that important? if you want to read more on this go to my blog. joe, good to be with you today, partner. >> thanks, jack. i'm joe johns in the situation room. in north america john king usa starts right now. thanks, joe. good evening. casey anthony arrived in court this morning facing the death penalty. tonight, she is preparing for freedom, cleared by a jury of allegations she murdered her 2-year-old girl, caylee, and tossed her body into the woods. after a seven-week trial that drew national attention that is a social media fphenomenon, the 12 jurors deliberated a little more than 12 hours. not guilty of first-degree murder of a child. now, casey anthony was convicted of four misdemeanor accounts of giving false information to police investigating the diabolical murder of 2-year-old caylee in 2008. that charge carries a maximum

prison sentence of one year in prison. so do the math. casey anthony has been in jail for roughly 32 months, so if the judge took the rare step of imposing the maximum for each count, she faces at most another 16 months behind bars, but many believe she could walk free as early as thursday when the trial judge will hold a sentencing hearing. here's how it it played out in the courtroom. >> as to the charge of first-degree murder, verdict as to count one, we the jury find the defendant not guilty so say we all dated at orlando, orange county, florida on this 5th day of july, 2011 signed the foreperson. as to the charge of aggravated child abuse, verdict as to count 2, we the jury find the defendant not guilty to say we all dated at orlando, orange county, florida this 5th day of july 2011 signed foreperson. as to the charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child, verdict as to count 3, we the jury find

the defendant not guilty so say we all dated at orlando, orange county, florida this 5th day of july 2011 signed foreperson. >> you can see casey anthony's emotion right there, and she repeatedly embraced her defense team as the court proceedings continued. after one of her defense attorneys took the high road, bullet another lashed out at what he called pjudicial media coverage. >> while we're happy for casey, there are no winners in this case. caylee has passed on far, far too soon, and what my driving force has been for the last three years has been always to make sure that there has been justice for caylee and casey. because casey did not murder caylee. it's that simple. >> well, i hope that this is a

lesson to those of you having indulged in media assassination for three years, bias, prejudice, and incompetent talking heads saying what would be and how to be. i'm disgusted by some of lawyers that have done this. >> the prosecution team was stunned by the verdict. the state's attorney called the jury's conclusion at odds with the facts but said he would not criticize their decision. >> this is a dry bones case. the delay in recovering little caylee's remains worked to our considerable disadvantage. our mountain of evidence did not eliminate in the jury's view every reasonable doubt. >> cnn's martin savidge was right there in the courtroom as the drama played out from orlando. martin, we say casey anthony in the television pictures, but you're sitting a few feet away as this jury verdict played out.

the drama of it all. take us inside that room. >> reporter: good evening, john. yeah, it was, you know, very different night and day prior to the verdict being read and after it was read. we knew it was 2:15 in the afternoon and it wasingly to be extremely dramatic. many thought not that long of deliberation. it has to be bad news for the defense, and it was clear that as you got in there the defense team felt the same way. they are all very silent and sat at their table and were gathering around casey and they were sort of consoling here. don't worry about this. it may be bad news. that's all right. we'll work it out on appeal. then came the verdict, and it was a total shock. there was the victory that they thought perhaps they had achieved, and that's what you saw the complete turn-around. you saw a jubilant team. they came together as one and piling on hugging one another and sobbing.

that seemed to be a true emotion for all of them. so relieved, so surprised, so overwhelmed despite the fact that they felt they had done a pretty good case. john, it was just amazing to watch the 180, the prosecution went in there. you could see they were pumped up. they felt they'd won, and then when the verdict was read, everything turned out the opposite from what many people had anticipated. but the jury apparently had seen things differently than many of those that watch from outside the courtroom. >> that's an important point. one play the camera is not allowed to turn is on the jury. you can watch the jury as this played out. what did they look like? >> reporter: well, you know, you watched them as think filed in. you were looking for anything there was something in body language and how they looked. i was watching their faces. i waited to see if they looked in the direction of casey anthony. they didn't make eye contact, or if they did it was quick and they looked up. that is usually not looking good for the defense if they aren't looking at that person.

