Aphrodite Jones Reports: Casey Anthony's Revelation

January 17, 2012

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective on the latest Casey Anthony news. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

 

The biggest thing that struck me about Casey's revelation to psychiatrists was her statement: "I'll be damned if I'm going to take responsibility for this!" Insistent that George was the culprit, Casey concocted a few variations about how it was George who either found Caylee in the pool -- or perhaps drowned her in the pool -- and was adamant that she was not going to take the blame for her Father's misdeeds. Still, wasn't it her responsibility to call the police -- to get help for her daughter and report the crime or "accident?"

In her typical style, Casey had a number of answers for not calling 911.

>>She FEARED her Dad because of years of alleged sexual abuse, and was told by
    George that  "Daddy will take care of it."

>>She was numb and in shock when George handed her daughter over to her -- wet
    and motionless.

>>She wanted to believe Caylee would still be "okay" somehow -- and hoped that after
    Daddy would "take Care" of Caylee, she might still be alive.

To this I say: huh?

All of this insanity leads me to ask the obvious question: is Casey Anthony crazy? Is she a sociopath? The immediate answer that comes to mind is YES. But the psychiatrists who evaluated her in jail said she was no such thing. One shrink called her a "puzzlement." Neither of the doctors could understand why Casey was appearing "upbeat" and "cheerful" throughout her evaluations. In my view, she's a sick and twisted woman who, while crazy, is also smart enough to have outwitted her parents, her friends, the justice system, AND the trained medical experts around her. No wonder she smiled so much.

Only time will tell when that smile will get pulled off her wicked face...

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>>Read: Casey's Anthony's 4 Minutes Of Fame

Aphrodite Jones Reports: Casey Anthony's 4 Minutes Of Fame

January 06, 2012

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective on the latest sighting of Casey Anthony. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

 

The mystery around the "illegal" release of Casey Anthony's video blog offers more food for thought about Casey Anthony's plan to come back out into the spotlight and her hopes to get paid for TV or internet appearances. Sure, her lawyers say it was hacked via Skype -- but let's  recall the photos of Casey that appeared last fall -- those were orchestrated -- with careful placement of an Ohio ball cap on Casey's head and studious glasses that allowed people to recognize her eyes. Someone paid big money for those photos (that's my educated guess) because they were taken with Casey openly shopping in a store window on an empty sidewalk. If real paparazzi had been after her -- we would have seen photos of her fighting off the cameras, wearing dark shades, and covering her face. Right?? Now, on January 5, 2012, we see an October 14th video clip released to a Facebook site. Take a careful look at this "private video blog" and you will notice that this clip was edited in such a way that oddly, tells us nothing of significance, AND it's in black and white, which signals that it was doctored. Allegedly, someone leaked Casey's blog to a "Casey" Facebook site and wanted $3 per view.

IMO, Casey needs money, but moreover, she misses being a "star" and wants to test the waters to see how much attention she can garner.  After all Casey is, first and foremost, a narcissist. In the short four minute video clip she uses the word "me" or "mine" over 40 times. Casey's world is still all about HER. It's sick that she mentions her newly adopted dog, not her dead baby, not her wounded parents. She also mentions she wants to use the blog as a way to get used to the camera. Huh?

This woman has a PhD in mugging for the camera. Someone doctored and edited this "video blog" and I have a good hunch about who's behind it... More to come...

Pat LaLama: Casey Anthony's Latest PR Stunt

January 05, 2012

[ Pat LaLama's stellar career in broadcast journalism is a chronicle of some of the most iconic events in modern history.  Here's her take on Casey Anthony's lastest stunt.    Read her Bio >> ]

  

Casey Anthony is picking up right where she left off…as an insufferable self-serving manipulator with an insatiable urge to draw attention to her sociopathic self.  In her first “video diary” posted on YouTube, the once accused baby killer sports a new chic, short blond hairstyle and offers up nearly four and half minutes of vacuous mutterings.

Naturally, as the posting is introduced into the public consciousness, we the media, with our own “can’t look away from the train wreck” sensibility, must ponder and analyze Anthony’s senseless, empty utterances which offer no socially redeeming message.

Let’s begin with her feigned fear of making the video in the first place. “I don’t know whether to look directly at myself or look up or…this is a little scary because I hate being on camera,”she utters timidly into the lens. Let’s get this straight. Casey Anthony’s world class love affair with herself is the driving force behind this “production”. She’s addicted to attention—got plenty of it throughout her life and was soaked in it during her sensational trial. Now she’s suffering from withdrawals.

Anthony makes absolutely no mention of her daughter, her parents or her trial. “The good thing is that things are starting to look up and things are starting to change in a good way,” she offers. What things? What’s good? What’s changing?  Is there any self-reflection? Remorse?  Anger?  Sorrow?

Anthony is thrilled that technology will help plaster her conscienceless self-promotion all over the globe. “I’m excited that I’ll be able to Skype and obviously keep a video log, take some pictures…”

How fabulously convenient for you Ms. Anthony.  A worldwide forum all for yourself—and you don’t even have to respond to a single question about your beautiful, dead baby girl.  AND you can use this technological tool to raise money. AND in your inimitable fashion, perhaps you can market yourself to the hordes of clueless men who somehow find you “hot”.

“Now I in some ways have someone to talk to even when I am by myself so I am not bothering the poor dog who I have adopted and I love,” she says.  Love? Did you say love, Ms. Anthony? Imagine the sweet conversations you could have been having with a certain adoring little girl.

Boredom sets in quickly watching this abomination. It didn’t take long for my eyes to wander off Anthony’s giant black framed glasses onto the picture frames that serve as a background for the video. There is not a single photograph of her deceased child.

