The Verdict - Do you agree or disagree?

[Italy]

To be honest, there's nothing saying that the opposing idea isn't being just as blind. She was found not guilty and so many had her convicted and drooling for her to get the needle. This verdict was a shock to many. Perhaps those were the ones who couldn't see the forest through the trees because 12 people didn't agree with them. This case wasn't as open and shut as many had believed and hoped.

This reminds me of the story of the marching band that walked down Main Street. The watching crowd included many including little Johnny's mother. As they all marched by, she turned to another spectator and said, "Oh look. Everyone is out of step except little Johnny."

 

[KarmaGet'em]

So, what was the page with the addict's journey? I looked it up during testimony myself and saw it was a story in the 1800's. I was certain that was the "84 times" page.

I don't know which one was claimed to be 84 views, and to me, once is enough.
As far as the story in the 1800's, are you referring to this one?

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1880/chloroformhabit.htm
It was a result of her search for "chloroform habit"

 

[GiantPickle]

Here's my most objective view on why I think the verdict came down as an aquittal, which by the way, is still very hard for me to swallow. I thought the state did an excellent job, albeit with a two mistakes. Could those mistakes have cost them the case, guess we will never know but I personally think it did. I'll try to be a Monday morning quarterback. The core of the problem was the jury, I hate to say it, but your case is won or lost during voir dire. When I try to wrap my head around whether or not the state made any mistakes, this is what I come up with:

1. IMO the defence provided reasonable doubt that chloroform and/duct tape was used as the murder weapon. I think it's reasonable CA may have looked it up when she saw it on TL website. I overwhelmingly believe Calylee died at the hands of FCA, but being objective as I can, I can honesty say the DT did a good job at creating enough doubt about its use that even I, if on a jury, would be very wary of saying she definitely did use it. My critera would be pretty high in a case where I would deprive someone of their life and or freedom. I really think the state should have just focused on the death as an undetermined homicide and not tried to hammer the chloroform as much as they did. If Chloroform is the murder weapon, and there is reasonable doubt as to whether or not she made it, we have to take murder off the table if the DT can provide reasonable doubt. We never knew how Lacey Peterson died and yet there was a conviction. Now, the duct tape.... I believe the prosectuion showed beyond a reasonable doubt the duct tape was placed upon her mouth. The big questions for the jury is "when", alive or dead? In my experience, I think it's extremely difficult for a normal human being to conceive of anyone, let alone a mother, duct taping a child's face shut and suffocating them. Not that it didn't happen, but I think most people would almost force themselves to believe it was staged after death to appear as a kidnapping which fits perfectly into the Zanny kidnapping story FCA made up and implicates her knee deep into it.

So I guess what I am saying is that if you present X and Y as the murder weapon, you damn well better have a smoking gun, if we doubt the weapon, how do we buy the murder? It would have been safer to focus on the "manner" of death as a homocide and not so much on the cause of that homocide. If we buy homocide, and I think the jury did, thus all the tears and sickness they mentioned, the "cause" is irrelevant. But the critical mistake made by the state was linking the two. That's where they lost this jury.

2. The state overestimated the strength of the case because FCA's behavior was so disgusting. I am not trying to offend anyone, but seriously people, take off your philosophical hats for a moment and just look at the facts.... A baby is not reported missing for over a month and it was clear that FCA never intended to tell anyone, the mother parties and looks absolutely giddy with happiness after the death, the mother lies like a rug about an imaginary nanny, then procedes to sit in jail, in solitary confinement for three years before finally saying it was an accident.. How can you come to any other conclusion that it was a homicide????? Well, that's what the state thought too.... They relied too much on this jury being able to connect the dots. They underestimated any sort of legitimate defence. And the defence was laughable, who would belive such drivel? It was absurd. The jury didn't even buy it, they even said they thought she was guilty. WHY they came back with no lesser charges I haven't a clue. The just didn't understand the instructions.... so now we have a killer loose....

Yep !! This totally captures my thoughts post-verdict.

 

[Sustained]

IMO, the jury needed something that connected Casey, not each one of the A's. Every one of them had access to the things involved in this case. And, LE did extensive searches to find something to connect Casey alone, but they couldn't come up with anything.

FCA was only one driving the Sunfire with the dead body in the trunk.
FCA was the only one who did not report her child missing for 31 days.
FCA was the only one that got a "Bella Vita" tattoo, scheduled another tattoo appt, and told the guys in the shop that Caylee would be coming with her the next time she arrived.
FCA was the only person who searched for "how to make chloroform" on the home computer.
FCA was the only one out partying and whooping it up when he daughter sat rotting in a swamp. Did GA/CA take a cruise to celebrate the death of Caylee in those 31 days ?

