CASEY ANTHONY: what do you think will happen.

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I ... don't either. But he's trying!

 

[bluedana]

The prosecution relied here on the idea that the jury would go for sophisticated, scientific, "CSI" forensic evidence which, unfortunately for them, had never been used at trial and for which it was possible for reasonably competent defense attorneys to demonstrate there was no basis in accepted practice.

The case absolutely hinged on a method of vapor analysis that has no established track record for accuracy and a piece of proprietary software that returns conclusions that are - again - way at variance from accepted industry tools.

They had to, because using recognized methods of analysis wouldn't produce the results they wanted. And they had to hope that the jury would be blinded by "science!" There's your "CSI effect" and it failed.

That is NOT the CSI effect. Trekker is right. The CSI effect is when jurors expect a level of scientific forensic evidence that either doesn't exist or is inaccurately shown on TV. You really can't tell what someone had for lunch (thereby placing them at a McDonald's restaurant on the day of the crime) by examining the DNA in a strand of their hair.

When I try a gun case, I must now put a fingerprint expert on the stand to testify that you can't get fingerprints off of a gun (most guns) because the material the gun is made of does not hold the oil which yields the fingerprint. That takes, on average, half of the trial day to get out, because i have to qualify the expert. It's a fricking waste of time. Then the judge will give an instruction (called the "CSI" instruction), that jurors are not to come to the conclusion that the government did anything wrong, or hid evidence because there isn't any forensic evidence like fingerprints presented, and that it's not necessary to have in order for them to reach a verdict of guilty.

New forensic techniques have to meet a standard, called the Daubert test before they can be reliable enough to admit as evidence, otherwise, it's junk science and excluded. In this case, it seemed to me that some of the expert testimony just barely met the Daubert standard, and even then seemed a bit of a stretch.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

New forensic techniques have to meet a standard, called the Daubert test before they can be reliable enough to admit as evidence, otherwise, it's junk science and excluded. In this case, it seemed to me that some of the expert testimony just barely met the Daubert standard, and even then seemed a bit of a stretch.

Exactly so.

 

[Trekker4747]

Again, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the prosecution and law enforcement being held to a high standard of evidence, in fact I think that should be lauded, but at the same time a degree or two of common sense and reason needs to be factored into things as well.

CSI sets things up to tell an interesting story and they have to have the false leads and the codas going into commercial, they have to make it seem like the story is progressing on a truncated time scale. It'd be far less interesting if Gil Grissom walked into the DNA lab, ordered a test and was told that he'd have the results back in 6-8 weeks only to ultimately end up with inconclusive evidence due to an incomplete or too small a sample.

So yes, unfortuantely, this means prosecutors have to spend more time to explain to juries why certain aspects of forensic evidence wasn't feasible or practical for the case.

 

[donners22]

I was just reading about this in the paper today. It seems so bizarre that the names of the jurors would be released to the public.

I am involved in a very high-profile trial at the moment, and I certainly don't know the names of the jurors, and nor does almost anyone else in the courtroom. They are only identified by number, and the media cannot approach them.

Such a remarkable contrast.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Again, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the prosecution and law enforcement being held to a high standard of evidence...

In fact there's everything right with it. These institutions have the power to destroy lives wholesale if they're not held to the strictest of standards - you can see enough of that in countries where the legal system is basically a tool of politicians.

There's no way that "common sense" was lacking here in a way that could have rescued this case for the prosecution.

 

[Chris3123]

I was just reading about this in the paper today. It seems so bizarre that the names of the jurors would be released to the public.

How so?

I am involved in a very high-profile trial at the moment, and I certainly don't know the names of the jurors, and nor does almost anyone else in the courtroom. They are only identified by number, and the media cannot approach them.

Such a remarkable contrast.

