Did the jury get it wrong, or...

[magic-cat]

I don't disagree there was a body in the trunk. I don't disagree about the duct tape being used to suffocate. But is your only evidence that Casey did these things was her partying and CA/GA being unhappy? Where is the evidence that Casey not only put her in the trunk but put duct tape on her?

I'm just trying to play devils advocate from the jurors perspective.

Think of your normal everyday life.
Think of your car.
Think of your trunk.
Now think...
There is a dead body in YOUR car trunk.
You have OPENED your car trunk to put in and take out gas cans, and to put IN a bag of garbage from your BOYFRIENDS apartment.
You have texted to your friend, on more than one ocassion trhat your car stinks-like dead squirrels.
There is no evidence anyone else drove your car.
There is no evidence anyone else HAD your car.
You run out of gas or are sputtering and READY to run out and you KNOW it because it is a fact you have run out of gas several times.
You abandon the car-next to a dumpster on a parking lot, backed in so the trunk is not facing where people would WALK by but backed in...

Now...
you have no car anymore it is towed and under lock and key from three days after you abandon it.
19 days later police cadaver dogs are called in.
Two of them HIT on YOUR car trunk.
Your daughter, who is 2 years old is missing and has not been seen in 31 days.
The policeman who SMELL your car all agree that it smells like a dead body, which they are very familiar with.
There are stains in the trunk but the trunk is remarkably clean looking, as though recently having been cleaned.
When the police ask YOU where your daughter is?
You lie, for the next 24 hours, and then continue lying for the next three years.
You go to trial.
Experts in their fields testify in open court that there was a dead body in the trunk.
The chemicals present in a "sniff" test are consistent with a dead body. (This is just extra-remember, too many people have smelled and admitted that there was the smell of a dead body in the trunk.)
There is a hair with a classic death band-a thing only known to come from a CORPSE at this time, inside your trunk.
There are paper towels with what is known as GRAVE wax, adiopecere, inside the garbage bag that came from YOUR trunk, that ONLY you could have placed there, because you had access to the garbage AND the trunk. (This is extra too-the testimony of those who smelled it is enough to establish beyond a REASONABLE doubt that there was indeed a dead body inside the trunk-not to mention the cadaver dogs.)
The hair is mitochondrially consistent with belonging to your missing daughter.
The hair is too short and untreated, so cannot belong to any other member of the mitochondrial line...meaning-it is absolutely your daughters, bearing a classic sign of having come from a CORPSE.
Remember your daughter is still missing...
And you are still lying...
Six months later they find your missing daughter a quarter mile from your home, and hers: she is a skeleton. There is no tissue remaining.
She is found in a swamp KNOWN to be a grabage dumping grounds to folks in that area, and evidenced by the multitude of garbage taken from the area.
She is found partly inside bags and partly strewn across the ground.
She is wrapped in a blanket.
She is double bagged in garbage bags.
That "package" is inside of a handled vinyl/canvas laundry tote (for ease of carrying one might deduce).
Her skull is on the ground.
There are three overlapping pieces of duct tape stuck in her hair and wrapped around her face, holding her bones in place.

Can we REASONABLY agree-
There absolutely WAS a body inside Casey's trunk.
That body was the body of her daughter Caylee.

I mean, this one is simple to follow...Of course there was a body in her trunk. That body was Caylee's. The only question on this score we could even TRY to confuse ourselves with is who put the body there?

And beginning there and REASONABLY following the trail that IS in evidence?

There being a body in the car should not even be in question. If it was? Someone was not paying attention. Because the body in the trunk is definitely in evidence.:waitasec:

 

[cityslick]

Think of your normal everyday life.
Think of your car.
Think of your trunk.
Now think...
There is a dead body in YOUR car trunk.
You have OPENED your car trunk to put in and take out gas cans, and to put IN a bag of garbage from your BOYFRIENDS apartment.
You have texted to your friend, on more than one ocassion trhat your car stinks-like dead squirrels.
There is no evidence anyone else drove your car.
There is no evidence anyone else HAD your car.
You run out of gas or are sputtering and READY to run out and you KNOW it because it is a fact you have run out of gas several times.
You abandon the car-next to a dumpster on a parking lot, backed in so the trunk is not facing where people would WALK by but backed in...