Anthony doesn’t tell us where she is—she only mentions that she will remain in the undisclosed Florida location until February, while she completes the terms of her probation for check fraud. She does promise more videos in the future. “This is the first of many, and I’m looking forward to this”.

One of Anthony’s lawyers insists she did not post the video diary—that it was hacked. I’ll let you be the judge on that.

Finally, I’m particularly troubled by one thought offered by this classic narcissistic. “I have something to call mine”, says the sympathy-seeking Anthony.  Well Ms. Anthony, the thing you once had that really mattered was a wonderful child named Caylee-- found dead in a swamp. But I guess that’s all in the past.

What do you think about Casey's video to the world?

Give us your thoughts on our Investigation Discovery Facebook Page

 

Related Links:
>>Watch Video: Dr. G: Inside the Caylee Anthony Case
>>Read: Full Casey Anthony Trial Coverage

Why Casey Anthony Remains Silent and Won’t Testify

December 18, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

With two civil suits looming over Casey Anthony’s horizon, speculation grows about the acquitted probationer’s testimony: about what she will and will not say.  During a Nov. 1 deposition for the Zenaida Gonzales defamation suit, Anthony, 25, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 60 times and avoided answering specific questions about the disappearance of her child in 2008.

Nevertheless, it’s a mystery that anyone would expect the consummate liar to come clean about what really happened to her daughter, Caylee.  Freed two weeks after a jury acquitted her of the capital murder of her child and knowing she could not be retried for the same crime,  would the “most hated woman in America” make a clean breast of her role in the tragedy?

No.  Truthfulness is not within the scope of Casey Anthony’s abilities. 

But in a post-Casey Anthony trial world, lying, or her attorneys’ spins may not be enough to keep Casey Anthony out of more trouble. 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

What, though, happened to Caylee?  The only person who can say is her mother, Casey, who never will divulge those facts.

Here’s why:
1.    As Casey Anthony’s Svengali, her lead attorney, Jose Baez, has been creating cover stories — lawyers term them “theory of defense” — since his client first called him from jail.  It’s the perfect set-up for Casey, because now, she doesn’t have to confabulate or invent people.  All Anthony needs to do is sit back and let her lawyers talk.  In Casey’s mind, there is no need for truth.  The acquittal — a profound miscarriage of justice in many people’s eyes — is Casey Anthony’s license to lie.  More than anything, although lawful, the jury’s decision reinforced Anthony’s behavior and that behavior is unlikely to change.

2.    What little the public does know about Casey Anthony has enraged the majority.  Hollywood Reporter writes that Los Angeles-based TV producer Scott Sternberg has been discreetly pitching a Casey Anthony, no holds barred TV interview show.  For between $500,000 and $750,000, says Marisa Guthrie, the licensing media outlet can choose its own interviewer to have first crack at Casey Anthony.  But to their respective credits, no networks or cable venues have said yes to the “quietly shopped” pitch.  Citing fear of backlash from the public, so far, the Dec. 14 report states a presentation of whatever Casey Anthony might dish is not attractive, and rightfully so. “[A Casey Anthony interview] will get very good ratings,” one cable source told the web site. “But who would want to put their ads in that kind of show?”

3.    Count on Casey’s protracted silence in her two upcoming civil suits, i.e., the Zenaida Gonzales defamation suit and Texas Equusearch’s suit to recover $15,000 spent in the search for a “missing” Caylee.  Not only would Anthony be subject to perjury charges if her sworn testimony contained untruths but whatever she does reveal will be in book form -- or possibly come out during a big-ticket interview by Barbara Walters, for instance.
 
To land a lucrative deal, Anthony must hold back details.  Her cadre of lawyers -- who so far may not have been paid for years of legal work -- will see to that. 

“Imperfect Justice”

In a talk to promote his book, Imperfect Justice, Prosecuting Casey Anthony (HarperCollins, 2011), former prosecutor Jeff Ashton recently told a packed house in Sarasota that, “The only thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is that [Casey Anthony] will continue to lie ... “Someday she may lie to someone who doesn’t resort to the law for their justice,” Ashton added, “but who knows what will happen with that?”

 

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

Judge Unseals Casey Anthony Secret Jailhouse Video

October 02, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. --  Chief Judge Bevin Perry unsealed on Sept. 30 a telling video that documents the Caylee Anthony murder defendant’s reaction to what the mother, 22, was told that “a small child’s” remains were discovered near the family’s Orlando home on Dec. 8, 2008.

At the time of the taped video, Anthony was in jail and awaiting her capital murder trial.  The recording depicts Anthony’s reaction to the television-broadcast news.
Staging a situation and setting where her reactions could be monitored and as part of detectives’ efforts to solve the murder case, Anthony had been taken from her cell to a medical space of the Orlando Women’s Correctional facility, where she was told to sit in a room to watch the 15-minute broadcast.

Although the surveillance video’s quality is largely unfocused and grainy, Anthony can be seen bent over in a chair and appearing to be nauseated.  The Orlando Sentinel quoted Anthony’s lead attorney, Jose Baez, who said, “I find [the video of his client] to be torture.  I guess it’s Orange County’s version of water boarding."

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Judge Perry, who noted in his Sept. 30 Order Granting Motion to Unseal Videotape, the video is a public record “subject to disclosure." 

“The reason for sealing — Ms. Anthony’s right to a fair trial — is no longer applicable,” Perry explained in the three-page order. 

On July 7, 2011, counsel for Orlando television station WKMG-TV, Channel 6, had filed the motion, which Perry agreed to suppress.  The judge concurred with Jose Baez, that when weighed against the young woman’s first-degree murder charge, the video’s contents were “inflammatory.”