the verdict came out, and it was very much in favor of the defense here. now, one of the things that people will point out, this appeared to be a jury, the way it was stacked and selected, that would have been very much in the favor of the defense's arguments here. what you'd love to know is what was it it the jury didn't buy or what was it that they didn't hear or what was it they picked up on where they didn't believe a guilty verdict of what they needed to render here? unfortunately, they didn't come out and speak. they do not have to speak to the public, and they chose not to. we may not ever know. >> martin, thanks. fascinating reporting from inside the courtroom there. let's dissect the verdict and the fascination with the casey anthony trial with jeffrey toobin and sunny hostin for "in session" on trutv and temple university specialist. sunny, you've watched so much of this trial. where did the prosecution go wrong? >> you know, i think that

perhaps they oversold their theory. they went in with a first-degree murder theory, a premeditated theory. in order for the jury to have a guilty verdict, they had to believe that casey anthony used chloroform to knock out her daughter and then placed duct tape over her nose and mouth intentionally suffocating her. the thing is that the theory was that she did this because she wanted to lead the beautiful life. i don't know if that came across, especially because witness after witness after witness testified that she had an amazing relationship with her daughter, and that she was a good, good mother. so certainly while the prosecution never has to prove motive, the jury needs to know why she would do something like this. i would imagine after hearing from one of the alternates jurors, he's been giving a couple of phone interviews, he felt that motive wasn't shown and the evidence didn't support intentional murder. >> we have some of that sound. we have not spoken to jurors

that made this decision. they decided not to speak to reporters today. we don't know if they will decide to come out. listen to one of the alternate jurors describing how in his view the government failed to make its case. >> the prosecution did not prove their case. the big question that was not answered, how did caylee die? i think there was probably a lot of discussion of it being a horrific accident that dad and casey covered up. unfortunately, it did snowball and got away from them. >> jeff toobin, we've had this conversation before in high profile cases. does sunny have a point? one big trial i covered was the von bullough count. they tried to get seven counts. should they have taken one or two counts that they thought they had a stronger case on and focus there? >> it's not the number of

counts, john. it's the death penalty. this was from the start not a case that cried out for the death penalty. there was so many holes in the evidence. where did she die? how did she die? what day did she die? none of this the prosecution knew. there were no eyewitnesses to the murder, as sunny said, the issue of motive was murky. in a lot of all that, some sort of accidental homicide would seem to have been a much more plausible theory. interestingly the alternate juror we heard from theory a lot of people had even though there wasn't much evidence. there was somehow some horrible accident, and casey and her father tried to cover it up and the thing snowballed out of control. that frankly is a lot more plausible as a theory than the intentional murder first degree charge that i think -- that i know repelled the jury.

they completely rejected it. >> just before, 90 minutes before the verdict came out, i had a conversation with hln's nancy grace who has watched every second of this trial. i posed the question that now we know the answer. could the jury come to the agreement with the defense, maybe we think she did it, but there's reasonable doubt. listen to this exchange. did the defense do a good enough job of saying you might think she did. you can't know you did? >> now, john king there you go. you don't have to know she did it the way you just said. the state must prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. that is not a doubt founded and fancied such as a little green man could have come down and done it, john. sure that could have happened. did it happen? what is a reasonable hypothesis as to what happened? >> nancy grace was convinced that the prosecution had made its case, but you think they blew it?

>> they blew it totally, and they really failed to understand human behavior and human motivation. i think the icing on the cake was the idea of motive. my god, they didn't understand anything about human motivation. the idea, you know, that -- they broke it down into two things. number one, kill for fun. here you have casey waking up one day and saying, i can have more fun if i kill my daughter and go out and party and so on. that was number one. hello. number two was casey is getting old enough with mental developments sufficient to detect her mother's lies and she would rat her mother out. so therefore, casey made a preemptive strike and killed her before that age. where did they get these crazy ideas? i studied human motivation for decades. i would never in my wildest imagination come up with these two ideas for this alleged murder.

so to me given the strong emphasis they made on that and remember at the end they repeated over and over again, use your common sense. well, this jury looked at those motives and said there is no common sense here. >> professor farley, sunny and jeff will stay with us. we'll be back in a minute. we'll take a closer look at evidence presented to the jury and also we look at media outright shock when the verdict came in. in here, the planned combination of at&t and t-mobile would deliver our next generation mobile broadband experience to 55 million more americans, many in small towns and rural communities, giving them a new choice. we'll deliver better service, with thousands of new cell sites... for greater access to all the things you want, whenever you want them. it's the at&t network... and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say. that's what people could say if you're still using a liquid foundation that can settle into your lines and wrinkles and make you look older. covergirl and olay floats above lines