Now...
you have no car anymore it is towed and under lock and key from three days after you abandon it.
19 days later police cadaver dogs are called in.
Two of them HIT on YOUR car trunk.
Your daughter, who is 2 years old is missing and has not been seen in 31 days.
The policeman whop SMELL your car all agree that it smells like a dead body, which they are very familiar with.
There are stains in the trunk but the trunk is remarkably clean looking, as though recently having been cleaned.
When the police ask YOU where your daughter is?
You lie, for the next 24 hours, and then continue lying for the next three years.
You go to trial.
Experts in their fields testify in open court that there was a dead body in the trunk.
The chemicals present in a "sniff" test are consistent with a dead body. (This is just extra-remember, too many people have smelled and admitted that there was the smell of a dead body in the trunk.)
There is a hair with a classic death band-a thing only known to come from a CORPSE at this time, inside your trunk.
There are paper towels with what is known as GRAVE wax, adiopecere, inside the garbage bag that came from YOUR trunk, that ONLY you could have placed there, because you had access to the garbage AND the trunk. (This is extra too-the testimony of those who smelled it is enough to establish beyond a REASONABLE doubt that there was indeed a dead body inside the trunk-not to mention the cadaver dogs.)
The hair is mitochondrially consistent with belonging to your missing daughter.
The hair is too short and untreated, so cannot belong to any other member of the mitochondrial line...meaning-it is absolutely your daughters, bearing a classic sign of having come from a CORPSE.
Remember your daughter is still missing...
And you are still lying...
Six months later they find your missing daughter a quarter mile from your home, and hers: she is a skeleton. There is no tissue remaining.
She is found in a swamp KNOWN to be a grabage dumping grounds to folks in that area, and evidenced by the multitude of garbage taken from the area.
She is found partly inside bags and partly strewn across the ground.
She is wrapped in a blanket.
She is double bagged in garbage bags.
That "package" is inside of a handled vinyl/canvas laundry tote (for ease of carrying one might deduce).
Her skull is on the ground.
There are three overlapping pieces of duct tape stuck in her hair and wrapped around her face, holding her bones in place.

Can we REASONABLY agree-
There absolutely WAS a body inside Casey's trunk.
That body was the body of her daughter Caylee.

I mean, this one is simple to follow...Of course there was a body in her trunk. That body was Caylee's. The only question on this score we could even TRY to confuse ourselves with is who put the body there?

And beginning there and REASONABLY following the trail that IS in evidence?

There being a body in the car should not even be in question. If it was? Someone was not paying attention. Because the body in the trunk is definitely in evidence.:waitasec:

You must have missed my first sentence where I stated 'I don't disagree there was a body in the trunk'.

I simply asked, outside of lying, how did the state prove is was Casey that put her there.

 

[magic-cat]

Ok, I buy that but I guess my next question is can you really convict someone of 1st degree premed murder simply because she told lies and made up stories. Yea, there should be a reason why she did all that, but was that reason ever proven in court? Don't you have to actually have to connect her to crime somehow? And then don't you have to somehow show it was her and only her that did it?

The DT knew from the very beginning that the state didn't have something specific that pinpoints Casey, that's why they threw GA in there.

Connect her to the crime?
Think of a two year old child
Think of that childs mother.
You are that childs mother.
You and that child have lived in the same house all of that childs life.
The chile is often babysit by her grandparents when they are not working.
They day your two year old child disappeared, both grandparents are working.
YOU are the last one seen with your daughter.
Nobody ever sees her again.
You are her legal guardian.
You are her primary caregiver when your parents are working.
Your parents are working.
Your child is found 6 months later dead, in a swamp, bagged up and with duct tape around the bones that remain of her face.
You have lied repeatedly from the last time anyone saw her with YOU until you are brought to trial, and THIS is an established proven fact.
Why is there any doubt at all that you are connected to the crime?

