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Anyone following the Casey Anthony trial

AlBell said:
The location of the tape as shown by crime scene photos didn't convince the jury the prosecution knew what is was talking about. The heart shaped sticker was seen by one (1) person who testified the image "disappeared" before she could take a picture of it.
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This is phrased in a way which would endear you to any defense attorney. All true, but still manages to mischaracterize the events by insinuation, if nothing else.

When Caylee's remains were discovered they were transported to the Orange County medical examiner while the search for evidence at the site continued. (A process which lasted nearly two weeks.) Many items found were immediately sent to the FBI labs in Quantico for analysis which the county was not equipped to provide. The tape found on the remains was among these items.

A number of procedures were employed to determine as much as could be learned about the tape itself. Three pieces, five to eight inches long, which the FBI received as one overlapped chunk and separated after they received it. (This was when I learned that the FBI is perhaps the world's foremost authority on duct tape, complete with databases of weaves and materials. Which in retrospect makes a certain amount of sense, if somewhat gruesome.)

One of the last labs to get the pieces of tape was the latent prints lab, which is where an FBI technician noted the outline of residue which was in her words clearly in the shape of a small heart. This residue did not survive the procedures used to try to reveal any latent fingerprints, but was still reported by her, as it should have been.

It isn't clear even now what probative value this observation might have had for the case, and there is no reason to think it would have been more clear at that time. I suspect that there were priorities involved.

All of this transpired within the first few days following the discovery of the remains. Perhaps the technician could have been more diligent. Perhaps a photo may have been able to be taken which would reliably duplicate what she saw. Perhaps not. The human eye can register things with lighting aids and under close inspection which are not always simple to take pictures of. But it might be that efforts to uncover a fingerprint were considered to be more pressing and more useful. Perhaps she expected that the residue would survive the procedures used to try and lift prints, or even to have been accentuated by them.

We are, after all, talking about duct tape which had been lying on the ground in a Florida wetlands for half a year.

I'm not in a position to criticize their lab procedure with no more data than I have. I'm not sure that very many other people are, either. There is a certain flavor of Monday morning quarterbacking to such an exercise.
 
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You certainly presented (a) prosecution case. Might even be true; I don't recall that being demonstrated at trial, admitting I didn't watch all of it.

Given that, the basic result was 'no tangible evidence'.
 
There most likely was a heart shaped sticker on the duct tape. However, it should have been photographed. I cannot fathom why this was not done. The lady who did the latent print analysis should have done that. Maybe it wasn't FBI policy. I don't know.

But, either way, the heart shaped sticker would most likely not convicted her anyway.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
That sly little Caylee, duct taped her own mouth and slapped that heart sticker on it ...It's quite obvious we are dealing with suicide here... :rolleyes:

When are people going to stop apologizing for the insidious behavior of this woman in spite of the precautionary aspects of the US justice system ...
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I certainly haven't been apologizing for her behavior, I just list the EVIDENCE which was inconclusive as to whether it was Casey covering up a murder or covering up an accident. Seems this case is clear cut to you, which is your right, but after watching the trial and being able to sit there and say "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED", to come to your conclusion you would be speculating your arse off. That's the point that you seem to miss, that this could have been an accident just as easily as it could have been murder.
 
AlBell said:
You certainly presented (a) prosecution case. Might even be true; I don't recall that being demonstrated at trial, admitting I didn't watch all of it.
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I wasn't presenting a case at all. I was describing what happened. I'm not trying to imply any significance to it, one way or the other.

The lab descriptions concerning the tape, including the way they were handled and the procedures used were part of the FBI reports which became public when released for discovery in early '09. You can read them yourself, if you like. It isn't secret stuff.

What was presented at the trial, and the way it was presented is an entirely different story. I have issues with the way the SA pursued this case. Those issues began back in April of '09 when they announced they were seeking the DP. I wasn't too sure about the wisdom of charging her with murder in the first place, before the remains were even discovered, but at that time I could only believe there was evidence which was not public yet.

Given that, the basic result was 'no tangible evidence'.
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I have no problem with the verdict which the jury returned, given the case as it was presented to them.

In an unusual turn of events compared to most trials, anyone who was at all interested could easily make themselves far better informed about the facts of this case than any jury could ever hope to be.

And no, I'm not talking about the TV coverage.

Tens of thousands of pages of discovery evidence were released over the three years prior to this trial, and were easily available on multiple websites all over the internet. This includes but is not limited to every single technical report from every forensic expert, complete transcripts of all interviews and depositions ... with video, all of the investigators' reports, and even Casey's visits with her family while she was in jail.

At a certain point even the discovery data started to become repetitious. Knowledge of a fraction of it would pretty much disqualify someone for duty on that jury, regardless of their opinion concerning Casey's guilt or innocence.

I read every word of about the first half of it. 'Til they started reissuing the same stuff in new and different report formats. Then I was a bit more selective about the rest. This doesn't make me an authority by any means, but my opinion is informed by more than the trial coverage. Or the media hype, which I have found deplorable since this case first broke.

I think the jury could have reasonably arrived at a guilty verdict on a lesser included offense based on the evidence as presented to them, but I can also understand why they didn't. I can't put myself in their place. I can't erase the knowledge that I have.
 
