Casey Anthony jury selection under way in Clearwater

TBO.com ^ | May 09, 2011 | N/A

[TheDingoAteMyBaby]

CLEARWATER -- Prosecutors have turned to Pinellas County to find a jury for the trial of Casey Anthony, the suburban Orlando mother charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

Court officials in Orange County decided to move jury selection because of the extensive publicity surrounding the case since Caylee disappeared in June 2008.

Attorneys for the defense and prosecution will try to find 12 jurors and eight alternates to hear the evidence.

Orange County Circuit Judge Belvin Perry Jr., denied a motion by Anthony's attorney Jose Baez this morning to continue the trial.

Anthony told the judge this morning she was not interested in a plea deal.

The first group of 110 prospective jurors was brought into the courtroom about 10 a.m.

Anthony stood to face them as they entered the courtroom, occasionally whispering to her attorneys.

A veritable cross section of Pinellas County's population, some of the prospective jurors wore flip-flops, some dressed professionally and some had jeans with holes in them.

On Saturday, Perry issued an order denying another defense motion, to suppress an expert witness opinion about the source of a smell found in the trunk of Anthony's car.

Forensic testing found traces of chloroform, which can be used to induce unconsciousness and also is a component of human decomposition, in the trunk. In a 911 call, Cindy Anthony, Casey's mother, described the vehicle as smelling "like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

The defense tried to quash the opinion of a scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory who tested a sample of the carpet from the trunk about whether any smell came from a decomposing human body.

[Sacajaweau]

3 years later. Man, is our system screwed up.

[laweeks]

It’s a shame that they can’t just take jurors’ names out of a “Jury Duty” list and impanel them. To go through all this nonsense is ridiculous. Can you possibly be so damn guilty that you can never go on trial?

[TheDingoAteMyBaby]

Good luck finding potential jurors who haven’t read or heard anything about this case (like Casey’s multiple lies) that would influence their judgment.

[PogySailor]

Jurors picked for the trial case will be sequestered in an Orlando hotel for the length of the trial at an estimated total cost of $300,000.

Perry will ask the jurors how spending up to eight weeks away from home will affect their lives even before attorneys get into the core of questioning jurors.

Good grief!

[faucetman]

This won't be popular, but to keep someone in jail for all this time is unconstitutional. They have no case. They have been waiting, trying to manufacture one. I don't know if she is guilty or not, BUT it has to be PROVED in a court of law not the court of public opinion. Trying people in the media and denying them a speedy trial is justice denied. If PROVED guilty, she deserves whatever she gets, but from what I have seen in the press, they just don't get there. Suspicious circumstances? Sure. PROVING murder? I doubt it.

Our system is set up to try to protect innocent people from being wrongly convicted, even if it means that sometimes guilty people have to go free. This is how it should be. Should she go free, her life is ruined. Where can she live? Where can she work? She has a life sentence already. God will decide her real fate and punishment in any case.

This trial will be a circus. I just hope justice prevails, not vigilante justice.

[Red Badger]

Caylee Ping.................

[Red Badger]

This won't be popular, but to keep someone in jail for all this time is unconstitutional.

IIRC, one of the first things defense attorneys do is waive their clients' right to a speedy trial..............

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

When they were impaneling the jury in the Sacco & Vanzetti Case, even before the trial had become a cause célèbre of the left, they went through the jury panel without seating a jury. The sheriff's deputy "arrested" everyone at a Masonic Lodge and dragged them in for jury duty. (Under Massachusetts Law, a judge can order the sheriff to press passers-by on the highways and byways into the jury pool. A (nitwit) judge actually did this about 15 years ago in Framingham. I don't mind jury duty, but normally you have months to plan for it. ) That became one of the basis of one of their numerous appeals, the defense charging that Masons could be expected to have a nativist bias.

Normally, when I serve on jury duty the defense, as a matter of course, uses their peremptory challenges to eliminate the most educated jurors, so I'm safe unless I get called after they've used them up.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

"This won't be popular, but to keep someone in jail for all this time is unconstitutional. They have no case. They have been waiting, trying to manufacture one."

From what I've heard and read, they have a great case. There is no need to manufacture anything. Casey's team had delayed as much as the judge would allow, thus she has been held. They tried to delay again today.

