Sixteen years ago I pledged I'd never again allow myself to get sucked into watching courtroom carnival.  The spectacle that was the O.J. Simpson trial gripped many of us.  Then the last few days I found myself watching what was happening in a courtroom less than three hours from my home--the Casey Anthony trial--and wondering if like O.J. she'll walk free, and what she owes to O.J. Simpson.

I wonder what most of us find so compelling about the Casey Anthony case, a young woman on trial for murdering her less than three-year-old daughter, Caylee, a defendant whose own defense team admits that she has serially lied to law enforcement and those around her.

It is a pathological coldness that goes beyond anything most people have experienced that has us watching.  Her near complete lack of emotion, not only in the courtroom as the state is presenting its case against her but also in the face of the initial reality that her daughter was missing, and later, found as duct-taped skeletal remains in the woods not far from her family home, mystifies. 

I was sitting in an outdoor cafe in Venice in June 1994 when I heard the news that O.J. Simpson had possibly murdered his former wife and a male friend.  For the months following that the O.J. Simpson murder trial was broadcast to a worldwide audience, I watched.  I watched right up to the end--Judge Lance Ito, Johnny Cochran, Marcia Clark and company--and that famous glove.  "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

On its face, as with O.J. Simpson, the case against Casey Anthony seems overwhelming.  Most reasonable people exposed to publicity about the disappearance and death of three-year-old Caylee Anthony a few years ago in Orlando would agree that at very least Casey Anthony appears to be the person most likely to have harmed her child and the person who benefitted most from her death.  She admitted to not telling anyone her child had been "missing" for thirty-one days, and for those thirty-one days, she was apparently footloose and unconcerned.  When police were finally made aware, she led them on a wild goose chase complete with false locations and fabricated people, eventually admitting to serial lies.

When her defense presented opening statements, they surprised many by suggesting that Casey was present at Caylee's death, but that it had been an accidental drowning in the family swimming pool and that her father, George, a former cop, had helped cover up the death and dispose of the body.  Then the defense drew its wild card, claiming that Casey had been the victim of sexual abuse from childhood at the hands of not only that same father, George Anthony, but also her brother, Lee.

For their part, Anthony family members have circled the wagons and loyally defended Casey most of the time since her arrest three years ago, but they appear to be disturbed by the unfolding of events and conflicted between love and loss for little Caylee and the prospect that their daughter, their sister, could be a psychopathic monster capable of dispassionate murder of her only child.  Most painful to watch on the stand was the accused's mother, Cindy Anthony, who broke down when recordings of her 9-1-1 calls to police were played for the jury.  This is her baby, and she cannot escape it.

Like those of us watching, they are all forced to put together the pieces and try to make sense of what seems to defy it, and watch a young woman so at home in her own intricate lies that one wonders if she will ever break, intrigued to see if she will ever take the stand.  "Zanny the Nanny" appears to be a reference to Xanax, and not some fabricated Hispanic babysitter for which the police vainly searched.

Will Casey Anthony walk free, like O.J. Simpson did?

She doesn't have the Dream Team exactly.  Her attorney Jose Baez seems to be swatting whatever flies he can in the courtroom, and by his own admission yesterday is surprised at the evidence that has been allowed.  Yet for all the evidence, the skeletal remains confirmed to be Caylee, the DNA evidence from the trunk of Casey Anthony's car, chloroform and duct tape and heart-shaped stickers and computer searches, it might not be enough to convince an entire jury of her guilt of actually committing capital murder.  That she obstructed an investigation has been admitted; that she lied is in evidence.  That she was woefully negligent in the care of her child is without dispute.  

Baez made an interesting shift yesterday toward a psychiatric defense, not initially mounted.  But one has to wonder, after three years of listening to her lies and then stipulating to them, how many of them he has also unwittingly bought, and whether or not he now has buyer's remorse.

On the Web:

Live-Stream of the Casey Anthony Trial - Orlando Sentinel

Death of Caylee Anthony - Wikipedia