Casey Anthony (found) not guilty of murder

I am of two minds on this.

First, because it was a circumstantial case, I believe the verdict is the right one. The prosecution failed to meet their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey killed her daughter.

But.

I am also very confident that you could have every single piece of evidence be exactly the same and simply change the pronoun before Casey Anthony's name from Ms. to Mr and you would be looking at an inmate on death row by now.

Take Scott Peterson for example. Completely circumstantial case. He's a convicted murderer based solely on his behavior after the fact and arguably, Ms. Anthony's behavior was even more outrageous.

So, yes, it s the correct verdict based on law, but it is also an example of the pussy pass at work because a male would not have gotten the same verdict.

1. Attractive
2. White
3. Female

5 men and 7 women acquitted her. A jury of 12 people after listening to all of the evidence, every day determined the prosecution didn't present it's case, didn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt she was guilty. Having sat on juries, prepared speeches in front of them, watched them for days on end to see if we were getting through to them. Having interviewed over a thousand jurors in over 200 cases, I found one thing compelling, they all took their job seriously. I remember a man asking the judge he didn't read so well and the judge said we aren't looking for your reading skills but your experience and wisdom.

Seven women on this jury were mothers and grandmothers and are worse to try and convince of innocence. Women are more likely to convict than men are.

Jurors are given instructions as to how to view the evidence and then on how to decide. Lawyers present evidence, the judge rules on areas of the law, then the jury, 12 people, decide. They have the ability and I kid you not to tell if a person is trying to pull something over on them and if they are not. To make statements as above is nonsensical.

Was that the case in that situation? Other men have got off for the same reasons, not enough evidence. Having spent years in courtrooms and in front of jurors (a former paralegal), I have interviewed talked with listened to and spent a significant time with juries. As discussed below, women jurors are more likely to convict in these instances rather than give passes, because they are either mothers, going to be mothers or are grandmothers. They won't convict if the case isn't there, it's that simple.

It's not because she was male or female, it was because as you say the law got it right. Regarding Mr. Peterson, the jury pieced together tons of consequential evidence in making the decision and Casey Anthony's jury was not Scott Petersen's jury.

The tendency to compare is there but they are two different cases. For if it was the case, the situation may or may not be the same. I don't know. I do know juries though and 998 times out of thousand, they get it right.

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/women-jurors-more-likely-change-their-minds-men

Looks like, as in many things, they simply swing their beliefs around and around.
I believe, in this case, the ONLY way she could have been found guilty (after doing everything from dropping hints about her father molesting her.. out of nowhere.. admitting to being a pathological liar, trying to get a mistrial because she wasn't fit.. and everything else) was if they had a video of her killing her daughter, holding a sign that read "Screw you Jury", and then got up on the table and danced singing the "I killed my daughter" song while the video played in the court.
Even then, probably not the death penalty, but certainly 6 months as is the norm.

I agree with Paragon. If everything else had been the same except the sex of the defendant, the verdict would probably have been guilty -- and the jury would have deliberated about 2 hours instead of eleven. Women defendants seem to have major built-in advantages (excuses) when it comes to the criminal justice system, especially if they're charged with partner violence or family violence. And I believe there has been research done on sentencing disparities based on sex that shows that the sex of a defendant is a more influential biasing factor than race or income.

I wasn't on the jury so I have no specific opinion on the Casey trial itself. Likewise, I wasn't at the OJ or Scott Peterson trials.

But I agree with you Paragon. A man under the same situation would be treated more harshly. Men are frequently convicted on circumstantial evidence since "all men are guilty of everything," whereas "women just don't do those things." People believe that men are more likely than women to kill their children when the opposite is actually true. It is difficult to overcome this initial bias. People just don't want to believe certain things. And in the case of OJ, his race helped his defense (it would have been the opposite 100 years ago).

Referring to Bob's post, I would really like to know the evidence that women jury members are more likely to convict than men jury members.

