Verdict and sentence
On July 5, 2011, the jury found Casey not guilty of counts one through three regarding first-degree murder,
aggravated manslaughter of a child, and aggravated child abuse, while
finding her guilty on counts four through
seven for providing false information to law enforcement:
·
Count
Four: Anthony said she was employed at Universal Studios during 2008,
pursuant to the investigation of a missing person’s report.
·
Count Five: Anthony said she had left
Caylee at an apartment complex with a babysitter causing law enforcement to
pursue the missing babysitter.
·
Count
Six: Anthony said she informed two "employees" of Universal
Studios, Jeff Hopkins and Juliet Lewis, at Universal, of the disappearance of
Caylee.
·
Count
Seven: Anthony said she had received a phone call and spoke to Caylee on
July 15, 2008, causing law enforcement to expend further resources.
On July 7, 2011, sentencing arguments were heard. The
defense asked for the sentencing to be based on one count of lying on the
grounds that the offenses occurred as part of a single interview with police
dealing with the same matter, the disappearance of her daughter, as one
continuous lie. The defense also argued for concurrent sentences, that is for
all four counts to become one count and the sentence to run together as one.
The judge disagreed with defense arguments, finding that Anthony's statements
consisted of "four distinct,
separate lies" ordered the sentences be served consecutively, noting
that "Law enforcement expended a
great deal of time, energy and manpower looking for Caylee Marie Anthony. This search went on from July through
December, over several months, trying to find Caylee Marie Anthony.” Judge Perry sentenced Casey to one year in the
county jail and $1,000 in fines for each of the four counts of providing false
information to a law enforcement officer, the maximum penalty prescribed by
law. She received 1,043 days credit for time served plus additional credit for
good behavior, resulting in her release on July 17, 2011. Anthony filed a notice of appeal on July 15,
2011.
In September 2011, Perry, complying with a Florida statute
requiring judges to assess investigative and prosecution costs if requested by
a state agency, ruled that Casey Anthony
must pay $217,000 to the state of Florida.
He ruled she had to pay those costs directly related to lying to law
enforcement about the death of Caylee, including search costs only up to
September 30, 2008, when the Sheriff's
Office stopped investigating a missing-child case. In earlier arguments, Mason had called the
prosecutors' attempts to exact the larger sum "sour grapes" because the prosecution lost its case. He
told reporters that Anthony is indigent.
In January 2013, a Florida appeals court reduced her
convictions from four to two counts. Her attorney had argued that her false
statements constituted a single offense; however, the appeals court noted she
gave false information during two separate police interviews several hours
apart.
Media coverage
Initial coverage
The case attracted a significant amount of national media
attention, and was regularly the main topic of many TV talk shows, including
those hosted by Greta Van Susteren,
Nancy Grace, Geraldo Rivera, and others. It has been featured on Fox's America's Most Wanted, NBC's Dateline, and
ABC's 20/20. Nancy Grace referred
to Casey Anthony as the "tot mom" and urged the public
to let "the professionals, the
psychics and police" do their jobs.
Casey Anthony's
parents, Cindy and George, appeared
on The Today Show on October 22,
2008. They maintained their belief that Caylee was alive and would be found. Larry Garrison, president of SilverCreek Entertainment, was their spokesman until
he resigned in November 2008, citing that he was leaving due to "the Anthony family's erratic
behavior".
More than 6,000 pages of evidence released by the Orange County Sheriff's Department,
including hundreds of instant messages between Casey and her ex-boyfriend Tony Rusciano, were the subject of increased scrutiny by the media
for clues and possible motives in the homicide. Outside the Anthony home, WESH TV 2 reported that protesters repeatedly shouted "baby killer" and that George Anthony was physically
attacked. George
Anthony was reported missing on January 22, 2009, after he failed to show
up for a meeting with his lawyer, Brad
Conway. George was found in a Daytona Beach hotel the next day after
sending messages to family members threatening suicide. He was taken to Halifax Hospital for psychiatric evaluation
and later released.
Trial coverage
The trial was commonly compared to the O. J. Simpson murder case, both for its widespread media attention
and initial shock at the not-guilty verdict.
