ORLANDO — Casey Anthony, the young mother whose seeming heartlessness and barrage of lies transfixed America for three years, was found not guilty of murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee Marie.

After nearly six weeks of testimony, a panel of seven women and five men decided that Ms. Anthony did not murder Caylee by dosing her with chloroform, suffocating her with duct tape and dumping her in a wooded area, as prosecutors claimed. They also did, however, find her guilty of lesser charges, of providing false information to law enforcement officers. The jury did not ask to review any evidence.

When the verdict was read, Ms Anthony, 25, who faced a possible death sentence, cried.

The verdict vindicates the defense, which argued from the start that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool and that the death was concealed by her panicked grandfather, George Anthony, and Ms. Anthony.

It also drove home just how circumstantial the prosecution’s case proved to be. Forensic evidence was tenuous and no witnesses ever tied Ms. Anthony to Caylee’s murder. Investigators found no trace of DNA or solid signs of chloroform or decomposition inside the trunk of Ms. Anthony’s car, where prosecutors said Ms. Anthony stashed Caylee before disposing of her body.

The prosecution was also hurt by the fact that nobody knows exactly how Caylee died; her body was too badly decomposed to pinpoint cause of death.

All of this allowed José Baez, Ms. Anthony’s lawyer, to infuse enough reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds to get Ms. Anthony acquitted of murder.

“They throw enough against the wall and see what sticks,” Mr. Baez told the jury, “right down to the cause of death.”

Caylee, a 2-year-old with cherubic cheeks and bright eyes, was last seen June 16, 2008. Her decomposed body was found six months later in a wooded area near the Anthony home. Despite her daughter’s disappearance, Ms. Anthony failed to report Caylee missing for 31 days and created a tangle of lies, including that a baby sitter kidnapped Caylee, to cover up the absence.

The defense conceded Ms. Anthony’s lies but said they happened for one reason: she had been sexually abused by her father and had been coached to lie her whole life.

“I told you she was a liar the first day,” Mr. Baez told the jury.

Despite a vivid portrait of Ms. Anthony’s seemingly callous and deceitful behavior after Caylee’s disappearance, jurors decided that leap from uncaring mother to murderess proved too much.

Prosecutors argued all along that Ms. Anthony killed her child so she could carouse with her boyfriend, go clubbing and live the “bella vita” — beautiful life — as her tattoo, done after Caylee’s disappearance, proclaimed.

“Whose life was better without Caylee?” Linda Drane Burdick, one of the prosecutors, asked jurors. “That’s the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road dead.”

With that, Ms. Drane Burdick ended her closing statement with a dramatic flourish, leaving behind a split screen image: one side was a photograph of the tattoo, the other was a smiling Ms. Anthony partying with friends after Caylee’s death.

One prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, called it “absurd” that Mr. Anthony, a former homicide detective, would find Caylee dead in the swimming pool and, rather than call 911, cover up the drowning, wrap dead Caylee’s face with duct tape and dump her body.

“It is a trip down a rabbit hole into a bizarre world where men who love their granddaughters find them drowned and do nothing,” Mr. Ashton said. “Where men who love their granddaughters take an accident, a completely innocent act, and make it look like a murder for no reason.”

With Caylee’s grandparents in the back of the courtroom, prosecutors also spoke forcefully about the pain they felt when they realized their granddaughter was missing and their daughter was the chief suspect. Mr. Anthony grew so despondent after the death he attempted suicide in 2009, leaving behind an eight-page suicide note.
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Mr. Anthony, who had testified tearfully during the trial, denied abusing his daughter and finding Caylee floating in the swimming pool.

As for motive, prosecutors said Caylee’s murder was hastened by the fact she was beginning to string together words and would soon be able to reveal her mother’s lies.

Prosecutors also used jail-house recordings of Ms. Anthony and photographs of her reveling with friends to show she was clearly not grieving for a daughter who had supposedly drowned.

Mr. Baez, who began his law career in 2005 and three years later took up Ms. Anthony’s case, did little to bolster his initial defense during the trial, a fact that prompted experts to say he was overpromising to the jury.

He delved lightly into the drowning theory and said nothing more about the sexual abuse after the first day of trial. Judge Belvin Perry Jr., the presiding judge who also heads the Ninth Circuit Court, barred Mr. Baez from mentioning the abuse accusation during closing statements because there was no evidence to support his claim.

Yet he successfully hammered away at the relatively weak forensic evidence. More than 50 investigators recovered nearly 400 pieces of evidence, including trash and trash bags, in the wooded area where Caylee’s body was found. Ms. Anthony’s car also was impounded to test for signs of DNA, decomposition and chloroform.

As the trial wound on, Mr. Baez repeatedly turned Mr. Anthony into the villain for covering up the drowning and allowing Ms. Anthony to take the blame. He also spoke about the family’s dysfunction.

