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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Not guilty!!!
Holy crap, she's only going to serve at most 4 years for lying to law enforcement. I can't believe it.
Re: Not guilty!!!
Me too.
My heart breaks for that baby right now.
"My 101 List - Updating asap, I swear!
shut the fuucking front door. this is unreal.
who killed caylee?! what consequence do they get? i can't wait to hear what the jury says...
come freaking on, 2-7 were so clearly guilty.
Yep. Sadly, they just didn't prove crap. Even the circumstantial evidence was able to be refuted. Regardless of whether or not I think she's guilty, I'm kind of impressed with the jury and their ability to take their emotions out of the equation and look at the facts. It's not their fault the prosecution did a crappy job. Their job was to go on what they were given. It's beyond sad, because something horrible happened to that little girl...but I'm not convinced that anyone had figured out what that was.
Really? Am I the only one getting a severe ick factor from her dad? There is something creepy going on with that family. I think it's sad that this poor little girl wasn't given a better trial all around so that people really could figure out what happened to her and she could be given justice.
Oh I agree that her dad is super creepy, but now they'll just go right along like NBD, I'm sure. Casey got off and that's all they'll care about.
Sorry, can't get on this bandwagon. They proved it to me and to a lot of the analysts that I heard from while watching the trial. Between the car, the laundry bag, the duct tape, and Caylee's clothes, I'm convinced it was an inside job and to me Casey was the only one that had all the means and the motive.
Well, to be fair, they probably ARE convinced, but not beyond a reasonable doubt.
I do find it totally shocking that she didn't get the abuse charge. That part seemed pretty undeniable!
I almost think it was sloppy of the state to go to trial until they were able to prove it more concretely. I guess they didn't think they could get any more than what they already had.
True...and that's what I never get about these cases. It's actually what makes me feel like the whole family is guilty on some level. If Casey didn't do it, then what the hell happened? I don't think my family could move past this question. It's so sad that all will probably be forgotten now.
Again, I absolutely think that she is guilty. Like Jen said, I'm sure a lot of people on the jury did to an extent too....they just obviously didn't prove it for them beyond a reasonable doubt. If they had, she would have been convicted. I'm surprised they didn't get her on anything, I'm just not surprised that they didn't get first degree charges. I think it's probably a big flaw in our justice system, but this just proves that sitting on your couch watching a trial and sitting on the jury day in and day out watching it all unfold before you can give you a different perspective. Who knows what's going through there heads, but 12 people seemed to come to a unanimous decision pretty quickly.
I wasn't addressing your personal belief of guilty or not guilty, I was responding to your critique of the case the prosecution put against Casey. And just because a not -guilty verdict was reached, that doesn't mean emotions by the jury were taken out of the equation when making up their minds.
A lot of the analysts I watched thought it was a very well put together case and thought the prosecution did a good and an even better job than the defense.
Just because a verdict comes back quickly and is unanimous doesn't mean they got it right, e.g. OJ - not-guilty in 4 hours.
Here's the thing: I was convinced too, but I just had a hunch that she'd still get away with it.
No, you're right. I just re read what I wrote and I shouldn't have said that the prosecution did a crappy job. I think it was a crappy case. I think the prosecution probably did the best they could have done with what they had, sadly it just didn't prove to be enough.
I don't think the defense did a great job either. I think they got lucky. I think they were able to refute a lot of the prosecutions claims and were obviously able to put enough doubt in the mind of the jury that they were not able to convict her. That's how their job is easier IMO. They only have to get a little bit of doubt in there. They said many times that it's the prosecutions job to provide proof and on some level, they obviously failed. They had a much tougher job in this case than the defense.
As for the part I bolded, that's obvious. I never stated that they got it right or that a quick deliberation meant they got it right...but it didn't seem to take them very long. Everyone seems to be shocked, but part of me does have to wonder why the people who sat there day in and day out seeing every piece of that trial came to the decision that they did. I'm sure they know the case better than any of us. Obviously those 12 people were not convinced and unfortunately, that was who the prosecution had to convince. It's sickening, but that's our system.
I think the reason this made me so angry before is because I feel like the jury did exactly what Linda Drane Burdick asked them not to do - regardless of emotion, they completely put aside common sense. Logic, reason and common sense should not have been put aside by the jury and they absolutely were.
