Casey Anthony murder case: Why jury's task is tough

It is observed that the 12-member jury in the Casey Anthony murder trial, which is working on a final verdict, will have a tough job deciding the fate of the accused.

The jurors, who grappled with the documents relating to the 35-day trial that grabbed global eyeballs, were dispersed by Judge Belvin Perry Monday evening. The jurors will come together in the morning on Tuesday to deliberate the nuances of the case and arrive at a verdict.

Casey Anthony, 25, is accused of murdering her daughter Caylee Anthony three years ago by applying chloroform first and sealing her mouth with duct tapes. The prosecution has built a formidable case against her, depicting her as a liar, a woman who went after the good life and wanted to kill her daughter so she could enjoy a carefree life with boyfriend. Her moral integrity was torn to pieces by the prosecution which highlighted Casey's admission that she could not exactly say who fathered her daughter.

The prosecution attorney Jeff Ashton said Casey's argument that two-year-old Caylee drowned accidentally in the swimming pool was absurd. He said no one in the world will try to make an accident look like a murder.

The prosecution displayed images of Caylee's remains several times over the in the court to prove that a duct tape had been applied over her mouth before her death. It was also proved that someone in the Anthony home had goggled 'chloroform' and the ways to make it.

The prosecution also unraveled what it called was a web of lies Casey spun after her daughter went missing. Casey Anthony had denied the charges that she murdered her toddler daughter. If she is found guilty of first degree murder, Casey Anthony could be sentenced to death by lethal injection.

The prosecution says Casey killed the little girl by suffocation and kept the dead body in the boot of her for several days. She then dumped the body in the woods near her parents' home.

Casey had argued for months that a nanny called Zanny had kidnapped Caylee. When Cayelee's remains were found in the woods near her parents' home, Casey said her daughter had died accidentally in the pool.

As the case went to trial, Casey accused her father of causing the accidental death and blamed him for covering up the incident.

However, Casey's father George made an impassioned appeal in court trying to prove his innocence and narrating how he was terribly upset with the loss of the child. He said he was so grief-stricken that he tried to commit suicide. The parents also testified that they became suspicious of Casey's role in the missing of Caylee as months passed by.

However, making a verdict in the case would not be easy for the jury. This is a complex case and it will take some time for the jury to sort out, Donald Jones, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law, said, according to USA Today.

This is a case in which there's no physical evidence, there's no confession, there's no fiber, there's no fingerprints, there's no trace of blood ... But the case becomes complex because the behavior of the defendant and the personality that she has exhibited is one that seems inconsistent with an innocent person, the expert said.

What this means is that the jury will have to swim against the tide and find reasons that override the lack of physical evidence in order to pronounce Casey guilty of first degree murder. This is apparently not going to be an easy task. As Jones points out, what the jurors could rely on will be Casey's behavior that is inconsistent with an innocent person’s.

To this argument, the Casey Anthony defense has already made a reply. They have tried to show that Casey lived in a dysfunctional home and that she has been subjected to sexual abuse as a child by her own father and brother. Both father and brother have denied the allegation. However, it emerged during trial that both father and brother had undergone DNA test to prove that they did not father Caylee.

Testimonies have revealed some conflicting situations in the case. For example, a woman called Crystal Holloway said Caylee's death was an accident. The woman testified that she had an affair with Casey's father George. She said the death of Caylee was an accident that snowballed out of control.

The question is if, at the end of the trial, the jury will have enough clarity of the situation that they can hand a guilty verdict. Will they be convinced enough that those 'conflicting situations' are of no significance to the case?

And how long will they take to arrive at a conclusion? Legal experts say they jury may take at least a cou0ple of days before they arrive at a verdict. They are aware of the complexity f the case and the wide public interest in it.

The sequestered jury consisting of seven women and five men from the Tampa Bay area will restart deliberations at 8:30 AM on Tuesday.