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you are seeing the inside of a stunned courtroom. >> oh, my god. it is a stunning verdict. >> we say this sometimes, it's a stunning verdict when it really isn't. this really is a stunning verdict. >> a stunned, jaw-dropping moment. >> nothing less than a stunning reversal of fortune for casey anthony. >> holly hughes, you gasped, you gasped. >> i'm stunned. i'm absolutely stunned. >> a sample there of the media reaction to the casey anthony verdict. not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and not guilty also of aggravated manslaughter of a child. jeffrey toobin, sunny hostin and

professor. we live in a society innocent until proven guilty. why was the media so stunned here? >> approximately 80% to 90% of trials end in convictions. any acquittal is pretty surprising. it is also true that the news media, especially cable news and hln had a very aggressive portrayal of this case that was very hostile to casey anthony. that carried over at least to the media portrayals, but it's worth remembering that every time we had one of these heavily covered cases, we think can they get a fair trial? o.j. simpson, casey anthony, michael jackson, they all ended in acquittals. maybe we're not as important as we think we are. >> so let's hope the jury made the decision based on the evidence. sunny, let's look at some of the evidence. the images coming out tonight that we haven't looked at that

the court has released to us. i want to put them up on the screen beginning with what we know as the evidence, the exhibit of the duct tape. how significant is this duct tape to the case the prosecutors ultimately failed to make. >> it was very significant because according to the prosecution this duct tape was the instrument of death while casey anthony used the chloroform to render their daughter unconscious, they claimed she used this piece of duct tape to place it it over the nose and mouth of casey anthony to suffocate her in a premeditated fashion. that may have been one of the things that the jury found hard to believe, because the defense called several witnesses including roy kronk, the meter reader, that found the remains and poked holes in the prosecution case that the duct tape was found over the nose and mouth of the remains because there was no dna on the duct tape. roy kronk admitted to move the remains a bit with his peter

stick. there was reasonable doubt as to whether this duct tape was placed over her nose and mouth and whether or not, in fact, this was the instrument of death. >> i want to show our viewers another photo released by the court again. this was a laundry bag taken from the scene in which is where the body was found, in this bag. jeff toobin, part of the prosecution case was there were similar bags in the anthony family garage, therefore, you can connect the dots. the jury did not want to do that. they decided circumstantial perhaps but not enough to convince but to convict. >> that bag was nothing so extraordinary and unique. there are a lot of plastic bags that look like that in the world, a lot of people use them. i think sometimes you just have a prosecution that may have tried too hard. there was some so-called scientific evidence in this case like a supposed scientific proof of the smell of death in the car that was frankly not very believable and not probative of much of anything.

sometimes when the prosecution uses evidence that's not very persuasive, it damages the whole case and at least that seemed like part of the damage to me. >> it was the first time that that sort of evidence, the smell evidence has been used in florida courts, and really under frye i was surprised it came in. >> professor farley, you talk about the perry mason impact, the perry mason effect of trials, cases like this. what do you mean? >> the culture of the courtroom. back in the '50s and '60s we had perry mason, and everyone was transfixed with courtroom procedure. since then we've had similar courtroom shows, so we love this. the mystery, the uncertainty, the solving, the what's behind the curtain. so that all transferred into the casey anthony trial. i would like to say something going back a moment ago about why everyone is so shocked about this thing. i think at the center of this is a child, and americans don't

like the murder of an innocent child who then gets thrown into the bush. we want the perpetrator for such a heinous thing, and nothing makes us madder in this country than that. so i think the fact that we didn't get the perpetrator is leading to part of the psychological arousal nationwide over this. >> appreciate your insights tonight. a dramatic case. we'll continue our coverage in the hour ahead. much more to come on this case. the reason behind president obama's unscheduled late afternoon appearance in the white house briefing room.

