They aren’t lacking a precise sequence, they’re lacking any sequence. They don’t know what was done to kill the kid at all, and they don’t know when it happened at all, and they can’t put anybody’s hands on the unknown action that killed the kid. To get a murder conviction the prosecution needs to be able to say “person X did action Y at around time T which lead to the death of the victim”. There’s no misunderstanding from the jury, when the best you’ve got is “person X did something we’re not sure about in a time frame we’re completely unclear on” you’re not going to get a murder conviction.
It DOES matter how she did it. Because if you can’t say how she did it you can’t say beyond a reasonable doubt THAT she did it.
Reasonable doubt doesn’t require the defense to have a good explanation, it just needs the prosecution to not have a good explanation. And the prosecution has NO explanation. They tried to convict on guy instinct, and while I agree with that guy instinct that ain’t evidence.
Not true, but you are still missing the point. There does not have to be a scientific test showing a connection between Casey and the cause of death to get a conviction.
"To get a murder conviction the prosecution needs to be able to say “person X did action Y at around time T which lead to the death of the victim”."
No, they don't. The prosecution needs to present sufficient evidence to show that person X caused the death. That evidence *does not have to be forensics*.
"It DOES matter how she did it. Because if you can’t say how she did it you can’t say beyond a reasonable doubt THAT she did it."
As I've been saying, that is simply wrong. But it is the same error that I believe the jury made and resulted in their verdict. It is what the defense told them.
How she did it is not a required element. You can be sure she did it without knowing the precise method if all the other evidence says she must have done it.
"Reasonable doubt doesn’t require the defense to have a good explanation, it just needs the prosecution to not have a good explanation."
I never said the defense had to provide one. But there does have to be room for one. If there's no other reasonable explanation then there's no reasonable doubt.
"They tried to convict on guy instinct, and while I agree with that guy instinct that ain’t evidence."
No, they tried to convict on the evidence, but the jury didn't understand that all that evidence counted and it was their job to make reasonable inferences from it. They thought it should work like it does on CSI.