The World Anxiously Awaits While Members Of The Jury In Casey Anthony's Trial Deliberates On What Her Legal Fate Will Be.
Now Please Allow Me To Tell You How I'd Like To See This Case End.
Since Casey Showed NO Mercy For Her Child, She Should Be Shown NO Mercy!
I Say She Deserves The Death Penalty But Instead Would Love To See Her Rot In Prison For At Least 30 Years!
According To The Evidence & Testimony Presented Casey Wanted "The Beautiful Life Right"?
A Life That Did NOT Include Her Beautiful, Young Child Caylee!
Caylee's In Heaven Now, But Her Foolish, Selfish Mother Currently Sits Behind Bars.
How's That "Beautiful Life" Thing Without Caylee Working Out For You Casey?
Where's Tony?
How Many Times Has Tony Visited After Your Arrest?
No Need For Long Deliberations Or Debates.
Sentence This Chick To LIFE IN PRISON!! For At Least 30 Years!
That Would Be Her Just Reward!
By The Way Kudos To Judge Perry And Prosecutors Jeff & Linda!
Casey's Attorney Jose Baez Didn't Do So Bad Either.
R.I.P. Caylee
Jury begins deliberations in Casey Anthony murder trial
Jury deliberations are now underway in the first-degree murder trial of Casey Anthony.
Following several weeks of testimony, the 12 member jury will be taken into a deliberation room, where they will stay until a verdict is reached.
All 17 jurors were escorted from the courtroom, but the alternates were separated from the 12 members who will decide Casey Anthony's fate.
The five alternates will continue to be sequestered until the jury reaches a verdict.
Chief Judge Belvin Perry will address the five alternates after they are taken to another location inside the courthouse. A court reporter and one member of the state and defense will join Perry.
The jurors will be served lunch inside the deliberation room, then will choose a jury foreman who will act as a spokesperson and keep the discussion on topic and cordial.
Once a verdict is reached, the judge will give a 30 minute warning to allow the state, defense, defendant and all others gather inside the courtroom.
Impassioned rebuttal
Assistant state Attorney Linda Drane Burdick gave a devastating closing argument that detailed Casey's history of lies and questioned who had most to gain by the child's death.
She replayed video and audio of Casey lying to her parents and law enforcement. Burdick said she was twice given the chance to acknowledge that the death was an accident, as her defense has claimed, but she never did.
During the closing, Casey was seen shaking her head, jutting her jaw and grumbling at her lawyers. Several jurors watched her reactions as they listened to her recorded lies.
In the end, she said, jurors need to consider:
"Whose life was better without Caylee? Was Cindy Anthony's life better?"
In making that argument, Burdick played the now infamous 911 call in which Cindy Anthony says her daughter "finally admitted" that Caylee had been missing for 31 days, and that it smelled like there had been "a dead body in the damn car!"
Burdick closed by saying that in the end, to answer whose life would be better, all the jurors needed to do was consider Casey Anthony's "Belle Vita" tattoo.
At that point, a photo of Casey Anthony's tattoo was shown next to a photo of her partying with friends during the time Caylee was missing in the summer of 2008
"There's your answer," Burdick said.
Burdick's rebuttal lasted about an hour, during which time she talked a lot about Caylee Anthony.
Burdick was mocking the defense's case, saying that all of the times defense attorneys characterized Casey Anthony as an "amazing" mother to Caylee, were laughable.
"Providing food, clothes, that makes her a mother," Burdick said. Not a great mother, "an adequate mother."
Burdick then said that George and Cindy Anthony were the ones who provided for Caylee, the ones who bought her clothes, food, made a lovely room for her in their home.
"If this truly was an accident...Caylee would be found floating in a pool, not a swamp down the street," she said.
Before Burdick continued with closing arguments after the break, defense attorney Jose Baez argued that one of the forensic analyses done on the computer searches for chloroform was erroneous.
Burdick started by telling the jury she doesn't want them to base their decision on emotion, "however emotionally charged" the testimony, details of the case have been.
