So, Casey Anthony was found guilty of lying to police. Since Caylee’s body would have presumably been found sooner if Casey hadn’t lied to police, why wasn’t she charged with obstruction of justice? Or is obstruction of justice only used in federal cases?
I didn’t follow the case very closely. But to prove that her lies slowed down the discovery of the body, wouldn’t they have had to prove that she knew where the body was? And if they could prove she knew where the body was, the path to a murder conviction would have been much smoother. I think the lies she was convicted of were things easily provable like saying she worked at Universal when she didn’t.
Here’s the chapter of the Florida Statutes on Obstruction of Justice. I haven’t looked at all the crimes described carefully, but it doesn’t appear to me that Casey Anthony did any of those things. Lying to a police officer is covered under a different chapter of the FL criminal code, namely Perjury.