Casey Anthony found not guilty of murder, guilty of lying to police

• Manhattan Buckeye

  "I did not see this as huge. Badly decomposed bodies don't always lend much as to the cause of death."
  
  Indeed, in real life this isn't an episode of "Bones." These tv shows are fiction. If the jury didn't want to convict on circumstantial evidence alone, that is their decision, but there was significant circumstantial evidence.
• I Wear Pants

  majorspark;823196 wrote:American prisons are full of individuals incarcerated on circumstantial evidence alone. Some sitting on death row. with similar evidence as presented in this trial. Reasonable doubt can be eliminated with circumstantial evidence alone. Circumstantial evidence will always allow for some level of doubt. Is the doubt reasonable? That is up to the jurors. It varies between juries. Obviously the legal teams have a lot to do with it as well.

  Which should be unacceptable in cases where there is only circumstantial evidence IMO.
• dwccrew

  

  gut;822835 wrote:Again....REASONABLE doubt. If she had nothing to do with any of this, there's no reason to lie to police, much less wait 30 days to report the girl missing. If you think she did something, even accidentally, that's manslaughter. Why is the car abandoned in the first place? These are things the defense really did absolutely nothing to offer an explanation, while the prosecution's is quite sound...but reasonable people have reasonable doubt?

  I don't think lying to police necessarily means she committed murder. If the prosecutions cas was so sound, why couldn't they get the conviction? All 12 jurors were not convinced. You can't tell me that all 12 jurors got it wrong.
  
  People made their minds up before this case went to trial and now that they haven't got the outcome they were hoping for, they are clinging on to the notion that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter.
  

  gut;822862 wrote:It has to be credible - not remotely, not partially - reasonable. If I nail you to the wall and you say "my abusive father made me do it" with absolutely nothing to establish that as remotely credible, it doesn't cut it. Or maybe a simpler analogy - the DA has your fingerprints, the murder weapon, basically open & shut - but the defense says "no, she wasn't there on that day" it isn't enough. The prosecution has already made it's case, they don't have to prove you weren't there - the defense does, in order to establish reasonable doubt against that the defense will have to prove you couldn't commit the crime because you were somewhere else.
  
  People seem to miss that repeatedly. While the defense doesn't have to prove they didn't do something, they DO have to establish credibility/validity to the explanations and alternatives they propose. The burden beyond a reasonable doubt does not necessitate disproving every ridiculous, out of leftfield excuse proffered by the defense.

  
  In both your analogies you have more evidence than the prosecution did in this case.
  

  Laley23;823116 wrote:Look. They probably didnt even need to PROVE WHO killed Caylie. But they couldnt even prove how she died. That is huge. That makes the drowning a very plausible explanation. If they can rule out drowning somehow, or prove suffocation, or anything Casey is on death row imo. Not being able to rule out accidental death killed the prosecutions case. Nothing more really mattered. If you cant prove how someone died, how can you prove who did it and if it was on purpose?

  
  This.
  

  ccrunner609;823126 wrote:looks like they shouldnt of took this case to court until they actually came up with something. What they should of done was let her go and keep an eye on her...she would of gave up the truth eventually.

  
  I agree wholeheartedly with this post. I believe if the state would have investigated further they would have found much more compelling evidence to charge and convict Casey Anthony of something, if not murder, something that would have got her put away. Now she is free to live her life without worry of being tried again for these particular charges.
• 2kool4skool

  

  Manhattan Buckeye;823001 wrote:Again not to take this to the politics board, but how are things working out for us with Harvard Law graduates in charge?

  Agreed, let's try a gym teacher for our next President.
• I Wear Pants

  Manhattan Buckeye;823001 wrote:Again not to take this to the politics board, but how are things working out for us with Harvard Law graduates in charge?

  I don't think it's the education that's causing the problems. It's the people. Shitty people who are smart/educated are still assholes. But that doesn't mean we should start looking for less educated folks. Harvard is Harvard for a reason.
• majorspark

  

  I Wear Pants;823287 wrote:Which should be unacceptable in cases where there is only circumstantial evidence IMO.

  I am for more and very stringent rules governing death penalty cases. What types of crimes, what types of evidence can be submitted, etc.. You and I would agree on this in principal maybe not all the details.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  I Wear Pants;823291 wrote:I don't think it's the education that's causing the problems. It's the people. ****ty people who are smart/educated are still ****s. But that doesn't mean we should start looking for less educated folks. Harvard is Harvard for a reason.

  
  Yes, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. HLS is all about providing credentials and an alumni network. There is nothing educational about law school, including HLS. It is a time when students can practice philosophy with other students and professors and develop a professional network, but in reality there is no education. The vast majority of law school classes are absolutely worthless, heck I took Corporations from a Yale law grad (Kevin Kordana, who I think is a pretty nice guy, then again I got an A in his class) that barely practiced a day in his life. What the heck does he know about an earnout, or a non-compete, or any other business related issue? Nothing. He never spoke to a client, never did anything other than bloviating about how the law should be. That described 95% of my classes.
• Heelz

  

  2kool4skool;823289 wrote:Agreed, let's try a gym teacher for our next President.

  
  No thanks, he will have pictures of dicks all over the place.
• I Wear Pants

  majorspark;823299 wrote:I am for more and very stringent rules governing death penalty cases. What types of crimes, what types of evidence can be submitted, etc.. You and I would agree on this in principal maybe not all the details.

  Well as I've said on here before I'm against the death penalty at all. But if we're going to have it I'd like there to be more strict rules for which cases are allowed to have death penalty potential. Different discussion though.
  

