Poll - If you were on the Jury today

[jon_burrows]

-bold by me-

But, you have to remember that one of her friends (was it Ricardo?) put a picture of a man and a woman on his website with a caption, 'win her over with chloroform,' or something like that.

The defense could argue that KC was curious as to what this drug was and how to use it (in a sexual way, as hinted at in the boy's web photo).

I hope the DT doesn't read this, but it may have been as innocent as that. I mean, how many things have you or I Googled, as websleuthers, that would raise some eyebrows if we were ever murder suspects? If a child goes missing in our neighborhood, our mere presence here, day after day, would raise some red flags.

That being said, I don't think the search was innocent, but it could have been. If it weren't for the chloroform levels in the car, I think the DT could explain it away.

BBM - I think that's exactly where Casey got the idea of chloroform. It could have been totally innocent - I agree. She also looked up 'neck breaking'. That could have been totally innocent too.

According to JA's explanation as to why the DP is on the table, they are saying she either drugged her or restrained her then duct taped her face. No one knows for sure if she was drugged with xanax or chloroform because she was completely skeletonized before anyone knew she was even missing. In fact, I completely disregarded the chloroform until I heard Dr. Vass' testimony. Even now, I would have to hear more about chloroform before reaching a decision that Casey actually made it and used it on Caylee.

I still believe the evidence shows the murder weapon was the duct tape. I'm not sure the SAs should bring up chloroform. They don't need it. They have plenty of other evidence to convict her for murder.

IMO

 

[gamom]

BBM
That is what I used to think as well. I originally thought the baby had drowned and Casey called frantically for help/

[ And I understand completely your example because I did the same type thing when my 2 yr old had a really high fever and projectile vomiting--i called my mom who lived 800 miles away. lol]

But since then I have decided that it is more likely that she called her parents in a panic to make certain they were still at work, and would not be arriving home anytime soon. She had quite a mess to clean up and needed some time alone. imoo

Completely agree. Also agree with the post above. If we were just dealing with her not calling 9-1-1 the accident theory could fly. But you are right, when you combine everything it does not sound plausible. Plus I still feel if it truly were an accident she would have confessed by now to a lesser sentence. No one in their right mind would take the chance of the death penalty if it was an accident. MOO

 

[LinasK]

Casey is clearly a disturbed and disturbing person. However, the fact that she spent that much time messing with the corpse leads me away from premeditated murder (although possibly felony murder). Remember Scott Peterson? He killed his wife, dumped her body in an area where she was highly unlikely to be found, in an area an hour away from where he lived, using a boat no one knew about. Then he immediately reported his wife missing and pretended to look for her. Now contrast this with Casey who has no idea what to do, may have actually tried to bury the body in the sandbox moved the body to the car where it decomposes for at least a week, then dumps the body in an area where she was known to frequent, walking distance from where she lived. Then she tried to act as if nothing happened hoping everyone would somehow forget she had a kid. This is why I have a very hard time believing she planned this.

I disagree, because you are mixing together two very separate components- the killing and the body disposal. Casey could well have premeditated the killing far in advance, but not have given any thought as to how she would dispose of the body when the deed was actually done. I personally think the computer searches months in advance are when Casey started planning to kill Caylee, but she seized her moment the night of the 15th, and it was spur of the moment, and didn't know how to deal with the body...
Scott also hoped the searches for Laci would die down, and that everyone would be too busy to search for her on Christmas. He had to come up with a disappearance because Laci was expected to go to her family's house...

 

[Uicipher]

who goes out and party's when there child is missing? Who goes out to blockbuster after murdering her child? Who drives around with a body in her car for days? Who steals money from people they care about? I mean the questions can go on and on with KC. It is clear by all of her actions, the girls does not make rational decisions. I don't think we can rule anything out with her.
Because of my background, I've met people like Casey (1 person in particular who I think is exactly like Casey) so it affects my positions on the issue.