[dfwgator]

They should just fire up Old Sparky and get it over with.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Seriously, have you not paid any attention to this case? The information already reported on claims they found the duct tape and exact plastic bags the poor child was found wrapped in under the sink at Casey's house. There is NO explanation for her not telling anyone the child was missing for a month. Prior to that, she was claiming to be working and had the child with a babysitter - however, there was NO money to pay a babysitter because she didn't have a job at the time. She had no one she could point to who was taking care of the baby while she was supposedly working - where was this child all that time? She was getting up from the boyfriends bed, dressing for work, claiming also to be a college student or a graduate, depending on who she was lying to at the moment. No sitter, no money, no way to pay anyone, child not with her or her parents - she had been abusing that baby for months, possibly years before the child went missing. Proof? Prior abuse, missing child while she parties, car trunk smells like a dead body, she has googled how to make or obtain chloroform, chloroform traces found in trunk, child found wrapped in items found in her home.

How much more proof do you need?

[wideawake]

to keep someone in jail for all this time is unconstitutional

Not really.

Especially since her defense team quit/was forced out and new counsel had to be seated.

Should she go free, her life is ruined. Where can she live? Where can she work? She has a life sentence already.

If she is willing to kill her own flesh and blood for her advantage, what will she do when she is out again? Play nice?

God will decide her real fate and punishment in any case.

That applies to everyone without exception. So, why have a justice system at all?

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I would think that impaneling folks who knew each other would not be a good idea either, since they could easily sway a friend to their side of the case. That is very strange

[70th Division]

Now if she was a male she would be dead in a year after the trial (prisoner justice) i wonder if that is true for females?

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Our system is set up to try to protect innocent people from being wrongly convicted, even if it means that sometimes guilty people have to go free. This is how it should be. Should she go free, her life is ruined. Where can she live? Where can she work? She has a life sentence already. God will decide her real fate and punishment in any case.

Is this your opinion on all criminals? Should bin Laden have been allowed to walk free and wait for God to judge him? How about child molesters? Do you want Mumia released? He's been in jail a long time - should we let him out? Manson? Casey shows the signs of being a sociopath - lies to anyone about anything for her own gain. Who in their right mind would lead police detectives to the Disney grounds, down a hallway to her "supposed" office when she didn't even work there? Can you even imagine someone doing this? She literally directed them to drive to her building and walked down a hallway before finally admitting she no longer worked there. Why? What possible outcome did she expect? She wasted time, lied, then threw temper tantrums when her lying wasn't getting her the usual result of getting her parents/others to back off and let her do what she wanted.

[GOYAKLA]

Thanks !
This is about JUSTICE for Caylee.
It’s not about the trashy Anthony clan or Jose Baez, it’s about a sweet and beautiful 2 year old girl that was deprived of her life.
May Caylee rest in peace!
May Casey face the real Judge, soon.

[youngidiot]

This skank makes me sick. So what if people have heard about what happened? Is it not relevant? Is there some dispute to the fact that the baby was gone for a month before she was called on it? That the mother said the car smelled like a dead body? That they found things on the child's body that matched things in the whore's home?

This is absurd. She's been in there for 3 years. She should have been tried, and if found guilty, executed by now.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I've been summoned for jury duty before, but never chosen so I am just going by what I hear on tv, but don't the jurors swear they will listen to the information presented and base their findings on that alone? If they can be trusted to swear to that, why would they want someone who hasn't ever heard of this case before? I would think you'd have to be some slug who never watches the news to have not heard of this case....

I'm glad we will finally have a trial, but seeing her lying smug face on there every day is going to be tough.

[youngidiot]

I've been summoned for jury duty before, but never chosen so I am just going by what I hear on tv, but don't the jurors swear they will listen to the information presented and base their findings on that alone? If they can be trusted to swear to that, why would they want someone who hasn't ever heard of this case before? I would think you'd have to be some slug who never watches the news to have not heard of this case....

I'm glad we will finally have a trial, but seeing her lying smug face on there every day is going to be tough.

I don't know. I think our justice system is preposterous. Judges deciding that evidence can't be seen because of this or that, judges overturning sentences that juries impose, etc. And these unreasonable demands that everyone on the jury be completely ignorant of what took place - that's crazy. If someone murders someone else in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses, they'd demand that nobody who saw the murder could be on the jury because they'd be "biased". F**king idiotic.