I actually (sadly) saw all of this coming. My legal training gave me no doubt shed be found not guilty on all the major charges. She probably did kill the poor girl and her parents likely helped cover it up. But the prosecution gave an awful case- little proof and every witness (Except her brother who wasn’t fully helpful anyways) was impeached. The defense wasn’t all that great but the burden ultimately lies on the prosecution and the state came nowhere close to showing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Agreed. I haven’t kept up with this case that closely, but I was on a jury a few years back in a similar situation for a much less serious crime. It was what looked like an open-and-shut cocaine possession with intent to distribute case, when police, searching the apartment of a drug dealer under investigation, found a few grams of crack in his roommate’s dresser. Seems pretty straightforward, right?
Remember that this is Durham County, North Carolina—the home of Mike Nifong. The authorities took a simple case and screwed it into the ground. The FBI was involved as part of one of those drug task forces that are the rage nowadays, and we were stunned when the FBI agent, on the stand, maintained that “we don’t record interrogations”...so there was no record of the confession from the roommate. The printed FBI form which contained a *paraphrase* of his confession, not a literal recording, was never entered into evidence (thrown out pre-trial, I assume). The defense attorney made the FBI agent look like a fool, and made a credible case that the confession was coerced under threat of sending the roomie up on Federal distribution charges—meaning 20 years in the Federal pen—to try to get to his drug-dealing friend who was the original target of the investigation.
Did the guy have drugs in his dresser? Maybe. Did the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had them in there with intent to sell them? Not even close, despite a confession. It took us two hours to acquit the guy. When the verdict came back, the DA just got this look on his face like “dammit, I had a feeling this was gonna go wrong.”
“Reasonable doubt” is the kicker. If a prosecutor can’t meet that, they don’t deserve to win the case, no matter how much of a scumbag the defendant may or may not be.
}:-)4
Do you think that not one juror was concerned about the duct tape over Caylee's mouth and nose?
I have no legal training but could not think of an innocent reason for that.