At the start of the trial, dozens
of people raced to the Orange County
Courthouse, hoping to secure one of 50 seats open to the public at the
murder trial. Because the case received
such thorough media attention in Orlando, jurors were brought in from Pinellas County, Florida, and
sequestered for the entire trial. The trial became a "macabre tourist attraction", as people camped outside
for seats in the courtroom, where scuffles also broke out among those wanting
seats inside. The New York Post described the trial as going "from being a newsworthy case to one of the biggest ratings draws
in recent memory", and Time
magazine dubbed it "the social media
trial of the century". Cable news channels and network news programs
became intent upon covering the case as extensively as they could. Scot Safon, executive vice president of HLN, said it was "not about policy" but rather the "very, very strong human dimension" of the case that drove
the network to cover it. The audience
for HLN's Nancy Grace rose more than
150 percent, and other news channels deciding to focus on the trial saw their
ratings double and triple. HLN achieved its most watched hour in
network history (4.575 million) and peaked at 5.205 million when the verdict
was read. According to The Christian Post, the O. J. Simpson case had a 91 percent
television viewing audience, with 142 million people listening by radio and
watching television as the verdict was delivered. "The Simpson case was the longest trial ever held in California,
costing more than $20 million to fight and defend, running up 50,000 pages of
trial transcript in the process." The Casey Anthony trial was expected to "far exceed" these numbers.
Opinions varied on what made the public thoroughly invested
in the trial. Safon argued the Anthonys having been a regular and "unremarkable" family with
complex relationships made them intriguing to watch. In a special piece for CNN, psychologist Frank
Farley described the circumstantial evidence as "all over the map" and that combined with "the apparent lying, significant
contradictions and flip-flops of testimony, and questionable or bizarre
theories of human behavior, it is little wonder that this nation [was] glued to
the tube". He said it was a trial that was both a psychologist's dream
and nightmare, and believes that much of the public's fascination [had] to do
with the uncertainty of a motive for the crime.
Psychologist Karyl McBride discussed how some mothers stray away
from "the saintly archetype"
expected of mothers. "We want so
badly to hang onto the belief system that mothers don't harm children," she
stated. "It's fascinating that the
defense in the Anthony case found a way to blame the father. While we don't
know what is true and maybe never will, it is worth taking a look at the
narcissistic family when maternal narcissism rules the roost. Casey Anthony is a beautiful white
woman and the fact that the case includes such things as sex, lies, and videotapes
makes it irresistible."
When the not-guilty
verdict was rendered, there was significant outcry among the general public
and media that the jury made the wrong decision. Outside the courthouse, many
in the crowd of 500 reacted with anger, chanting their disapproval and waving
protest signs. People took to Facebook and Twitter, as well as other social
media outlets, to express their outrage. Traffic to news sites surged from
about two million page views a minute to 3.3 million, with most of the visits
coming from the United States. Mashable reported that between 2 pm and
3 pm, one million viewers were watching CNN.com/live,
30 times higher than the previous month's average. Twitter's trending topics in the United States were mostly about the subjects related to the case,
and Newser reported that posts on Facebook were coming in "too fast for all Facebook to even
count them meaning at least 10 per second". Some people referred to the verdict as "O.J. Number 2", and various
media personalities and celebrities expressed outrage via Twitter. News anchor Julie Chen became visibly
upset while reading the not-guilty
verdict on The Talk and had to be
assisted by her fellow co-hosts, who also expressed their dismay.
Others, such as Sean
Hannity of the Fox News Channel,
felt the verdict was fair because the prosecution did not have enough evidence
to establish guilt or meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Hannity said that the verdict was legally correct, and that all of the evidence
that was presented by the prosecution was either impeached or contradicted by
the defense. John Cloud of Time magazine echoed these sentiments, saying the
jury made the right call: "Anthony
got off because the prosecution couldn't answer [the questions]," Cloud
stated. "Because the prosecutors had
so little physical evidence, they built their case on Anthony's (nearly
imperceptible) moral character. The prosecutors seemed to think that if jurors
saw what a fantastic liar Anthony was, they would understand that she could
also be a murderer."