Actually, every single piece of information that IS in evidence, connects nobody BUT you...

These are the simple things. If these extremely simple to come by conclusions are in doubt? Then there is no hope of any jury ever reaching a fair and resonable verdict.
IMO

 

[Sustained]

You must have missed my first sentence where I stated 'I don't disagree there was a body in the trunk'.

I simply asked, outside of lying, how did the state prove is was Casey that put her there.

How about the fact she was the only one driving the car from 6/16/08 thru the day the car was picked up at the tow yard ? How do we know Scott Peterson dumped his wife Laci in San Francisco Bay ? By looking at all of the circumstantial evidence in the case and identifying Scott at the exclusion of all others. I don't know how many times it bears repeating that with a circumstantial case, the jury must attempt to connect those pieces of evidence together in order to render a verdict.

 

[LancelotLink]

Ok, I buy that but I guess my next question is can you really convict someone of 1st degree premed murder simply because she told lies and made up stories. Yea, there should be a reason why she did all that, but was that reason ever proven in court? Don't you have to actually have to connect her to crime somehow? And then don't you have to somehow show it was her and only her that did it?

The DT knew from the very beginning that the state didn't have something specific that pinpoints Casey, that's why they threw GA in there.

Simply because she told lies? No! Once again, it was not so much the lies as it was what she was lying ABOUT and to whom. She was the only one lying to her parents about Caylee's whereabouts. She's with the nanny. She's the only one lying to her friends about Caylee's whereabouts. She's with Cindy. She's the only one who lied to LE about Caylee's whereabouts. She's with Zanny.

 

[magic-cat]

You must have missed my first sentence where I stated 'I don't disagree there was a body in the trunk'.

I simply asked, outside of lying, how did the state prove is was Casey that put her there.

They proved it by establishing:
The car was hers.
She exclusively had possession of the car during the time in question.
She is missing a child, but nobody knows it.
She is lying to everyone ABOUT that child and her wherabouts.
She is the last one to have ever been SEEN with the child.
There is VIDEO of her several hours AFTER she was last seen with the child and the child is not with her.
She complains of the smell in the car to friends in text messages.
She never does report her daughter missing.
She vies for more time when she is brought home once the car is found.
She lies and says her daughter is with the Nanny.
There is no nanny.
She lies to the police once THEY are involved.

Who ELSE can we REASONABLY assume, considering all those facts in evidence, put the body in the trunk? If we cannot REASONABLY come to the conclusion of whom this other person was that put the body in the trunk and how THAT reasonably fits with all of the rest of the evidence, then we must surely REASON that the mother of the child, whose car it was, and who lied about her whereabouts from the beginning, is the one who put the baby in the car trunk. Nobody else can REASONABLY be shown to have done that in accordance with everything else that is established FACT.

These jurors are arguing against FACT with THEORY.
That makes no sense.

 

[TotallyObsessed]

Is it not reasonable to doubt the computer searches? Didn't CA muddy the water with her testimony, no matter how untrue it was? Where is your evidence that Casey was the last one to see her daughter? Where is your evidence that only Casey had full access to her car?

This is what the state needed to prove. If the jury isn't buying what GA is selling, how do you treat his testimony then? Do you disregard it? Do you fault the jury for having doubts in him? Everyone else in that family seems to have no problem lying about something, what makes him the standout?

These questions go beyond motive and COD.