And no. Juries don't get it right 998 out of 1000 times. Juries are frequently wrong. To claim that jury members are somehow impartial is absurd. If I was a judge, I would reject any jury member who claimed they could be unbiased and impartial. I would rather have people who are honest enough to acknowledge their bias and prejudice.

UNFUCKING REAL!!! Gentlemen forgive me for the cuss word but all I can envision are the last remaining minutes of that beautiful little girls life. The horror she must've experienced knowing the one person she truly trusted was about to snuff the life right out of her. Whether premeditated or not that bitch should burn at the stake.

Hi Shawn:

My investigation and discussion with jurors. Men are usually more lenient and then we preferred women. We wanted uneducated men rather than educated men because were more lenient.

The American Bar Association on jury research says so too..female jurors were found to be more conviction-prone than men and in particular against female defendants.

We found if the case was a black male, we wanted black males on the jury, if the case was against a white male executive or corporation, we wanted females on the jury in particular mothers, race didn't matter.

And though you may want substantiated proof there is none, when you set in the courtroom and trying to decide who is going to be on the jury, you pray a lot, you go with your gut feeling. And though the lawyers in this case says how confident they were, they are the liars then. You sit on pins and needles waiting for the jury to come back and hope it is your choice.

I never said juries are impartial and I agree with you, hell when we were trying a case we didn't want them to be impartial. We just didn't wanting them to already have tried the case based on their prejudices. It's not really up to the judge but counsel to determine who sits on a jury, he/she or she may upon his/her own decide to not have a juror but usually in chambers gives the reason.

What I said is jury members take their jobs very seriously.

@Bob, I noticed you didn't mention when women are on trial (only black men or white execs, I'm sure there are more, but we're discussing a woman on trial getting lenience for being a woman, I would think that would thus be a relevant example to provide), which is what is being discussed. Does your research look into who's more lenient when a woman's on trial? Is a mother more likely to convict another mother, or more likely to think a mother could never do such a thing?

It wasn't quantitative research, it was reading juries and such. Women in general held others to a higher standard. I remember speaking to one juror, a manager for the Union Pacific Railroad. She was also a mother and wife. Her take was as follows and I paraphrase.

As a mother she sees all kinds of issues with her kids and holds them to a higher standard. Therefore she thought the world should be as well. If you were so cavalier as to think you could get away with it, they were going to have to pay more.

For example. In this case, a man (31 years old and in good shape (he wanted to play professional baseball) was taken for $55,000. In other words, no extenuating circumstances, i.e. wasn't a 85 year old widow, wasn't mentally handicapped, he was just out and out taken. The judgment came back at $55,000, $165,000 triple damages and then punitive damages in the amount of $3,000,000 because the company had acted egregiously.

They got it right.

Now for the discussion of women judging women. Women hold other women to a much higher standard than men or companies. They say look, I'm a woman, your a woman. If I can do it, so can you. I'm a mother, teacher, wife, woman who works, we all have troubles and actually judge them accordingly.

So with years of experience if I were a woman I would want of jury of men.

I hope this helps a little.

"It wasn't quantitative research"

Clearly. It is simply your subjective opinions. Opinions clearly biased by you're female chauvinism (as displayed here and in the Gillibrand articles comments.You have no basis to claim this is based on research rather then subjective, biased, personal observation (that's not research). Please stop attempting to distribute it as such.

I think the jury was made up of 5 men and 7 women. I am sure legal experts have studied jurer selection and were comfortable with the jurers chosen. In the end, the prosecution did not present their case strong enough and the defense provided enough evidence to sway opinions beyond "reasonable doubt". I don't see any evidence of gender favoring or any such special treatment that many of you are claiming.

The Anthonys are a dysfunction family which was brought up in court and other witnesses added a strange twist like the guy who found the body. He seemed to be motivated by reward money, the possibility the body had been saved and/or moved, plus he had reported possible corps sighting months earlier and the police did not investigate. I think all of this helped the defense.

Our justice system is supposed to be set up so that we error on the side of occasionally guilty people are going to be found "not guilty" instead of innocent people being found "guilty". I think this is an example of that sort of error.

