I am in complete shock. I cannot believe she got off on 1st degree murder. What a fucking joke. I am beyond pissed right now. This case has made a complete mockery of the justice system.

Ugh, I cannot believe this woman is actually going to walk free. And will the investigation even continue as to what "actually" happened to Caylee?

Mike just eloquently stated what we're all feeling. She just got away with murder.

Apparently it has. I expected the not guilty of 1st degree, but guilty ont he manslaughter. UNBELIEVABLE!:mad:

What a poor girl (Caylee, NOT Casey) who will never get justice. It's heartbreaking.

It's OJ all over again.

Poor little Caley. :(

Seeing that bitch smiling now makes me want to throw things at the TV. I'm so furious.

I don't understand. If Casey was found guilty of lying to the police, what would motivate her to lie besides saving her own ass? That makes no sense whatsoever. I'm praying a mistrial is declared due to juror misconduct. That baby didn't kill herself.

Maybe it's pregnancy hormones that have me in tears over this case.

Let me guess. Soon, she'll be giving interviews to Oprah, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer. Then she'll go on The View & other shows like that. Pretty soon, she'll get her own reality show or end up on Dancing with the Stars or something like that. She'll be on the cover of People, In Touch & other entertainment magazines pimping herself out as a model/actress.

In the meantime, little Caley will never get justice.

A lawyer friend on facebook just said, "A jury is made up of 12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty."

Now that the jurors are free to speak to the media, I'm intersted in hearing how they came to this wonderful conclusion.

Frankly, I don't even want to watch their interviews right now b/c I feel so sick to my stomach after watching this joke of a verdict. I agree with IrishLake. I just don't understand how they reached this verdict.

I firmly believe Caley will get justice one day, somehow, somewhere. As for the media access, let's hope that for once it doesn't happen. I'm sick of Casey Anthony, just like I'm still sick til this day of OJ Simpson.

I'll give you the short version:

-No direct physical evidence of defendant's involvement, plus

-No provable cause of death, plus

-A certain definition of "reasonable" doubt.

On the bright side, after the verdict (and the, shall we say, lax rebuttal), we might finally have to confront the bare facts: prosecutors are often exceptionally good at locking down very specific kinds of cases at a 99% clip, and often not all that good at actually performing for a jury in a court of law.

This case is the most ridiculous and sickening thing ever. The jury should be ashamed! I live in Orlando and people are RIOTING over it, I'd be scared for my life if I was associated with the case in any way.

Yeah, the little I saw of this case made me question these exact things. Just because she did a lot of things that look suspicious doesn't rise to the level of direct evidence. I feel sorry for jurors. It's hard to follow the letter of the law when you may have that gut feeling that someone is guilty but the State hasn't proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

I hate to rationalize it by saying that I think the family was trying to cover up for her (not wanting her to be found guilty and be put to death) that they told so many half-truths that the jury didn't know what to believe. It's just sickening.

ETA: 3 guys here at work are talking about how the decision by the jury was fair and just. I'm having a bit of a hard time reeling it in and am glad I'm leaving soon, because otherwise I'd want to jump in that argument.

A Greekchatter just defriended me on facebook because of my opinions on the REACTION to the verdict.

LMAO

the jury is smarter than i thought. they will not speak to the media after all-the chickens!

i am flabbergasted with their verdict.

Aggrevated Manslaughter was and she was found Not Guilty of that too.

We need to be careful here, though - while the case was largely circumstantial, circumstantial evidence is still evidence, and should usually be given the same consideration as direct evidence (per instruction of law).

Hell, most of the time circumstantial evidence is more reliable than eye witness testimony. It's hard to say whether jurors correctly applied the law as given to them, but it does seem like a pretty straightforward decision path.

Chicken shit idiots.

I'm watching the people furious & almost rioting after this verdict was read. Wow. I agree with their sentiments though I wouldn't go so far as to riot & have that kind of reaction.

I get that they didn't go for 1st degree but to completely set her free? No 2nd degree murder conviction? Just shocking & appalling.

I know circumstantial evidence is evidence, but there were some holes there. I think for a lot of people, the fact that she didn't report her daughter missing for a month is all they had to hear to convict her. She's not exactly the type of person any one of us would want to be friends with, and she hasn't been proven innocent. The jury just didn't feel like they had enough to convict her.

I can't believe the people I'm friends with on facebook - "I'm so upset I almost cried." "I'm sick to my stomach right now."

This is really alarming...

Agreed.

Just now heard about it. The first place I went to was here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCHB4GCyufE

The comments are hilarious.

I know?! Who gets sick or emotional about a little precious baby girl being suffocated, bagged, and thrown in a swamp by the person who was supposed to protect her with her life?!

Who gets so emotionally invested in the outcome of a trial where the prosecution FUCKED THINGS UP that they feel sick or like crying, or blame the jury?

It's not the jury's fault. They did what they were supposed to do. Now it's up to Nancy Grace to further water down the facts and get on her high horse about how only kids with a "bad mother" are in any sort of danger.

Hyperbole doesn't help the matter. No one is commenting about that. They are commenting about the jury failing to convict Casey, and you know it. That's two different things.