Due to enviromental circumstances, LE did not find any "direct" evidence connecting FCA to the body's location, but plenty of circumstantial evidence was available.



I guess it was also lucky that they found Laci's hair in a pair of pliers on his boat that she had never been on... right? Why would you find someone's hair in a pair of pliers?

Did the hair have the band on it indicating decomposition ? I've actually seen my sister pluck an eyebrow hair using needle-nosed pilers when she couldn't find her tweezers. Strange ? Sure, but it worked.

To be honest, there's nothing saying that the opposing idea isn't being just as blind. She was found not guilty and so many had her convicted and drooling for her to get the needle. This verdict was a shock to many. Perhaps those were the ones who couldn't see the forest through the trees because 12 people didn't agree with them. This case wasn't as open and shut as many had believed and hoped.

I was not drooling for her to get the needle, but I think she should have been convicted on felony murder by aggravated child abuse. I also never believed that the case was open and shut, but would require the jury to make some inferences regarding circumstantial evidence, connect the dots, and eliminate all but FCA as the perpetrator of this crime. They failed miserably ...

Semi-snipped respectfully as my position on a lot of the evidence has been made very clear in previous posts as are my feelings about the lack of effort put in by the jury when evaluating evidence.

 

[Sustained]

Oh yeah, RC sold out for $4K. This I am not buying one bit. She kept her mouth closed on the affair/friendship until police came knocking on her door. She wanted nothing to do with the circus IMO. She was living a separate life also, why would she want to go out looking for money? Plus, $4K is what she loaned out to GA anyways, so why not get that back. I'm just not buying that RC was a big set up to get the A's... especially since she kept quiet about the relationship for so long.

Where is the proof of this ? Checks, cash withdrawals from RC's bank, etc ?

 

[EPfan]

Comments in blue ...

With all respect to you, I could have a come-back answer for each response but I'm not going to. The reason is, I watched the trial faithfully everyday and was appalled at some of the things that went on, butttt- at the end of the day the procecution over charged-with the evidence they presented. I believe they were over confident and didn't think the defense would be able to cause reasonable doubt. I feel for over 3 years the procecution knew what they wanted to present and to show what happend but they took for granted that the jury would automatically know everything they did and could somehow connect all the evidence together but the jury didn't, and I wouldn't have either. Even though most didn't give the defense credit and made fun of JB, little by little he put on a defense and made people question the evidence and with his wittnesses (they were expert too) they disagreed with the procecution wittnesses. R Kronk didn't help either. That is why the procecution didn't want to put him on. How many people told lies on the stand? You put all the little things together and they become 1 big thing that you can't get over and that was reasonable doubt. I knew ( or thought I knew) after the closing arguments that the procecution was in trouble. LDB was too confident and focused on the party stuff, not the evidence. Then JA sitting over there smerking, laughing wasn't professional to me. It most likely didn't effect the verdict but they (procecution) had attitude. Also, for me, the constant objection, objection, objection (over little dinky stuff), and not to mention sidebar, sidebar, made me wonder what are they trying to keep out. Just my opinion but I remember thinking that.(I know this isn't evidence and should be used, but hey)
To sum it up I think the procecution was over confident and didn't prove their case, they didn't connect the dots to prove KC murdered Caylee intentionally, because that is what they charged. Another thing, why did they have witness after witness testifying what a good mother KC was?
I think that backfired because now there wasn't child abuse to consider. No one said one bad thing about KC as a mother.
This whole case was bazarre for me but it is what it is. We can argue/disagree till the cows come home but she was found NOT Guilty, doesn't mean innocent. I think the jury got it right.

 

[Italy]

EPfan

Were you a member of the jury?

 

[sacrablue]

Here's my most objective view on why I think the verdict came down as an aquittal, which by the way, is still very hard for me to swallow. I thought the state did an excellent job, albeit with a two mistakes. Could those mistakes have cost them the case, guess we will never know but I personally think it did. I'll try to be a Monday morning quarterback. The core of the problem was the jury, I hate to say it, but your case is won or lost during voir dire. When I try to wrap my head around whether or not the state made any mistakes, this is what I come up with:

