You’re missing the point. In our criminal justice system people are innocent until proven guilty. The defense need not prove anything. It need merely throw doubt on the evidence presented by the prosecution. Here the evidence presented by the prosecution was scant- some circumstantial evidence but hardly enough by itself to support conviction and a group of impeached witnesses and one non-impeached (her brother) who was not wholly helpful to the jury. Did she lie? Yes. Did she probably kill her kid? Yes. Were her lies so she could probably cover it up? Yes. But did the prosecution successfully show beyond a reasonable doubt that she killed her daughter and then used her lies to cover up the fact she was the murderer instead of some ulterior purpose (e.g. to avoid criminal action even though she didn’t do anything)? No. The jury found not enough to support that.
You can be sure I didn’t miss the point. There was no reasonable doubt. The defense presented a dog and pony show. They diverted which is what they do every bit of attention that pointed the finger at their client. All that was missing was the defense wearing clown suits. As I have pointed out, juries judge mostly by emotion. This trial was more about how Jose and Casey were the true victims. The jury chose not to see anything but the dog and pony show and they never once asked for any evidence of what Jose was parading.
One of the worst cases I have ever seen was a truth in lending. A young man and his parents who co signed were sued by a bank for none payment of a loan. The parents counter sued by saying the contract was not clear. The contract was clear. You signed to borrow money and were expected to repay that money. The defense made it sound like the parents were victims which they were not. Most of the jurors voted with their hearts and not that heads because the mean old bank was asking they repay the loan which is quite reasonable while the parents had a little dick of a son who didn’t pay the loan and they got stuck with it. A contract is a contract.
Btw, one of the best cases I have ever seen where justice was done was the trial of George W. Bush becoming President. His attorneys won because they actually tried the case by law while the opposite side was inserting everything but the kitchen sink. Thank heavens common sense prevailed there.