welcome back. here's what you need to know right now. this story just in to cnn. an alleged somali terrorist suspect that was captured in the gulf region provided in the united states today. it provides further evidence of links of al qaeda affiliates in somalia and yemen. president obama invited both congressional leaders to the white house this thursday for talks on raising the government's debt ceiling and finding a long-term solution to the deficit crisis. >> it's my hope that everybody is going to leave their ultimatums at the door. they'll we'll all leave our political rhetoric at the door and do what's best for our economy and our people. >> both senate and house republican leaders accepted the

president's vit tainvitation, j boehner, issued a statement making clear his umt item is still important. a federal appeals court in san francisco today ordered a temporary stop to the forced medication of the tucson shooting defendant jared lee lo loughner. they have tomorrow evening to talk to that. inseitzs from dr. drew p pinsky. he'll tell you what he saw next. so you can get back to playing "angry birds." it lets you access business forms on the go, fire off e-mails with the qwerty keypad, and work securely around the world so you can get back to playing "angry birds." it's the android-powered phone that mixes business with pleasure. so let's get our work done, america, so we can all get back to playing "angry birds."

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back now to the top story, casey anthony found not guilty of killing or abusing her 2-year-old daughter ka caylee in 2008. nancy grace of hln was in the courtroom at the start of those proceedings today, and i asked her about the defendant's demeanor. >> well, she was extremely chatty, cheerful, smiling, giggling. i think if i were in the middle of a murder one trial where i might be facing the florida death penalty injection by the needle, i wouldn't so happy. >> about 90 minutes after that conversation reason to be happy. the verdict came in guilty on four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to the police but acquitted on three major felony charges,

first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child. watching as the verdict came in was dr. drew pinsky, the hoes of hln's did t l n hln's dr. drew. >> she arrives facing the death penlt. you can see the an zit, she's biting her nails and you see the emotions in here. what did you see as you watched this unfold. >> i saw exactly that same thing, john. this was excruciating anxiety provoking. obviously, her entire life hung in the balance and really surprising verdicts. everyone believed because it was a rapid process to this verdict and the fact that so much evidence was against her that the likelihood was we would hear a guilty verdict. the fact is it was not guilty, and you see this flood of emotion that follows. >> i want to stay on this for a second. because it's so dramatic, she wakes up thinking she could face

lethal injection. tonight she thinks i'll probably be free for 48 hours. >> it's hard to imagine what it's like to go through that. one of the stranger aspects of that phenomenon was how her parents reacted. it was tightly controlled and people were not allowed to show any emotion or were cast out of the courtroom. her parents sat there stone-faced and slid out of the courtroom immediately after the verdict. that was supplirprising. they were going through that same roller coaster where their daughter's life hung in the balance. >> they issued a statement after because obviously her defense changed dramatically. she said she was abused by her father and the baby wasn't missing and she drowned in the pool and my father and i disposed of the body. sdpeet the baseless defense chosen by casey anthony they feel they made a fair verdict and the family saying they want privacy. what happens to them going forward? >> well, this is a family that's

been completely shattered, and it's hard to imagine it's a family that will hang together after what casey has done to them, the vortex she's created. all this entire case is about her. that's an interesting statement you read there. they don't declare her innocence, and that's been their position all along. they tipped a little bit their cards in terms of suggesting that they really don't think their daughter is fully innocent. they don't think that she intentionally did something, but her innocence was not something that they've ever -- that i've seen them recently proclaim. i think we all understand that. i think we understand we want to know what happened here, and the justice has not completely served. we're all sort of surprised. >> you say we want to know what happened here. we would love to hear from the jury, what swayed them in the end and how did they reach this verdict so quickly. what's your sense of that in analyzing them? sequestered since may, and they hear this bizarre change in the defense strategy. they don't get a smoking gun. even the prosecution concedes we don't have a smoking gun.

what's it like to be on this jury? >> it's got to be very difficult. i studied the profile of the people on this jury that felt they were not in a position to judge somebody, and particularly could not put somebody to death for a crime. they outright felt that way. already you had a jury that was disposed to having difficulty finding a guilty verdict. think about how difficult it is to sit there sxhaer all this material and say that i have no reasonable doubt. i have reasonable doubt listening to them. a juror may say yes, i think she was involved, bullet not murder one. >> how does that play out in the mind? the jury is just feet away. she doesn't testify but shows different emotions throughout the course of the trial. do you become sympathetic? >> absolutely, you could. as jane vilez-mitchell says it's like a stockholm where you develop a relationship with the person accused of a crime.

