Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Casey Anthony Might Have Escaped Guilty Verdict Because An Incriminating Web Search Was Missed
Posted by Peter Quennell
This has been sensationalized news in the United States for two weeks and many people are still grinding their teeth.
As the video explains it seems pretty certain that it was Casey Anthony on her Firefox browser that googled “‘Foolproof Suffocation’” on the day her daughter Caylee disappeared and/or died.
The defense lawyer Jose Baez knew of the hit throughout the trial but, apparently under no legal compulsion to assemble the prosecutor’s case, he simply held his breath on the evidence until the “not guilty” verdict came in. He now suggests to universal disbelief that Casey was thinking of suicide.
Several of our lawyers are inclined to doubt that an American judge would have allowed an appeal in the Knox and Sollecito case given the very weak grounds - and had he or she done so, the appeal court would have had no second-guessing jury, and its brief would have been very circumscribed. With or without appeal granted, in the US the pair would probably still be serving their time.
So the uber-cautious Italian system favored them so far. But two of the prosecution appeal grounds at Supreme Court level seem at least as damning as searching “foolproof suffocation”. One is that the Conti-Vecchiotti consultancy was illegal, and the other is that the failure to test a remaining sample on the knife was also illegal.
So if they eventually do go down, Casey Anthony may still end up laughing at Sollecito and Knox. It has been announced that Casey Anthony is getting her own Lifetime movie (airing early next year) and can pretty well say and write anything and take any money offered that she wants.
But Casey Anthony is still appealing convictions for lying to police, a long shot at best, and after that the nanny whose name she gave to police as “the kidnapper” will get her day in court.
So Casey Anthony, who sounds psychologically untethered, might not end up laughing too much after all.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/05/12 at 07:08 PM in The legal followups
Comments
Most of the jurors I saw quoted in the media didn’t really concern themselves as much with the evidence as with the personality of the DA. Web searches have never been considered smoking guns, especially on a home computer with little security. It was an oversight but hardly a game changer.
Posted by Stilicho on 12/05/12 at 10:02 PM | #
There were more possible factors in Florida than either of course. We posted on two: a jury entirely from out of town that schmoozed for many days at a resort hotel, and a possible CSI effect.
Could the search on suffocation have trumped either of these? Your call! But in this unscientific online poll of non-jurors at the bottom, some 75% right now say yes it could:
It is her defense attorney himself now saying whether the computer search would come out was a nail biter. Certainly there was less forensic evidence than in the Perugia case and the prosecution did stretch, and go on and on..
Also in Perugia in strong contrast, the prosecution put on a very smooth trial, even pulling punches maybe, and at trial and especially appeal it was the defenses who stretched and went on and on.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/05/12 at 11:46 PM | #
It’s unbelievable that the computer forensic team missed these searches on Anthony’s computer—I bet there are some 10 year old “techies” out there who know how to find this type of information. What an “embarrassment” !
But, on the other hand, even if the prosecutors would have had this information, I do not think it would have made any difference with these “jurons”.
The Lifetime movie is based on prosecutor (recently elected State’s Attorney) Jeff Ashton’s book: “Imperfect Justice”. Rob Lowe will be playing Jeff Ashton in the upcoming movie. Rob Lowe did a great job in the recent Lifetime movie where he played Drew Peterson (former Illinois LE), who was recently found guilty of killing his third wife—and—his fourth wife is still “missing.”
By the way ... is there any “news” on Amanda ? or Raf ? Keep up the great work !
Posted by MissMarple on 12/06/12 at 01:17 AM | #
Hi MizzMarple
As you surely know there is some dispute over the Firefox browser and who among the police & prosecution knew about its loaded cache. For what its worth they did do a good job on the cache of the IE browser, though that was not the one Casey used. Actually they went back 3-4 years, which surprised me, that must have been one big cache. Not her paper trail though so mainly academic.
RS is ostensibly studying at the University of Verona and AK is ostensibly writing her book somewhere in Washington State. RS is or was in a “catch me if you can” mood while Knox seems a little shocked that so many doubt her.
Neither seem set up for meteoric careers (RS wants to program computer games but he’ll enter that field if at all about when many are retiring), and if the book sales were meant to set them for life, well, they still have a lot of costs ahead of them.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 12/06/12 at 04:37 PM | #
Thanks Peter, for you response. Some interesting “tidbits” about Raf and Amanda.
I saw the “cover” of Knox’s book—and thanks to the poster here at TJMK for that update.
It is absolutely unbelievable the title, or subtitle of AK’s book : “Waiting to be Heard”—like she hasn’t had a “voice” the past 5 years. She has been “front and center” while the ONE and ONLY VICTIM, Meredith Kercher, got the “back seat” !
Amanda’s book is a “slap in the face” to Meredith and her Wonderful Family, and her Friends ... and it’s a “slap in the face” to the Italian Judicial System and the Investigators, as well as all of you here who have worked so hard for True Justice for Meredith Kercher !
But Knox, and Sollecito, have NO SHAME ... no shame at all ... and I truly believe that their books will “backfire” on them ...
Keep up the great work here ...
Have a wonderful day !
Posted by MissMarple on 12/08/12 at 02:39 PM | #
@aethelred23, get well soon!
How bizarre is the Casey Anthony story. Much truth evades the courtroom.
