"Chloroform" Error Reported in Casey Anthony Case

Prosecutors in the Casey Anthony trial repeatedly asserted that the defendant searched for “chloroform” 84 times, but in reality she only searched for the word once, according to a software designer who testified at the trial.

The New York Times reports that the designer, John Bradley, came to that conclusion in June after redesigning the software used to tally Anthony’s computer searches. He says he immediately contacted police to alert them of the error, but the prosecution made no mention of the revised conclusion during the trial.

“I gave the police everything they needed to present a new report,” Bradley said. “I did the work myself and copied out the entire database in a spreadsheet to make sure there was no issue of accessibility to the data.”

The revelation indicates a potential violation of the legal responsibility of the prosecution in the case, which is required to release any exculpatory evidence it has in its possession.

The defense lawyers for Anthony responded immediately to the new information, which appears to debunk a key piece of evidence the prosecution said indicated Anthony had killed her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

“The prosecution is absolutely obligated to bring forth to the court any and all evidence that could be exculpatory,” Cheney Mason, one of Anthony’s defense lawyers, told the Times. “If in fact this is true, and the prosecution concealed this new information, it is more than shame on them. It is outrageous.”