AlBell said:
Lacking other evidence, I'll go with pareidolia.
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It isn't clear to me what evidence you have that the FBI technician was no more competent than that. I think that an inclination toward pareidolia would be something of an impediment to a career as a fingerprint specialist.

Why should the first assumption be that she was imagining things?
 
Nancy Grace is at it again in a way that any 9/11 truther would be proud. Distortion of facts and quotes is their forte and her's as well. Nancy taking the latest USA Today poll which asked the question, "Do you think Casey Anthony definitely or probably murdered her child?" 64% answered yes.

Nancy like the screeching witch that she is screams, "2/3's of the nation say Tot Mom is guilty of murder!"

Now USA Today/Gallop asked a pretty broad question when they gave two options, "definitely and probably" which is weak in itself, but I will give them credit because they also asked, "Do you think Casey Anthony DEFINITELY murdered her daughter?" Guess where the numbers ended up....

27% of women said yes
11% of men said yes

Now, I don't hear Nancy screaming "19% of the nation think Tot Mom murdered her daughter!" Does anyone in their right mind send someone to death row because they "probably" think Casey did it. I think not. Shoot, I probably think she did it too, but I'm not sending someone to their death because I think probably they did it.

USA Today/Gallop is guilty of distorting the numbers as well and giving media scumbags like Nancy Grace more ammunition to fuel her hate filled flames. USA Today should have just done two seperate polls, one that said "definitely" and one that said "probably" and not combined the two.

To top it off Nancy continued her assault on the jury, taking out of context the quotes from the jury members, personal attacks and questioning their integrity, questioning their educational backround, questioning their motives for finding a not guilty so they could "cash-in" on the verdict, mentioning one woman who had a cruise scheduled for July 7th so she was in a hurry to get the verdict in, and many more. CNN needs to do something about this woman. Even several of her colleagues on CNN are critcal of her, but CNN managment only seems to see the dollar signs and seems less concerned about their journalistic integrity. One can only hope this jury bashing will bite her in arse at some point and CNN pulls the plug.
 
quadraginta said:
It isn't clear to me what evidence you have that the FBI technician was no more competent than that. I think that an inclination toward pareidolia would be something of an impediment to a career as a fingerprint specialist.
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Sfaik, all humans have an inclination toward pareidolia and it's something we do quite well.

Why should the first assumption be that she was imagining things?
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Because the testimony as I understand it indicated she was trying to phtograph the image at the time she first saw it, and by the time she got a camera it was gone.

Perhaps I mis-understood, and further attempts at analysis destroyed it; I'd call that an error.
 
AlBell said:
Sfaik, all humans have an inclination toward pareidolia and it's something we do quite well.
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Some more than others. I, for one, never seem to see Jesus' face on a piece of toast (or anything else) until it is pointed out to me, and not always then.

Certainly the human brain is wired to seek out and match patterns to known quantities, but that doesn't mean that everyone determines that such patterns are meaningful to the same degree. I would hope that someone whose profession involves meaningful pattern matching would be less prone to making objective assertions based on fanciful conjecture.

Maybe I expect too much.

Because the testimony as I understand it indicated she was trying to phtograph the image at the time she first saw it, and by the time she got a camera it was gone.

Perhaps I mis-understood, and further attempts at analysis destroyed it; I'd call that an error.
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Perhaps it was. If there is a rush to find fault I can understand the urge to describe it that way. Perhaps the explanation is more mundane, and there is no need to assign blame. Unlike CSI episodes, real life doesn't always work out perfectly for the plot to wrap up at the end of the hour.

I still think it's Monday morning quarterbacking.
 
halides1 said:
Radley Balko has an interesting essay on "Caylee's law." He decries laws passed in the heat of the moment.
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I read this article last night, and I agree that passing new laws in the heat of the moment is bad, we often end up with, well, some very bad laws. Plus a lot of these laws that are driven through the system aren't well thought out, and can have disastrous effects in the long run.
 
And now for the ultimate interview - Bill O'Reilly interviews Nancy Grace:

Interview

Scroll down a little for the video of the interview
 
Mikey T said:
Nancy Grace is at it again in a way that any 9/11 truther would be proud. Distortion of facts and quotes is their forte and her's as well. Nancy taking the latest USA Today poll which asked the question, "Do you think Casey Anthony definitely or probably murdered her child?" 64% answered yes.

[snip]

One can only hope this jury bashing will bite her in arse at some point and CNN pulls the plug.
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I would pay big bucks to see Nancy Grace slowly devoured alive by hogs, from the feet up.

I would video tape the whole thing and watch it late at night from time to time with quiet tears of joy rolling down my cheeks.

I admit that I may be over reacting a scosh.
 
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chloroform

I have one concern about the finding of chloroform. It is about as volatile (easily vaporized) as methanol, having a boiling point of about 64 °C. If the trunk had a good deal of air flow, I wonder whether or not the chloroform would hang around between the time of death and the time of testing. If the trunk is tightly sealed, that is another matter. An empirical check would seem like the way to go. I will probably lurk here a while longer, but I don't plan on posting more.
 
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