Unfortunately some groups of people are treated differently in court or other situations where opinions of innocent or guilt are formed. Sometimes attractive female benefit other times it is rich white men, I think it depends on the sort of crime.

For those of you that think the female jurors and the fact that Casey is attractive had any influence on the verdict, I can assure you if any jurors were going easy on her because she is attractive, it would not be the females, but rather the male jurors. I really don't think this is what happened, but if you guys are going to sit here and bash women for this verdict, be sure to take a look at all the "logic" you guys are presenting as I don't really see how females are to blame.

If anyone is to blame it is the prosecution team for not putting on a stronger show of evidence and for not tearing apart the defense.

Do you know for sure she killed her daughter for sure? Where you there? Do you have the forensic evidence to prove it? Did you sit through the trial? Examine all the evidence? If she did kill her daughter was it First Degree Murder? Was it an accident? Was it second degree murder? Do you know the difference between the two? Do you know what aggravated child abuse is?

Those are the questions which were posed to the jury. Yes, she lied to the police but did she plan the killing of her daughter? Did she do an act which caused the killing of her daughter which she intended to do harm to her daughter or someone else? I don't know the answer to those questions and neither did the jury.

I wish I could waive a magic wand and tell you what you want to hear but from mine and the juries perspective the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt if she planned and executed the death of her daughter.

I told you way up above it wasn't quantitative. It was my review of jurors and such when I was doing extensive jury voir dire, picking juries and interviewing them afterwards. My goal wasn't to go and write a book on the subject or to even discuss them here. My goal was to plan for the next jury selection, hell I didn't even care about becoming a jury selection consultant, I already was, my main goal was to win our case and guess what jury selection was a key part of the process of winning.

If you read for example what I said earlier the ABA (the American Bar Association) did echo what I found which "was women were more likely to convict". So you are wrong as the ABA agrees and having worked on with the ABA on several occasions I can say this, their research was quantitative.

I admitted where I got my opinions from and I'm not trying to pass them off as something other than this. I trusted my gut more than anything when picking a jury and if I was on the prosecution/plaintiff side, I wanted women on my juries.

Now as to your comments about my female chauvinism, wow I can't get a break the feminists say I'm a man and don't understand and I often get called a feminist.

Second off I really take umbrage to the fact you don't know me and are labeling me without even meeting. It just gets old. My opinions are my opinions and we can discuss them but labeling is one of things where we get into trouble and don't see the individual.

It's like playing a football game and your the middle linebacker. It looks like a pass, it smells like one but the end looks a little off and you see something in the QB's eyes, you think something's up and guess what it's a sneak. Damn you go with your gut but if I looked at everything from the still photograph, it looked like a pass, it's not until you are there and in person, that's when it becomes a play, until that moment you can call it what you want but it's just something.

Damn straight I'm biased as a middle linebacker. I want it to be a pass and I want to be the guy on the blitz and crush him but I know most of the time I have to stay home and play safe.

One of the things I do is try and read everything which you tried to do and form an opinion of me, you don't have a clue, hell I don't know what I am most of the time, all I know is this, I try not put me a bottle, I'd ask you to do the same? I ask the feminist to do the same as well. I'll do the same with you unless of course, you want to be in the bottle but that's your choice not mine.

" I'm not trying to pass them off as something other than this." You have repeatedly said there was research on this, when asked for that research, you fell back on this being your opinion, and when noted it's just your opinion, you again fall back on there being research:

"So you are wrong as the ABA agrees and having worked on with the ABA on several occasions I can say this, their research was quantitative."

If this is true, then provide this research.

Which is it, is there research, or is there just your own subjective opinion. If there is research, provide it. If there is not, don't claim there is again. It's simple.

"Now as to your comments about my female chauvinism, wow I can't get a break the feminists say I'm a man and don't understand and I often get called a feminist."

You are aware those two aren't mutually exclusive? You can "not understand women" and still hold them on a pedestal, as something superior to men. That's what god is, after all. Plus I didn't call you a feminist, I called you a female chauvinist, though I can understand the mistake.