How is it a contrast? It was the exact same way with the Casey Anthony trial. Or did I miss something?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

An article at TIME gets into the potential issues with "Caylee's Law":

Consider some scenarios that might arise under Caylee's Law. For instance, imagine that a child has just drowned — the scenario put forth by Anthony's defense — after hours of attempts at resuscitation. What parent's mind will be focused on notifying the police of the child's death within an hour? Wouldn't that small chore be forgotten, even by the most conscientious of parents, as they come to grips with the harrowing fact that efforts to revive their child have failed? Do we really want to add legal hassles to such parents' overwhelming grief?

Further, consider the bureaucratic nightmare of reporting child deaths in hospitals when time of death may not be clear, or in chaotic accidents, or during natural disasters.

Presumably, the reporting requirement could be satisfied simply by the act of seeking medical attention, but it's easy to see how the main result here would be more paperwork, bureaucracy and possibly even jail time for people already facing the worst form of grief.

Alternatively, consider what would happen if your teenager failed to come home one night. This utterly common occurrence would require you to file a police report to avoid felony charges under Caylee's Law. Some versions of the proposal would limit its scope to children under 12, but if it were applied to all children, it would risk flooding the police with hundreds of thousands of useless missing-teen reports, tying up time that could be used to solve actual cases.

And even in situations involving children under 12, many false alarms may result from perfectly innocent confusion over the specifics of custody arrangements, which could result in wasted police and court time.

Versions of the law could be written to avoid many of these scenarios, but prior experience with laws passed in an atmosphere of great fear or desire for vengeance doesn't bode well. Consider California's "three strikes" law, passed after the murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, who was kidnapped and killed by a man in violation of his parole for a previous crime.

The law's intent was to increase mandatory prison time for repeat violent criminals. But its unintended effect was the increased sentencing of non-violent addicts and petty thieves to 25 years to life. That has resulted in a massive surge in prisoners and billions of dollars annually in related costs, without a greater corresponding decline in violent crime than seen in states without three-strikes laws. The Supreme Court recently ruled that California must release 30,000 prisoners due to inhumane conditions.

Link

 

[donners22]

I was just reading about this in the paper today. It seems so bizarre that the names of the jurors would be released to the public.

How so?

I am involved in a very high-profile trial at the moment, and I certainly don't know the names of the jurors, and nor does almost anyone else in the courtroom. They are only identified by number, and the media cannot approach them.

Such a remarkable contrast.

How is it a contrast? It was the exact same way with the Casey Anthony trial. Or did I miss something?

Um, given that a five-second Google search finds a media interview with a juror, identified by name and occupation and giving her thoughts on the deliberations, how is that not a massive contrast?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/casey_anth...sick-stomach-guilty-verdict/story?id=14005609

Perhaps I was unclear. Jurors in Australia would never be identified in such a manner, during or after the trial, let alone be freely giving their thoughts to major media outlets.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, here it's hard to constrain someone's right go speak after they've been discharged.

 

[donners22]

I am aware of the Constitutional implications. That doesn't necessarily explain why their names would be released to the public, though.

Not saying it's necessarily wrong, just curious that it's so different to what I'm used to.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I am aware of the Constitutional implications. That doesn't necessarily explain why their names would be released to the public, though.

Not saying it's necessarily wrong, just curious that it's so different to what I'm used to.

Well, it seems to be up the court itself. The judge in the Anthony trial has decided not to release the names of the jurors.

If a juror chooses to identify himself or herself on their own, however, there's not much that can be done.

The Casey Anthony jury was so suspicious of the accused's father, George Anthony, that jurors believed he could be covering up a crime or even potentially could be a killer himself, the jury foreman said in a televised interview.

"There was a suspicion of him," the juror said. "That was a part of our conversation that we had."
.
.
.
"I really thought that George had very selective memory in the whole regard," he said. "I thought that George, at times, could remember some things as vividly as if things happened the day before."

At other times, he said, George Anthony's memory seemed to grow fuzzy. He cited Anthony's difficulty remembering details on how tape ended up on a gas can, discrepancies in testimony between him and his alleged mistress, and his behavior at a tow yard, where he may have feared there could be a body in a car trunk but simply drove the car home.