As for Ms. Anthony’s behavior, Mr. Baez derided the prosecution’s efforts to portray her as a “lying, no-good slut.” She was panicked and confused, he said, adding that every person grieves differently.

“This case should not be decided for or against anyone because you feel sorry for anyone or are angry at anyone,” Mr. Baez told the jury.

Fuhrman stated he found a blood stained glove at Aaron Turner's condo (the scene of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman), and also found another at Simpson's home. He also claimed to have seen a number of blood drops at Simpson's home. He entered Simpson's estate without a search warrant due to exigent circumstances -– specifically, concern that Simpson himself might have been harmed.

Soon after the preliminary hearing in O.J. Simpson's murder trial, Simpson's defense team alleged that Fuhrman planted the glove found at Simpson's Brentwood estate as part of a racially motivated effort to frame Simpson for the murders.

As part of their defense, Simpson's attorneys questioned Fuhrman about his alleged prior use of racist terms. The prosecution tried to stop the defense from pursuing this line of questioning by arguing that it was too inflammatory and could prejudice the predominantly black jury against them. The California Evidence Code gives the trial judge the discretion to exclude evidence if its relevance to the case is substantially outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice to either the prosecution or the defense.[2] Judge Lance Ito initially ruled that there had to be some evidence that Fuhrman planted the glove before the defense could question Fuhrman on prior use of racial slurs, but eventually, Judge Ito changed his prior ruling and allowed the defense to cross-examine Fuhrman on the issue of his alleged racial animosity.

During cross-examination, Fuhrman, when asked by defense attorney F. Lee Bailey whether he had used the word "nigger", said he hadn't used the word in 10 years. The defense produced four witnesses to establish that Fuhrman had used the word "nigger" more recently; as well as an audiotape contradicting his testimony. This testimony eventually resulted in a perjury conviction. In one 1985 recording, Fuhrman gave a taped interview to Laura Hart McKinny, a writer working on a screenplay about female police officers. In another interview, Fuhrman talked about gang members and was quoted as saying, "Yeah we work with niggers and gangs. You can take one of these niggers, drag 'em into the alley and beat the **** out of them and kick them. You can see them twitch. It really relieves your tension." He went on to say "we had them begging that they'd never be gang members again, begging us." He said that he would tell them, "You do what you're told, understand, nigger?"[3]

Only limited excerpts of the tapes were admitted as evidence in the Simpson trial, but the content of the admitted portions were strong enough to cast doubt on Fuhrman's motives and credibility with the jury.

With the jury absent on September 6, 1995, the defense asked Fuhrman whether he had ever falsified police reports or if he had planted or manufactured evidence in the Simpson case. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

After the trial, there was widespread pressure on Los Angeles County district attorney Gil Garcetti to bring perjury charges against Fuhrman. Garcetti initially refused, saying that Fuhrman's use of racist language was "not material to the case", a major element of proving perjury.[4] However, many members of Garcetti's office made public statements on the issue, and Garcetti, citing the high emotions in his office about the Simpson case, opted to tender the decision to prosecute to Attorney General Dan Lungren to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.[5]
Mark Fuhrman
Charge(s) Perjury
Conviction(s) no contest plea
Penalty Three years probation, $200 fine

On July 5, 1996, Lungren announced that he would file perjury charges against Fuhrman and soon thereafter offered Fuhrman a plea bargain. On October 2, Fuhrman accepted the deal and pleaded no contest to the charges. He was sentenced to three years' probation and fined $200. As a result, Fuhrman is a convicted felon. Although he retired from the LAPD well before the plea, he is prohibited from ever serving as a police officer in most states again. As of 2010, he is the only person to be convicted of criminal charges related to the Simpson case.

If you want to convict someone for murder, you have to prove they performed the act. Apparently all the prosecution could prove is that Casey Anthony is a no-good lying slut. That doesn't prove she murdered anyone.

This very much. If it cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, regardless of how distasteful it may seem... ya gotta go with not guilty.

If you want to convict someone for murder, you have to prove they performed the act. Apparently all the prosecution could prove is that Casey Anthony is a no-good lying slut. That doesn't prove she murdered anyone.

The not guilty verdict lends credibility to these accusations, so he's going to be in more trouble than Mark Fuhrman.

I guess I'm not a reasonable person.

I personally think she is guilty as hell. But even if I were on a jury at this case, it is also a matter of what the other jurors think as well.

what the jurors think should be based off of the evidence provided. If even one juror thinks the evidence is insufficient...

I'm glad she got off. She would be a burden on the prison system. Even if she did it, I highly doubt it would happen again.

She's already a burden on the prison system. She's in jail for theft and check fraud.

She's already a burden on the prison system. She's in jail for theft and check fraud.