I absolutely agree. I'm not saying that she did not commit premeditated murder, she could have, but it's also possible that she committed aggravated manslaughter. I don't think one scenario is more likely than the other, however I think the latter is something that is beyond a shadow of a doubt, while the former is something that doesn't pass the reasonable doubt test. This thread is supposed to be about how we would vote from a legal standpoint not a moral one.

Because of my background, I've met many people like Casey (there is 1 person in particular who I think is exactly like Casey) so it affects my positions on the issue.

She could have also been calling to make sure her parents weren't on their way home. She had a corpse to hide/dispose of and didn't want her parents to catch her with a dead Caylee. She could have still been mad and wanted to fight more over the phone. Obviously there was a fight because neither GA or CA would answer her calls and the neighbor said he heard loud yelling the night before.

Lets assume it was premeditated. Try to get into that mind state for a second. You just killed your 2 year old child, your parents might be on their way home. Would you A) Call your parents in a fury, which might alert them to a bad situation or B) try to dispose of the evidence as quickly as possible then run.
Her actions can be taken either way, because she does both A and B, but I don't buy that the phone calls point toward premeditated. IMO they point toward accident.

I understand your situation with your child but this is different when we're considering an accidental death. Caylee would have been unresponsive (not breathing) where every second counts. Your baby was breathing. Although I don't know you I think you would have called 911 if you walked into your child's room and she wasn't breathing.

I would have called 9-11 in 1/2 a second without thinking about it out of sheer panic. Again you assume that Casey has a normal mind, she doesn't. Either she didn't call 9-11 because she was afraid of the consequences rather than her child's life, or she killed her child in cold blood, either way we're dealing with a very disturbing person.

The detectives pretty much begged Casey to come clean if it was an accident during the interview at Universal. If Casey, the queen of liars, had any inkling that she could explain the duct tape away by saying it was an accident she would have done so. Even Casey wasn't brazen enough to lead detectives to Caylee's body and expect them to believe it was an accident with duct tape plastered all over her face and her body left in trash bags.

Not necessarily, IMO Casey is a pathological liar. A true pathological liar will not tell the truth in situations where it benefits them. Remember she could have avoided murder charges completely by pleading guilty to aggravated child abuse in the beginning, regardless of what happened.

Casey was not afraid to call 911. She called them when GA/CA were outside with the protestors. It doesn't make sense that Casey had no problem dialing 911 for a problem as minor as protestors but would not call them if her daughter's life was on the line. There is a video of Jose picking up Casey after that 911 call and he was mad. His smirk was gone for once. He knew exactly what that 911 call meant...he couldn't say poor wittle Casey was afraid to call 911 because she proved otherwise.

Makes perfect sense to me, here's my opinion.
She never cared about Caylee, it was always about HER. In her messed up head she sees Caylee die and says "My mom is going to be so mad... better pretend nothing happened". When she called 9-11 over the protesters she was thinking "Oh no they're yelling things at ME! I'm telling!".

22 years old is not young. People who graduate from college have lived away from home for 4 years when they reach 22 and are ready for careers. Other 22 year olds are making their own way in life just like every one of Casey's friends. They were all paying rent, holding down jobs, etc. Others decide to get married and have children. Lots of people much younger than Casey are in a foreign country fighting a war. People talk about Casey like she is 13 years old. She is/was a grown woman capable of stealing every person in her life blind, manipulating people like a pro, and lying to get whatever she wanted. She is no 13 year old in a 22 year old body (now 25 years old).

Actually 13 year old in a 22 year old body is exactly how I would describe her. Emotionally she is mentally retarded. Read her jailhouse letters, they sound like something written by a 13 year old. Just because most people at 22 have the emotional development of someone who is 22 does not mean that Casey has that development or is capable of it. Take the theory of your choice (Duct tape, Xanax, poll accident, etc) and tell me do her actions sound like the work of someone who is 22 or 13.