Disagreement with the verdict was heavily debated by the
media, lawyers and psychologists, who put forth several theories for public
dissatisfaction with the decision, ranging from wanting justice for Caylee, to
the circumstantial evidence having been strong enough, to some blaming the
media. UCLA forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, said, "The main reason that people are
reacting so strongly is that the media convicted Casey before the jury decided
on the verdict. The public has been whipped up into this frenzy wanting revenge
for this poor little adorable child. And because of the desire for revenge,
they've been whipped up into a lynch mob." She added, "Nobody likes a liar, and Anthony was a
habitual liar. And nobody liked the fact that she was partying after Caylee's
death. Casey obviously has a lot of psychological problems. Whether she
murdered her daughter or not is another thing."
There was a gender gap in perceptions to the case. According
to a USA Today/Gallup Poll of 1,010
respondents, about two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) believed Casey Anthony "definitely" or "probably"
murdered her daughter; however, women were much more likely than men to believe
the murder charges against Anthony and to be upset by the not-guilty verdict. The poll reported that women were more than
twice as likely as men, 28 percent versus 11 percent, to think Anthony "definitely" committed murder.
Twenty-seven percent of women said they were angry about the verdict, compared
with nine percent of men. On the day Casey Anthony was sentenced for lying to investigators in the death
of her daughter, supporters and protesters gathered outside the Orange County Courthouse, with one man
who displayed a sign asking Anthony to marry him. Two men who drove overnight
from West Virginia held signs that
said, "We love and support you Casey Anthony," and "Nancy Grace, stop trying to ruin
innocent lives. The jury has spoken. P.S. Our legal system still works!" The gender gap has partly been explained
by "the maternal instinct".
The idea of a mother murdering her own child is a threat to the ideal of
motherhood. For example, the trial was
compared to the 1960s trial of Alice
Crimmins, who was accused of murdering her two small children.
Explanations other than, or emphasizing, the prosecution's
lack of forensic evidence were given for the jury's decision. A number of media
commentators reasoned that the prosecution overcharged the case by tagging on
the death penalty, concluding that people in good conscience could not sentence
Anthony to death based on the circumstantial evidence presented. The CSI
effect was also extensively argued—that society now lives "in a 'CSI age' where everyone expects fingerprints and DNA,
and we are sending a message that old-fashioned circumstantial evidence is not
sufficient". Likewise, commentators such as O. J. Simpson case prosecutor Marcia Clark
believe that the jury interpreted "reasonable
doubt" too narrowly. Clark said instruction on reasonable doubt is "the hardest, most elusive"
instruction of all. "And I think
it's where even the most fair-minded jurors can get derailed," she
said, opining the confusion between reasonable doubt and a reason to doubt. "In Scotland, they have three verdicts:
guilty, not guilty, and not proven. It's one way of showing that even if the
jury didn't believe the evidence amounted to proof beyond a reasonable doubt;
it didn't find the defendant innocent either. There's a difference."
Aftermath
Defense, prosecution,
and jury
Following the criminal trial, Mason blamed the media for the
passionate hatred directed toward Casey
Anthony. He described it as a "media
assassination" of her before and during the trial, saying, "I hope that this is a lesson to those
of you who have indulged in media assassination for three years, bias, and
prejudice, and incompetent talking heads saying what would be and how to
be." Mason added: "I can
tell you that my colleagues from coast to coast and border to border have
condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television and talking about
cases that they don't know a damn thing about, and don't have the experience to
back up their words or the law to do it. Now you have learned a lesson."
Mason's response was viewed as especially critical of Nancy Grace, whose news program is
cited as having "almost
single-handedly inflated the Anthony case from a routine local murder into a
national obsession". Grace said that she did not understand why
Mason would care what pundits are saying, and that she imagines she has tried
and covered as many cases as Mason. She criticized the defense attorneys for
delivering media criticism before mentioning Caylee's name in their
post-verdict news conference, and said she disagrees with the verdict. At a
meeting of local professionals, named the Tiger
Bay Club of Tampa, Mason told the media and those in attendance that he was
surprised by the not-guilty verdict.
State's Attorney
Lawson Lamar said, "We're
disappointed in the verdict today because we know the facts and we've put in
absolutely every piece of evidence that existed. This is a dry-bones case.
