Casey Anthony Case



Casey Anthony case

Jury selection process

The jury selection process in the Casey Anthony case took about 11 grueling days. Though the reasons behind this were some procedural problems but the main cause was the extensive media trial. The rate of its extensiveness can be observed that people sold and wore t-shirts and trinkets with the images of the victim, 2 years old Caylee. This extra exposure even influenced the jurors and every other juror was seen saying the same thing, “I think she is guilty”. It was a murder case and such accusations which were not based on investigation but on media trial and exposure could not be entertained. This was the reason that these jury members were rejected immediately and the selection process was conducted with a snake pace. The jury selectio0n process saw another delay when on the day of swearing, a lady's outburst halted the process. Despite of this hurdle Judge Perry was forced to include 30 jurors after screening and interviewing about 150 potential jurors for this case.

Jury sequestration

The Casey Anthony case was one of many other high profile cases and said to be the biggest media trial of the century. This high-profile nature of the case and the infinite publicity it gained among the public and media forced the jury to be sequestered. Jury sequestered is a condition in which jury is isolated in a hotel or a place where no one can reach them including media and public. The reason behind sequestration is to save jury members from influence of information coming outside the courtroom. In this scenario the efforts are done to control the information only to the jury. It is always upon the judge whether jury will be sequestered for the whole trial or some days. In Casey Anthony case the Chief Judge Belvin Perry decided to sequester the jurors for two months against the cost of about $360,000. It is ruled by the Supreme Court that the judges must have strong reason behind sequestering the jury and keep the trial secret from public and media. In this case the Judge Perry had strong reason because the pool of about 150 judges were influenced by the public opinions and media coverage and selection of jury became a nightmare and took many days.

Jury Verdict

Despite all the evidence, admittedly circumstantial, against Casey Anthony, the young woman of 25 was declared "not guilty" ...