Casey Anthony Not Guilty of Murder; Biggest Travesty Since O.J. Simpson Verdict

COMMENTARY | When the verdict was read in the Florida courtroom Tuesday afternoon, I let out a gasp of surprise, like I'm sure many others did. I'm not a person who follows court cases day in and out, but this one took me back in time: when O.J. Simpson was found not guilty in an announcement of a verdict that shocked the world.

There were comparisons made early on in the Casey Anthony case to that of Simpson. Now we can add jury and prosecutorial missteps to the list of similarities. Some things that stand out in the case and verdict to me are impossible to overlook.

The closing argument

While some legal pundits called it brilliant, I think playing the drawn-out taped conversation of Casey's jailhouse call to her parents was a mistake. They wanted to paint her as lacking emotion but kind of framed Anthony as a person under the gun who is being toyed with. Both parents, especially her mother, came off as cagey and questioning instead of supporting, as they claimed.

The reliance on Casey's profanity in the phone call by lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick might have upset some of the puritan sensibilities of observers, but they have little bearing on the guilt or innocence of Anthony. Listening to her parents, one could understand her being drawn to colorful language.

Short deliberations

Beginning just at noon Monday and ending just after 2 p.m. the next day, the jury either wanted to get home or couldn't wait to get in front of the cameras. They couldn't have responsibly gone over everything that had been presented in such a short time. Even if they rejected pieces of evidence, there was so much to consider that it's hard to imagine anything but an improper deliberation.

Once again, a jury has dropped the ball, at least on first look. It will be interesting to hear them explain themselves over the next few days.

Entire reliance on Casey Anthony's party life wrong

The prosecution chose to rely on tattoos, Casey's party life, and her lack of what they perceived the proper emotions to be. By doing so, they repeated the history from the O.J. Simpson case. By that I mean they allowed enough doubt to be put in the mind of overly impressionable jurors to cause the case to fail.

Now it's unlikely there will ever be justice for Caylee Anthony, and that's the biggest travesty of all.