After a trial that took a month and a half and a jury deliberation that took less than 11 hours, Casey Anthony has been found not guilty in the murder of her child Caylee Anthony.
Caylee Anthony’s body was found in a wooded area near the Florida home of her grandparents, decomposed with duct tape covering her mouth. Casey Anthony surprisingly took 31 days to tell law enforcement officers that her child was missing, which worked strongly against her innocence in the court of pubic opinion. Prosecutors based their entire case on the theory that Casey suffocated Caylee with duct tape because she wanted to be free to hit the nightclubs and spend time with her boyfriend. But defense attorneys argued that the little girl accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool, and that Anthony panicked and concealed the death because she was traumatized from years of sexual abuse by her own father.
The defense team for Anthony was highly criticized for the way they chose to handle the case, which included a decision to never allow Anthony to take the stand in her own defense. But apparently their strategy paid off, as Casey Anthony was found not guilty of all but 4 of the counts against her, which are only misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators and will likely not incur any jail time at all.
Following the reading of the verdict, prosecutor Lawson Lamar said “We’re disappointed in the verdict today because we know the facts and we’ve put in absolutely every piece of evidence that existed.” Unhappy with the lack of hard evidence, Lamar added “This is a dry-bones case. Very, very difficult to prove. The delay in recovering little Caylee’s remains worked to our considerable disadvantage.”
But defense attorney Cheney Mason used the moment to lash out at the media and the many legal talking heads on TV who doubted his methods and the strength of his case. “Well, I hope that this is a lesson to those of you having indulged in media assassination for three years, bias, prejudice and incompetent talking heads saying what would be and how to be,” Mason said. He added “I’m disgusted by some of the lawyers that have done this, and I can tell you that my colleagues from coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television and talking about cases that they don’t know a damn thing about.”
WATCH FLORIDA RESIDENTS REACT TO THE VERDICT:
Truly DJ…there are NO words to describe how sick I felt listening to this verdict yesterday! Honestly, for me, it was like watching the OJ Simpson verdict all over again…smh. I didn't follow the trial on TV (the media tends to sensationalize the most horrid stories and frankly, I consider the media at least partly to blame for "celebrities" and *celebrity-types* being able to get away with murder, if you will). But I followed it via the internet. IMO, there's something SERIOUSLY wrong with our Criminal Justice System. You've got ordinary every-day people..INNOCENT people…incarcerated FOR YEARS (some of them sitting on death-row FOR YEARS) for crimes they did NOT commit. Meanwhile the likes of O.J., Robert Blakes, and now Casey Anthony can't buy a murder or manslaughter conviction no matter how much evidence is presented!!! Like i said. There's something SERIOUSLY wrong with our Criminal Justice System.