she was facing them a lot of the day. what we all observed was she behaved differently in the room. a lot of people made note of that. the fact remains that the jury was there face to face with her for quite some time, and may have developed some sympathy for her. >> why did they wear so much outrage out of the courtroom? why did so many people when they heard she had a verdict, why so mum of a presumption she was guilty? >> there's many reasons for that. i hope i can squeeze it it in here. the jury only sees certain information. we have seen a lot more. we all are very clear that she is not innocent, that there's horrible lies, bad parenting, agreej yus behavior after knowing the child was dead. things people can't forgive her for, and there's a feeling she got away with murder literally. she was involved in it some way. maybe the prosecution overshot strategically going for murder one, but there's a feeling she

got away with something. that's what is so disturbing for people. >> in closing, dr. drew, why does a case like this -- ints o.j. simpson. she was not well-known before him. why does something like this capture the national imagination like it did? >> for so many reasons. we're indeed enticed by the courtroom culture and we like the unknown, we like the family drama playing out, the dysfunction, the interpersonal aspects of this. at the core of this is a little girl. add to that the fact that the very foundation of life, the relationship with a child and mother, is what's being called into question here. so naturally it captures our imagination. >> i said i was closing, but you raised something and i want to sneak in one more. you've observed a lot of cases and dealt with people. does she disappear or do we hear from her? does she decide she wants to

tell her story. >> this is the most disturbing part of this entire case. she's going to be seen, heard from, and probably will capitalize on this experience, and that is where things really go off the rail for me. that's a very sad and i'm sorry to say probable reality. >> dr. drew pinsky, appreciate your insights. thank you. still to come, major new developments in another courtroom drama that has captured global attention. allegations of sexual assault against a prominent french political and financial leader. internet traffic to new sites spiked as the casey anthony verdict came in. more tweets than on the super bowl in this case. look at worldwide web traffic here. down in most of the world, up 46% in north america in the hour or so after the verdict. why is it that this case so captures the imagination? that's next. positively radiant tinted moisturizers with scientifically proven soy complex and natural minerals. give you sheer coverage instantly,

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you almost have to film and watch somebody commit a crime and have it on video for something to happen today. it's just disturbing. >> no one wins in this situation. that's a 2 1/2-year-old that's dead and that's sad. >> i don't know if they were watching the same thing we were. >> i can't believe this. to a child, that's disgusting. this is disgusting. >> you don't agree with the jury, then? >> not at all. >> that jury acquitted her, but a different story in the court

of public opinion. david mattingly is outside the courthouse sampling the reaction. david, not only do most of these people you're speaking to there disagree, but with such vee hemmance and emotion. >> when you look at the crowds here, they divide into two different categories. first, the people who come here just to take in the sheer spectacle of it. they're here for the entertainment value, but there were people who were incredibly emotionally invested in this case. they wanted to see justice for little caylee. i've heard that 100 times since i've been down here. they want justice for little caylee, and when the verdict came back the way it did today, it really stunned these people who have invested so much much their thought into this case. they really thought they were going to see a guilty verdict today, and you saw some of the reaction a few moments ago. >> when you talk to people, david, do they assign blame? do they blame the jury or prosecutor or generally mad?

>> reporter: there's not a whole lot of detail, but they feel like there is enough blame to go around. they thought that the prosecutors did a great job. there were times when i would see people outside the courthouse wearing a t-shirt that said teach ashton after one of the prosecutors. they were big on what the state were doing in this case. they thought they had it nailed down after the powerful closing arguments they gave the other day. it was a shock to everybody across the board who believed the prosecution had this wrapped up. >> thank you. the reaction not limited to just right there in orlando outside the courtroom. let's go back and take a closer look at some of the social media and the internet traffic generated as this verdict played out. there we go. look at it it in the context of the past top web events as you watched this casey anthony verdict today. global page views per minute about in trial, 3.2 million.

