Three Takes on the Casey Anthony Verdict
By turning this case into a capital prosecution, prosecutors ensured jurors would have to be “death qualified” and thus would know from the outset that prosecutors wanted Anthony executed for her alleged crimes. Though sometimes death-qualified juries may show a greater willingness to convict, here I suspect that the death-qualification process could have primed the jurors to expect a forensic smoking gun showing conclusively that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter in cold blood. When no such smoking gun was presented by the prosecution, the jurors may have ultimately been much more willing (and perhaps even eager) to find reasonable doubt on all serious charges.
Today’s verdict is yet another sign on the road to national perdition. The circumstantial case agaisnt Casey was very strong — darn near ironclad. I doubt the jury actually doubted that Casey killed her baby. They just get it – it is o.k. to kill your babies in modern America if you want to. No, not the best thing to do, or the nice thing to do, or even the right thing to do. But hey, it is nothing to kill someone over, so Casey walks. I guess little Caylee should just be thankful she had any life at all, that her mother “just chose life” and did not take Caylee to an abortionist.
“Strike Lawyer” (whose coverage of the trial was the best out there):
It boils down to one thing, in my view. The case is won or lost in the closing arguments. Baez was just extremely effective, he believed in his case and he was sincere. And critically, and somewhat amazingly, he succeeded in turning the tables in the credibility contest. He appeared to be honest and earnest, and he made the prosecutors look like overbearing and shallow assholes who trafficked in slogans, like “100% of accidental deaths are reported” and “two words: pathological liar”. Baez was a hell of a lot more likeable, and without a trace of theatricality or phoniness, so when he came up with a pithy phrase like “They’re trying to make you hate her because she’s a lying slut, appealing to your anger and emotion.”, it didn’t sound like sloganeering. It sounded like he really meant it.
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