CA didn't muddy the water, CA LIED. Where is the evidence to say Casey DID NOT have access to her car and that anyone else had possession of it? How, might I ask, could a case ever be tried WITHOUT an eye witness or videotape of the crime from beginning to end then? You are not always going to have a smoking gun, a finger print, DNA at the crime scene so that the jury can get the case tied up with a big fat BOW FGS. That's why they were SUPPOSED to use their brains. Beyond a reasonable doubt is considered synonymous to “a moral certainty.” Through fair and thorough consideration of the admissible facts in a case, the jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of each element of the crime in order to convict the defendant. Beyond a reasonable doubt, NOT beyond ALL doubt.

 

[cityslick]

How about the fact she was the only one driving the car from 6/16/08 thru the day the car was picked up at the tow yard ? How do we know Scott Peterson dumped his wife Laci in San Francisco Bay ? By looking at all of the circumstantial evidence in the case and identifying Scott at the exclusion of all others. I don't know how many times it bears repeating that with a circumstantial case, the jury must attempt to connect those pieces of evidence together in order to render a verdict.

BBM

That does not prove she killed her daughter, only that she knew her daughter was dead. I'm simply talking about the NG verdict on the 1st degree charge, not the other charges.

I am not excusing the verdict (although I can see an NG on the 1st degree, not on child abuse) but if you're going to condemn someone you better make sure you know for a fact she is the only one responsible.

Does anyone question why the jury doubted GA testimony? What makes him believable vs. the other family members?

 

[magic-cat]

BBM

That does not prove she killed her daughter, only that she knew her daughter was dead. I'm simply talking about the NG verdict on the 1st degree charge, not the other charges.

I am not excusing the verdict (although I can see an NG on the 1st degree, not on child abuse) but if you're going to condemn someone you better make sure you know for a fact she is the only one responsible.

Does anyone question why the jury doubted GA testimony? What makes him believable vs. the other family members?

It doesn't matter if she is THE only one responsible.
What matters is that she IS responsible.
That makes her guilty no matter who else was responsible.
Nobody else is on trial.
No evidence has come to light showing anyone else WAS involved.
Tons of evidence is in to show she IS involved.
Why REASONABLY question that fact?

 

[catnron]

Eh? Are you expecting me to connect the dots? Not sure I can today - I was in the er with my mom all nite.

Sorry about ur Mom, hope she is doing better today.Have a great day

 

[cityslick]

CA didn't muddy the water, CA LIED. Where is the evidence to say Casey DID NOT have access to her car and that anyone else had possession of it? How, might I ask, could a case ever be tried WITHOUT an eye witness or videotape of the crime from beginning to end then? You are not always going to have a smoking gun, a finger print, DNA at the crime scene so that the jury can get the case tied up with a big fat BOW FGS. That's why they were SUPPOSED to use their brains. Beyond a reasonable doubt is considered synonymous to “a moral certainty.” Through fair and thorough consideration of the admissible facts in a case, the jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of each element of the crime in order to convict the defendant. Beyond a reasonable doubt, NOT beyond ALL doubt.

BBM

I don't know. The only evidence we have of those 31 days is what the defendant and everyone around her (including CA and GA) testified too. At that point, it's up to the jury to decide which testimony to believe. It's pretty obviously they didn't believe GA (or maybe even CA). Where does that leave them? If you don't believe CA/GA/ICA/any other A, how do you discern what the truth is during those 31 days as it pertains to the car?

The jury may believe she definetely knew about her daughter being dead, but that doesn't automatically knock out the drowning theory. I don't believe that child drowned either, but I'm exposed to a whole lot more evidence than that jury ever was.

 

[TotallyObsessed]

BBM

That does not prove she killed her daughter, only that she knew her daughter was dead. I'm simply talking about the NG verdict on the 1st degree charge, not the other charges.

I am not excusing the verdict (although I can see an NG on the 1st degree, not on child abuse) but if you're going to condemn someone you better make sure you know for a fact she is the only one responsible.

Does anyone question why the jury doubted GA testimony? What makes him believable vs. the other family members?