In the recording, Casey Anthony appears to watch news that could relate to the two-year-old daughter she reported as missing in the summer of 2008.  Looking up at a wall-mounted TV screen, Anthony bends at the waist while huddling in a chair. 

Word came from an inmate supervisor that seconds after learning a small child’s remains had been discovered 15 houses from the residence Anthony and daughter Caylee shared with the child’s grandparents George and Cindy, Anthony hyperventilated, her hands sweated noticeably and the skin on her neck reddened.

Anthony requested and was given a sedative after watching the grim news.

Baez, who now represents another high-profile criminal figure — Aruban murder suspect, Gary Giordano — litigated to have the video sealed.

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

Judge to Casey Anthony: Write Check for $217,499.23

September 26, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony is learning that it does not pay to lie to police and that her falsehood convictions come with a total price tag of $217,499.23.  That sum reflects the Sept. 23 order of the judge who presided over the 25-year-old’s capital murder trial; his ruling increases the reimbursement amount she owes the state of Florida, whose tireless forensic technicians and dogged detectives toiled to locate Anthony’s “missing” child during Summer 2008.

On Sept. 15, Judge Belvin Perry assessed Anthony over $97,000 to reimburse the Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation and the State Attorney’s Office for their work in the case. 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

In his Sept. 22 ruling, Judge Perry writes:

“Further, this payment obligation is hereby reduced to a civil judgment against Defendant, Casey Marie Anthony.  FOR WHICH SUM, LET EXECUTION ISSUE.”

In other words, the state may attempt to collect the judgment from whatever assets Casey Anthony possesses.  

 

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

Casey Anthony Lawyer to Judge: ‘Exclude All Costs’ of Investigation

September 23, 2011

Detectives ‘knew within 24 hours’ that Anthony was lying

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

 

ORLANDO, FLA – Casey Anthony doesn’t want to bear any costs of investigating her “missing” child, her lawyer, Lisabeth Fryer relates, nor does the publicly-despised liar want to reimburse the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for “ . . . costs incurred in investigating and prosecuting the four misdemeanor convictions for which the defendant was convicted.” 

On September 21, Fryer filed a response to the state’s “Revised Investigative Costs Expense Reports of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.”  After ruling that district attorney Linda Drane Burdick clarify her initial accounting, Judge Belvin Perry decided that Anthony must pay more than $97,000 of $500,000 expenses incurred during the investigation and prosecution of the 25-year-old morally bankrupt woman.

Fryer:  State failed to establish costs

In the defendant’s response to the state’s revised bill, Fryer notes, “It is not possible to ascertain . . . how many investigatory hours and which efforts were related solely to the four misdemeanor convictions with because the costs have not been established . . . the details of the work done is vague, or the hours . . . are questionable. 

Citing United Stages v Fowler (1986), Casey’s attorney put forth a tenuous, oblique argument, saying, “ . . .  the [state’s] affidavits . . . failed to establish the relationship of the efforts to the convictions by a preponderance of the evidence.”

Arguing that because the Sheriff’s Department knew within twenty-four hours that the statements made by Ms Anthony were untruthful, Fryer holds that the costs were related to the more serious charges, and are therefore not allowable, because a defendant who has not been proven guilty of that crime—in Anthony’s case, the more serious charges, of which she was acquitted—does not have to pay for costs associated with that prosecution.

We think we’ve got that.

Citing United Stages v Fowler (1986), Casey’s attorney put forth a tenuous, oblique argument, saying, “ . . .  the [state’s] affidavits . . . failed to establish the relationship of the efforts to the convictions by a preponderance of the evidence.”

 It is noteworthy, and not surprising, that Frye’s strategy and reasoning reflect Jose Baez’s closing remarks at trial, during which the lead defense attorney argued before the jury that the state had failed to produce evidence that Anthony killed her toddler daughter, Caylee.

Given the embittered aftermath of the murder trial watched worldwide, Anthony and her lawyers may be in for rough treatment and fewer rulings that go their way, a phenomenon that appears to be shaping the Conrad Murray/Michael Jackson manslaughter trial set to begin in California on September 28.

Casey Anthony, cash cow:  Moo-ve on down the road

Her earning potential characterized by six-figure licensing fees, book and movie deals, etc., Casey Anthony eventually may consider $97,000 to be a nominal expense for walking. 

Her lawyers already may be considering the district attorney’s bill as another one of their investments in Casey Anthony, Cash Cow:  Wherein the legal team decides to moo-ve on down the road.  With greener pastures in sight, their newly-acquitted client contentedly will serve out her year of supervised probation, as lucrative offers continue to appear.

Fairyland Justice: The Murder Trial of James Robert “Bob” Ward

[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University.  Read his Bio >>

credit: Lawrence Lawry/Getty

 

A high profile murder trial is in its second week in Orlando, Florida, heard in the same courtroom as was the recent Casey Anthony trial.  James Robert “Bob” Ward is accused of murdering his wife Diane in September 2009 with a gunshot to her face in the family home.  The prosecution alleges that in his 9-1-1 call to police Ward admitted five times that he shot his wife.  However, much as did Casey Anthony’s statements to police, Ward’s statements have wavered and his account of events surrounding Diane Ward’s death has been inconsistent.