Very, very difficult to prove. The delay in recovering little Caylee's remains
worked to our considerable disadvantage." Jose
Baez said, "While we're happy
for Casey, there are no winners in this case. Caylee has passed on far, far too
soon, and what my driving force has been for the last three years has been
always to make sure that there has been justice for Caylee and Casey because
Casey did not murder Caylee. It's that simple." He added, "And today our system of justice has
not dishonored her memory by a false conviction." Former
Casey Anthony defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden shared
Baez's sentiments. She believes the jury
reached the right verdict. "We
should embrace their verdict," she stated.
On July 6, 2011, Jeff
Ashton gave his first interview about the case on The View. Ashton said of the verdict, "Obviously, it's not the outcome we wanted. But from the
perspective of what we do, this was a fantastic case." He disagrees
with those who state the prosecution overcharged the case, saying, "The facts that we had... this was
first-degree murder. I think it all came down to the evidence. I think
ultimately it came down to the cause of death." Ashton additionally
explained that if the jury did not perceive first-degree murder when they saw
the photograph of Caylee's skull with the duct tape, "then so be it". He said he accepts the jury's decision
and that it has not taken away his faith in the justice system. "You can't believe in the rule of law
and not accept that sometimes it doesn't go the way you think it should,"
stated Ashton, and explained that he understands why the case "struck such a nerve" with the
public. "I think when people see
someone that they believe has so gone away from [a mother's love for her
child], it just outrages them." Ashton also made appearances on
several other talk shows in the days following, and complimented Jose Baez on his cross-examinations and
as having "the potential to be a great attorney".
After the trial ended, the twelve jurors did not initially
want to discuss the verdict with the media.
51-year-old Russell Huekler, an alternative juror who stepped forward the day
of the verdict, said, "The
prosecution didn't provide the evidence that was there for any of the charges
from first-degree murder down to second-degree murder to the child abuse to
even the manslaughter [charge]. It just wasn't there."
The next day, juror number three—Jennifer Ford, a 32-year-old nursing student—told ABC News, "I did not say she was innocent" and "I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove
what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be."
She added, "I'm not saying that I
believe the defense," but that "it's easier for me logically to get
from point A to point B" via the defense argument, as opposed to the
prosecution argument. Ford believed George
Anthony was "dishonest."
She said the jury "was sick to
[their] stomachs to get [the not-guilty] verdict" and that the
decision process overwhelmed them to the point where they did not want to talk
to reporters afterwards. Juror number
two, a 46-year-old male who requested to stay unidentified, told the St. Petersburg Times that "everybody agreed if we were going
fully on feelings and emotions, [Anthony] was done". He stated that a
lack of evidence was the reason for the not-guilty verdict: "I just swear to God ... I wish we had
more evidence to put her away. I truly do ... But it wasn't there." He
also said that Anthony was "not a good
person in my opinion". Juror number six, identified by WTSP as Brian Berling, told gossip website TMZ.com that he was willing to be interviewed "so long as the opportunities are paid".
In an anonymous interview, the jury foreman stated, "When I had to sign off on the verdict,
the sheet that was given to me—there was just a feeling of disgust that came
over me knowing that my signature and [Casey
Anthony's] signature were going to be on the same sheet," but that
"there was a suspicion of [George
Anthony]" that played a part in the jury's deliberations. The
foreman stated his work experience enabled him to read people and that George Anthony "had a very selective memory" which stayed with the
jurors, emphasizing that the jury was frustrated by the motive, cause of death,
and George Anthony. "That a mother would want to do
something like that to her child just because she wanted to go out and
party," he said. "We felt
that the motive that the state provided was, in our eyes, was just kind of
weak." Although the foreman
objected to Casey Anthony's behavior
in the wake of her daughter's death, he and the jury did not factor that
behavior into their verdict because it was not illegal. They initially took a
vote on the murder count, which was 10–2
(two voting guilty), but after more
than ten hours of deliberation, they decided the only charges they felt were
proven were the four counts of lying to
law enforcement.
Perry announced at sentencing on July 7 that he would
withhold the jurors' names for several months because of concern that "Some people would like to take
something out on them.” He released the jurors' names on October 25,
2011. On May 6, 2013, he stated that he
believed there was sufficient evidence to convict Casey Anthony, even though most of the evidence was circumstantial,
and that he was shocked by the not-guilty
verdict.