What would it have taken for you to convict on 1st degree? I am seriously asking. Would you require DNA evidence? A finger print? Exactly what? If most murders are committed in the darkness of night and secretively, without an eye witness what then should be required? And are you saying that if you DON'T have that evidence, don't prosecute? Should there NEVER be 1st degree murder charges brought unless CONCRETE SOLID proof?
CONCRETE is never solid proof...there will always be a slick defense attoney who will claim "evidence tampering" or "evidence contamination"...just enough to throw that "reasonable doubt" in there.
IMHO reasonable doubt is purely subjective. It is fluid. With each case, with each juror. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you are gonna get. And we got CRAP with this jury in this case.

 

[catnron]

I know this much, very soon there will be a monster roaming the streets that got away with murder and will think nothing about trying it again. Casey thinks she is beautiful and a star, she knows now that she is above the law. It she got away with it once she will think she can do it again. How many more babies will now die because Casey got away with it, now there will be more children dying at the hands of the parents, they will think that Casey got away with it they will also. There was no Justice for Caylee

 

[Annie]

I am wondering if being sequestered for that long created a bonding between them that made it harder to disagree when some started to put pressure on them. Just go along to get along.

 

[cityslick]

It doesn't matter if she is THE only one responsible.
What matters is that she IS responsible.
That makes her guilty no matter who else was responsible.
Nobody else is on trial.
No evidence has come to light showing anyone else WAS involved.
Tons of evidence is in to show she IS involved.
Why REASONABLY question that fact?

That's not true, if you're going to prove a 1st degree murder charge, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that person killed the victim. She drove around with a body in her car, that makes her responsible for child neglect, failure to report a death, etc. But did she and only she have access to the duct tape? If the answer is yes, the guilty. Was there any evidence she was at the dump site, either by dirt on the car/wheel well/computer searches of the site, dirt on the shoes, etc? If the answer is yes, then guilty. Is there evidence she had chloroform or ingredients to make chloroform? If the answer is yes, then guilty.

JA himself said that their strongest evidence was the 31 days, that's it. That proves she's negligent, that proves she's a horrible mother, that proves she at least had some knowledge of her dead child. It does not necessarily prove she was the one who killed her.

 

[Sustained]

BBM

That does not prove she killed her daughter, only that she knew her daughter was dead. I'm simply talking about the NG verdict on the 1st degree charge, not the other charges.

I am not excusing the verdict (although I can see an NG on the 1st degree, not on child abuse) but if you're going to condemn someone you better make sure you know for a fact she is the only one responsible.

Does anyone question why the jury doubted GA testimony? What makes him believable vs. the other family members?

True, that in and of itself does not prove she murdered her daughter, but combined with the other presented circumstantial evidence, it becomes ridiculously easy to eliminate everyone else.

1) Was it an accident ? No, 911 would have been called.
2) Who did the computer searches ? ICA, as CA was proved to have perjured herself and George/Lee were not home. And I bet CA/GA do not know how to delete internet search history.
3) Who lied to investigators ? ICA
4) Who lied to friends about Caylee's whereabouts ? ICA
5) Who borrowed the shovel from the neighbor after 6/16/08 ? ICA
6) Who left the car with the odor of decomp at the Amscot ? ICA
7) Who wanted a life different from what she had ? ICA
8) Was Caylee a burden to George/Cindy ? NO
9) Who had access between 6/16/08 and 7/15/08 to all pieces of
evidence that would prove murder ? Only ICA

None of that evidence in and of itself proves that ICA killed Caylee.
But when you look at the big picture at the exclusion of all others, the writing is on the wall.

 

[natsound]

I don't disagree there was a body in the trunk. I don't disagree about the duct tape being used to suffocate. But is your only evidence that Casey did these things was her partying and CA/GA being unhappy? Where is the evidence that Casey not only put her in the trunk but put duct tape on her?

I'm just trying to play devils advocate from the jurors perspective.