No, Ward didn’t suggest that Zanny the Nanny shot his wife, nor was it suggested that his wife actually perished at the bottom of George Anthony’s pool; not yet, at least.  Instead, Ward later told police that his wife’s death was an accident, then later still a suicide.  In another story, the one he appears to be sticking with, he said that his wife was killed whilst they struggled for control of a gun - as she attempted suicide.  However, forensic evidence shows that the pistol was 18 inches from the victim’s face when the fatal shot was fired.  Although this isn’t impossible, it’s a tough argument to make: the victim must have held the gun a foot and a half away from her face, backwards; she must have carefully aimed the backwards-pointing gun to the approximate center of her face; she then pushed the trigger forward to discharge the weapon; and these things were done as she struggled with her husband for control of the weapon.  In addition, according to other evidence, Diane Ward was intoxicated and under the influence of drugs.  Anywhere else but Orlando, Ward could be in real trouble.

We learned from the Casey Anthony debacle that murder trial juries in Orlando are selected based on their inability to pass judgment on anyone, their disbelief in the death penalty in death penalty cases (this isn’t one of them), and otherwise their collective abilities to suspend reality and come to fairytale conclusions independent of both prosecution and defense arguments offered at trial.  The casual observer might speculate aloud that Ward fabricated the fight-over-the-gun story (also called Version 4.0), and instead deliberately pointed a gun at his wife’s face and pulled the trigger to commit murder; murder for substantial profit, the prosecution alleges.  But history has shown that Orlando juries are no mere casual observers.

In a city known for its imaginary characters, magic kingdoms, and living happily ever after, a lie is not a lie.  It’s merely fantasy or fiction, a fanciful tale, and never evidence of guilt.  Orlando juries are clever as wizards and can divine truth without the encumbrance of fact.  Just as it was for Casey Anthony, that is very good news for Bob Ward.

Judge Rules Casey Anthony Must Pay $97K for Investigation

September 19, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Judge Belvin Perry has ruled that Casey Anthony owes more than $97,000 toward the expense of looking for her “missing” daughter, Caylee.

The ruling, which is less than one-fifth of the amount prosecutors asked for, came on Sept. 15. 

Cost breakdown:
* $61,505.12 to Florida Department of Law Enforcement (State Crime Lab)
* $10,283.90 to Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation
* $25,837.96 to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office
* $50.00 to the State Attorney’s Office

Expenses were incurred while authorities searched for Caylee Anthony, between July 15 and Sept. 29, 2008.

 In handing down his decision, Judge Perry noted allowable amounts “are reasonably related to the investigative work provided as a result of Defendant providing false information as to the location of her daughter Caylee Anthony and making other misrepresentations to law enforcement.”

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

State Attorneys had asked for more than $500,000 in pre-trial and trial expenses arising from the Casey Anthony capital murder case.

Noting that some costs “were not adequately broken down” by date, Judge Perry said the Sheriff’s Office has until 4 p.m. on Sept. 19 to submit a revised report.

In what likely will be an appeal, Casey Anthony attorneys will remind Judge Perry that their client was declared indigent in 2008 and that currently, she is unemployed.

Casey Anthony is serving a year’s supervised probation under the watchful eyes of the Florida Department of Corrections.

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

Casey Anthony to Plead Fifth in 'Nanny' Defamation Case

September 04, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony’s keeping mum during an Oct. 8 deposition in the Zenaida Gonzalez defamation case, her civil attorney says. 

Anthony “will assert the Fifth Amendment” at the deposition, for which Judge Lisa Munyon also established certain security related conditions arising from death threats to the former murder defendant and even to one of her lawyers. 

Sideshow or Truth-Seeking?

Having learned how far and to what degree sensationalism grew from the criminal trial, others are attempting to shape Anthony related litigation before the fact.  Anthony civil attorney, Charles Green said, “I don’t want it to turn into a sideshow where people are playing for the cameras for it to be broadcast ... instead of searching for the truth.”

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Also related, in what appears to have been a long-range legal assist for Anthony to skirt any pre-trial depositions, the former cell phone and texting habitué may have the right to assert the Fifth Amendment during questioning.  How is that possible? 

Funny you should ask.  After the murder trial, Casey Anthony’s lawyers announced that she is appealing the four guilty verdicts for lying to police during their investigation into Caylee’s disappearance.

To non-lawyers, only now does the criminal appeal acquire meaning.  While appealing the conviction, Casey Anthony reportedly does not have to answer any questions that could come back to haunt her during the forthcoming Zenaida Gonzalez defamation suit, now in pre-trial hearings and meetings.

“There Will Be Many Battles.”

Referring to the civil action’s beginning in April or May 2012, Greene told reporters after the Sept. 1 case management conference that “There will be many battles and I’ll just say there’s a lot that’s going to happen before this case goes to trial, if it ever goes to trial.”

“Why Not Just Answer?”

Gonzalez’s counsel John Dill observed, “I think the answers themselves may speak volumes what [sic] she wants to answer.  If all she wants to do is plead the Fifth, why not just answer my questions?  How hard is that?  If she wants to just be honest and tell us what really happened why not just answer?  How hard is it?”

Gonzalez initiated the suit because she says she has had difficulty finding a job or place to live.
In structuring the deposition, imposing a two-hour time limit and allowing a video link-up from an undisclosed location; during the Sept. 1 conference, Judge Munyon seemed to take cues from both Judge Perry, who presided over the murder case, and from the Orange County Department of Corrections, which not only saw that Anthony remained in protective custody status during her incarceration, but is providing confidential supervision during Anthony’s year-long probation. 
Judge Munyon also ruled that Anthony’s deposition will remain sealed for one month.

Even if Casey Anthony speaks not a word at the deposition, Jose Baez said his client “pretended she had a nanny” during opening remarks in the murder trial.  In effect, the civil case could draw on what was established in the criminal trial.

