I think I have a pretty good idea about why the Casey Anthony verdict came back so quickly as not guilty.
About a month ago, I spent six days on a jury where a father was accused of sexually abusing his daughter for 10 years. In our case, the trial lasted for three days, and we deliberated for three days. If not for one jury member, we would have wrapped it up in a few hours.
For three days, we sat in a 15 x 10 foot room from 9am to 5pm, going over every piece of the evidence, re-reading our notes, and offering our thoughts.
Out of the gate, we introduced ourselves, then we picked a foreman in a few minutes by asking who was interested in doing it.
Right out of the gate, we took a straw poll, and found that about 9 of the 12 of us felt that the state didn’t prove its case. Most of us felt that there was no physical evidence, not witnesses, and the girl making the accusations changed her story in significant ways. The only people that came forward for the prosecution didn’t corroborate her story.
We would take turns going around the table telling each other why we felt the way we did. By the end of the first day of deliberating, two of the three who thought the man was guilty realized that there wasn’t enough to be sure he was guilty—circumstantial evidence and enough doubt that they couldn’t convict him.
One member of the jury held out, he thought that some evidence (some recorded voicemails from the father) were so unusual that he was sure the man was guilty. As members of the jury, each of us took turns offering our reasoning, trying to show him why we felt the state just didn’t prove its case.
We felt like the evidence showed that the father was controlling, and that the family clearly had a culture different than ours, but that the young woman lied enough times, and that she was likely exaggerating her story in an attempt to make her father angry. And it was likely that her family (who didn’t like the father) prompted her to embellish the truth in order to get the father removed from the home. She clearly stated that she was abused at least 2-3 time every week from the time she was 11. They lived in a small trailer, she shared a room with a sibling, and often had extended family living with them.
And yet not one person would confirm that they saw anything going on. A nurse testified that she heard the story from the 21 year old girl, but they didn’t do any kind of medical exam. The police didn’t present any evidence. They showed us pictures of a car that an alleged event took place, but the pictures were from the internet, and were of the wrong model with a different configuration. Notes from the dad and voicemails only proved that the father missed his daughter when she left home, and that they were very close.
A couple of us on the jury had specific experience where we knew people who made up allegations—even allegations of sexual abuse—that just weren’t true. One small lie became a bigger lie, and when someone believed the story, the story grew. Sympathy to someone who is hurt or angry can be a strong emotion, and it’s easy to say things to help people explain how hurt a person feels, even if it’s a lie. Viewing the evidence in this light cast a lot of doubt, especially given the complete lack of any evidence, other than the girl’s testimony.
It’s sad that if the father did anything inappropriate, or harmed his children, that he wasn’t punished. But in this case, the rules of law were very clear, and we just didn’t have evidence, or even a clear enough picture of what really happened to be sure he did what he was accused of.
For example, one of the five charges was Child Molestation Second Degree. In our state, to be guilty the person had to have had done very specific acts to someone who is twelve or thirteen years old. The evidence we got was flimsy, other than the girl telling the prosecutor (and us on the stand) that she was 13. We debated whether it could have happened when she was 14, but the timeline was so vague that we just couldn’t be sure. Following that kind of logic, we also couldn’t be sure that a specific act brought up in testimony happened when she was 14 or 15, and so on.
By the end of the third day, even the lone holdout was convinced that the state did a poor job presenting and proving its case, and while he thought the man was guilty, he had doubts to the extent, and he believed (like the rest of it) that the girl was making up at least some of the allegations.
A few other things colored our opinion, though I think we would have come to the same conclusion anyway.
First, the prosecutor was looking out the window of the courtroom continually as the defense did her closing arguments. Some came away thinking that he knew he did a poor job, and that he was resigned that he didn’t make his case.
At another point in the trial, the prosecutor attacked one of the witnesses for the plaintiff, the girl’s brother with whom she shared a room. He stated that he never saw the father come in the room (especially 2-3 times a week). He then stated that he saw his father standing in the doorway a few times. When he was pressured, he said he once woke up and saw his father sitting on the edge of the girl’s bed. It made me angry that the lawyer accused the boy of lying, until the boy said what the prosecutor wanted him to say. And even then, it’s not unusual for a father to sit on the edge of his young daughter’s bed.
So, just like today’s acquittal of Casey Anthony, even though the evidence may point to guilt, when you look at the rules of the court, the fact that the jury had to make their entire decision based on the law, and the evidence presented, I definitely can understand why they could come back with a “not guilty” verdict.
