For the first time since the O.J. Simpson verdict back in 1995, the media are up in arms over a murder acquittal.  Despite what many consider overwhelming evidence that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter Caylee and  disposed of the body, the twelve jurors who considered the evidence judged her not guilty of all the crimes, with the  exception of lying to police investigators.The media reporting about the case and Casey Anthony's various misdeeds made a guilty verdict seem like a  foregone conclusion.  Headline News demagogue Nancy Grace would have issued her the death penalty and carried  out the sentence herself. Yet twelve members of the public decided that they did not have enough evidence to convict  Casey Anthony of murdering her daughter. Since none of the twelve jurors to whom all the facts were presented have  spoken publicly about why they acquitted Casey Anthony, there are several possibilities as to why the "Tot Mom" will  go free.Casey Anthony and the CSI Effect :-The average member of the public gets a good amount of their legal knowledge from television.  Thanks to cop  shows, even those who have never been arrested can recite the Miranda warnings. David E. Kelley dramas have made  people thinks of lawyers as consummate showmen prone to grandstanding in courtrooms, while in most cases they  are dry and methodical. And over the past decade, the tremendously popular CSI series have conditioned the public  to expect defendants to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt thanks to irrefutable DNA evidence.This was recently an issue in the New York City "rape cops" case, in which one officer was accused of raping a drunk  woman while the other one stood guard. Despite clear witness testimony as to what happened that night, the  prosecution did not present any physical, scientific-based evidence to bolster their case, even though none seemed  necessary. The defense theory wasn’t that the one officer didn’t have sex with her; the argument rather was that it was  consensual. Still, jurors later admitted that despite believing that the cops were guilty, they could not issue a verdict of  guilty beyond a reasonable doubt because of the lack of DNA evidence, even when DNA evidence was absolutely  irrelevant to the case.It is possible that the jurors in the Casey Anthony case made the same decision.  The prosecution did not have any  direct physical evidence tying Casey Anthony to her daughter’s death, and the physical evidence that they did present  may have been considered too novel and untested to be reliable. That Caylee Anthony's body was found months after  she had gone missing and had decomposed significantly was undoubtedly a benefit to the defense; any physical  evidence that may have been found if the body were discovered earlier had deteriorated.Witness for the Prosecution :-One of the most famous Agatha Christie mysteries is "Witness for the Prosecution," in which a devoted wife testifies  against her husband for murder then allows herself to be completed discredited on the witness stand, thus sowing  enough doubt that her husband, whom she knows is guilty, will be acquitted.The mystery relies on the assumption that in a case where none of the witnesses are believable, the jury will naturally  reach a conclusion of not guilty. Uncertainty and confusion favor the defense, even when the defense is responsible  for that uncertainty and confusion.The Casey Anthony trial certainly had enough of that, delving into a strange dynamic among the Anthony family that  would not be out of place in a Tennessee Williams melodrama. The defense never presented evidence that George  Anthony molested his daughter, as promised in the opening statement, but the conflicting stories and odd behavior by  witnesses likely only helped the defense. The jurors did not need to believe any of Casey Anthony's various  explanations for her daughter's disappearance. They just had to disbelieve everyone else, which each member of the  Anthony family who testified made it very easy to do.Why Did She Do It?  Murder One or Manslaughter. :-The various media accounts have condemned Casey Anthony as a terrible mother who wanted to free herself from the  burden of raising a small child and killed her child so she could live a free life of a single twenty-something.  In  accordance with this theory, the prosecution charged her with first degree murder, which requires premeditation.   Casey was also charged, in the alternative, with aggravated manslaughter, which left open the possibility that she was  responsible for the death, but the death was still accidental.Having tried for a conviction for first degree murder, which carries the death penalty in Florida, the prosecutors likely  overreached. Because they were unable to effectively prove that Casey deliberately murdered Caylee to free herself  of the burdens of motherhood, the prosecution likely also made it difficult for jurors to decide on manslaughter; given  the choice, they chose neither. Had the prosecution gone for the lesser charge against Casey Anthony, one that did  not require proving premeditation and thus required a motive that may have seemed only a vague hypothesis, the  jurors might have been more willing to convict her based on the physical evidence.The vast majority of criminal cases end not in jury verdicts, but in plea bargain agreements between prosecutors and  defense attorneys.  In many cases where a plea bargain cannot be reached, it represents a failure by one of the sides.  While no one yet knows whether or not both sides attempted to reach a plea deal, it is easy to surmise that the  prosecution, responding to public anger over the case stoked by professional witch-hunters like Nancy Grace, may not  have offered a plea bargain to Casey Anthony and instead pursued a first degree murder case that they could not  hope to prove.America loves its salacious criminal trials, whether Casey Anthony, O.J. Simpson or Scott Peterson, but in the end  CNN and Fox News do not convict people of crimes. Juries do, based on the evidence that is constitutionally  permissible to present. Whether or not Casey Anthony killed her daughter, it is the jury alone that makes that decision  and not Nancy Grace. A woman who claims that "the devil is dancing in the street" based on the verdict and feels fit to  attack the character of the jurors based on their decision deserves no say in the process.  Her heart and mind belong  not in twenty-first century America, but in Spain during the Inquisition or Salem during its witch trials.Justice for Caylee! :-The common refrain after the not guilty verdict was announced was that there was no justice for Caylee Anthony. It  seems like a nice sentiment, but it’s a dangerous one. It treats justice like a commodity that can be traded, bought or  bargained away like precious metals or trading cards.Justice is not a means to an end, valued on whether or not it achieves what one considers the desired result. Justice  does not serve either the victims of the crimes or the accused. It is a good in itself, not good because of what it  achieves. If you believe that Casey Anthony did kill Caylee, and there is ample reason to do so, then her killer was  given a trial in which the prosecution submitted all of the constitutionally permissible evidence, and that evidence was  evaluated by a jury of her peers without any evidence of misconduct.That Casey Anthony was not convicted of murder does not matter. The actual verdict is irrelevant : Justice was served.

Anthony Salerno and Jeremy Ross are criminal lawyers in Los Angeles, associated with Salerno & Associates; the Los Angeles criminal law firm has that handled numerous high-profile and celebrity cases.