I went back and looked at what Ann Finnell stated a number of times in her dialogue on the death penalty mitigation.
Ann Finnell stated...............that Casey's parents failed to protect her as a child, she was verbally, emotionally and sexually abused, was used as a decoy or pawn by her parents and as a scapegoat for parental misconduct.
I think the defense is going to present a mixed bag of abuses KC endured.
Someone outside the immediate Anthony family may be responsible for the sexual abuse, and it may be claimed that Caylee was the result of rape.
Having seen both GA and CA verbally abuse people - both have engaged in verbal combat with members of the media and protestors, and both were verbally abusive towards John Morgan and Keith Mitnik in their depositions for the civil case - I think there will be claims that GA and CA verbally and emotionally abused KC.
What's interesting is the claim that KC was used as a decoy or pawn by her parents and as a scapegoat for parental misconduct. This suggests that both GA and CA were engaged in activities that could be termed "misconduct" and diverted attention away from their own misconduct by focusing on issues with KC.
We know that around the time that Caylee was born, GA and CA separated and filed for divorce. After a period of about a year (I'm vague on the time frame) they reconciled. There's been little tidbits about CA having an affair with another man during this period of time, and that GA had lost money gambling.
It's not too difficult to imagine that KC may have been cited as one of the issues that caused her parents separation. In the very beginning of this case we saw that GA was more willing to accept the reality of what his daughter had done, whereas CA was adamant that that someone else - the imaginary nanny did it, and later suggested that one of KC's friends was the culprit. A couple of months into this case, GA adopted CA's point of view. So, it's not too difficult to imagine that disagreements on how to deal with KC may have been an issue in the Anthony marriage. GA and CA did not agree on how to deal with the problems KC presented them.
We've also seen that in the past 2 and 1/2 years, GA had some sort of relationship with another woman - RC, and we've seen CA flirting with other men. So it's not too difficult to imagine that there were other issues in the Anthony marriage besides KC.
So, I can see how the defense will try to paint a picture of a bad home environment, citing KC as an innocent victim of abusive parents with misconduct issues of their own. All the family's dirty laundry will be aired.
But, there's really no defense for killing your child, and although the defense will try to claim accidental death there just too much evidence that will refute an accidental death.
One of the biggest hurtles for the defense is the 31 days and KC's behavior during those 31 days. All of her activities during those 31 days suggests an attempt to cover up, so there's a consciousness of guilt. There's no indication of any sort of grief or remorse, and to the contrary, her behavior shows that she was very happy during that time frame.
If it was a case of accidental death, and she was frightened of her parents, KC's opportunity to confess what happen and state her fear of her parents was when she got to the end of the hallway at Universal Studios. She was in the company of police officers who would have protected her from parental wraith. But, then there's the matter of duct tape and she had no explanation for that.
I'm sure that GA, CA, and LA know what's in the family's history and know that it will come out at trial. But I can't see how the family history is going to have any sort of impact on the guilt phase of the trial, and very little impact on the sentencing phase.
If this is what the defense is going to claim as a defense, it's an extremely weak defense.