president obama elected and not by any means the top event on the web. global u.s. news stories right there, that's the casey anthony verdict today. if you just look at this idea, google searches about this today. google searches around that time, 4:30 p.m., the verdict came in a little after 2:00 p.m., headline news, nancy grace, channel 9 news, without a doubt those four. number six caylee anthony and other news sites down here. that's dominating the discussion, and just driving conversations online. again, more tweets than the super bowl. we asked crimson hexagon, which tracks all this traffic on the internet about tweets, not one tweet they could find in the hours after the verdict that agreed with the jury's decision. joining us now to discussion this case, the news week and daily beast correspondent diane

dimond. why does a case like this not only captivate the imagination but in such an emotional way? >> john, i was in florida for the jury selection. even then it was captivating people. i met so many people there at jury selection that had come from out of town. well, we were going to take a vacation, and we came here anyway. my husband is at the beach, and i had to come here. i think it's because if we can't protect the youngest and most innocent among us, then who are we as a people? that's what i heard. i agree with your reporter on the scene tonight. it was about justice for this little girl. somebody killed her. you know what, john? it's still an open homicide case. somebody killed this little girl. if it isn't that woman right there, casey anthony, who is it? >> so, jim, i remember your work. i think about every day you were inside the courtroom during the o.j. simpson trial. a very different case. he was a celebrity and sports

figure and well-known. nobody knew casey anthony before this trial. any similarities in your view? >> well, it's similar in the sense it became daytime programming to be blunt, and frankly millions upon millions of people knew every aspect and every detail of this case and knew all the people by first-name basis. there's something about watching this case that was so disturbing to think that a mom could be accused of killing her own child and then inconceivably to be out partying and got a tattoo that says beautiful life to act in an inconsistent way. she's a young, beautiful girl. the child was young, beautiful. i think that really touched all of us, especially those of us that are parents. it was riveting from that standpoint. >> the defense had to know that coming into the trial. so their challenge was to, a, convince the jury to have a reasonable doubt and b, it's a circumstantial case and she's a liar and a bad mother. the defense wanted to say they could not connect the dots. listen to this as the defense

attorney's opening statement here where he essentially changes the narrative, the whole question is, you know, how did she not report this baby missing? how could a mother not report her own 2-year-old child missing? the defense said actually she knew the child was not missing. she knew the child had drown in the family pool, and tried to cover it. let's listen. >> everyone wants to know what happened to her. how in the world can a mother wait 30 days before ever reporting her child missing? that's insane. that's bizarre. something's just not right about that. well, the answer is actually relatively simple. she never was missing. >> jim, a lot of people criticized this defense team during the trial. in hindsight, did they stir up enough doubt and alternative scenarios? >> well, it wasn't up to the defense to prove this person was not guilty. it's up to the prosecution to prove that casey anthony did

this crime. this defense was smart in one sense. it's easy to say, do you hate her? yes. we hate her, too. how can a mom act this way if her kid is missing? does that mean she killed this child? the prosecution hasn't proven their case. >> diane, you mentioned before there for jury selection. listen to the take of hln ae lh nancy grace. we had a conversation earlier today. she was saying that, you know we focus a lot on the testimony and passionate opening and closing arguments. she thinks jury selection was critical. lynn to this. >> i will tell you where the defense made its best move, in jury selection. they put some people on the jury, john, that claim specifically juror number four she could not judge other people. the state tried to kick her off, and the judge wouldn't let them. if they win a victory at all, it

won't be their expertise in the courtroom putting on the case. it will be the happenstance of a couple of jurors that made it on that jury. >> do you agree with that take? >> no, i don't. i'm sorry. this concerns me greatly because this is what i do for a living. i cover trials. i believe what happened in that courtroom, john, was that the defense threw so much spaghetti against the wall. it was the meter reader and the dad, he touched her and so did the brother. in the end it was easier for this panel to say, oh, well, i have some reasonable doubt. i don't think we do a good enough job claiming reasonable doubt. someone can say the sun is not going to rise tomorrow, but that's not reasonable. maybe, but it's not reasonable. and i think their minds got so cluttered with things that had nothing to do with this case they only deliberated for 11 hours after a seven hi-week cas.

unheard of. never asked for one piece of testimony to be read back. nothing. they went into that jury room, and i don't like to second guess jurors because this is our justice system and i accept this verdict. but 11 hours? how could they thoroughly have discussed every seven counts in 11 hours? >> jim, it's a fascinating and interesting point. you don't want to criticize a jury. however, it's a huge case, seven counts, just the jury instructions were 20-something pages long. do you think sequestration has something to do with the fact the jury was done and wanted to go? >> i'll remind you that the jury in the o.j. simpson case was sequestered at nine months and it it took four hours to have a not guilty verdict. diane and i covered that and the michael jackson verdict. i think sequestration could have had an impact. >> so did celebrity.

