One six-week-long trial, media frenzy and not-guilty verdict later, a few UF legal experts have weighed in with opinions on the Casey Anthony verdict.
Michael Seigel, a UF law professor, said he thinks the biggest problem for the prosecution was not being able to establish what happened to Caylee Anthony between the time she went missing in June 2008 and the discovery of her body in December 2008 beyond a reasonable doubt.
"Jose Baez repeated the words ‘reasonable doubt' so much that they seemed to live in this case," he said, "and the prosecution was unable to respond because they only had a theory."
Seigel feels comparisons being made between the Anthony trial and that of O.J. Simpson are far-fetched.
"In the O.J. case, the evidence really was overwhelming," he said. "It came down to racial issues and other side issues. Here there was none of that."
Seigel said the media circus surrounding the trial could be attributed to the attention Caylee's story received when she was first reported missing.
George Dekle, a UF legal skills professor, said the case made such a media splash because it had something that many cases don't: a truly innocent victim. He said the uproar due to the verdict was remarkable, especially because he feels a guilty suspect going free is not an uncommon occurrence.
"The way that our criminal justice system is set up is so that if it makes a mistake, the mistake will be to turn somebody guilty loose rather than to put someone innocent away," he said. "That's what it is supposed to do. You shouldn't be shocked when it does that."
Jennifer Zedalis, a trial practice professor and director of UF's trial practice program, said the state's decision to seek the death penalty could have affected the jury's decision in this case. Even though the jury wouldn't be sentencing the defendant, knowing its decision could result in a death penalty puts added stress on its search for a proper verdict, she said.
Zedalis compared the Casey Anthony trial to another high-profile case: the Scott Peterson trial of 2002. Peterson's trial was another example of a case where the prosecution didn't know exactly what happened, but he was convicted and sentenced to death. People were outraged that Peterson could call his mistress at his dead wife's funeral, just as they were outraged that Anthony could be partying at a club in Orlando just days after her child went missing, she said.
She also said the bizarre way the Anthony family interacts was an especially interesting aspect of this case.
"It stretches the bounds of human experience to see a family like this," she said.
