My heart goes out to little Caylee Anthony, but...

I actually think "Perry Mason" would be Dayton's nightmare, because defense attorney Perry Mason won something like 99 percent of his cases and the prosecutor Hamilton Burger almost always lost.

One would think poor Ham Burger would have gone nuts, been disbarred or stepped down in shame after his 50 gazillionth time of trying an innocent person who seemed to have motive, means, opportunity to kill someone only to have Perry bitch-slap him in court by uncovering the actual killer and getting a live confession under oath from him in front of numerous witnesses.

But nope, Ham just kept on trucking.

This thread makes Nancy Grace smile!!

Depends on what state you live in.

As long as the paychecks kept coming I don't think he minded.

Police are legally allowed to use deception aren't they?

As for Perry Mason.

Never say any of the originals. A couple of the movies.

But virtually every courtroom drama I'm familar with relies on the very old "something big and unexpected happening on the stand".

and I've read that so seldom happens that veteran courtroom lawyers who have practiced for 30 years are likely to see it happen once in their career.

In regard to reasonable doubt, I think too many juries have too high a standard when it comes to it.

Anyone remember Johnnie Cochrane's closing statement in the O.J. Simpson trial.

He told the jury to the effect that "if you have the SLIGHTEST doubt whatsoever you must vote to acquit".

By the way, in the case of this trial I think another huge factor comes into play.

Most people simply can not understand why or believe that a mother would deliberately murder their own child.

It is so far outside most peoples understanding of being a human that their mind simply can't wrap around it.

Lawyers can say what they want about aquitting. The judge gives the jury it's instructions on reasonable doubt and everything else.

I'm pretty sure that you're mischaracterizing what his closing argument said.

The line about "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit" aside, he talked at length about all the problems with the case, from lying cops to sloppy forensic evidence. It wasn't a case about trying to generate the "slightest doubt."

FWIW, I would probably wager most of what I own that O.J. is guilty, but think that based on the evidence provided in that case the jury's verdict was reasonable. Once you have a cop who clearly perjured himself on the stand like Fuhrman did playing a key role in the case, it's reasonable for a jury to disregard everything he testified to, and to have questions about the prosecution that put him on in general.

Given the amount of mothers killing children in real life and in TV crime shows and movies, I think it's not such a baffling concept as you're trying to suggest.

The underlying point you're making -- that whatever a lawyer might say about acquitting and reasonable doubt doesn't matter because the jury will be fully and correctly instructed as to the actual law -- is true.

However, to nitpick some, a lawyer who misstates the standard for reasonable doubt might face a reversal in the case of a prosecutor or in the case of a defense attorney an ethical complaint or other admonishments.

That's another reason why I'm fairly sure JC didn't try to say that even the slightest doubt should be enough to win an acquittal. Because that would be misstating the reasonable doubt standard and possibly land him in trouble. Also, reading excerpts from his closing doesn't seem to suggest that he was playing that loose.

My bf wants to make a shirt that has Casey Anthony's pic on it and says "Duh. Winning."

I'm thinking about getting it done for his birthday. Maybe?

I've heard that in some countries, three verdicts are possible in criminal cases:

Guilty
Not Guilty
Not Proven

Of course, our system is based on the the notion of 'innocent until proven guilty.' In situations like this, I wonder which is the better system.

Or if a 'perfect' system is even possible. Justice is an entirely human notion after all.

Nonsense. I placed no such limit on the number explanations of what happened.

What I implied is that all explanations fall into two general classes: Either Casey is the only person who knows what happened to Caylee (which includes about a million tragic but believable explanations), or it's a conspiracy, with all the prejudices against reasonableness that usually come with conspiracy theories.

So if you're saying the jury didn't convict Casey because they just couldn't rule out the conspiracy theory alternative explanations, then I'd say that certainly seems to describe this jury. I don't just disagree with the verdict: I find it foolish; irrational.

There is at least one other class where Casey has no idea who/what killed Caylee and acted independently from whoever/what did as the pathological liar that she is.

As for conspiracy theories, I don't see why reasonableness should have an inherent prejudice against them. Obviously some conspiracy theories are fairly unreasonable (the notion that Obama was born in Kenya, faked his birth certificate and it somehow got covered up, the notion that we've never been to the Moon, or that the government/Jews caused 911).

Other conspiracy theories might sound far-fetched at first until evidence comes to light to prove their truth (The government did experiments on blacks to trace the course of syphilis).