Anthony family
Mark Lippman, the
attorney for George and Cindy Anthony,
told ABC News that the family
received death threats after the not-guilty
verdict was rendered. In response to
the verdict, a statement was released by Lippman on behalf of the Anthony
family (George, Cindy and Lee Anthony):
While the family may
never know what has happened to Caylee
Marie Anthony, they now have closure for this chapter of their life. They
will now begin the long process of rebuilding their lives. Despite the baseless
defense chosen by Casey Anthony, the
family believes that the Jury made a fair decision based on the evidence
presented, the testimony presented, the scientific information presented and
the rules that were given to them by the Honorable
Judge Perry to guide them. The family hopes that they will be given the
time by the media to reflect on this verdict and decide the best way to move
forward privately.
It was alleged in press reports that Cindy Anthony had perjured herself when telling jurors she—not Casey Anthony—was the one who used her
family computer to search the Internet for "chloroform".
The state attorney's office said she would not be charged.
On July 6, 2011, Anthony's jailhouse letters were released
to the general public. They were originally released (though not to public) in
April 2010 by prosecutors preparing for the Anthony trial. In more than 250
handwritten pages, Anthony discusses her life in jail, what she misses, and her
plans for the future if freed. On July
8, 2011, Cindy Anthony had scheduled
a visit to meet with Casey at 7 pm, but Casey declined to meet with her mother.
Mark Lippman told Reuters during the trial that Casey had
cut off communication with her parents. It was later announced that George and Cindy Anthony would be
appearing on Dr. Phil in September
2011 to tell their story.
Casey left for an undisclosed location not long after the
verdict. However, on August 12, she was ordered to return to Florida to serve a year's supervised
probation for an unrelated check-fraud conviction. When she pleaded guilty to
that charge in January 2010, the judge in that case intended for Casey to serve
her probation after proceedings in the murder case concluded, but an error in
the sentencing documents allowed her to serve her probation while awaiting
trial. Casey returned to Florida on August 25 and is serving out
her probation in an undisclosed location. Due to numerous threats against her
life, the Department of Corrections did
not enter her information into the state parolee database. In August 2011, George and Cindy issued a
statement that Casey would not be living at their home when she returned to Florida to serve her probation. According to Huffington Post, she was reportedly working with her probation
officer to take online college classes in an unspecified field, while protected
by her security, at an undisclosed educational institution.
In August 2011, the Florida
Department of Children and Families released a report based on a three-year
investigation into the disappearance and death of Caylee. An agency
spokesperson stated, "It is the
conclusion of the [DCF] that [Casey
Anthony] failed to protect her child from harm either through her actions
or lack of actions, which tragically resulted in the child's untimely
death."
Casey filed bankruptcy with the Middle District of Florida Bankruptcy Court on January 27, 2013.
Her estimated liabilities were between $500,000 and $1 million.
Civil suits
In September 2008, Zenaida
Fernandez-Gonzalez sued Casey for defamation. During the investigation,
Anthony told investigators that she left 2½-year-old Caylee with a babysitter
named Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez—also
known as "Zanny"—on June 16
at the stairs of a specific apartment in the Sawgrass apartment complex located in Orlando. Fernandez-Gonzalez, who was listed on apartment records as
having visited apartments on that date, was questioned by police, but stated
she did not know Casey or Caylee. Her
defamation suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, alleging that Casey
willfully damaged her reputation. Fernandez-Gonzalez has told reporters that she
lost her job, was evicted from her house, and received death threats against
herself and her children as a result of Anthony's lies. Fernandez-Gonzalez'
lawyer, John Morgan, said he wants
to interrogate Anthony about Caylee's death because it is "the essence" of the defamation suit.
On October 8, 2011, Morgan deposed Casey via a video
conference. She exercised her Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination and answered only a couple of
factual questions. Morgan felt that was improper, but legal experts think that
Anthony is well within her rights to plead
the Fifth until her appeals of the convictions for lying to officers are
exhausted. Fernandez-Gonzalez' attorneys sought and
received permission to obtain Anthony's address (though it was kept sealed from
the public) so they could subpoena her to testify, even if she only took the
stand long enough to plead the Fifth.
