It took a long time -- over three years, to be precise -- but a Florida jury has finally decided Casey Anthony's involvement in the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. Not guilty.
While 25-year-old Casey Anthony breathed a sigh of relief, with tears streaming down her face, others weren't exactly relieved to hear the news. Rather than the death penalty that might have awaited her, Anthony was found guilty of a mere four counts of "providing false information to a law enforcement officer".
No one knows what happened to the little girl who was found dumped in the woods six months after her death. The prosecution's case ultimately failed because there was simply not enough evidence (no trace of DNA, chloroform, or decomposition inside the trunk of Ms. Anthony’s car, where she was said to have stashed her daughter's body before disposing of it) to convict her mother.
"[The prosecution] throw enough against the wall and see what sticks,” Anthony’s lawyer, Jose Baez, told the jury, “right down to the cause of death.”
As part of the defence, Baez claimed the girl had drowned in Casey’s parent’s pool; and that her own parents, George and Cindy, covered it up. The defence also blamed a history of sexual abuse by her father for Casey's "misguided actions" and "pathological lying", right down to her inexplicable disappearing act for a month after Caylee’s death.
So much for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth... In a trial with no shortage of controversy and contradiction, a sliver of reasonable doubt was all the defence needed to get their verdict.
While there is no question of Casey's, or her family's callousness, callousness alone was not enough to put her behind bars for the rest of her life.
As Baez told the jury: “This case should not be decided for or against anyone because you feel sorry for anyone or are angry at anyone.”
Image Credit: cnn.com
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