"It raised questions," he said. "It really did."

Asked if jurors thought it was possible George Anthony helped cover up a death, was involved in an accidental death or was "a murderer," the juror said, "All three. We don't know. ... The suspicions were raised" in the jury room.

Link

Having watched and read about him all along and at the trial, I have the same intuition. No, I don't think there's any evidence to support the defense allegations about him in their opening statement, but it would hardly be shocking to find out that he was an active participant in the cover-up of Caylee's death rather than a naive, innocent bystander.

the foreman told van Susteren that jurors found key prosecution evidence involving duct tape and chloroform to be ambiguous, that they thought it plausible that Caylee could have drowned accidentally, as the defense suggested, and didn't think it was proven that Caylee's decomposing body was in the trunk of the Anthony family car or, if it was, who put it there.

Exactly so - and if the chloroform evidence doesn't hold up then there are no grounds for charging premeditation.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I am aware of the Constitutional implications. That doesn't necessarily explain why their names would be released to the public, though.

Not saying it's necessarily wrong, just curious that it's so different to what I'm used to.

Their names haven't been released to the public, the judge has sealed those records. Their faces were also not shown during the trial or now. However, if a juror chooses to do a media interview and tell everyone their name, that is up to them.

 

[DarthTom]

Their names haven't been released to the public, the judge has sealed those records. Their faces were also not shown during the trial or now. However, if a juror chooses to do a media interview and tell everyone their name, that is up to them.

Exactly. It occurs to me based on that - what is stopping anyone who wants to make a buck from claiming they were an Anthony juror but not?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Some minimal research on the part of the publisher before cutting a big check?

Any of the jurors, alternate jurors or dozens of other people who actually know the identities of the jurors piping up and saying "No, you're not?"

Those are just the first answers that occur in a space of about two-and-a-half seconds. Jeesh.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I was a Casey Anthony juror! Give me money!

 

[bluedana]

Or the fact that they don't have a juror letter documenting their service?

 

[Trelane]

I think Casey will end-up being hounded for the rest of her life, once the official time served has been thoroughly exausted.

There will be those trying to slap the "dangerous offender" label on Casey, requiring her to be held indefinitely pending repetitive psycho-analysis of her, but be released as her lawyer goes to every legal bleeding heart source of sympathy to release her on parole.

There will be a cloud of suspicion over the rest of the family for decades to come. She'll squeeze her relatives dry financially until they die of medical problems exacerbated by the stress of this case.

Casey will fall in with a succession of deadbeats, perhaps there will be one nice guy trying to "rescue" her in the bunch. But she'll shove the nice guy away, in favor of the more exciting skid-row bums like herself...and then she'll end-up dead in a sketchy set of circumstances.

Perhaps she'll take the cowardly way out, poisoning herself in a bedbug/rat-infested motel room after weeks or months of failure to secure a job and probably pregnant (again).

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Wow, that was a...somewhat adequate piece of fiction.

 

[Pingfah]

I think Casey will end-up being hounded for the rest of her life, once the official time served has been thoroughly exausted.

There will be those trying to slap the "dangerous offender" label on Casey, requiring her to be held indefinitely pending repetitive psycho-analysis of her, but be released as her lawyer goes to every legal bleeding heart source of sympathy to release her on parole.

There will be a cloud of suspicion over the rest of the family for decades to come. She'll squeeze her relatives dry financially until they die of medical problems exacerbated by the stress of this case.

Casey will fall in with a succession of deadbeats, perhaps there will be one nice guy trying to "rescue" her in the bunch. But she'll shove the nice guy away, in favor of the more exciting skid-row bums like herself...and then she'll end-up dead in a sketchy set of circumstances.

Perhaps she'll take the cowardly way out, poisoning herself in a bedbug/rat-infested motel room after weeks or months of failure to secure a job and probably pregnant (again).