1. IMO the defence provided reasonable doubt that chloroform and/duct tape was used as the murder weapon. I think it's reasonable CA may have looked it up when she saw it on TL website. I overwhelmingly believe Calylee died at the hands of FCA, but being objective as I can, I can honesty say the DT did a good job at creating enough doubt about its use that even I, if on a jury, would be very wary of saying she definitely did use it. My critera would be pretty high in a case where I would deprive someone of their life and or freedom. I really think the state should have just focused on the death as an undetermined homicide and not tried to hammer the chloroform as much as they did. If Chloroform is the murder weapon, and there is reasonable doubt as to whether or not she made it, we have to take murder off the table if the DT can provide reasonable doubt. We never knew how Lacey Peterson died and yet there was a conviction. Now, the duct tape.... I believe the prosectuion showed beyond a reasonable doubt the duct tape was placed upon her mouth. The big questions for the jury is "when", alive or dead? In my experience, I think it's extremely difficult for a normal human being to conceive of anyone, let alone a mother, duct taping a child's face shut and suffocating them. Not that it didn't happen, but I think most people would almost force themselves to believe it was staged after death to appear as a kidnapping which fits perfectly into the Zanny kidnapping story FCA made up and implicates her knee deep into it.

So I guess what I am saying is that if you present X and Y as the murder weapon, you damn well better have a smoking gun, if we doubt the weapon, how do we buy the murder? It would have been safer to focus on the "manner" of death as a homocide and not so much on the cause of that homocide. If we buy homocide, and I think the jury did, thus all the tears and sickness they mentioned, the "cause" is irrelevant. But the critical mistake made by the state was linking the two. That's where they lost this jury.

2. The state overestimated the strength of the case because FCA's behavior was so disgusting. I am not trying to offend anyone, but seriously people, take off your philosophical hats for a moment and just look at the facts.... A baby is not reported missing for over a month and it was clear that FCA never intended to tell anyone, the mother parties and looks absolutely giddy with happiness after the death, the mother lies like a rug about an imaginary nanny, then procedes to sit in jail, in solitary confinement for three years before finally saying it was an accident.. How can you come to any other conclusion that it was a homicide????? Well, that's what the state thought too.... They relied too much on this jury being able to connect the dots. They underestimated any sort of legitimate defence. And the defence was laughable, who would belive such drivel? It was absurd. The jury didn't even buy it, they even said they thought she was guilty. WHY they came back with no lesser charges I haven't a clue. The just didn't understand the instructions.... so now we have a killer loose....

Creating doubt..you sure got that right. What happened to discovering doubt? Anybody can tell endless make believe stories...I did it all the time in the 4th grade. Look at what you have done...you let Caylee drown, now lets walk around the house three times and when the music stops we will call 911.

 

[IfIMay]

hmmmn... watching doesn't always equate with listening, hearing, and understanding. just sayin'.

 

[sacrablue]

And Casey cried and cried and cried and cried and cried...still crying? When I heard this out of Baez I felt like crawling under a rock.
What fairy tale did Baez find that beauty?

 

[EPfan]

EPfan

Were you a member of the jury?

Only sitting in my comfy chair, on the ranch, eating bon-bons and paying attention. I wrote notes too. (probably more than some of the jury)

 

[Sustained]

With all respect to you, I could have a come-back answer for each response but I'm not going to. The reason is, I watched the trial faithfully everyday and was appalled at some of the things that went on, butttt- at the end of the day the procecution over charged-with the evidence they presented. I believe they were over confident and didn't think the defense would be able to cause reasonable doubt. I feel for over 3 years the procecution knew what they wanted to present and to show what happend but they took for granted that the jury would automatically know everything they did and could somehow connect all the evidence together but the jury didn't, and I wouldn't have either. Even though most didn't give the defense credit and made fun of JB, little by little he put on a defense and made people question the evidence and with his wittnesses (they were expert too) they disagreed with the procecution wittnesses. R Kronk didn't help either. That is why the procecution didn't want to put him on. How many people told lies on the stand? You put all the little things together and they become 1 big thing that you can't get over and that was reasonable doubt. I knew ( or thought I knew) after the closing arguments that the procecution was in trouble. LDB was too confident and focused on the party stuff, not the evidence. Then JA sitting over there smerking, laughing wasn't professional to me. It most likely didn't effect the verdict but they (procecution) had attitude. Also, for me, the constant objection, objection, objection (over little dinky stuff), and not to mention sidebar, sidebar, made me wonder what are they trying to keep out. Just my opinion but I remember thinking that.(I know this isn't evidence and should be used, but hey)
To sum it up I think the procecution was over confident and didn't prove their case, they didn't connect the dots to prove KC murdered Caylee intentionally, because that is what they charged. Another thing, why did they have witness after witness testifying what a good mother KC was?
I think that backfired because now there wasn't child abuse to consider. No one said one bad thing about KC as a mother.
This whole case was bazarre for me but it is what it is. We can argue/disagree till the cows come home but she was found NOT Guilty, doesn't mean innocent. I think the jury got it right.