But “draw on” does not always mean draw on what a lawyer said.  Likely, however, statements lawyers make during opening remarks are not intended necessarily to be truthful, only possible, and therefore do not always answer to actual “truth-seeking.”

Two Versions of the Truth

An oft-repeated legal precept is that in a trial, two versions of the truth are presented.  It is this abstract concept that the general public struggles to grasp.

Continuing Legal Saga

Next up in the continuing legal saga that has branded Casey Anthony is a lawsuit brought by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, which is asking a judge to rule that Anthony must reimburse the OCSO for thousands of dollars spent in the search for Caylee.  

Casey Anthony likely will remain in hiding -- not only will she be deposed at a remote location, she also is not expected at the Sept. 2 hearing to recover investigation costs.

 

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Casey Anthony Returns to Florida

August 22, 2011

 [This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

‘I’m certain she’ll do what’s asked of her, if necessary.’ — Jose Baez

 

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Casey Anthony is back in Florida, according to her lead attorney Jose Baez, on Aug. 21, five days before Chief Judge Belvin Perry has ordered her to report in Orlando for her probation intake.

Baez appeared on Geraldo at Large, telling his friend, Geraldo Rivera that Anthony, who has been “concentrating on therapy,” spent time with “close friends who are somewhat her spiritual advisors.”

Baez, Anthony in “Holding Pattern”

“We’re kind of in a holding pattern, hoping the court will overturn [her] probation,” Baez also said.  “We have been in touch with the Department of Probation, and [Anthony] fully intends on cooperating.”

Meanwhile, underscoring what he considers as the main points of an appeal filed by defense counsel Cheney Mason and Lisabeth Frye, Baez noted, “Right now, [issues named in the appeal are] separation of power and double jeopardy."

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

The decision on whether or not Casey Anthony must serve a year’s probation now is before Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal, Daytona Beach.  A panel of three judges will consider the appeal.

The defense maintains Anthony served her year’s probation for the check fraud case while in jail and awaiting her murder trial.  The freed 25-year-old woman pled guilty in Jan. 2010 for using her friend Amy Huizinga’s checkbook to finance shopping trips during the 31 days her daughter Caylee’s 2008 disappearance was not reported to police.

Legal issues notwithstanding, Casey Anthony’s family situation largely is one of estrangement — she has not contacted her brother Lee — but she has spoken with her parents Cindy and George Anthony, according to Baez.

Caylee Anthony Would Have Been Six

Anthony’s lawyer went on to say that “Caylee’s sixth birthday on Aug. 9 [had the little girl lived] was difficult for her.”

Noting that his client “has very few friends in her life,” Baez added, “People who have gotten to know [Casey Anthony] have grown to care about her.”

Twelve members of a sequestered jury brought in to Orlando from Pinellas County acquitted Casey Anthony on July 5 of murdering her two-year-old daughter Caylee and dumping her body in woods near the Anthony home. 

“Most Hated Person in America”

The overwhelmingly unpopular verdict has made Anthony’s attorneys fear for her safety; on Aug. 10, Casey Anthony was acclaimed as “the most hated person in America” in a weekly poll that tracks public perceptions of celebrities.

“Casey is trying to concentrate on getting counseling and therapy,” Baez said, adding, “She is trying to get a grasp on what all has happened to her.”

 

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

Casey Anthony Lawyers to Fight ‘Unappealing’ Probation

August 15, 2011

 

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

 

ORLANDO, Fla. - Casey Anthony evidently finds the terms of her year’s probation — or even its concepts that may thwart her formerly “fluid” addresses and vagabond lifestyle — to be unappealing and reportedly will fight Judge Belvin Perry’s decision to uphold Judge Stan Strickland’s sentence.  When Strickland presided over Anthony's 2008 check fraud case, he ordered probation as a keystone of his 2009 adjudication.

Anthony’s intent to fight the Aug. 11 ruling — that yes, the acquitted murder defendant must report to Probation and Parole in Orlando for an intake interview by high noon on Aug. 26 — reportedly was confirmed on Aug. 15 by CNN, the cable news network says, after speaking with lead attorney Jose Baez. 

 

“Casey is America’s Most Hated Person”

Baez indicates counsel will frame their appeal in terms of Casey Anthony’s safety, citing in their original motion an Orlando Sentinel article that ran on Thursday, Aug. 11 titled, “Poll: Casey is America’s most hated person,” by Jeff Weiner.  

In his Aug. 11 ruling, Perry acknowledges public sentiment surrounding Anthony. 

“This Court is very mindful,” Perry admits, “that it is a high probability that there are many that would like to see physical harm visited upon the defendant.”

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

In the document’s next sentence, however, the judge denies Anthony’s Emergency Motion to Quash, Vacate, and Set Aside Court’s Order.

Perry’s decision — overwhelmingly heralded — reads as a deft rendering of jurisprudence and the underlying message regarding her safety — if any — could be that Anthony, who got herself into this “mess” by certain behavior, can get herself out. 

Secondary logic applying, Judge Perry sincerely believes a year’s probation will benefit Anthony and that the process will enhance her successful reentry into society.
 
No Doc to Date

Follow-up searches of Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeals website yield no new filings by Aug. 15 involving Casey Anthony; the most recently filed pleading bears a July 20, 2011 date.    

This is an evolving story.  When court documents become available, they will be posted here.

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Casey Anthony, "America's Most Hated Person," to Serve Probation in Florida

August 12, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony’s planning to move — again.  This time, Chief Judge Belvin Perry is ordering the recently acquitted woman to report to the Orange County (Florida) Department of Corrections no later than 12 p.m. on Aug. 26. 

