I wold have thought it was impossibly to find a jury stupider than the OK jury
but i was wrong
dammit... I meant the OJ jury
I hear ya.
I saw an interview w/ atty Baez and he said the jury, even if they had the tiniest bit of doubt, had to vote to acquit; the prosecutor did not have the specifics of *how* the baby was killed;
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/09/opinion/la-oe-shapiro-caylee-anthony-20110709
First, prosecutors overcharged the case. What they knew is that Caylee’s mother didn’t report the child missing for a month, and that when she did, she told lies. By the time the body was found, it was too badly decomposed to provide clear evidence of the cause of death. Yet prosecutors chose to bring a charge of first-degree murder and ask for the death penalty. Why did they take this route? They tried to gain a tactical advantage, and it backfired.
By making this a death penalty case, prosecutors knew they were far more likely to end up with jurors predisposed to favoring the prosecution. Potential jurors in a capital case must, under oath, state that they don’t oppose the death penalty and that they could impose it if the case warranted it. What the prosecution failed to take into account was that in death penalty cases, jurors, perhaps unconsciously, require a higher standard of proof. This is just common sense when such an irrevocable punishment is involved.
Our constitutionally-based criminal justice system places a high value on protecting the innocent. Among its central tenets is the idea that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to convict someone without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Had the case been properly charged, there could have been plea discussions and the possibility of a guilty plea to a lesser, but still serious, felony. By charging a capital murder, the chances of a plea were nonexistent.
Next, the prosecution overtried the case. Criminal cases require strategy, and prosecutors should attempt to prove only what can be proved. In this case, prosecutors wanted to dot every “i” and cross every “t,” which led them to introduce questionable science that served to weaken their case. For example, they claimed that an air sample taken from Anthony’s car showed evidence that a decomposing body had been in the trunk, a claim based on a largely unproven kind of testing never before allowed in a U.S. trial. The prosecution’s desire to answer every question in the end gave the defense ammunition to poke holes in the forensic aspects of the case.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/09/opinion/la-oe-shapiro-caylee-anthony-20110709
The sad thing is that, the crazy nutcase, is wandering around scott free and able to reproduce again. Frightening.