A jury’s decision to acquit Casey Anthony in the death of her 2-year-old daughter,
Caylee, may be a symptom of the so-called "CSI effect," one Cincinnati-area law professor says.
Or, another professor says, it could just be a result of jurors finding "reasonable doubt" without being influenced by media coverage that strongly suggested a "slam-dunk" for the prosecution.
As the Anthony drama unfolded in a Florida courtroom, it drew international attention.
Both Lassiter and Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a Wyoming resident who teaches law at the University of Dayton, predict that at least some jurors will end up revealing their rationale publicly.
Hoffmeister said the acquittal was notable not only because it seemed to run counter to prevailing public opinion, but also because it’s unusual to get an acquittal in any case, let alone on a murder charge carrying a potential death sentence.
"You don’t see many acquittals and you really don’t see acquittals on capital crimes," Hoffmeister said. Hoffmeister says one factor in the verdict could be the "CSI effect," a term prosecutors and others use to describe jurors’ desire for the type of solid forensic evidence shown on popular TV shows such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
"I think they really wanted that scientific smoking gun," Hoffmeister said.
Hoffmeister says prosecutors were stuck with circumstantial evidence that failed to directly link Anthony to
"harming the child.""Lassiter, who has written scholarly articles about the media influence on the O.J. Simpson murder trial, faults "both print and televisioni media for not preparing the observers of the trial for the jury’s verdict."
Lassiter said that in both the Anthony case and the Simpson case, "the analysis outside of the trial led most of America to say this was a ’slam-dunk’ for the prosecution … but how quickly the jury mowed through it shows that there just was too much reasonable doubt."
"Juries from time immemorial have been able to accept a circumstantial case if the evidence was there – but it just wasn’t in here in this case," Lassiter said. Lassiter said he thinks prosecutors made at least two tactical blunders.
The strategy was apparently effective, considering that Widmer was convicted on what seemed to be far less circumstantial evidence than was presented in the Anthony case, Lassiter said.
The second big mistake prosecutors made in the Anthony case: relying on a seemingly far-fetched piece of evidence – a device used to detect the odor of a dead body months later in Anthony’s car, Lassiter said.
I would just have a hard time saying that’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt," he said. Lassiter thinks that Anthony’s physical appearance may have also helped thwart a conviction.
If you were to go into the sociology departments across this country … you would see study after study showing that attractive people get better deals, fewer police tickets, better jobs – and guess what?
