The Slimy Case Of Casey Anthony - Direct From Fantasyland

Nope.

Don't buy it for a minute.

Not even close.

Having also served on juries, I can tell you from my own experience that this is simply a case of twelve extremely stupid people who believed that "beyond a reasonable doubt" meant "to a certainty." They aren't the same thing. A reasonable doubt is no more and no less than that: the reasoned doubt of a reasonable person. These jurors are clearly not reasonable human beings.

Jurors are not automatons; they are allowed (and expected) to bring judicial discretion, common sense, and common knowledge to a jury room. This jury brought none of these things.

People are convicted of murder every day on less evidence than this, sometimes without even a body. A number of jurors or alternates have now made the statement that the prosecution never said what she died of. Again, this betrays an incredible ignorance and gullibility. Simply because the defense said in summation that no actual cause of death was ever established, that doesn't make it part of the the prosecution's burden of proof. As a matter of fact, the prosecution did not, and in general does not need to establish the actual cause of death as long as there is a reasonable inference of homicide. There was such an inference. A little girl was not simply alive one day, and suddenly dead without intervening cause on another. She was alive, last seen in the company of a mother who had a clear motive to murder her, and who lied with specificity when questioned concerning her disappearance. Her lies were not harmless but in fact impinged directly on the question of her guilt and the ability of investigators to produce the evidence needed to solve the crime. To sensible people, exercising common sense, this is not the way an innocent person behaves; especially in the disappearance of her child.

In order to believe the defense's theory of the crime, one must accept actions which defy all common sense: When someone murders another human being, they may try to make it look like an accident, but NO ONE takes an accidental death and tries to make it look like a murder. Yet that is what an absolutely incompetent defense expected us the believe, and what twelve abysmally dimwitted jurors accepted as possible.

These are twelve complete morons. No one should make excuses for them. They deserve the complete disapprobation of their countrymen, and all sensible human beings.

If juries KNOW the defendant committed a crime they must have reasons (some sorty of proof in their minds) to KNOW and then CONVICT.
Aggravated Child Abuse in Florida

“
Aggravated Child Abuse can be committed in one of three ways
”— Richard Hornsby
If accused of Aggravated Child Abuse in Florida, you need to know the:
•Definition of Aggravated Child Abuse
•Penalties for Aggravated Child Abuse
•Defenses to Aggravated Child Abuse

Definition of Aggravated Child Abuse

The crime of Aggravated Child Abuse can be committed in one of three ways by either:
1.Committing an aggravated battery on a child;
2.Willfully torturing, maliciously punishing, or willfully and unlawfully caging a child; or
3.Knowingly or willfully abusing a child and in so doing causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement to the child.

A child is defined as any person under the age of 18.

Importantly, there is no requirement that the Aggravated Child Abuse must be committed by a person in a parental or custodial relationship to the victim, thus what might be charged as a Felony Battery if the child was an adult, can instead be charged as Aggravated Child Abuse at the prosecutor’s discretion.1

Penalties for Aggravated Child Abuse

The crime of Aggravated Child Abuse is classified as a Second Degree Felony and is assigned a Level 8 offense severity ranking under Florida’s Criminal Punishment Code.

If convicted of Aggravated Child Abuse, a judge is required to impose a minimum prison sentence of 34½ months in prison and can additionally impose any combination of the following penalties:
•Up to fifteen (15) years in prison.
•Up to fifteen (15) years of probation.
•Up to $10,000 in fines.

From the Medical Examiner’s Report:
________________________________________________________

Conclusion/Opinion: As often is the case with a skeletonized individual, the exact cause of death cannot be determined with certainty. The manner of death is an opinion based on available information, including circumstances surrounding the death, information from the scene, and examination of the skeletal remains.

The circumstances of death are that this toddler child, with no known medical history, was not reported missing to authorities for approximately 30 days. This child’s remains were eventually found in a wooded, overgrown area, discarded with two trash bags and a laundry bag. Although there is no trauma evident on the skeleton, there is duct tape over the lower facial region still attached to head hair. This duct tape was clearly placed prior to decomposition, keeping the mandible in place.