Anthony will serve a year’s supervised probation in Orlando for several check fraud convictions connected to former friend Amy Huezinga’s bank account.  Judge Perry's most recent decisions affecting the case are related to clerical errors.

And, yes, you correctly read the “Orlando” part.

Prefacing a ”standard  list” of 13 do’s and don’ts that will set the parameters of Anthony’s probation, Judge Perry spoke to each of the defense’s arguments against probation, including the double jeopardy recognizes Anthony’s “most hated” status by instructing the Florida Department of Corrections to exercise “its discretion to keep confidential her residential information.”

Judge Perry has a duty to protect the former murder defendant, whose unofficial title is “America’s Most-Hated Person.”  Moreover, Judge Perry is authorizing the Florida Department of Corrections to shield her — since “public rage [over her July 5 acquittal] has not subsided.” Judge Perry will withhold the address of the reviled mother of Caylee, age two; this is one of few exceptions to the customary instructions for any rank and file probationer.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Other key points of the ruling:

1.   “No later than the fifth day of each month,” Anthony must make a “full and truthful report” to her probation officer.
2.   She will pay the state of Florida $20 per month “toward the cost of supervision, plus a 4% surcharge.”
3.   No moves or job changes without notifying her probation supervisor.
4.   Anthony would need permission from her probation officer to “possess, carry or own any weapons or firearms.”
5.   She will “live and remain at liberty” without violating the law.
6.   The former inmate will not visit places where alcohol, drugs or “dangerous substances” are unlawfully sold, dispensed or used, available or in use, nor will she use intoxicants.
7.   Casey Anthony must find a “lawful occupation” and “work diligently.”
8.   Any inquiries from the Court or from her probation officer, including home visits, at a job site or “elsewhere,”
9.   Marijuana or other controlled substances are not allowed, with the exception of properly prescribed medication.  She can not possess drug paraphernalia or “forged or blank prescription forms.”
10. Unless prescribed for another reason, Anthony cannot consume alcohol, etc.; she also must submit to “chemical tests” (breath, urine and blood) upon request.
11. During her probation, Casey Anthony must submit to unannounced searches for alcoholic beverages, controlled substances and firearms.
12. A probation officer could “place” Anthony in a halfway house, without providing a reason.
13. Casey Anthony must not “knowingly associate” with known criminals.

The 13 “standard” rules concerning probation no doubt will challenge Casey Anthony — and her legal team — in ways she never has known before and she will exercise morality sinews that she never knew she possessed.

The word “probation” has several language “relatives,” including apprenticeship, examination, novitiate, test, authentication, et al.  To successfully navigate through probation, Casey Anthony must be part apprentice, a novitiate with a good attitude and could be subjected to or arrested again. 

 

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Casey Anthony Linked to Caylee’s ‘Untimely Death,’ State Agency Reports

August 11, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – A state agency investigating Caylee Anthony’s ‘untimely death’ says Casey Anthony failed to protect her child from harm or possibly that the acquitted murder defendant harmed her daughter in some manner.  Could this official document affect Casey Anthony’s expressed wishes to adopt another child?

Casey Anthony “Failed to Protect Her Child ...”

Three years in the making, the Orange County, Fla., child welfare agency’s report states: 

“It is the conclusion of the Department of Children and Families that [Casey Anthony] failed to protect her child from harm either through her actions or lack of actions, which tragically resulted in the child’s untimely death,” notes the report released on Aug. 11, 2011.

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

The findings, however, reflect information gathered during a three-year investigation launched by the DCF after the Florida Abuse Hotline received a report on Dec. 29, 2008.

The DCF states the agency has closed the “Comprehensive Death Review – Final Report” after verifying three “maltreatments.”  A brief summary of what appears to be an exhaustive and painstaking disclosure follows.

“Maltreatments” identified:

“Death:  Verified.  This investigation is closed with ‘Verified’ findings of the death maltreatment.  The DCF concludes that the actions or lack of actions by the alleged perpetrator ultimately resulted or contributed in the death of the child/[victim].

“Failure to Protect: Verified.  ... It is concluded that the mother’s failure to act during those 31 days [of Caylee’s ‘missing’ status, according to Casey Anthony], ultimately resulted in her inability to protect the child from harm.

“Threatened Harm: Verified.  Based on the mother’s statements ... [Casey Anthony] acknowledged that she knew the child was missing for 31 days and believed the child was kidnapped  ... The mother was uncooperative with law enforcement’s efforts to locate the child and provided statements which were found to be disingenuous.”

Will Report Follow Casey Anthony?

Although Casey Anthony has been acquitted of her daughter Caylee’s murder, the report is one of many conclusions in which the State of Florida appears to be rendering final — and lasting — remarks.

The reproachful report will surface again, sources say, should Casey Anthony subsequently try to adopt another child.

In a jail house letter to her friend Robyn Adams, Anthony muses, "I always wanted to adopt a baby or child from another country — is it selfish to want one from Ireland?  Accent and all?”

Click here to read the complete Department of Children and Families Review of Child Death.

 

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Casey Anthony Probation Hearing Set for August 5

August 05, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Déjà vu: State of Florida v. Casey Anthony, Judge Belvin Perry presiding

ORLANDO, Fla. – A hearing to sort out Casey Anthony’s tangle of probation issues is scheduled for Aug. 5 in Chief Judge Belvin Perry’s court.  Originally set for Aug. 4, Judge Perry rescheduled the hearing because he needs time to determine if the Florida Department of Corrections should figure in the troubled woman’s life for a year, and if so, whether the DOC would allow Anthony serve probation from another state.

