Caylee Marie Anthony - A Small Sad Tale

By TRB

When Casey Anthony was found not guilty by a jury of her peers yesterday on trial for the murder of her two-year old daughter Caylee, a lot of Americans did what they do best. They looked for someone to blame.The experience was similar when OJ Simpson was found not guilty for murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

Blaming the press is always easy, so a lot of people did that. They did not provide any explanation of how the press could possibly be involved in the verdict, but it didn't matter. Apparently, it gives them relief just to blame someone.

Anyone.

Some blamed the prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, who just recently had been blindsided by a dozen or so "what ifs" from the defense attorney, Jose Baez.

What if Caylee got out to the pool and climbed the ladder, fell in and drowned?

What if Casey or the mother or the father was alone when this happened and each tried to hide it from the other because they were afraid they would be blamed for the "accident."

What if Casey was sexually abused as a child by her father?

What if Caylee was too?

What if he threw her in the pool?

This brings us all back to 2008 and the carefree 22-year old Casey who moved into the house with her parents and her little girl and left her there like so much animated laundry for her parents to take care of. Meanwhile, Casey resumed the life of the non-parent; out every night, different boyfriends all the time, very little time spent with her daughter.

Unbelievably, this is said to be one of the reasons the jury did not find her guilty. Looking at her lifestyle and seeing that there was no pressure on her to change it and meet her duties as a parent, some wondered what her incentive would be for murdering her daughter. To me this falls into the catagory of "Stupid Jury Thoughts." Yes, maybe there was no pressure on her at the moment, but she had to know there would be some demands put on her life by the mere existance of this little girl somewhere down the line.

But then, some say the jury couldn't see her as a psychopath. I have no idea of what she was supposed to look like as a psychopath, or sociopath for that mattter. But I have always been told the pathological types could make you believe they were just about anything. That is the nature of the disease.

It seems that some of the blame has to go on the jury.

We have all heard about the legal standard "beyond a reasonable doubt," and we have seen it used like a boogeyman by so many defense attorneys. With Caylee's case, the defense threw a lot of nonsense at the wall just to see if any of it would stick. He only needed one piece to stay up there long enough to convince this particular brain-dead jury. It worked. Apparently, none of the jurors thought it was all that weird that the mother did not report her two-year old daughter missing for more than 100 days, or that the grandmother continuously lied to police.

Accordingly, the jury wasn't moved by the facts surrounding the discovery of Caylees's body, not far from where she had lived. She had been wrapped in two bags and it looked like her mouth and other parts of her body might have been taped. Small animals had torn through the skimpy bags and had knawed at the little girls bones and scattered her remains. So it never was much of a crime scene anyway.

That would not have been so if Casey, the mother had reported her daughter missing the day she went missing. Maybe they would have found the body sooner. More evidence. Maybe some DNA. Maybe a conviction.

Time Magazine contained an editorial this morning stating that they thought the verdict was good, the jury had done its duty which is to hold up that end of the law that defines "reasonable doubt" as a free ticket home. But if there can be reasonable doubt, there can also be unreasonable doubt. In the opinion of most, any doubt that Caylee was murdered by someone she knew and knew well, is unreasonable.

The problem as presented by the defense is who did it and where is the proof positive that they did.

The prosecutor couldn't provide that proof.

So who is to blame in situations like this? First off, some testimony, such as that stating she could have drowned in the pool, should not have been let into evidence.The body was not found at the bottom of a pool. It was found wrapped in bags in the woods, with evidence that before that it had spent considerable time at the house - already dead. The father's alleged incestuous behavior was another diversion that should not have been allowed into evidence.

Judges decide what is to be allowed into evidence and what is to be surpressed. In my opinion this judge gave the defense attorney too many chances to win the trial with flimsy at best reasonable doubt, which would not have been allowed into testimony at many courts. The judge's bad decisions, and the jury's lack of intelligence are the two forces that stood in the way of justice for Caylee Marie Anthony.