BTW, the world will continue to turn despite the fact that Casey Anthony was not convicted of murdering her daughter. Even if she was, Caylee would still be dead. This woman had a pretty sh*tty life before this and will have a worse life after...even if she does cash in on a Lifetime movie. (Personally, that is a good reason to stop watching Lifetime.) There are lots of kids who are abused and killed everyday, and we never avenge them. Why all the attention on this singular case?

No, they just want to get home! Can't sit through the penalty phase, one of them has a cruise. Forget the little girl.

Whatever. If you really believe that there are people out there who are more worried about getting to their cruise than taking their positions as jurors seriously, your crazy. All it would take is one person to complain, and that person would be kicked off the jury in favor of an alternate. Do you think seriously that a juror would risk the wrath of the public by letting her off if they really didn't think they couldn't convict? Seriously...a cruise?!

Oh, bite me. You and I both know that Nancy Grace in particular but most of the media has been hyping this whole case up since the day Caylee was reported missing.

Why would folks who live thousands of miles away get so worked up about a trial in which they A. don't know the victim or the defendant B. don't live in the same state or even time zone as the victim or defendant or C. aren't in the courtroom, don't have the full story about what happened in the courtroom, and don't have the full story about what happened in the jury room? What's the point of having a physical reaction to that? And then posting about it on facebook?

Is it terrible that Caylee died? Sure. But the jury was able to find reasonable doubt as to Casey's guilt. They did their job. It's an example of the justice system working - not that it's broken. If we tried every potential criminal in the court of public opinion, and it carried jail time, we'd be fucked as a nation. Completely and totally fucked.

No, though, because Casey's white, middle class, and pretty, she should have been a "Good Mom" because after all, that's the only way white, middle class, pretty women know how to act! But because Caylee died, and she had issues (and yes, I think a lot of her lying and partying and whatever was stemming from issues), she was a "Bad Mother" - and everyone knows "Bad Mothers" are not only guilty, but beyond a reasonable doubt, and how dare the jury find anything different when they follow the instructions of the court?

I don't pretend to know whether she did it or not, and honestly the only people that do are those directly tied to the crimes, but I think the jury did their job and don't deserve to be vilified. If the case was lost, it's either the prosecution's fault, or the defense's very good job.

And yes, it certainly helps my position that there are thousands of kids who go missing every year that we never hear about. Who's getting emotional about those kids?

Nope, i think they all want to get home. The cruise juror is just one of them. They asked no questions, asked not to review anything. Nothing. Miscarriage of justice.

If you believe that this is what happened, you should lock yourself in the trunk of a car. First, no chance the other jurors would go along with it. Second, all research indicates the most important driving force for jurors is getting the answer right - it is taken as seriously as possible. You are NOT the only one who "cares about that little girl" - you are not a unique snowflake.

Stop watching stupid people jabber on TV and pick up some reading material not by Grisham - U of Nebraska has an entire department dedicated to jury research, start there.

It's always nice to have a discussion with someone who has made up their mind based on emotion rather than logic. agzg, I totally agree with you. One thing about all this, too, is that I'd rather see 100 Casey Anthony's walk free than to see 1 innocent person locked up. (Feel free to insert the name of any person you think may be guilty of some crime.) We have enough innocent people behind bars as it is. It's not the way our Forefathers imagined our legal system. They put in the jury of our peers to make sure that no innocent people were sent to prison. Justice doesn't always feel so warm and fuzzy.

Cognitive dissonance, with a side of advertising their own quality to others.

It's another case of trial by media before the real trial even began. I agree 100% with agzg. We didn't hear all the evidence, we weren't sitting in the courtroom and we weren't in the jury room. I would have a helluva time, as a juror, convicting anybody of murder when there was no firmly established cause of death and no physical evidence tying the murder to the accused. With no firmly established cause of death, how can you say there was a murder "beyond reasonable doubt".

Yes, in my heart, I think she probably did it. No, I don't think it was proved "beyond reasonable doubt" and those are two very different things. I'm absolutely not commenting about it on Facebook because people are way too riled up.

But then again, I'm the person who would have had a hard time convicting Scott Peterson of Laci's murder too. I didn't think there was enough evidence to prove to me "beyond a reasonable doubt".

That's the reason why I was shocked she got off. I thought they (the jury) would just do a greater good conviction.

I did listen (to what I could bear) and though like you believe she did it, outside of the screaming heads and the Nancy Grace's I did not see how they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt because it was just a lot of weak circumstantial evidence.

Does she win mother of the year?

No

Could she babysit my kids?

No.

But just because me or you wouldn't kick it for two weeks while my baby is missing doesn't mean she's gotta be the killer.

I mean look at those that did kill their kids and immediately called the cops and were crying on cue.

I heart you Sen.


Where I'm from saying you aren't sure you could go with the death penalty usually removes someone from the potential jury pool. I was honest when I told the lawyers and judge I was against it and I was excused. They knew I was for real though since I had a volunteer position working with families of inmates, with some of those inmates on California's death row.

I think one of the reasons I was so shocked is because I WASN'T following it super closely. I was going off of what a lot of the hyperbole in the press. And of course I have my reaction to it, but I think my reaction is a) I am surprised that she got off because I was under the assumption that they had a lot more evidence against her (through hearing what everyone had to say about it), and b) I just feel bad for that little girl. No one should have to go through that. It's just a sad situation all around. BUT, if I am ever arrested and put on trial for something (heaven forbid), I would hope to have the presumption of innocence that we are lucky to have in this country.