As to your taking offense to my labeling you as such, given your claims elsewhere that "Women do bring a more conciliatory attitude to the table. They would rather discuss than debate, they would rather share than take, respect rather than shame and speak the truth rather than hide behind it.", and this here woman are more capable of judging a case impartially and by the evidence then men. If you don't want to be labeled as a sexist, female chauvinist, stop saying shit that would be deemed unacceptable and sexist if the genders were reversed. Otherwise, suck it up.

Worst of all is that, at no point prior to your bringing it into the conversation, was the makeup of the jury's gender an issue. It was the fact that the defendant was a woman, and therefore got off where a man would not. Gender of the jury is completely irrelevant to that conclusion, unless you are going to claim that woman juries are significantly more likely to convict a woman then they are to convict a man (and by a degree significant enough to offset the disparity between the chances a male juror with convict a man vs woman), which is not what you've been arguing (you've been arguing female jurors are more likely to convict then male jurors).

People on here are saying here she got off because she is a "female".

The point I the juror makeup was 5M/7F. Women are more likely to convict according to the ABA (see studies below) and what I saw when picking juries (over 200 jury trials). Therefore there must have been good evidence to allow her to get off and therefore she didn't get off because she was a "female". That's it.

I do believe women do bring a more conciliatory attitude to the table (not necessarily the jury box) and at a lot more. You didn't even ask me what I thought men brought to the table. Please don't misquote me or infer I say said something I never said "woman are more capable of judging a case impartially". I said I want my juries to be women because they are biased--they convict.

I didn't say you called me a feminist but calling me a female chauvinist is still a label, when you don't know who I am or what I truly stand for. If you want to have the discussion regarding my beliefs, they can be here or somewhere else, all I'm saying here is this "she didn't get off because she was a female or she got this pass or that pass but because the State didn't prove it's case.

*The American Bar Association Commission--The American Jury Project (2008) and the American Bar Association Paper entitled the Benefits of Jury Research for Discovery (2006), there are other research papers including the 2004 Harris Jury Poll

Quote: "There is no doubt in my mind she did. And she's gotten away with it. There is no defense for it, none."

The charge was premeditated murder.

I can't imagine being on a jury and concluding that premeditated murder was proven without knowing a cause of death, or even when the alleged murder took place. The charge just wasn't proven. The accused looks like a real slime-bucket but proof of premeditated murder is a separate issue.

I think the jury got it right.

"Women are more likely to convict according to the ABA (see studies below) and what I saw when picking juries (over 200 jury trials). Therefore there must have been good evidence to allow her to get off and therefore she didn't get off because she was a "female". That's it."

You claim to want to discuss, to hear what each other has to say, but I already addressed this when I noted there is a distinct difference between claiming women are more likely to convict then men, vs jurors (men or women) are more likely to convict men then to convict women. I will put it in arbitrary numbers to provide an example (these numbers are pulled out of thin air, and are only used for an example of what I am trying to relate). When trying men, if men convict 60% of the time and women convict 70%, then your assertion women convict more then men remains true. If we then look at trying women, and we see men convicting 30% of the time and women convicting 35% of the time, you are still correct, women are still convicting more then men, but that says absolutely nothing about the fact that, as a whole, people convict women half as much. Your assertion is therefore irrelevant, and certainly doesn't prove the assertion she got off because she is a women, where a man would be convicted. If you don't believe men get put in jail on less circumstantial evidence then that, I suggest you examine the Vladick Filler case.

"You didn't even ask me what I thought men brought to the table."

I didn't need to, shawn (on Wed, 2011-07-06 14:53, in the Gillibrand article) asked you the other day and you ignored the question.

These are some of the comments on here I take umbrage with:

Pussy pass at work.

Judicial Leniency 1. Attractive, 2. White, 3. Female

Women are treated more leniently,

etc., etc.,

How about just trying this, the jury got it right, white/black, male/female, whatever. The prosecution didn't prove it's case, period and to make statements as above are just not right.

