“‘Everybody agreed if we were going fully on feelings and emotions,’ the juror said, ‘she was done.’…
“But there just wasn’t enough evidence to convict the mother of murder, Juror No. 2 said in an exclusive interview Wednesday with the St. Petersburg Times.
“‘I just swear to God…,’ he said, his voice falling silent, overcome by tears. ‘I wish we had more evidence to put her away. I truly do…’
“She is ‘not a good person in my opinion,’ he said, his voice again overcome by emotion.”
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“Dean Eckstadt, 25, was one of five alternate jurors who witnessed the testimony during the 33-day trial but did not participate in deliberations…
“Asked whether he thinks Anthony is innocent, Eckstadt responded, ‘That’s a hard question. She was a liar; she didn’t tell the truth most of the time, (but) to actually kill her daughter, I don’t think so. I believe that she may have had knowledge of the situation, but to actually kill her child, I don’t believe it happened.’…
“He says that the jurors he has talked to are worried about something else entirely. ‘We are upset that people think we’re incompetent,’ he said on the Today show.”
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“Even if it is ‘likely’ or ‘probable’ that a defendant committed the murder, he must be acquitted, because neither likely nor probable satisfies the daunting standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, a legally proper result—acquittal in such a case—may not be the same as a morally just result. In such a case, justice has not been done to the victim, but the law has prevailed…
“[A] criminal trial is not a search for truth. Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt…
“The verdict in the Casey Anthony case reflected the lack of forensic evidence and heavy reliance on circumstantial inferences. There was no evidence of a cause of death, the time of death, or the circumstances surrounding the actual death of this young girl. There was sufficient circumstantial evidence from which the jury could have inferred homicide. But a reasonable jury could also have rejected that conclusion, as this jury apparently did. There are hundreds of defendants now in prison, some even on death row, based on less persuasive evidence than was presented in this case.”
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“Just two days after a Florida jury found Casey Anthony not guilty of murdering her 2-year old daughter Caylee, four states are drafting legislation being referred to as ‘Caylee’s Law,’ which would tighten requirements on missing persons reports.
“Lawmakers in Florida, Oklahoma, New York and West Virginia have all announced that they will propose versions of the law. This comes at the same time that an online petition for a ‘Caylee’s Law’ went viral on Change.org, which has collected over 300,000 signatures…
“‘It probably won’t be a deterrent to crime, but at least it’s something the prosecutors can charge someone with who’s violated the law,’ he said. ‘If this law was in Florida, Casey would have some more jail time to stand.'”
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