ORLANDO, Fla., July 4 (UPI) -- Jury deliberations began in Orlando, Fla., Monday in the trial of Casey Anthony, charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter.
The 12-member jury is scheduled to stay in a deliberation room until a verdict is reached, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
All 17 jurors and alternates were escorted from the courtroom, the newspaper said, but the alternates were separated from the 12 members who are to decide the 25-year-old mother's guilt or innocence.
The Sentinel said jurors would be served lunch and will select a foreperson.
Earlier, Florida prosecutors urged jurors Monday not to let emotions sway their deliberations.
But before prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick wrapped up the state's closing arguments, defense attorney Jose Baez argued to the judge that forensic analysis done on the computer searches for chloroform was erroneous, the Sentinel reported.
"Testimony that was elicited was false," Baez told Chief Judge Belvin Perry, who told the defense team if it believed the testimony was false, the team could file appropriate paperwork.
Baez told the jurors the science the state has used to help prove its case was "junk science."
Anthony is accused of killing her daughter Caylee Marie in the summer of 2008. The toddler's remains were found in woods near her family's home in December of that year.
Burdick told jury members she doesn't want them to base a decision on emotion, "however emotionally charged" the testimony has been.
"My biggest fear ... is that common sense will be lost in all the rhetoric of the case," Burdick said. "That you won't step back and look at the evidence as a whole. You [have] got to look at the big picture here."
Before a break, assistant state prosecutor Jeff Ashton argued for a verdict of first-degree murder, telling jurors they could reach that verdict through premeditated murder or felony murder through aggravated child abuse, the Sentinel said.
Ashton also told jurors they don't need to be unanimous in deciding premeditated or felony murder.
"Regardless of how you put these facts together ... any way you slice it … Casey Anthony is guilty of first-degree murder in this case," Ashton said.