I’ve returned from Nebraska and see a site found by PMF daisysteiner that Knox is mocking the world with clues of her guilt subtly hidden in cruddy junk she’s posting on a Pinterest site. This link is from the Ergon post of Tue. Dec. 4, 4:32pm.
http://pinterest.com/amandamarieknox/pins/
First thing on the site is Knox hiding behind sunglasses laughing, smoke, Opium, a nasty set of nudes, an exacto knife to carve a cat rolled in red ink, a black guy smoking and drinking with shadow of gun behind him, and a giraffe bookend, its neck “broken” like Meredith? to hold 4 books. One book is by Frank Slaughter (good choice, Amanda) titled, “A Savage Place”. At other end is “the Green Berets”.
A pink hand like hers in prison drawing says “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, true Knox. A black and white word VAMPIRE (hello, Rudy), a white marble Vestal Virgin by an Italian with first name Raffaele, hideous weeping mascara eyes, 2 black cats with a Halloween girl, but oh get this, the bedrooms she pictures are all WHITE. How pristine, clean, and the bathroom she shows has only a clean white tub, no sink like the one she left blood in, no shower.
Whole site is so obvious to those who recognize her guilty crime. And funny how she really hates Hayden Panettiere’s representing her as so clueless and suspicious and how the Italians did see through her wiles in short order. And Madison Paxton following this pinterest site as usual.
Posted by Hopeful on 12/08/12 at 04:37 PM | #
Hi Hopeful,
I just checked out the link you provided above ... and WOW !
I have never heard of this “pinterest” before ... do you know what it is used for ?
Thanks !
MizzMarple
Posted by MissMarple on 12/09/12 at 07:58 AM | #
MissMarple, Pinterest is a sort of online scrapbook, where you can “pin” images you like and upload your own creations - photographs, digital art, pictures of your own crafts, etc. You can use it to bookmark things, document a vacation, showcase your Christmas cookies, etc. It’s not exactly a shady corner of the internet 😊
Unlike a private scrapbook, however, which tends to be fairly unique and to include things which are relevant to the person and representative of their interests, a person’s Pinterest account will often include recycled material and may be assembled for a specific audience. For one, unless you’re exclusively uploading your own work, you’re mostly pinning images produced by other people. Secondly, you’re often repinning images bookmarked by others. And lastly, since it’s a very public medium, you may be assembling albums in the hope of gaining followers or impressing your friends with your taste and eclectic knowledge. In my opinion, it’s a fairly contrived medium which shouldn’t be used to psychoanalyze people.
If you looked at mine, for instance, you could easily conclude that my only interests in life are nail polish, pod coffee-makers, and Asian-fusion bedroom plans. It just so happens that right now I’m hunting for a specific varnish color, evaluating coffee machines, and building a virtual house. I don’t maintain or organize my boards and I use the site simply for the convenience factor - it’s easier to identify something at a glance than look through 50 non-descriptive links. Once I’m done with something, I just make a new board.
I’ve seen her Pinterest and I don’t see anything particularly unusual or ominous about it. A lot of her pins are repins from other people, and it seems to me that she’s more worried about constructing the image of someone who is sophisticated and cultured than about exploring her own psyche. I think that while in many cases things have deeper significance, in others they are exactly what they appear to be. For example, Hopeful takes issue with Frank Slaughter, and I’m not sure if it’s because of his unfortunate name or because one of his books was turned into a terrible 70s movie. However bad some of his novels may have been, he was a physician, mostly interested in medicine, history, and the Bible, and not exactly an axe murderer.
The rest of her stuff is runway fashion, some artwork, some objects she found interesting, etc. The only thing I found somewhat strange was the collection of modelling poses, which does say something unpleasant about how she’s reacting to the media attention. I think she’s always wanted to be famous and her family enabled her to turn this extraordinarily tragic event into a quest for fulfilling this fantasy.
I’ll be honest - I don’t find her that interesting and I don’t really understand why anyone bothered to dig up her Pinterest. Unless she’s going to come out and confess to the murder or at least her involvement in it, I don’t care what she has to say or show. She’s had plenty of opportunities to either provide a credible account of her whereabouts that night or acknowledge her involvement, and she’s done nothing but produce a bunch of conflicting explanations. Her book will be more of the same drivel. The only relevant development in the near future will be the Supreme Court decision, which will hopefully nullify the appeal decision and ask for a retrial. Even if she doesn’t get sent back to Italy to serve the rest of her sentence, it would bring some small solace to the Kercher family to know that Meredith’s murderers have been officially named and indicted.
Posted by Vivianna on 12/09/12 at 11:55 AM | #
Hello Vivianna,
Thank You for this explanation of “Pinterest” ... sometimes I feel so “behind the times” when it comes to the internet—lol !
MizzMarple
Posted by MissMarple on 12/09/12 at 04:11 PM | #
@Vivianna,
I too do not find anything unusual or strange.
It will be tough, if at all possible, to analyze someone based on her choice of pictures found on the internet at different times.
There are far more damning things lurking around the corner. The approaching date with the court, for example.
Posted by chami on 12/10/12 at 07:06 AM | #
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.
Where next:
Click here to return to The Top Of The Front PageOr to next entry Barbie Nadeau Reports On A Mystery Disappearance That Is Now Gripping Italy
Or to previous entry The Sunk Ship: Italian, French And American Systems May All Ensure Justice For Victims