Why Was Casey Anthony Found Not Guilty?
Critical missteps by the prosecution in the discovery phase of the trial resulted in a “not guilty” verdict.
The State of Florida v. Casey Marie Anthony (2011)
The Casey Anthony murder case began on June 15, 2008. Casey claimed that she last saw her daughter, two-year old Caylee Anthony, on that day when she dropped her off at her babysitter’s house. One month later, on July 15, Cindy Anthony, Casey’s mother, reported to a 911 operator that her granddaughter had been missing for thirty-one days. Following the 911 call, the police arrested Casey.
Initially, Casey told police that she had dropped off Caylee with her babysitter, Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez (AKA “Zanny the Nanny”). However, the investigation revealed that no such person existed — Zanny the Nanny was merely an elaborate lie invented by Casey. Upon learning of Casey’s deception, the police charged Casey with child neglect.
At first, Casey received sympathy from the national news media, but public opinion swiftly turned against her as more evidence came to light. A bond hearing was held on July 22, where it was revealed that investigators had discovered strands of hair resembling Caylee’s in the trunk of Casey’s car. Furthermore, cadaver dogs hit on the scent of human decomposition in the car’s trunk.
On October 14, the prosecutor charged Casey Anthony charged with the first-degree murder of Caylee Anthony. Astonishingly, the jury found her not guilty of murder, or even manslaughter. The only guilty charges which Casey received were four counts of providing false information to police. The court sentenced Casey to one year for each offense, but her sentence was credited with the time-served already in prison, resulting in her release on July 17, 2011 — only twelve days after the trial’s conclusion. The nation was shocked by the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial, and still today the generally accepted public consensus on the matter is that Casey was responsible for Caylee’s death one way or another.
The outrageous result of the Casey Anthony trial was due to a myriad of factors, but particularly the prosecution blundered at crucial points regarding their e-discovery into the case. The defense cast doubt and confusion on the evidence of the laptop’s search history by arguing that any member of the Anthony household could have made those searches, since Casey lived at home with her parents. For example, searches related to suicide could be attributed to Casey’s father, George Anthony, who had attempted to end his own life on at least one prior occasion.
The defense also raised the point that the collected metadata did not show the duration of time that webpages were viewed. Their claim was that webpages — such as instructions for producing homemade chloroform — may have only been viewed for mere seconds, suggesting that the webpages may have presented as being viewed but not actually read.
The most fatal error in the prosecution’s e-discovery was requesting the browsing history and search terms from only Internet Explorer. This is significant because the data came from a family laptop, where there could be doubt about which member of the Anthony household it originated from. Had the prosecution known that Casey preferred to use the browser Firefox, it is highly likely that the trial’s outcome would be different. Instead, the browsing history from Firefox was never seen by the prosecution, let alone the jury.
This evidence would remain unseen until 2012, when a curious attorney in Phoenix, Arizona made a public records request for it. The data revealed a Firefox search for the term “fool-proof suffication [sic]” on the very same day that Caylee was last seen alive. The metadata of the browser history showed that shortly after making that search, there was a visit to the website, Myspace, of which Casey was a frequent user. The metadata from Firefox presented a far more compelling case for the prosecution than did the metadata from Internet Explorer. This highlights the vital importance of e-discovery, digital literacy, and metadata.
In conclusion, the prosecution in this matter made critical missteps — particularly related to e-discovery — which weakened their case, resulting in the jury finding Casey Anthony not guilty on all counts.