It is interesting to note, you hammer on the fact I didn't provide substantiated evidence, which I had provided earlier, which you missed reading, and pointed out again. Yet, you still try and prove what you are saying which, I'm saying doesn't matter. The jury got it right and saying the above is not right. They are allowed to have their opinions and I'm allowed to say that I believe what they are saying is wrong and why.

Now again, I told you I'd discuss my beliefs with anyone and anywhere and how. You bring up the belief you know me because of my failure to answer a question not by implying it but by I ignored it. I check this about every week or so. But with our discussion, I check often because it has piqued my interest, I hadn't looked at the other until you mentioned and I went back and looked and answered a few things. That doesn't mean I ignored it. I could say the same about you, you have failed to answer 90% of what I have put forward, but that doesn't mean you think this or that.

However, you didn't even mention my post about SAVE and the Partner Violence Reduction Act or a couple of other posts involving equal treatment for men. I certainly don't see you at the conference I speak about about sexual abuse against children, both by women and men, or increasing female teen violence against young boys, I didn't see you at the symposium last month in Toledo about how the sexual abuse against boys goes unrecognized and not dealt with and causing immeasurable harm in our society or in Los Angeles when I discussed the fact that sexual abuse by women on boys is so debilitating it may be one of the major causes of male teenage suicide in America. I spent some time last year in places you might not want to go trying to stop the kidnapping of boys and girls for sex slaves around the world and all you can call me is a "female chauvinist".

You read maybe 4 posts about me maybe, approximately 30 paragraphs if that and you know me and who I am. I read the bible everyday and that doesn't make me a good Christian. I try and understand God and Christ by reading those verses and some of them probably for the 50th time and I get something new out of it every time. Yet, you know me so well. It is not by my words I am hoping to be remembered but by my actions.

This I do know, I respect what you have to say, I may disagree and my hope is to have further discussions. If I label you something or call you something please bring it to my attention and I hope I am able to see those errs and do something about it and if I don't or am unable to do so, please forgive me for my ignorance. I do reserve the right to disagree with you though.

"They are allowed to have their opinions and I'm allowed to say that I believe what they are saying is wrong and why."

And if your "why" actually addressed the point, you'd be welcome to it. However, being welcome to express your opinion nether makes it any more correct then theirs, nor does it protect you from being judged based on those opinions. But the fact of the matter is that you are trying to prove them wrong by arguing a completely different argument, and pretending it's (or truly being unaware it's not) the same. Do you not see how saying women convict more then men says absolutely nothing when discussing whether men are convicted more often for the same crimes as women? Do you truly not see the distinction.

I also had a problem with you claiming it was proven research but not providing the evidence of such. I have no issues argueing from opinion, but I don't appreciate when opinion is claimed as proven fact without providing said proof.

As to the post about SAVE, I haven't read your comment. I haven't responded to that article, so you can't expect that I have read it ether. Sometimes I don't read the articles hear because I read them already elsewhere. But I know you've posted in the other thread after being asked by shawn what men bring to the table, so it is not unreasonable for me to expect you've had the opportunity to read that comment and respond.

As to your attempting to shame me by claiming you don't see me at the events you participate in, do you really think that's a reasonable argument, given you don't even know what I look like, and therefore, whether I was there or not? But you are correct, being Canadian, I generally don't participate in events to reform american Policies or charities. My time is spent on Canadian endevours and general discussions online.

And you are welcome to disagree with me all you want, It doesn't bother me in the slightest. We are each able to have our opinions. Just know that one of my opinions is that you are a female chauvinist, and will remain such until I see something to show otherwise. Your advocacy for children doesn't do it, because children are generally classified in such movements as innocents and gender neutral, unless it is a movement like Canada's "becauseIAmAGirl.com", which is clearly sexist and discriminatory against even boys. Please note, I haven't called you a misandrist. I don't think you hate or even dislike men, I just think you place women above men, and your attitude towards children doesn't change that.