 

[Leila]

I disagree, because you are mixing together two very separate components- the killing and the body disposal. Casey could well have premeditated the killing far in advance, but not have given any thought as to how she would dispose of the body when the deed was actually done. I personally think the computer searches months in advance are when Casey started planning to kill Caylee, but she seized her moment the night of the 15th, and it was spur of the moment, and didn't know how to deal with the body...
Scott also hoped the searches for Laci would die down, and that everyone would be too busy to search for her on Christmas. He had to come up with a disappearance because Laci was expected to go to her family's house...

I've always felt that while Casey did some research into methods of killing someone, she didn't have an exact plan of action. It was something that she intended on carrying out, but with no time table in mind.

I think it's likely that the events of June 15, 2008, and specifically the alleged fight between Casey and Cindy, was the catalyst for Casey murdering Caylee. She killed Caylee in a rage against her mother. Having killed Caylee, Casey was left with no real plan of how to dispose of the body. From that point on everything she did was a hastily made decision.

Casey didn't even have a well thought out cover story for Caylee's whereabouts. Telling her friends that Caylee was with the nanny or with her mother worked until Cindy caught up with her.

After Cindy's second 911 call, Lee told Casey that with their mother calling 911 the police would insist that Casey take them to where Caylee was so they could do a wellness check. He was trying to get Casey to see that one way or another, she was going to have to take someone to wherever Caylee was that night.

It was then that Casey came up with the "Zanny the nanny kidnapped Caylee" story. It was the only thing she could think of that would explain why she couldn't produce a live Caylee that night. She didn't have the time to think through what would happen when the police insisted that she take them to where the nanny lived.

In less than 24 hours, Casey's story fell apart and was proven to be a lie. While the police continued to follow up on Casey's story, eventually it was known that everything she told them was false.

 

[BeenaBobba]

I voted for LWP. If I had to guess, I think that that's how she'll be sentenced, too.

 

[jon_burrows]

I absolutely agree. I'm not saying that she did not commit premeditated murder, she could have, but it's also possible that she committed aggravated manslaughter. I don't think one scenario is more likely than the other, however I think the latter is something that is beyond a shadow of a doubt, while the former is something that doesn't pass the reasonable doubt test. This thread is supposed to be about how we would vote from a legal standpoint not a moral one.


Because of my background, I've met many people like Casey (there is 1 person in particular who I think is exactly like Casey) so it affects my positions on the issue.


Lets assume it was premeditated. Try to get into that mind state for a second. You just killed your 2 year old child, your parents might be on their way home. Would you A) Call your parents in a fury, which might alert them to a bad situation or B) try to dispose of the evidence as quickly as possible then run.
Her actions can be taken either way, because she does both A and B, but I don't buy that the phone calls point toward premeditated. IMO they point toward accident.

Yes, you would call you parents if you're stupid enough to try and bury your child in the backyard. Follow the evidence--she borrowed a shovel and dirt was disturbed in the backyard. ICA probably didn't know how hard it would be to dig a hole big/deep enough to bury a child. Obviously her parents were not alarmed at her calls because they did not answer. She had a history of making a flurry of calls.

Casey wasn't in a hurry to do anything. She drove around with a corpse in her trunk for 2+ days.

Phone calls have nothing to do with a premeditated murder. Applying three layers of duct tape over the face of a child does.


I would have called 9-11 in 1/2 a second without thinking about it out of sheer panic. Again you assume that Casey has a normal mind, she doesn't. Either she didn't call 9-11 because she was afraid of the consequences rather than her child's life, or she killed her child in cold blood, either way we're dealing with a very disturbing person.

I'm not assuming Casey has a normal mind. I believe she is evil, arrogant, and has no remorse. Casey knew the difference between right and wrong. She also knew the consequences of murder as evidence by her photobucket pic of the anti-dp graphic.