The clustering of vertebrae at the scene separate from the location of the bags and skull indicate animal activity occurring at this location after decomposition started, but before complete disarticulation of the skeleton. This indicates the body was put in this location prior to complete skeletonization. The roots growing into the vertebrae and bags indicate that the body was placed there months prior to being found. There is nothing inconsistent with the body being placed there soon after the date of being last seen alive.

It is, thus, my opinion that, although the cause of death cannot be determined with certainty, the manner of death is homicide.
________________________________________________________

Comments on weaknesses in this examiners conclusion/opinion as far as it’s being used as evidence:

a) Manner of death is described as circumstantial by the conclusion/opinion itself in the first paragraph. People have taken to assuming that the Medical Examiner’s report provided physical evidence of homicide and that all the other evidence in the trial was circumstantial, when, in fact, even the Medical Examiner’s report was circumstantial and the report itself clearly states how it is based on circumstantial evidence in the first paragraph of it’s conclusion/opinion.

b) Also in the first paragraph, it states that the cause of death cannot be determined with certainty, but no possible cause of death is offered anywhere in the report. So saying it cannot be determined with certainty is a misrepresentation which would tend to imply that the cause of death is determined by the report with at least some small amount of certainty. But no cause of death is given in the report - that’s not uncertainty, that’s an unknown. Since no cause of death is offered in this report the conclusion/opinion should simply state that the cause of death cannot be determined in order to be clear to the reader.

c) In the second paragraph, this conclusion/opinion notes that there is no trauma evident on the skeleton. At that age, bones are softer than those of adults and children can often suffer physical trauma without breaking bones. Therefore physical trauma can not be ruled out as a cause of death. For example, a brain injury from a fall is within the realm of possibility, but cannot be supported or ruled out without brain tissue to analyze. However, given that the conclusion/opinion only notes the absence of trauma evident to the skeleton, and does not note that there may have been trauma that is not evident, the conclusion/opinion opens up the possibility that the reader may assume that physical trauma is ruled out as a cause of death. Of course the conclusion/opinion does not rule out ANY cause of death, and, with a careful reading one can see that it technically offers absolutely no cause of death.

d) Also in the second paragraph, the duct tape is noted to have been placed prior to decomposition. One must be careful to note that it does not say that it was placed prior to death. Everyone in this case has argued all along that the duct tape is the murder weapon. But this conclusion/opinion of the Medical Examiner’s report clearly does not go so far as to conclude or speculate that the duct tape was the murder weapon - it only states that it is clear the duct tape was placed prior to decomposition.

e) Referring back to point b), the second paragraph provides an opportunity for the reader to incorrectly infer that suffocation due to the duct tape being placed over the nose and mouth is the cause of death, if they don’t clearly separate the difference between what the paragraph says, “prior to decomposition” and “prior to death”, which the paragraph does not say.

f) In the third paragraph, there is no assertion that the body was placed in the wooded area soon after being last seen alive; it says that there was no evidence inconsistent with that. The third paragraph does state that the body was placed there “months” prior to being found. These statements allow for placement in the woods any time between the second half of June and early October.

General comments:

This report was followed shortly by a homicide charge, as it’s manner of death determination of homicide provided the basis for that charge.

If this report did not offer as it’s conclusion/opinion that the manner of death was homicide, there would be no basis for a murder charge.

The combination of points b) and e) is where this conclusion/opinion is obviously designed to provide a manner of death of homicide based on a cause of death that is implied even though no explicit cause of death is given. Such subtley calls into question the integrity of the Medical Examiner’s office. A few years ago there were very prominent stories circulating in the media about M.E. offices that would give in to pressure from prosecutors to be less than forthright in their investigations in order to get arrests or convictions. One in NY, IIRC, was actually completely shut down.

Medical Examiner’s reports should never imply anything, but should state facts explicitly. M.E.’s must never base their reports on what a prosecuter desires. When an M.E.’s office starts going down this road it sometimes results in wrongful convictions and other times results in charges filed that ultimately become extremely difficult to get a conviction on, thereby wasting millions of dollars.

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