I think another reason this opinion that they "didn't prove crap" makes me mad is because they SO absolutely did. Without even naming everything - the car, the gas cans, the shorts, the duct tape, Timer55, the internet searches which were 100% done by Casey, the belongings her body was found with, the timeline that they were able to narrow down to prove that Caylee was absolutely in Casey's care in the time between she was last seen and when she disappeared, the jail house phone calls, the lies, the tattoo, the partying... it's common sense!
TV shows like CSI make people think that a body, DNA, forensic evidence are required in order for a guilty verdict - it's not! That's absurd! Circumstantial evidence is very much evidence and in this case it was presented incredibly succinctly and plainly and by the prosecution in all of its overwhelming abundance.
You don't have to convict someone with ZERO doubt. That's not how it works. It's beyond a reasonable doubt. What in the world was the reasonable doubt here? If she was not guilty, why would the defense have had to straight up lie about the drowning thing (which was very obviously a lie)?
And another thing, how in the FUUK did they not convict her of even aggravated child abuse? Isn't negligence a form of abuse? And isn't not reporting your daughter's dead body (if she did indeed drown in the pool) and tossing it in the woods negligence? My mind is blown.
And another thing, how was there not ONE person on that jury willing to fight for a guilty conviction for at least manslaughter/aggravated abuse for more than a day and a half (and reasonably more than five hours since they probably had their decision after they ended yesterday which is why they were all gussied up)? How? Just how?
Okay, one more thing. The overwhelming majority of the articles I've read (and there have been a lot) this afternoon/evening have been shocked by the verdict and said the prosecution did a phenomenal job. One of the few articles I read that said the jury got it right was... Fox News.
I'm not sure about the bolded part, but they were talking about this earlier and mentioned something about the fact that since that wasn't what she was being tried for (regardless of whether or not she admitted it) they couldn't convict her of this. It's insane, but sadly it sounded like that was the law.
I clarified earlier when speaking to Madisen that I think the prosecution probably did the best they could with what they had (I shouldn't have phrased it the way I did, I'm just pissed they didn't have more on her to bring to the case.) I just think it turned into a confusing trainwreck of a case. I'm not saying that they didn't put up one hell of an argument, I just think that when you add the defenses arguments into it, it could have put just enough doubt into their minds & that is all the defense had to do. Their job is so much easier. All they have to do is get just enough doubt in there and many analysts questioned what the jury would decide after hearing the defenses closing arguments.
I don't think there was a single person who trusted her father, they proved her mother is a liar, they showed the chloroform searches, but they also showed how she could have been looking at that because of something she saw on her boyfriend's facebook page. They said a lot of things (which I admit are most likely lies) that the prosecution couldn't prove weren't true. I guess that's where I think they failed in this case. I don't think they were fully prepared for the defense, which is amazing since we can all agree that Baez is a bit of a moron.
I watched the case as it went along and then I watched every second of the closing arguments. I had about 7 hours on my DVR from this weekend and regardless of whether ot not my common sense was telling me that she's a guilty sociopath, I worried if a jury would see it the same way enough to convict her. They obviously didn't. I 100% agree with your feelings on her being set free (I figured she would just get a lesser manslaughter charge) and the disgust with the verdict, but I do think it's easier for us to judge when we're not the ones going through the whole process & you just can't know what was going through their minds or in the deliberation room. I am however, like you said, extremely surprised at how quickly they came to this decision. I would have thought at least a few would have put up a bigger fight. Who knows what went on.
ETA: I would never say that the jurors "got it right," I think they got it wrong in the sense that a gulity woman is going free. I can just see how maybe it wasn't as clean cut as some people may have believed. I do find it interesting that they seem to have looked at the case calmly going into it rather than just going off of emotions that this was a 'baby killer." There are a million idiots running their mouths off on FB as I type that would have sentenced her to death without hearing one second of the trial. I would love to know their thought process. I read several articles before the verdict was read that said not guilty was definitely a possibility and at the very least, first degree murder was unlikely.
Yep, that's fine. I think most of us followed the case. I also stated that I wouldn't have let her go free. Based on what I feel, I couldn't have just let her walk either. There is something in my gut without question that says she's guilty in some way of her daughter's death. I was just looking at it from all sides trying to see where maybe they saw holes or confusion in the case. I was trying to understand their decision & I see where it maybe wasn't such an open and shut case for them. I don't think any of them believe she is without fault. Like one of the analysts said tonight, a verdict of not guilty on the charges is not the same as innocent for the whole case. I think we're just going to have to disagree here.