At the end of the day,
IMO the jurors were likely truthful when they said they only followed the case "somewhat" in the news.
Jose planted reasonable doubt about George in the jury's mind. Likely, the jury's George was a different George than I observed. The jury and I do not know George in the same context. The George the jury knew, was the OS George. They studied on the stand through Jose's OS prism.
Had they watched this story daily while George searched for Caylee, had they seen George sit with LE and be interviewed early on, had they understood the depth of Cindy's denial and her capacity to mislead and misdirect, ... they could not have reached the verdict they did.
Based on the time I spent watching this case unfold, I would have been disqualified from the jury. Because of that entire family, the only one I've ever wanted to (could stomach) listen to was ...
George.
Did the PT do everything possible to make the "George did it" an unreasonable doubt? Could they have done more? (Those are just rhetorical questions...obviously.)
JMHO
Thanks for your post. I can relate. As silly as this may sound to some/many of you, I hadn't followed this situation much at all until it went to trial in late May of this year. By way of example, feel free to check the date when I joined this forum. Yes, I'm a bit of a late bloomer
and in fact, it was my outrage at the trial's outcome that brought me here.
Anyway, back to the point: Yes, I knew about this case (How could I not, especially being a Floridian!). But it was my daughter's interest in the case that spurred mine. She's a student at UCF and is thus relatively near the events, and mentioned to me not long ago that the case was going to trial. As it turns out, I was in Orlando on the first day of trial (May 24th) and happened to catch a bit of the local TV coverage (opening statement days mostly) and 'got hooked'. Since that time, I've looked into it a lot more, as far as online documents, etc., are concerned, and followed the 'live action' trial online pretty much every day and/or caught up with it via Orlando video news stations online at night.
That said, prior to this televised trial, I honestly didn't have any pre-conceived notions about the Anthony family and its various 'characters', with the exception that I did have a fairly strong "mom feeling" that Casey did commit this crime...but it never occurred to me that anyone else might have been involved, until I started watching the trial. That's not to say that I bought any of that idea, but just that it hadn't occurred to me prior to the trial.
However..........the more I watched, and the more evidence I saw presented, the more convinced I became that Casey had done this dastardly deed and had done so alone. Even so, I will admit to feeling a bit 'unfair' to her at that time, having only to that point heard one side of the story...the state's. However, I then did make a conscious decision to really give the whole thing a 'wait and see' attitude, which I think I did fairly well. But, as the trial rolled on, and the defense shared their side of things, I couldn't help but see how ludicrous much of their 'story' was, ESPECIALLY in light of the QUANTITY AND QUALITY of the state's case. In the end, it was a total no-brainer for me.
My point is, if we assume that the jurors were like me and really didn't know much about this case prior to jury selection (I'm willing to take them at their word on that), I STILL don't understand HOW they were even remotely able to reach the conclusion that they reached. Granted, we, the TV viewing 'audience' did see and hear more than the sequestered jurors (e.g., proffers, news coverage, etc.), but still, I really just don't understand HOW they could ignore SO much that was given to them to consider, HOW they could make George out to be the 'villian' in all of this, and especially, HOW they could essentially ignore all of the instructions given to them by Judge Perry.
Really, I just don't get it, and am still reeling from the result.