  Manhattan Buckeye;823305 wrote:Yes, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. HLS is all about providing credentials and an alumni network. There is nothing educational about law school, including HLS. It is a time when students can practice philosophy with other students and professors and develop a professional network, but in reality there is no education. The vast majority of law school classes are absolutely worthless, heck I took Corporations from a Yale law grad (Kevin Kordana, who I think is a pretty nice guy, then again I got an A in his class) that barely practiced a day in his life. What the heck does he know about an earnout, or a non-compete, or any other business related issue? Nothing. He never spoke to a client, never did anything other than bloviating about how the law should be. That described 95% of my classes.

  Law is really similar to philosophy in a lot of ways.
  

  ccrunner609;823313 wrote:I would touch more boys.

  Gross.
• vball10set

  
• gut

  dwccrew;823288 wrote:I don't think lying to police necessarily means she committed murder. If the prosecutions cas was so sound, why couldn't they get the conviction? All 12 jurors were not convinced. You can't tell me that all 12 jurors got it wrong..

  
  Why not? They got it wrong with OJ, so it's not like it's never happened before (as opposed to covering up an accidental drowning, which to my knowledge has NEVER happened).
  
  Again, is it reasonable to think a drowning is plausible when A) no one has ever tried to cover-up an accidental drowning with duck tape and what not and B) the mother clearly had knowledge of the death, which the defense CONCEDES with their drowning defense....therefore not having her fingerprints on the tape isn't really critical - she knew of the death and had access to the body and everything found with it.
  
  My problem with saying the drowning is plausible is it requires a rather unreasonable perspective to dismiss everything else. It's a rather fantastical story of pressure from an abusive father to cover-up an accidental drowning, a position that isn't reasonable or established as credible by the defense.
  
  Look, very simply you find a body in the woods with duct tape on it, it's murder - there is no other reasonable explanation unless something plausible is presented. The defense didn't do that, all they did was say the child drowned and blame the father for abuse leading to the cover-up, none of which is consistent given her actions and lies to accept at face value as reasonable doubt.
• sherm03

  

  A few jurors have decided to speak to the media.
  
  http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/07/tearful-anthony-jurors-ask-prosecutors-where-was-the-evidence/?hpt=hp_t1
  
  Some of my favorite quotes:

  "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,"

  "They didn't show us how Caylee died. They didn't show us a motive. I'm sorry people feel that way.

  "I just swear to God … I wish we had more evidence to put her away. I truly do … But it wasn't there,"

• Manhattan Buckeye

  ""If you're going to charge someone with murder, don't you have to know how they killed someone"
  
  Again what do they want? A bow-wrapped youtube video of the killing with a receipt from the store where the murder weapon was purchased?
• sherm03

  

  Manhattan Buckeye;823430 wrote:""If you're going to charge someone with murder, don't you have to know how they killed someone"
  
  Again what do they want? A bow-wrapped youtube video of the killing with a receipt from the store where the murder weapon was purchased?

  
  How about an expert on that stand that says, "the cause of death was suffocation caused by the duct tape placed over the nose and mouth."
  
  Instead, they got, "chloroform killed this child. No wait, it was duct tape. Well, maybe she used the chloroform first, then the duct tape. Yes, the same duct tape that her dad has access to. Yes, that duct tape that didn't have any of the defendant's DNA on it. No, nobody else could have used it. Just her."
• Automatik

  

  sherm03;823431 wrote:How about an expert on that stand that says, "the cause of death was suffocation caused by the duct tape placed over the nose and mouth."
  
  Instead, they got, "chloroform killed this child. No wait, it was duct tape. Well, maybe she used the chloroform first, then the duct tape. Yes, the same duct tape that her dad has access to. Yes, that duct tape that didn't have any of the defendant's DNA on it. No, nobody else could have used it. Just her."

  Exactly. The prosecution and police work was sketchy from the go. Blame them for the not guilty verdict, not the jury.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  How is that responsive? Did you think there were ever convictions prior to the Law and Order era? From what I just read she got the maximum for lying to the authorities, a very rare situation (four years, really? For lying). Apparently there is judicial remorse about the matter.
  
  This is OJ part deux.
• FatHobbit

  

  Manhattan Buckeye;823450 wrote:From what I just read she got the maximum for lying to the authorities, a very rare situation (four years, really? For lying). Apparently there is judicial remorse about the matter.

  
  I read that she got four one year sentences to be served concurrently.
• enigmaax

  FatHobbit;823458 wrote:I read that she got four one year sentences to be served concurrently.

  
  Consecutively.
• Con_Alma

  I don't "blame" the prosecution. I don't think they could present evidence they didn't have.
  
  The outcome sucks but I think it is the only option the jury had. I would had convicted on mounds of circumstantial evidence when the death penalty is involved either. The jury apparently agreed seeing how it wasn't even a hung jury but rather unanimous and apparently didn't take very long to come to that conclusion.
• Con_Alma

  enigmaax;823459 wrote:Consecutively.

  
  
  How much has she already served?
• FatHobbit

  

  enigmaax;823459 wrote:Consecutively.

  
  I posted that before looking for my original source and I now see that it was consecutively.
• Manhattan Buckeye

  I'm 12 hours ahead of you guys so my news feed is spotty at best, it looks like she got the max.
  
  http://www.witn.com/news/headlines/Casey_Anthony__125137369.html
• enigmaax

  Con_Alma;823462 wrote:How much has she already served?

  
  They said she has served 997 days. They are meeting now to determine how much credit she gets for good behavior and gain-time. The judge estimated she'd be out by late July/early August, but they are confirming the numbers.
• Con_Alma

  Thanks.
• Con_Alma

  ccrunner609;823477 wrote:I hope they beat the **** out of her in jail

  
  
  I bet that's not going to be an option. If she's in there for just another month or two there's no way they put her in general population.