The latest controversy in the ongoing legal tumult is defining Casey Anthony’s life.  Judge Stan Strickland, who presided over Anthony’s check fraud case in 2010, issued an order on Aug. 1 that clarified his ruling that Anthony serve probation for a year.  Strickland’s order directed Anthony, 25, to report to the DOC within 72 hours for the standard initial intake process.

On Aug. 2, Anthony’s lawyers filed an Emergency Motion for Hearing to Quash, Vacate, and Set Aside [Judge Strickland’s] Order.  That document vs. Judge Strickland’s order formed the basis for the previously scheduled hearing to have taken place on Aug. 4.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 
Although the hearing went forward, at that time, Judge Perry temporarily stayed his colleague’s order for Anthony’s probation but the jurist moved the hearing to Aug. 5, where he will hear arguments on the entire matter: should she stay or should she go.

At the Aug. 5 hearing, Anthony’s lawyers will argue that their client’s life would be in grave danger if the state of Florida compels her to serve a year’s probation as part of the check fraud case adjudication.  Her lawyers also will point out that probation would call for state-funded security services, which would add even more costs to the $700,000 that taxpayers spent on the murder investigation and capital murder trial.

Diabolical Threats

Among exhibits attached to the emergency motion filed on Aug. 2 in Circuit Court are diabolical and graphic threats on Anthony’s life.   One exhibit is a close-up photograph of Anthony with a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead and a caption underneath that reads, “Keep smiling, bitch.  With a forehead that big, the headshot will be easier.”

“Tic Toc, KC: Timer 180”

Another ominous graphic (see court documents obtained by InvestigationDiscovery.com) appears to be a skull shot through with numerous bullet holes and the words “Tic Toc KC” and “Timer 180.”  Both phrases are veiled references to Anthony’s numerous fabrications concerning the non-existent nanny the former defendant blamed for kidnapping her daughter, Caylee, 2.

Additional exhibits attached to the motion supporting the defense’s position that Casey Anthony served her parole while behind bars — probation officers visited Anthony in jail and obtained her signature verifying her location multiple times — and that ordering her to return and serve a year’s probation would amount to double jeopardy. 

In addition, the motion also notes that Florida law stipulates a judge may not amend his sentence more than 60 days after he signed it, which Judge Stan Strickland did in January 2010.

More Circus-like Atmosphere

What’s more, the emergency request for a hearing reminds the court that if Casey Anthony must return to Orlando, the “circus-like atmosphere” surrounding her case only would increase.

The pleas of Anthony's legal team insist that Judge Strickland, who heard the check fraud case but not the murder trial, has shown “prejudice” against Anthony in television interviews he gave following her acquittal last month. 

Stating that Strickland is no longer qualified to issue the amended probation order because he recused himself from Anthony’s criminal case — which, in reality, was initiated by the defense — additionally, the amended order was illegally filed because there was no court proceeding where either Anthony or her lawyers were present.

 

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Casey Anthony Must Serve Probation in Orange County

August 01, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony’s first judge has signed amended orders on Aug. 1 that require the recently acquitted accused murderer and mom to serve a full year of supervised probation related to sentencing in her check fraud case.

Judge Stan Strickland said, “From my reading of this, she should be reporting to probation in Orlando probably within 72 hours.” 

Orange County’s Department of Corrections has reached Anthony’s attorneys to make arrangements for her return.

“We’re in contact with Casey Anthony’s attorneys to set up her first visit,” advised spokesperson Gretl Plessinger.  “We’re prepared to move forward with the court order.”

Anthony Legal Team Scrambling

Likely, Anthony’s lawyers are scrambling to block Judge Strickland’s order and if they anticipated the court’s new mandates, her legal counsel may have announced their client’s intent to seek mental counseling as a possible out or refuge from the Orange County court system.

Various legal strategies, including a double jeopardy argument —- the concept of being punished twice for the same crime — may form the basis of an appeal in this latest turn in Casey Anthony’s ongoing saga, which began with her initial jailing as an accused murderer in the 2008 death of her toddler daughter Caylee.  The double jeopardy argument arises because Anthony served almost three years in jail while awaiting the trial: time served, her attorneys will argue, includes the check charge probation.  The sticking point involves whether time spent in jail while awaiting her murder trial is also time spent for Anthony’s check fraud convictions.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

BFF Unknowingly Funded Shopping Sprees

The newly released woman, 25, pled guilty on January 25, 2010, to fraudulently using her best friend Amy Huizenga’s checks to buy more than $400 worth of clothes and groceries in June and July 2008 after the disappearance of her two-year-old daughter.

Sentencing in the check fraud case amounted to 412 days time served in jail and one year of probation — the current issue she faces — and was ordered to pay $348 in court fees and $5,517.75 in investigative fees.

Where in the World is Casey Anthony?

Expect more defense maneuvers, media games of “where in the world is Casey Anthony” and Casey Anthony news that changes from day to day.  It is the job and practice of Anthony’s lawyers to do everything in their power to keep their client from coming anywhere near a court of law. 

Cloak of Mental Therapy?

Anthony’s whereabouts likely will be unknown to Orange County probation officers — for now.  Whether hiding behind a cloak of “mental therapy,” pending appeals or both, her burgeoning team of legal advisors, buoyed by Anthony’s stunning acquittal for first-degree murder, help her to avoid responsibility for the steadily mounting expenses born by Florida tax papers when the pathological liar purposely directed investigators far afield to search for a live Caylee.

Serving as Casey Anthony’s business advisors in addition to continuing to represent her in criminal matters, the group clustered around her also will lose revenue — their fees — if their client must reimburse the state of Florida for mounting investigative and court costs in her murder trial.