Not necessarily, IMO Casey is a pathological liar. A true pathological liar will not tell the truth in situations where it benefits them. Remember she could have avoided murder charges completely by pleading guilty to aggravated child abuse in the beginning, regardless of what happened.

I'm not a lawyer but I believe this statement is inaccurate. You don't get a pass on murder by pleading to a lesser charge.

Makes perfect sense to me, here's my opinion.
She never cared about Caylee, it was always about HER. In her messed up head she sees Caylee die and says "My mom is going to be so mad... better pretend nothing happened". When she called 9-11 over the protesters she was thinking "Oh no they're yelling things at ME! I'm telling!".

I have not seen one piece of evidence that points toward ICA being afraid of CA (aside from Casey's mouth :liar. In fact it was the other way around. Neighbors witnessed a fight where ICA yelled at CA, dropped the 'F' bomb, then went off for a jog. Annie described a similar situation. The jailhouse videos show who was boss. If she was that afraid of CA she wouldn't have stolen from her over and over again.


Actually 13 year old in a 22 year old body is exactly how I would describe her. Emotionally she is mentally retarded. Read her jailhouse letters, they sound like something written by a 13 year old. Just because most people at 22 have the emotional development of someone who is 22 does not mean that Casey has that development or is capable of it. Take the theory of your choice (Duct tape, Xanax, poll accident, etc) and tell me do her actions sound like the work of someone who is 22 or 13.

Her actions were exactly how I would expect someone to act after they've killed someone (if they are arrogant and stupid). She was happy, partied, got a tattoo, had her nails done, enjoyed lots of time with her boy toys. Even today, talk of Caylee's remains don't invoke one tear but she can cry real tears for herself. As for the jail house letters, she was still trying to wiggle out of her lies by making more lies. She is far from any form of mental retardation.

My reply in red.
IMO

 

[2goldfish]

I think that the only possibility of this not being premediated hinges on whether one believes the tape were applied postmortem or not.

if before death: (is premortem a word? dr G used a correct one but I cant think of it) then it takes a loonnnngggg time to rip off three strips of tape and stick them to a (possibly) struggling baby's face....then wait for her to die. you might not think that 4-5 minutes is so very long but for capital murder it is plenty.

if postmortem: one must believe that this person either 1. wanted to fake a kidnapping, in which case why three strips of tape? why not one, like in the movies? (not that in real life it necessarily only takes one.....a few days reading the jbr forums you'll know all you ever wanted to know about taping a mouth) or 2, wanted to keep fluids from escaping which really defies belief, as one exudes fluids from more than just the mouth and nose if you can forgive the mental pic. why not bag the whole thing? oh yeah she did. so you're left with only reasonably being a fake kidnapping and you're back to whether all that tape covering the nose and mouth makes sense to fake a kidnapping that you never even call in and report.

 

[Uicipher]

I think that the only possibility of this not being premediated hinges on whether one believes the tape were applied postmortem or not.

if before death: (is premortem a word? dr G used a correct one but I cant think of it) then it takes a loonnnngggg time to rip off three strips of tape and stick them to a (possibly) struggling baby's face....then wait for her to die. you might not think that 4-5 minutes is so very long but for capital murder it is plenty.

if postmortem: one must believe that this person either 1. wanted to fake a kidnapping, in which case why three strips of tape? why not one, like in the movies? (not that in real life it necessarily only takes one.....a few days reading the jbr forums you'll know all you ever wanted to know about taping a mouth) or 2, wanted to keep fluids from escaping which really defies belief, as one exudes fluids from more than just the mouth and nose if you can forgive the mental pic. why not bag the whole thing? oh yeah she did. so you're left with only reasonably being a fake kidnapping and you're back to whether all that tape covering the nose and mouth makes sense to fake a kidnapping that you never even call in and report.

