ORLANDO, Fla. — A case that involved years of forensic investigation, weeks of often highly technical testimony and untold hours of media analysis turned out to be pretty straightforward for the jurors weighing whether Casey Anthony had killed her toddler daughter.

Early in their second day of deliberations, the 12 men and women concluded the 25-year-old lied to investigators but wasn’t guilty in her child’s death.

Now Anthony waits to learn if she could spend her first night out of jail in almost three years since she was accused. She was only convicted of four misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators, and it’s possible that Judge Belvin Perry could sentence her to time already served for those crimes. The four counts of lying to sheriff’s deputies each carry a maximum sentence of one year.

Anthony has been in jail since her October 2008 arrest on first-degree murder charges. She avoided a possible death sentence thanks to her acquittal yesterday on the murder count. The case began in July 2008 when Caylee Anthony was reported missing.

“I’m very happy for Casey, ecstatic for her and I want her to be able to grieve and grow and somehow get her life back together,” defense attorney Jose Baez said yesterday. “I think this case is a perfect example of why the death penalty does not work ... Murder is not right, no matter who does it.”

The trial became a national sensation on cable TV, with its CSI-style testimony about duct-tape marks on the child’s face and the smell of death inside a car trunk.

After a trial of a month and a half, the jury took less than 11 hours to find Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse.

Tears welled in Anthony’s eyes, her face reddened, her lips trembled, and she began breathing heavily as she listened to the verdict.

Many in the crowd of about 500 people outside the courthouse reacted with anger after the verdict was read, chanting, “Justice for Caylee!” One man yelled, “Baby killer!”

Given the relative speed with which the jury came back with a verdict, many court-watchers were expecting Anthony to be convicted in the killing, and they were stunned by the outcome.

Sentencing was set for tomorrow. Anthony could get up to a year behind bars on each count of lying to investigators. But since she has been in jail for nearly three years already, she could walk free.

Prosecutors contended Anthony — a single mother living with her parents — suffocated Caylee with duct tape because she wanted to be free to hit the nightclubs and spend time with her boyfriend.

Defense attorneys argued the little girl accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool and that Anthony panicked and hid the body because of the traumatic effects of being sexually abused by her father.

The case played out on national television almost from the moment Caylee was reported missing three years ago. CNN’s hard-nosed Nancy Grace dissected the case at every turn with the zeal of the prosecutor she once was, arguing Anthony was responsible for her daughter’s death.

Anthony’s attorney Cheney Mason blasted the media after the verdict.

“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,” Mason said.

“I’m disgusted by some of the lawyers that have done this, and I can tell you that my colleagues from coast to coast and border to border have condemned this whole process of lawyers getting on television and talking about cases that they don’t know a damn thing about.”

The jurors — seven women and five men — would not talk to the media, and their identities were kept secret by the court.

State’s Attorney Lawson Lamar said: “We’re disappointed in the verdict today because we know the facts and we’ve put in absolutely every piece of evidence that existed.” The prosecutor lamented the lack of hard evidence, saying, “This is a dry-bones case. Very, very difficult to prove. The delay in recovering little Caylee’s remains worked to our considerable disadvantage.”

Caylee’s disappearance went unreported by her own mother for a month. The child’s decomposed body was eventually found in the woods near her grandparents’ home six months after she was last seen. A medical examiner was never able to establish how she died.

The case became a macabre tourist attraction in Orlando. People camped outside for seats in the courtroom, and scuffles broke out among those desperate to watch the drama unfold.

Because the case got so much media attention in Orlando, jurors were brought in from the Tampa Bay area and sequestered for the entire trial, during which they listened to more than 33 days of testimony and looked at 400 pieces of evidence. Anthony did not take the stand.

“While we’re happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case,” Baez said after the verdict. “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. And today our system of justice has not dishonored her memory by a false conviction.”