Quote:
Originally Posted by valo403
The jury makes a recomendation on the death penalty during the sentencing phase, they can recommend it if 6 of 12 jurors agree to it. The judge then takes that into account when making the sentencing decision. This procedure has recently been found to be unconstutional but would have been the one used AFAIK as appeals are still ongoing in the case regarding the sentencing procedure.
The burden of proof doesn't change, but I agree that human nature may cause jurors to increase scrutny due to the stakes. However, I don't think that explains what happened here in the least. Remember, the same jury found her not guilty on two other counts in which the death penalty wasn't on the table, including aggravated manslaughter. This was a case of insufficient evidence being presented to meet the reasonable doubt standard.
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If I remember right, once you bring in the capital one murder charge and state your intention as a prosecutor to seek the death penalty. The whole process of jury selection changes and they specifically look for jurors who are not against the Death Penalty. In theory the jurors in this case knew that a guilty verdict would most likely force them to bring about the death penalty.
If you think about it, this should have really been a prosecutors dream jury. They were willing to consider the death penalty. Usually people that are onboard with the death penalty tend to be a little more law and order type with a right wing political stance.
However I think there were some other factors.
If I recall the judges instructions to the jury after the case went to them were fairly restrictive in terms of returning a guilty verdict, it was slightly beyond the resonable doubt theory of an innocent verdict.
For the last 6 weeks they had to look out at a cute 22 year old girl that continually cried and looked terrified. Its easy to strap a guy like me into the chair. But every one in that jury box projected their daughters face onto Casey.
While the prosecution couldn't directly link Casey to the murder, the defense has more leeway and bought up a billion theories from the non existant nanny, to the who's the father theory, to the she didn't report it because she was scared theory.
The defense also did a great job sadly of disarming the prosecutions main thrust of the case which was her bizarre lies and behaviors throughout the investigation. The defense didn't deny it, but they took away the prosecutions biggest weapon by not denying it.
But the 10,000 foot elephant in the room for the prosecution was the complete lack of the smoking gun. They had motive, they had a body, but they couldn't effectively link the body, motive and killer.
In this day and age of DNA evidence there was shockingly little that put the crime on Casey.
Just think of it, if she did do it, this 22 year old party girl has done something that some incredibly bright criminals have failed to do. She pulled off the perfect crime, and she's going to get rich because of it.