Not Guilty!

There will be countless blogs talking about this verdict today and in the next few days. Some pro, some con, but all nothing more than opinion and speculation. This blog will be no different.

I am often surprised by jury verdicts. This is because I wasn't in the courtroom nor did I have any special insights into what goes on in a jury room. I have never served on a jury. I have only been called for jury duty one time and was excused from serving.

The state's case was terribly weak. They had no provable cause of death, no proof of murder beyond the duct tape and a finding of the presence of chloroform in the hair. They also had nothing which puts Casey Anthony at the scene or in contact with that duct tape. No fingerprints, no credit card slip or other record of her buying chloroform, not collection of chemicals found in her possession that could have been used to make that substance. in a word, the state had zip.

For three years, there has been speculation and a lot of assumption. The media pretty much had her convicted and were suitably shocked by the verdict. I am sure countless millions were also shocked.

Why would we expect the jury to convict? The only thing I think the defense did right was to point to the highly speculative nature of the state's case. And that, apparently, was sufficient.

I didn't stay tuned into the case, I didn't follow it closely, I didn't stay glued to the TV coverage. I don't know all the details. But what I did see told me that she was likely to be acquitted or convicted of some lesser charge.

The opening remarks of the defense were basically a joke. The scenario Baez, the defense attorney, offered was completely unbelievable. And, indeed, he never presented any evidence to support it. I suppose it is possible that her father and/or her brother sexually or physically abused Casey Anthony but the fact that she lied about events and the whereabouts of her daughter did not prove or even support the defense's contention Caylee Anthony died accidentally in the family pool.

The defense scenario was pretty much unbelievable. But the jury cannot ignore it without evidence that something else happened, that Casey Anthony was instrumental in the death and hiding of the body of that little girl.

I can speculate about what happened. I can say that I believe that Casey Anthony chloroformed her little girl and put her in the trunk of her car in order to go out at night when she had no baby sitter. And maybe she had done this more than a few times quite successfully. But one night, Caylee did not wake up, did not come out of that chloroform stupor and Casey panicked. She left her daughter in the trunk for several days at least. She dumped the body at some point. The police didn't find the body because they didn't search well enough even when they searched the area where the body was eventually found. That meant evidence was lost, evidence that could have shown what actually happened.

And the end result was no justice for little Caylee Anthony.