And still other conspiracies are fairly mundane things (Gangs, mobsters, family members or lovers working together to commit a crime or series of crimes, or cover them up). People are charged with and found guilty of criminal conspiracies as a routine matter.

I think as with everything else, a reasonable look at a conspiracy theory would sort out how likely it was, and either reject it out of hand, concede it's possible, or say it was almost certainly what happened.

Well, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that the jury didn't convict because there wasn't sufficient proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That a couple basic elements of proof in a homicide case are cause of death and time of death. That this prosecution could not prove those.

It seems to me that those last things are fairly undeniable.

Now as to your general categories, it seems if you concede that even within category A there are explanations more innocent than murder, such as an accident followed by pathological lying/behavior, then I'm not sure how you can say without any reasonable doubt that this was proved an intentional killing.

The main thing that supports the idea of an intentional killing is that Casey's a huge liar and acted weird after the disappearance/death. But from what little I know about the case, she happens to be a huge liar and acts weird in general. The thing about giving multiple explanations for who Caylee's dad was, for example, strikes me as a little off.

Not according to counsel's statements re: drowning. Once Casey puts that on the record we're done considering the possibility that she didn't know.

I thought the theory presented by the defense was that she accidentally drowned while Casey's father was watching her.

There are a handful of simple explanations for what happened, all of which involve Casey killing her daughter and then covering it up.

The elaborate conspiracy theories were all just red herrings, designed to bait jurors who mistakenly believe the state's case must rule out all imaginable alternative explanations.

Occam's Razor applies. People don't conspire to kill two-year-olds.

I disagree. What's unreasonable about believing it's possible the child accidentally drowned in someone else's care and that person tried to hide that fact? Perhaps even someone that led the effort to "search" for her?

No, the theory was that she drowned, and that Casey -- knowing her daughter was actually dead -- was helping to cover it up. Again, a conspiracy. That whole "deliberately making an accident look like a crime" thing is far more ridiculous than "reasonable."

You guys are all exhibiting the very behavior I'm complaining about in this thread -- basically allowing for all kinds of bizarre possibilities that you can't possibly believe in yourself. If you're not personally falling for obvious red herrings, why do you feel the need to validate them?

It varies from State to State. For instance, in Texas it's legal to use deadly force, in some circumstances, where there is no threat of death of serious bodily injury.

Even in North Carolina, if you catch someone in the process of breaking in to your home (but not having actually broken in yet...weird), the bar is lowered dramatically.

"[insert name] and 2 other friends are attending Caylee Anthony's 6th birthday."

.......wonder if I should tell them yet?

"Not Proven" is the Scottish verdict. There's some interesting history behind it, if you're motivated enough to look it up. I think it's very obvious that "not proven" is exactly what we have here. Basically, a rebuke to the prosecution I would say.

Does jeopardy attach to a "Not Proven" verdict?

In practical terms the bottom line is the same as a "not guilty" verdict. You cannot be retried after a "not proven" verdict. On reflection it's a clear rebuke to both prosecution and defendant.

Did none of y'all watch the interview with one of the jurors? It made them absolutely sick to find her "not guilty." It was also pointed out that not guilty does not equal innocent. Is Casey Anthony guilty of something? I don't doubt it. Did she murder her daughter? I don't know. She may have or she may not have. It could have gone either way. Was she involved? Based on what I saw presented, I would say yes.

My opinion of what reasonable doubt is simple: I should not be asking major questions concerning the act in question, such as when Caylee was killed, where she was killed, and a general idea of how. The prosecution admitted that they had a dry bones case, which makes answering how incredibly difficult if not impossible and when incredibly difficult.

Then they should have waited to go to trial.

Waited a longer period time to present the same amount of information? Because they had the body, but it was too far decomposed to determine when or how. Yeah, more time would fix that.

Wait until evidence surfaces or some other miracle occurs. All that's been done at this point is ensure that she's never convicted.

Ten years from now, 'they' may find a 'smoking gun', but it won't matter. She can never - ever be tried for this crime again.

The only smoking gun will be her confession.

There was that, but it sounds like the ME did his fair share to lose the case by failing to do a complete post mortem exam.

Relax, everybody. The media has the perfect answer for just such a situation:

Has she been sentenced yet? Ultimately that is up to a judge. Four counts of purgery can bring a 20 year sentence. not exactly a walk in the park. Remember the Chicago 8? They behaved so badly at their trials, they collectively drew 32 years in contempt charges.
not a good price to pay if you're acquitted.

They're planning to release her Sunday, July 17. FoxNews just announced it..