I do attach some weight to the fluids theory and never bought the fake kidnapping theory. If I remember correctly she didn't search for ZFG until after she was arrested (please correct me if I'm wrong, it's difficult to remember 2.5 year old document dumps), if she had been faking a kidnapping I would think she would have searched much earlier, probably around the time of Caylee's death if it was an accident, or well before if it was premeditated. It also seems to forward thinking for her MO.
On the point about fluids, yes they escape from more places than the mouth and nose, but Caylee's body wasn't intact. If there had been more duct tape we might never know. Containing the fluids would also make the bag easier to handle and assist in transferring it to the bag.

On another note, I think there are other routes that will point towards either premeditated or accident. As an example, a computer that she and her immediate family had access to searched for chloroform and neck breaking. I've always been on the side of "well I search for strange things all the time, and I'm not a murder", however, if the prosecution can show that there was an obsession, then we have very strong evidence of premeditated murder. In other words, if someone searched for chloroform once or even a few times over course of an hour I don't give it much weight, if someone searched for it over the course of a few days or weeks, then I'd say it's very strong evidence that she made the search, and she made the search because she was planning a murder.

 

[kaRN]

The body fluids would pool in areas of the body that were lying on the trunk carpet. Gravity controls that and then they would seep from the skin itself. Duct tape is a wonderful thing but it doesn't stick to wet surfaces let alone so well that it could keep a mandible intact through months of flooding. I also don't think Caylee was necessarily fighting ICA off either if she in her sweet innocence thought Mommy was playing a game.

 

[WolfmarsGirl]

I wanted to bump this since we are getting closer to the trial. I think it is interesting to see what we, KC's peers as would be on a jury, would come up with as a conviction/punishment.

I have to admit, I changed my mind since I voted. I initially voted for guilty with DP, because my emotions got away with me.

However, now I am thinking more guilty with life in prison. I want her to suffer her whole life for this and I want other prisoners to have at her...

 

[LinasK]

Calling all "hot guys": would you vote to convict Casey??? They think you are her ideal juror, what do you say???

 

[SillyNilly]

I wanted to bump this since we are getting closer to the trial. I think it is interesting to see what we, KC's peers as would be on a jury, would come up with as a conviction/punishment.

I have to admit, I changed my mind since I voted. I initially voted for guilty with DP, because my emotions got away with me.

However, now I am thinking more guilty with life in prison. I want her to suffer her whole life for this and I want other prisoners to have at her...

I would be happy with a guilty verdict either way, DP or LWP. Even if she gets the DP she's going to sit on death row for years and years before she's actually put to death.

 

[Quiche]

Calling all "hot guys": would you vote to convict Casey??? They think you are her ideal juror, what do you say???

I have a son KC's age-- he can't stand her, thinks she's as ugly as the come. So, I think it's a human thing to be repulsed by a lying child killer. mo

 

[legalmania]

I just don't like to speculate so I will submit something I found from April 2011.


http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/en...y-48-hours-mystery-guilty-of-foolishness.html

 

[crucibelle]

I voted for death penalty. It is my opinion that Casey killed Caylee, with malice aforethought, and has shown absolutely ZERO remorse for what she has done. The reason I will not be satisfied with LWOP is that I think Casey, with her rich fantasy life, will probably find a way to actually enjoy her time in prison. I'm willing to bet she will quickly find a large/strong female 'protector" in prison. If there are male guards, she will be flirting and having herself a good ol'time. I want Casey to have the same type of fear in her that Caylee probably had during her last moments. Only thing that's going to do that to Casey (IMO), is the DP. Of course, as we all know, it would probably be years before she would be executed, because of appeals and such.

 

[dr dona]

I voted LWOp although I'd be happy with the DP. I don't know if a jury will give her death. We know Caylee's death was callous, long and pAylene (? spelling) got deathainful. But, because Casey I don't know if the jury will give her death. Aylene Warmos ( ?spelling) got death but she was a serial killer. What other women have been given the DP in Floridia??????