we made casey anthony a celebrity. >> you think that was the impact? to your point about state did the better presentation. but there was duct tape, they couldn't put a tape in hand. there was chloroform. they couldn't have her buying it or making it. there were a lot of -- there was gas enough in their case that a jury could go back and say, well, i have a reasonable doubt. >> excellent insights from two experienced court watchers. very much appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> a number of important developments today in yet another big court case, one that has sparked an international media frenzy. next, a french writer accuses dominique strauss-kahn of attempted rape. [ female announcer ] the healing power of touch

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a lot of important developments today in the court case surrounding dominique strauss-kahn. cnn has learned his attorneys will meet with prosecutors tomorrow. spokesman for the manhattan district attorney's office tells cnn those prosecutors are not yet ready to throw out the sexual assault charges against strauss-kahn despite serious questions about his accuser's credibility. also today the accuser sued "the

new york post" for libel. on at least three occasions they've accused her of being a prostitute. in france today, another woman filed a criminal complaint accusing strauss-kahn of attempted rape. the 32-year-old says strauss-kahn tried to rape her eight years ago. a lot to go over. consequences both here and in france. joining us is french tv correspondent thierry arneault. let's start with the important meeting with the prosecutors. they are telling us tonight no they are not ready to drop the charges, but there seem to be in private conversations and i'm interested in what your sources are telling you indications that it is heading in that direction. >> yes. we've heard the same for the past few days now, john, and indeed what you are just reporting, a bit of a surprise to me because we were expecting, as most of the french media, that at this point in time that he was ready to drop the case. so it's going to be very interesting to see if we can find out about it, what comes out of this meeting tomorrow. >> and i want to talk about now these new allegations in france.

the mother of the alleged victim is a mid-level operaive in the same party as mr. strauss-kahn. she spoke to your network back in may. the victim's name is tristan, alleged victim, tristane banon. she told her daughter to keep quiet. >> translator: she was sobbing. she said, mom, something terrible happened to me. he jumped on me. i told her listen, you know, if you had been raped i wouldn't have hesitated. there wasn't a rape, strictly speaking. there was an attack. for the rest of your life you would have on your resume, you know? tristane banon, that's the girl who -- well -- >> help us, thierry, understand this. first let's start with the legal case. is it the sense in france that this one will go forward? >> it is very difficult to say at this point. on the one hand, as you know -- as you expect when one talks about attempted rape, the

charges are extremely serious. so, yes, the french justice system will look into it very carefully, very systematically, and very deeply. on the other hand, the facts are eight years old so, for this reason there will not be any physical evidence whatsoever, that the testimonies might be difficult to pinpoint to the extent that the witnesses or whomever she might have spoken with, you know, made confessions to might have distant memories of what she said exactly and the circumstances in which she said those things. see seems very serious about it, very determined, and to some extent you could wonder what's in it for her, why would she do that if this was not true, to sell more books? to become famous? you know, it's not an obvious reason to do such things. but it will be a very hard case to prove, as well. so it's very hard to make predictions in that sense.

>> and when you hear the mother in that interview saying she essentially told her daughter, well, there wasn't a rape, there was an attempted rape so, you don't want to be known forever as tristane banon, the girl who -- in your sense from the reporting of your network a political calculation, more of a cultural calculation? >> it's a very interesting question, john, because as you mentioned she was an operator within the socialist party. and she -- you know, it has been said in france, and again, it's very hard to prove, that she acted partly because it was her own political interest to do so. there are very serious and, you know, very close links. for example, tristane banon also happens to be the goddaughter of dominique strauss-kahn's former wife. so these people are very close to one another. and that may explain to some extent the reason why this seemed to have been some pressure on her to keep quiet. but what she says today is she cannot stand this anymore. you know, presumably what

happened or is alleged to have happened here, it brought back a lot of memories to her. and she made up her mind as a result of what happened in new york to press those charges, she says. >> if six months ago we're having a conversation about dominique strauss-kahn it would be about him as a potential candidate for president in the next election in france. we talked when this case was first filed in new york. what is the sense in france now? do people see a viable path to return to politics? >> it's very difficult to predict. this is a combination of guessing that the charges will be dropped, and this new case in france has put heels in the presidential campaign. do you remember the conspiracy theories we were talking about? in the hours after he was arrested, they went away quickly but are back with a vengeance. some of my french colleagues are reporting that it's been known he will not run for president.