Everyone has an opinion about the Casey Anthony murder trial. So-called experts have weighed in on everything from the body language, the voice inflection, and the wardrobe choices of the young woman accused of murdering her daughter, two-year old Caylee Anthony in 2008. Today, June 4, 2011, the state took a different tack, which was vigorously contested by the defense.
Forensic Experts and Evidence in the Casey Anthony Trial
On Day 10, the drama in the Orange County courtroom in Orlando was replaced by dry forensic evidence. Called to the stand was FBI analyst, Karen Lowe from Quantico, Virginia, who claimed that one hair, removed from the trunk of Casey Anthony’s white Pontiac Sunfire, belonged to murder victim, Caylee Anthony, and that it showed signs of decomposition.
Defense attorney, Jose Baez, strongly countered this testimony by establishing, through cross-examination of Agent Lowe, that there was a slight possibility that the hair could have belonged to the deceased child’s mother, Casey, or to her grandmother, Cindy. He also established the very slight possibility that the hair may have been tainted by well-water “treatment” during testing. Baez also contended, and had, in fact, filed a previous motion attesting, that Agent Lowe was not an “expert” on post-mortem hair banding. He also got Lowe to admit on the stand that she couldn’t state with certainty that the hair “banding” was consistent with decomposition.
An even tougher nut for Baez to crack, were the stain and air samples collected from Anthony’s car by, Mike Vincent, an assistance supervisor with the Orange County Sheriff's Office crime scene unit. Baez closely questioned Vincent about the veracity of his collection procedure, trying to cast doubt on Vincent’s evidence that the stain and air sample were consistent with decomposition. Clearly, Baez is trying to counter the state’s effort to establish by this, and by its incessant questioning of witnesses about the odor of decomposition in the above-mentioned car, that Casey Anthony drove the car around with her daughter’s dead body in the trunk sometime in June of 2008. Vincent didn’t budge, but Baez did manage to establish that it was the first time Vincent had conducted such an experiment and that air samples were a novel and, perhaps, unreliable indicator of decomposition.
A Good Day for the Defense
Baez was effective in establishing that the forensic testimony presented by the state was compelling, but not 100% accurate. One hair, and an odor that is alternately presented as the smell of garbage or of human decomposition, may not be hard enough proof to eliminate reasonable doubt of premeditated murder in the case of Casey Anthony versus the state.