"My biggest fear…is that common sense will be lost in all the rhetoric of the case," Burdick said. "That you won't step back and look at the evidence as a whole. You got to look at the big picture here."
She continued her closing statements by explaining Casey Anthony's lies. She called the defendant the "most well documented liar ever seen in a courtroom."
Burdick said liars responses to guilt are "oh so predictable."
Argument for first-degree murder
Earlier, Ashton also made the argument for first-degree murder, telling jurors they can reach that verdict through premeditated murder or felony murder through aggravated child abuse.
Ashton reminded jurors they do not need to be unanimous in deciding premeditated or felony murder. They can be divided and still reach a first-degree murder verdict.
"Regardless of how you put these facts together...any way you slice it…Casey Anthony is guilty of first-degree murder in this case," Ashton said.
George Anthony suicide letter
He again reminded jurors of George Anthony's suicide note.
"You cannot read this letter and not see this man was in pain," Ashton said. ""This is the cry of a man who doesn't understand the world anymore."
Ashton read a section of the letter where George said he tried to bring up his issues and was told to set those aside.
"To denigrate that pain...I believe belies the facts," Ashton said.
State explains science in case
Ashton described the testimony of Orange-Osceola Chief Medical Examiner Jan Garavaglia and other medical experts who examined the skeletal remains of Caylee Marie.
Defense attorney Jose Baez in his closing statements Sunday described the science used by the state as "junk science."
Ashton said Sunday that the state would need as much as two hours to wrap up its case this morning.
Barring any unexpected developments, Chief Judge Belvin Perry will instruct the 12 people charged with deciding Casey Anthony's fate and send them to a designated room where they stay until they make a decision.
The jury could begin its deliberations by lunchtime.
Casey Anthony is in the courtroom this morning wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt.
Ashton is digging into the forensic evidence this morning, starting with Caylee's remains, and hitting points on air samples, chloroform.
Experts agree nothing in the bones tells us how Caylee died, Ashton said.
He reminded the jury that two specific parts of the body after decomposition should not stay together — the mandible and the skull, but that Caylee's were in "anatomical position."
The state's experts told you "that tape had to have been on that skull before she decomposed," he said.
But defense expert, Dr. Werner Spitz said the body had to removed, waited for decomposition and then taped them back together. Ashton told jurors it was up to them to determine if that was reasonable.
"Dr. Spitz's version of the events is incredible" and not credible, Ashton said.
Ashton is again showing a series of photos of Caylees skull to underline his argument that the remains were left in the woods for six months and not brought back there after decomposition.
"The scene was not staged. It appears as it does because of the forces of nature. The forces of water. The forces of animals and the forces of decomposition," Ashton says. "That duct tape has been on Caylees face since the day she died."
When speaking about the air science, Ashton paid special attention to the testimony of Dr. Arpad Vass from the Oakridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Ashton implied that just because the defense didn't agree with his testimony, that doesn't mean it's junk science.
"Dr. Vass is an unapologetic science geek," Ashton said. "When have you heard an expert in a criminal case say, 'and here's the really cool part...'"
On Sunday, jurors sat through a full day of court listening first to Ashton deliver 77 minutes of closing arguments – methodically detailing the state's case for the jury, touching on important points, key evidence and imploring them to find the young mother guilty of first-degree murder.
Baez's three-hour closing argument, the state often objected to comments he made that possibly violated a court order issued by Perry last week.
Perry called a sidebar at one point when Baez raised his voice, and pointed his finger at Ashton, calling him a "laughing man." It appears that Ashton was trying to hide a smirk behind his hand during Baez's closing arguments. Perry had specifically forbidden them from expressing facial gestures in court.
Casey Anthony, 25, is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee Anthony during the summer of 2008. The state's theory suggests Casey Anthony used duct tape to suffocate her daughter and then dumped her body in a swampy wooded lot just a few blocks from the family home. The state is seeking the death penalty.
The defense claims Caylee accidentally drowned in the backyard swimming pool on June 16 and her body was disposed of by George Anthony. He has denied anything to do with the death of his granddaughter.
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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Orlando Sentinel, Google Maps
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