I spoke to a buddy of mine last night about it. I'm both happy for the judicial system but ashamed ethically of the outcome here.

I do not pretend that Casey should have been convicted based on evidence, but I'm still outraged that she could so clearly have been involved with foul play involving a 2 year old victim, and nothing could be pinned on her. Here's hoping that women's prisons are equally difficult on child abusers as the men's. I would love nothing more then to read Jeffrey Dahmer justice had been administered.

I heard an interview with one of the alternate jurors.  He wasn't part of the deliberations, but said if he had been, he'd have voted for acquittal.  He said the two main factors for him were the state's inability to prove how the girl died and the fact that the father seemed dishonest.

One thing that I haven't heard anyone discuss is the extent to which television skews the expectations of prospective jurors.  With all of the crime shows on television--especially shows about forensic evidence, it makes you wonder if jurors have unrealistic expectations about what forensics can and cannot do.  If the people on CSI can tell me every week within an hour how a crime occurred, why couldn't the prosecution in this case after 3 years.  I have no idea if that plays any role, but it wouldn't shock me if it does--at least with some people.

forsberg_us wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

"If one of my kids ever come home from school and ask me what a "cunt" is I am going to turn on Nancy Grace and show them."

All I have to do is point.

Mother-in-law visiting?

If one of the definitions of visiting is "hovering like a dark thunder cloud ready to explode at any random second," then yeah. Constantly.

forsberg_us wrote:

I can't answer for the standard used in Florida, but several states and the federal system have rejected the Frye test.

According to the Frye standard, scientific/expert evidence is only admissible where the methodology is generally accepted as relevant in the relevant scientific community.

In the federal courts, the Frye standard was superceded by the Daubert standard.  Under Daubert, the scientific/expert evidence is admissible if it is the product of sound scientific methodolgy.

The main difference between the two tests is that Daubert allows the "minority opinion" to be admissible, provided it was derived by the scientific method.  The science need not have gone through things like peer review or other types of scrutiny.  So long as one expert can explain the science behind the conclusions he/she reaches, the testimony is admissible.  What weight it is given is up to the jury.  Under Frye, only the generally accepted theory is admissible.  The main problem with Frye is that the scientific community may not have accepted a theory that ultimately proves correct.  Under Frye, an otherwise correct methodolgy may be inadmissible.

My guess is that Florida applies Daubert or something along the same lines.

I guess since Illinois is a Frye State ( or I think it is) I didnt know another standard existed.  Here is what I found on FL.

Here is what I found on FL.  It is a Frye state, kind of.

"Florida [is] a “Frye state.��  The Florida Supreme Court has considered Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993), found it wanting, and reaffirmed Florida's reliance on the Frye standard Brim v. State, 695 So.2d 268, 271 (Fla. 1997) (holding that “despite the federal adoption of a more lenient standard in Daubert . . . we have maintained the higher standard of reliability as dictated by Frye�� ).

    Two things are interesting about the Brim decision. The first is that it is far from clear that Daubert is a more lenient standard for admissibility of expert testimony than the Frye standard. If anything, there seems to be at least anecdotal evidence that Daubert, in practice, sets a stricter standard than the Frye standard that it displaced in so many jurisdictions.

    The second thing that is interesting about this decision is that, having rejected Daubert, Florida courts are applying Frye in ways that make Florida's Frye standard look very much like the federal Daubert standard. In particular, the Florida courts have applied all of Daubert's well-known “four factors��  to decisions on admissibility of expert testimony and in doing so, the Florida state courts appear to be applying the same strict attention to the scientific and statistical bases of the expert testimony before them as the federal courts apply"

The issue I see with letting the jury decide if it is valid is because of what happend in this case.  The State presented its experts and the Defense presented theirs.  It drug on for a couple days and in the end it was just a bunch of science that was over the jury's head.  Instead of proving the state wrong all the defense has to do is confuse them.  People will naturally dismiss something that confuses them.  If it passes a Frye Test then it becomes like DNA.  People still dont understand it but they accept it because it is widely accepted.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"The public wanted someone to hang because of the death of a 2 year old and that is what the media played to.  Not the facts of what when on day to day in the trial."

Which is precisely why we have court rooms. While I was eating lunch, the local news station broke in live to cover the verdict (pre-empting the foxy weather report, BTW), and when it was announced a woman at the next table exclaimed "That bitch just got away with murder!"
I haven't followed one bit of this trial except for what I've read here, but my reaction to her comment was: "Now whom should I trust? Twelve people who heard every bit of evidence, or the woman with a tomato sauce stain on her rayon dress and mozzerrella cheese dangling off her chin from her chicken parm sub who got her information from Nancy Grace?"

If one of my kids ever come home from school and ask me what a "cunt" is I am going to turn on Nancy Grace and show them.

APRTW wrote:

Fors I have a question that maybe you can help with.  I thought for scientific to be introduced as evidence it had to pass a frye test.  How did science that is as untested as the decomp band on the hair and air evidence ge into court?  The prosecution based there whole case around evidence that has never been able to be proven.

I can't answer for the standard used in Florida, but several states and the federal system have rejected the Frye test.

According to the Frye standard, scientific/expert evidence is only admissible where the methodology is generally accepted as relevant in the relevant scientific community.

In the federal courts, the Frye standard was superceded by the Daubert standard.  Under Daubert, the scientific/expert evidence is admissible if it is the product of sound scientific methodolgy.

The main difference between the two tests is that Daubert allows the "minority opinion" to be admissible, provided it was derived by the scientific method.  The science need not have gone through things like peer review or other types of scrutiny.  So long as one expert can explain the science behind the conclusions he/she reaches, the testimony is admissible.  What weight it is given is up to the jury.  Under Frye, only the generally accepted theory is admissible.  The main problem with Frye is that the scientific community may not have accepted a theory that ultimately proves correct.  Under Frye, an otherwise correct methodolgy may be inadmissible.

My guess is that Florida applies Daubert or something along the same lines.

I did not watch a lot of the courtroom work, but will defer to the more educated opinions in here. I mourn the verdict, but am not throwing blame at the jurors. I don't know (legally) how you can translate lying to murder with nothing for evidence that proves someone specifically committed the crime. I just know that there's a 1st grade class next year about to be short one little girl, and the mother of that child didn't seem the least bit sorry to have lost her. She didn't have the decency to even give her a burial. No headstone, not even a wooden cross. Nothing of semblance marking any type of loss, mourning or love. While this is not evidence that can be used to convict someone of murder, this speaks volumes to me as a parent. Nobody who is innocent does what she did. An innocent OJ Simpson doesn't load up in that Bronco with a gun in his mouth.... An innocent mother who loses a child in a swimming pool doesn't chuck her in the woods.

I would have hoped that that some type of child neglect, endangerment, unauthorized handling and disposal of human remains, charges could have been presented, as well as possible conspiracy charges where applicable that would have caught her on the backside of all the lies in the event that you couldn't put her to death, but apparently these charges were not included. I'm not certain if they can be attempted after the fact. I would assume that dumping a body or conspiring to dump a body in the woods is a crime, no?