectivity. The evidence for murder or aggravated child abuse just did not exist/wasn’t there.
As I noted before, I suspect what shocks the conscience is that the defendant’s actions in disposing of the body is what helped destroy evidence and allow her to get off scott free on the charges of murder/aggravated child abuse. Everyone’s sense is that the defendant was somehow responsible for the child’s death, but unfortunately there is just not enough forensic proof to determine how the child died and under what circumstances.
What I also find offensive is the defense’s actions post verdict. One of the defense attorney’s gave the middle finger to the press. Extremely unprofessional. Defense attorney Jose Baez has already found himself a publicity agent. And the father and mother of the defendant are shopping around to give interviews to the highest bidder. All of this sort of thing makes me cringe.
In another interesting twist, the DA and the search team are going to be asking for the defendant to reimburse their costs for this trial and the search. Meanwhile the defendant, not even yet out of jail, has been offered a job as a porn star. Frankly, the media (all types) can be crass…
I suspect this is what comes of having cameras in the courtroom…
One other point – many commentators are calling the jurors “stupid” bc they brought in a verdict of “not guilty” on the murder/aggravated manslaughter counts – again highly unprofessional and below the belt. These jurors, IMHO, came in with exactly the right verdict BASED ON THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED.
I would also like to stress that the defendant did not get off bc of the brilliant strategy of the defense team. In general, I thought the defense team was pretty poor in its presentation. They called their own client a slut and a liar, brought in all sorts of irrelevant evidence and promised many theories they had absolutely no evidence for. The prosecution has nothing to brag about – they laughed during the proceedings which was highly inappropriate and unprofessional (and almost brought a contempt charge); overcharged the case probably due to the high publicity surrounding the case. And bc the prosecution overcharged, the sentence was perhaps far short of what it should/could have been. The only thing I am not sure of is if the state this case was tried in has some form of negligent homicide in its arsenal of possible criminal charges…
David Greenwald and E. Roberts Musser: After the fact analysis is meaningless. The prosecution lost this particular case, so by definition they didn’t make the right choices given this particular jury. But many, and probably most juries would have found the accused guilty of one of the murder/homicide charges given the circumstantial evidence.
Circumstantial evidence and direct evidence have equal standing under the law. This is just a fact about our system that David Greenwald doesn’t seem to accept.
Obviously, after the fact we know for a certainty that the prosecution should have compromised and chosen a lesser charge that did not involve intent. But again, other juries have convicted people of murder with less circumstantial evidence.
Before the verdict, many seasoned prosecutors and defense attorneys thought the case was strong and the prosecution would win. Others disagreed.
I once talked with a prosecutor in Sacramento who told me that juries in San Francisco are less willing to deliver murder convictions based on circumstantial evidence than juries in Sacramento, even though they are both given instruction to weigh direct and circumstantial evidence equally.
Sue:
You are correct that circumstantial evidence and direct evidence have equal standing.
Here is the jury instruction in California on such:
[quote]Both direct and circumstantial evidence are acceptable types of
evidence to prove or disprove the elements of a charge, including
intent and mental state and acts necessary to a conviction, and
neither is necessarily more reliable than the other. Neither is
entitled to any greater weight than the other. You must decide
whether a fact in issue has been proved based on all the evidence.[/quote]
But the question is whether the circumstantial evidence in this case proves the crime as alleged.
Here is the jury instruction on that:
[quote]before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to find the
defendant guilty, you must be convinced that the only reasonable
conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that the
defendant is guilty. If you can draw two or more reasonable
conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those
reasonable conclusions points to innocence and another to guilt,
you must accept the one that points to innocence.[/quote]
And that was the problem in this case, we don’t know from the evidence what happened. Why? Because we don’t know how the kid died and we don’t know why and who chose to obstruct that fact.
I think it is a completely reasonable alternative to conclude that the child died accidentally, she panicked, and she lied and then her family and she tried to cover it up.
Had the prosecutor chosen to charge with a lesser crime than first degree murder, she might have been convicted and sentenced to more than the four years she got. But given the charge and the evidence, I don’t see how you can convict.
“Before the verdict, many seasoned prosecutors and defense attorneys thought the case was strong and the prosecution would win. Others disagreed.”
And since the case has happened, a lot of them have gone back and said, you know the evidence was not as strong as we thought.
“But again, other juries have convicted people of murder with less circumstantial evidence.”
What is interesting is that this was a death qualified jury, which are generally more conservative, so I’m not sure that would have held up here.
I think it’s really sad if anyone makes a dime off of that little girls death and shame on them if they do.
[quote]The prosecution lost this particular case, so by definition they didn’t make the right choices given this particular jury.[/quote]
Not necessarily. The prosecution can only work with the evidence they have. Cases are almost never perfect. That is not necessarily the prosecution’s fault. In this particular case, the defendant herself obstructed justice and most likely destroyed forensic evidence by dumping the body in a secluded spot that delayed discovery for a long time. That is hardly the prosecution’s fault!
[b]”I think it’s really sad if anyone makes a dime off of that little girls death and shame on them if they do.”[/b]
Currently the people milking this for everything they can get are all working for HLN.
[quote]Perhaps had they charged her with manslaughter they would have convicted her – David Greenwald[/quote] David, they did charge her with manslaughter. For some reason or other there is a common misperception among columnists, bloggers and pundits that she was only charged with first degree murder. Here are the charges: [quote]In this case, Casey Marie Anthony is accused of Murder in the First Degree, Aggravated Child Abuse, Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child, and four counts of Providing False Information to a Law Enforcement Officer. — Judge’s Instructions to Jury Casey Anthony case http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/04/jury-instructions-in-the-casey-anthony-trial/ [/quote]
[quote]I think it is a completely reasonable alternative to conclude that the child died accidentally, she panicked, and she lied and then her family and she tried to cover it up.– David Greenwald[/quote]This particular jury obviously agreed with you. Many juries would not agree that a reasonable alternative explanation was that a mother would go to great lengths including elaborate lies to cover up a genuine accident, and then to party on showing no concern, remorse or anxiety for over a month and to successfully enlist her family to help with this coverup. Remember, she could have been convicted of aggravated child abuse or aggravated manslaughter instead of murder, but wasn’t.
You quote Alan Dershowitz, implying that he supports you position. Actually, Alan Dershowitz’s comments are nuanced, and he pointed out the same things that I did (and I don’t often agree with Alan Dershowitz). He says: [quote]The verdict in the Casey Anthony case reflected the lack of forensic evidence and heavy reliance on circumstantial inferences. There was no evidence of a cause of death, the time of death, or the circumstances surrounding the actual death of this young girl. There was sufficient circumstantial evidence from which the jury could have inferred homicide. But a reasonable jury could also have rejected that conclusion, as this jury apparently did. There are hundreds of defendants now in prison, some even on death row, based on less persuasive evidence than was presented in this case. – Alan Dershowitz WSJ [/quote]In short, this case could have gone either way. The defense got lucky.
Post Script: Today, nine days after this discussion, the Huffington post published a column by Judge H. Lee Sarokin which makes exactly the point that I made on my July 6, 11:02 am post right down to the example from the Connecticut model jury instruction.
Perhaps the explanation for the verdict can be found in the lack of the Judge’s explanation that circumstantial evidence should be considered valid evidence, equal to direct evidence.
Here is the link to Judge Sarokin’s article in the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judge-h-lee-sarokin