Casey Anthony

The Forensic Failures in the Casey Anthony Case Nelida Ortiz Florida Technical College The Forensic Failures in the Casey Anthony Case The case against Casey Anthony occurred in 2008, when the body of her daughter, Caylee Anthony was discovered near the Anthony house. Casey Anthony was acquitted of the charges against her and was released from jail. One of the reasons behind her getting acquitted is due to the forensic failures during the trail. The forensic evidence in this case was completely lacking to the point people were calling it, “Junk Science”. First off, the Casey Anthony trial was the first high-profiled case that involved social media which put more pressure on the expert witnesses. There was unproven science that was allowed in the courtroom which resulted in a lot of confusion and a battle involving every single discipline of forensic science. A major piece of evidence in this case was the defendant’s car, which smelled of a dead body. The prosecutor’s expert concluded that volatile organic compounds and other chemicals contained in the carpet were the result of human decomposition. The defense’s experts challenged the prosecutor’s experts’ conclusions. Dr. Vass testified that upon opening the can that contained carpet from the trunk of the car, that the odor mortis was overwhelming. This case was in fact a forensic case not a factual one. In the state of Florida, some of the evidence presented was never admitted into evidence prior to this trial which includes; air samples, k9 alerts as substantive evidence, and postmortem hair banding. Amongst the many errors during this case, Dr. Vass which is the prosecutor’s expert witness, refused to turn over his database of chemical signatures of human decomposition. There were no protocols, no quality controls, no error rates, and only 2 peer review papers on below surface remains and none on surface remains. I feel as if the forensic evidence in this case was a free-for-all. Each expert that testified during this trial had a different answer for the evidence that was admitted, such as the phantom stain, the heart shaped sticker on the duct tape, the levels of chloroform, and the computer search analysis. References Baez, Jose. Inside the CSI: Why Casey Anthony was Found Not Guilty. Retrieved from https://www.ntlsummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/JoseCaseOverview.pdf Ferguson, Megan. (2016). Was There a Body in the Trunk: Volatile Organic Compounds in the Trial of Casey Anthony and the Evolving Search for a Chemical Profile for Human Decomposition. Retrieved from https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=scitech Grinberg, Emanuella. (June, 2018). Flawed Forensic Evidence Explains Casey Anthony Acquittal, Experts Say. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/15/casey.anthony.forensic.evidence/index.html