I shared your belief of her not being guilty of
PREMEDITATED murder. As of right now I still have not heard evidence to say she planned to
KILL Caylee. The cholorform searches are not enough for me to say she wanted to
MURDER her child. Since Caylee's neck was not broken according to Dr. G...the search is irrevelant for me as well. The duct tape is where I get stuck sometimes (no pun intended). I think we can all agree there is never a good reason to place duct tape over a toddlers mouth. Unfortunately, I have been in close contact with children in the foster care system and I have seen some extremely sad abuse cases. I waiver between the duct tape being a cruel punishment or attempt to keep Caylee quite or muffle her cries. As bad as it looks, I can't say she attempted to
MURDER her (based on what I know now) but I CAN say that whatever happened to Caylee, the tape over her mouth and her mom not knowing or reporting where her kid was for over 31 days (so she says) is definately BEYOND a reasonable doubt a form of
aggravated child abuse.
Now..that being said, KC lives in FLORIDA. In Florida, the state does not need to prove PREMEDIATION. They just need to prove that Caylee died (yes) in her mothers care or lack there of (yes) and that there was abuse (yes, duct tape and they may even be able to prove cholorform) THAT IS ALL THEY NEED FOR FIRST DEGREE MURDER.
A simular cases was recently tried and a mother was convicted. The appeal lost.
Taken from Florida case law: Lewis vs. State March 2010(the link provided at end of post.) Snipped form case:
In Florida, a defendant may be convicted of
first-degree murder if the unlawful killing of a human being is 1) perpetrated from a premeditated design to cause the death of a human being; 2) caused by a person perpetrating certain enumerated felonies or 3)
caused by the distribution of certain specified controlled substances. See § 782.04(1)(a)1.-3., Fla. Stat. (2007).
The second category is commonly referred to as the felony murder statute, which provides:(1)(a) The unlawful killing of a human being:
2.
When committed by a person engaged in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate, any:
h. Aggravated child abuse,
Snipped for space
* * *
is murder in the first degree and constitutes a capital felony, punishable as provided in s. 775.082.
Now get this...if further states in the conclusion:
The plain, unambiguous language of the statute demonstrates that the legislature intended that a defendant who kills a child during the perpetration of the crime of aggravated child abuse may be charged and convicted of both aggravated child abuse and felony murder,
regardless of the number of acts of abuse which caused the childs death. - end of snip
So all of these testimonies about how KC loved Caylee and was MOTY means nothing. That state just has to show ONE single act of abuse. Two words "DUCT TAPE" The case law and the news story about the other case is posted below. In that case the mother was sentenced to LWOP and her appeals were denied. It took the jury 2 hours to vote guilty. I am interested to see how the SA presents the evidence.
http://video.onset.freedom.com/newsherald/l20t9f-050710lewis.pdf