Why did the State have so many witnesses testify that FCA was a "good" Mom ... to dispel the theory of an accident proposed in the DT opening statement. "Good" moms call 911 in the case of an accident.

With all due respect, you are obviously seeing things thru the DT's rose-colored glasses ... you forget JB's comment about "cutting the cheese", you forget JB's lack of ability to ask non-leading questions or questions that had already been asked and answered. You forget JB's obvious discovery violations ... all of those things are what led to the State's numerous objections and sidebars.

And where would anyone get the idea that the prosecution team is over-confident ? I don't remember any interviews with JA/LDB/FG or even Lawson Lamar expressing such feelings.

As far as the expert witnesses go, let's say they cancelled each other out although I believe the State's experts did a great job. But, even if they cancelled each other out and the jury did not consider the expert testimony, we still have all of the "consciousness of guilt" evidence presented by the State. No report for 31 days, lying to investigators, Bella Vita tattoo, etc.

These particular jurors did not understand how to connect the dots as they could have convicted FCA by the process of elimination. If the jurors were so confident in their verdict, why didn't they hang around and explain how they arrived at it ? Why didn't they explain how in <10 hours of deliberation, they could go over 6+ weeks of testimony ? Why wouldn't they explain how the possible sentence played into their decision ? Why wouldn't they explain how they expected the why,where,how & when of Caylee's death when legally it's not required to convict ?

It is my fervent opinion that when the juror's names are released, some of them will come forward and say they made a huge mistake.

 

[sacrablue]

The one that totaly blew me away was the Baez story about the 31 days. Everyone knows that missing your child for 31 days is impossible...it's crazy to think anything so terrible could happen...I mean 31 days is a long time.

Well Caylee was not missing for 31 days, Caylee drowned June 16 in the family pool. You know, the one with the ladder and slidding glass door always open. The pool George found Caylee and started walking around the house with the body to make a handoff to Roy Krump..

I thought I was in the twilight zone. I remember checking to see if my dogs were still alive. I looked in the mirror and pinched myself to see if I was not in a dream.

 

[Italy]

Only sitting in my comfy chair, on the ranch, eating bon-bons and paying attention. I wrote notes too. (probably more than some of the jury)

Thanks for your comments - but does that mean you were or you weren't?

You, Beccalecca, Gladiatorqueen, Goldenlover, pcrum12, and few others all seem to be singing from the same song sheet and it just seems odd. Especially considering the recent timing of the posts.

 

[logicalgirl]

Only sitting in my comfy chair, on the ranch, eating bon-bons and paying attention. I wrote notes too. (probably more than some of the jury)

Sure, munching away, not having to consult with the judge, read over any dicovery or evidence notes that puzzled you or you needed to refresh your memory, not having to discuss the evidence with 11 of your peers, the list goes on and on...

Streaming? From your comfy chair? From your computer? without commercial breaks? Nice.....

 

[RR0004]

I am a reporter, I am not the person who charges people with negligence, abuse, etc. All I do is report if I suspect something. What happens from there is none of my business to be honest.

You're fortunate...having daily contact with the child makes it my business.

 

[RR0004]

But wait, you're making an assumption of what they did and did not go over in the deliberation room? That had all evidence and testimony in that room with them. They had transcripts. How do you know they didn't make sense of it?

If either of the jurors that spoke out specifically mentioned that they didn't do this then I stand corrected.

Did they have the transcripts? I'm not sure if that was determined...but I sure as heck would like to know. Anyone?

 

[RR0004]

If your child has a fever of 99.9 or below, a hospital will not administer medication generally because that's not considered a high fever. Now, if you chose to go to bed and at some point in the night the fever skyrockets and you're unaware.... are you negligent?

I was referring to your initial scenario....you know the parents who were too embarrassed that their child died because they couldn't afford Tylenol?

 

[Americka]

Did they have the transcripts? I'm not sure if that was determined...but I sure as heck would like to know. Anyone?

IIRC, they did not have any transcripts of trial testimony. They would have been required to make a request to have testimony read back to them by the court reporter.

 

[logicalgirl]

Thanks for your comments - but does that mean you were or you weren't?

You, Beccalecca, Gladiatorqueen, Goldenlover, pcrum12, and few others all seem to be singing from the same song sheet and it just seems odd. Especially considering the recent timing of the posts.

I actually haven't minded it so much Italy - it made me go back and check out the laws, read extensively from the experts who know far more than I do about circumstantial evidence and reread yet again the various pieces of evidence and testimonies to confirm my initial thoughts and realize the chain yanking going on...but in the end - it is what it is, and unjust verdict.

All the impossible theories, couldawouldashouldahs in the world, and yabbuts will never change that.