However, Fernandez-Gonzalez is willing to drop the suit if Anthony apologizes
to her and compensates her for pain and suffering. In
September 2015, a judge ruled in favor of Anthony, stating: "There is nothing in the statement…to
support (Fernandez-Gonzalez's) allegations that (Anthony) intended to portray
(the nanny) as a child kidnapper and potentially a child killer."
In July 2011, Texas
EquuSearch (TES), a non-profit group which assisted in the search for
Caylee from July to December 2008 when she was believed to be missing, sued
Anthony for fraud and unjust enrichment.
TES estimates that it spent more than $100,000 searching for Caylee even though
she was already dead. TES
founder and director Tim Miller estimates that the abortive search for
Caylee expended 40% of the group's yearly resources which could have been spent
looking for other missing children. It only learned that Anthony knew all along
that Caylee was dead when the trial began.
TES and Anthony eventually
settled out of court on October 18, 2013. TES was listed as a creditor to
Anthony and was entitled to $75,000.
"Caylee's
Law"
Since the end of the trial, various movements have arisen
for the creation of a new law, called "Caylee's Law", that would
impose stricter requirements on parents to notify law enforcement of the death
or disappearance of a child. One such
petition, circulated via Change.org,
has gained nearly 1.3 million electronic signatures. In response to this and other petitions,
lawmakers in four states—Florida,
Oklahoma, New York, and West Virginia—have begun drafting versions of "Caylee's
Law". The law in Oklahoma would require a child's parent or guardian to notify police of a
missing child within 24 hours, and
would also stipulate a time frame for notification of the disappearance of a
young child under the age of 12. The
Florida law would make it a felony if a parent or legal guardian fails to report a
missing child in timely manner if they could have known the child would be in
danger. The call for mandatory
reporting laws has been criticized as being "reactive,
overly indiscriminating and even counterproductive". One
critic noted the law could lead to overcompliance and false reports by parents
wary of becoming suspects, wasting police resources and leading to legitimate
abductions going uninvestigated during the critical first few hours.
Additionally innocent people could get snared in the law for searching for a
child instead of immediately calling police.
Memorials and tribute
songs
Different artists have written songs in Caylee's memory. Jon Whynock
performed his own version at her memorial service in February 2009, and Rascal
Flatts' Gary LeVox collaborated with country comedian and radio host Cledus T. Judd and songwriter Jimmy Yeary to write a song titled
"She's Going Places" in Caylee's
memory.
Later information
In November 2012, WKMG-TV
television in Orlando reported
that police never investigated Firefox browser
evidence on Casey's computer the day of Caylee's death; they only looked at
Internet Explorer evidence. The browser history showed that someone at the
Anthony household, using a password-protected account Casey used, did a Firefox Google search for "foolproof suffocation" at
2:51 p.m. and then clicked on an article criticizing pro-suicide websites
promoting "foolproof" ways to die, including the idea of committing
suicide by taking poison and putting a plastic bag over one's head. The browser
then recorded activity on MySpace, a site used by Casey but not George. The
station learned about this information from Casey's attorney Jose Baez who mentioned it in his book
on the case, speculating that George had contemplated suicide after Caylee's
death. He conceded to reporters that the records are open to interpretation;
however, he speculated that the state may have chosen not to introduce the
search at trial because, according to Baez, the computer records tend to refute
the timeline stated by George, which was that Casey left at 12:50 p.m. An
analysis by John Goetz, a retired
engineer and computer expert in Connecticut,
revealed that her password-protected computer account shows activity on the
home computer at 1:39 p.m., with activity on her AIM account, as well as MySpace and Facebook.
In April 2016, transcripts of two 2015 affidavits of private investigator Dominic Casey were filed on the court
docket in the matter of Kronk v. Anthony
and picked up by news services in May 2016. In one affidavit, Casey stated that
on July 26, 2008, Baez admitted to him that Casey Anthony murdered Caylee
Anthony "and dumped the body
somewhere and, he needed all the help he could get to find the body before anyone
else did". He also claimed that Baez had a sexual
relationship with Anthony, and that "Casey
told me she had to do what Jose said because she had no money for her
defense." Baez "vehemently"
denied a sexual relationship.
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