Physical or circumstantial? There's overwhelming circumstantial evidence, not necessarily that KC put the body in in the trunk, but that she didn't mind it in her trunk until it started to smell. The way this jury looked at the evidence, they would have accepted nothing short of a videotape of KC killing Caylee to convict her. In fact, if they had video of KC putting duct tape on Caylee, the verdict probably would have come back "aggravated abuse of a child". As the younger alternate juror said on Dateline: "There was no blood!!!" :banghead:

 

[jojomonkey]

I hope that the tragedy of this case results in higher standards for juries, or at the very least a law professional being present during jury deliberations. You should not be automatically qualified to sit on a jury just because you have a driver's license or are registered to vote. I was a fan of Judge Perry's but I can see now how rushing the jury selection process was a very bad idea.

 

[Italy]

This is what I think happened:

Casey had been chloroforming Caylee from time to time - Zanny the nanny

6/16: After George left, Casey returned home and once again used chloroform so that Caylee would nap and Casey would be free to putz around on her computer, phone, text, etc.

Instead of sleeping, Caylee whined and whined about wanting to go in the pool so in frustration Casey said - "Okay, go!" (helped her in; put up ladder - something like that)

Caylee drowned. Casey got her out of the pool and laid her on the ground. Casey could NOT call the ambulance or cops because they would find the chloroform in her system! She had to cover that up!

All the things Baez said George screamed at her, Casey instead was saying to herself - there is usually an element of truth in a lie.

To cover up what had happened, Casey put duct tape over her face in an effort to make it appear a kidnapping. Wrapped her in a Pooh blanket, placed her in the laundry bag and placed her in the trunk and left the house trying desperately to figure out what to do next.

After a couple of days, smell from car was overpowering so she put her body in the woods and abandoned the car by the dumpster. (Remember she told her friend in prison, "If they never find her I'll spend eternity here.")

Family did not know any of this until considerably later. After grand jury handed down a true bill of indictment (with 1st degree premeditated murder charge) they did everything in their power to save Casey from death penalty.

In Casey's mind (and probably the mind of the family) it was a terrible accident. In the legal code it is felony murder because of the use of chloroform.

 

[cityslick]

What would it have taken for you to convict on 1st degree? I am seriously asking. Would you require DNA evidence? A finger print? Exactly what? If most murders are committed in the darkness of night and secretively, without an eye witness what then should be required? And are you saying that if you DON'T have that evidence, don't prosecute? Should there NEVER be 1st degree murder charges brought unless CONCRETE SOLID proof?
CONCRETE is never solid proof...there will always be a slick defense attoney who will claim "evidence tampering" or "evidence contamination"...just enough to throw that "reasonable doubt" in there.
IMHO reasonable doubt is purely subjective. It is fluid. With each case, with each juror. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you are gonna get. And we got CRAP with this jury in this case.

I recently just watched a case where a guy was convicted of murdering his wife. There wasn't a whole lot of evidence there, it was all circumstantial and in fact most were even questioning if he did it. There wasn't anything directly linking him to the crime, outside of being controlling and always fighting with each other.

Then toward the end of the states case they produced a google search which showed he was looked up the dump site the day before his wife disappeared. And there you had 1st degree, because that piece of evidence directly linked him and nobody to the crime.

If it were me, I'd need some sort of smoking gun to convict on 1st degree. It doesn't have to be anything big either. Before the verdict in this case, I thought that smoking gun was probably Dr. Vass' testimony but yet I can someone see why jurors would question it. I'm not sure what to think of the shovel, she probably used it but the state never really went further into that other to say she asked for it.

So, to answer your question, I'd need some sort of proof to convict. In this case, I thought she was guilty as well but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be open to hear other opinions as to why they think it was NG. Would it had swayed me? I cannot say, hindsight is 20/20. Understandbly, most here are thinking with emotion, something which the jury did not (and should not) have