Related Links:

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Casey Anthony Walked Midnight, July 17, Despite Pending Civil Suit

July 18, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, FLA – During an emergency hearing on July 15, with Casey Anthony poised to walk free in less than 36 hours, Casey Anthony’s civil lawyer Charles Greene convinced Judge Lisa Munyon to reschedule a videotaped deposition in the defamation suit Zenaida Gonzales Fernandez had filed against the newly acquitted murder defendant. 

Representing Zenaida Fernandez Gonzales during the conference behind closed doors, Keith Mitnik of Morgan & Morgan tried to advance the Kissimmee resident’s suit against the soon-to-be-released Anthony.

The Real Zenaida

Originating with Anthony’s lies concerning Caylee Anthony’s kidnapping by non-existent babysitter, “Zanny the Nanny,” the “real” Zenaida Fernandez says she lost her job and reputation when her name went public during police investigations culminating in the sensational murder mega-trial that ended July 5. 

Anthony was scheduled to give a sworn videotaped deposition in the civil action on July 19, but after the emergency meeting with Judge Munyon, that testimony has been rescheduled for October 8. 

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Casey Anthony Needs “Breathing Room”

In seeking a new date, Anthony’s civil attorney told the judge that a recent psychological evaluation found the newly acquitted, former murder defendant to be “emotionally unstable,” and that Casey needs “breathing room” before answering questions under oath about the fabricated Zanny vs. Zenaida Gonzales.

“A Frivolous Complaint”

Calling the suit “a frivolous complaint,” Greene also revealed that Casey Anthony has received seven death threats since her acquittal on the serious charges was announced. 

Greene also requested that the judge seal the deposition and not allow it to be broadcast on the Internet, unlike previous hearings and the entire trial, all of which went live online and via cable television.   Florida’s Sunshine laws permit wide publication of criminal justice affairs.

Arguing for the right to depose Anthony before she walked free, attorney Keith Mitnik told the judge his firm was afraid that once the former murder suspect has left town, she may be impossible to contact.
Objecting to the October date, Mitnik mused, “Maybe by October [Casey Anthony] will have gotten her wits back about her.”

“... Devastating, False Accusations”

According to Morgan & Morgan's website, the suit seeks to "clear Ms. Gonzales' name and rectify the damage done to her by the devastating, false accusations of Casey Anthony."

Gonzales, the mother of six children, has “no criminal record,” and claims  “... she was fired from her job as a result of all of the negative media attention given to her name.”

 

 

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The Casey Anthony Acquittal: Mismanaging the 'CSI Effect'

July 15, 2011

 [ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University.  Read his Bio >> ]

There is a phenomenon in law called the CSI effect, wherein jurors appoint themselves as experts in investigative procedure based on their television experiences. 

One does not have to be a fan of that particular show to be affected since in recent history there have been more than 10 programs on network television depicting, falsely, how crimes are solved and court cases are presented. Other than CSI, there are CSI: New York; CSI: Miami; Law & Order; Law & Order: Criminal Intent; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; Bones; Numbers; Crossing Jordan; Lie to Me, and so on and so on. 

Viewers accumulate expectations of the police and prosecutors from these programs that are far beyond realistic, such as: most major crimes are solved in an hour; most major crimes are prosecuted in an hour; juries in major crimes are usually in and out of deliberation over a two-minute commercial break; there is DNA evidence in every case; it only takes about three minutes to get DNA results; there is a confession in every crime; the older expert is always the correct one; there is a known cause of death in every murder; every detective knows everything, but uniformed police know nothing; any private investigator is always smarter than all police detectives; a suspect isn’t officially under arrest until Miranda Rights are read; there is always a surveillance camera somewhere that captured the crime on tape; there are always fingerprints left behind; crime scene investigators interrogate suspects; crime scene investigators make arrests; crime scene investigators always get in car chases, boat chases, airplane chases, bicycle chases and the occasional foot chase; crime scene investigators never get dirty and always wear Canali, Gucci, Prada, etc.; crime scene investigators know everything, all the time, on sight.  None of this is true. 

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Because the truth is far different, the television programs listed above are called fiction.  Nevertheless, specifically because of these shows the general public has raised expectations regarding what it hopes to find in a criminal case presented before a jury.  Because it’s the general public that makes up a jury, this is a huge problem for prosecutors going to trial.  Juries demand to see DNA and if there is no DNA, the case is flawed.  They demand fingerprints, and if there are none, it’s a weak case.  They demand to see the murder weapon.  They insist on a leering confession from an evil perp.  They must know the cause of death, even if the remains are skeletal.  They demand Miranda Rights in all things suspect-related, even though the legal requirements are actually rather narrow.  Fingerprints are rare.  DNA is even rarer.  DNA or fingerprints with a suspect attached to the evidence is rarer still. 

A juror from the Anthony trial recently complained that the prosecution failed to establish a cause of death.  Another juror suggested that in deliberation most of the jurors initially believed the defendant was culpable at some level or other in the murder of her child.  The prosecution indeed made an impressive circumstantial case as, in fact, most murder cases are.  As it happened, the Anthony trial and all of its television drama was decided by television fiction.  Where prosecutors truly failed was that they should have seen this coming and prepared the jury for it.

 

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Aphrodite Jones Reports: 'Where's Justice for Caylee?'

July 11, 2011

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective from attending the Casey Anthony trial. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

So many of us are stunned and saddened by the Casey Anthony verdict -- it's hard even to put it into words.

What were they thinking? These 12 jurors? Were they really sitting in the same courtroom that I was in for six weeks in Orlando?

I hate to air so many questions, but there is no other way for me to express my disbelief and disappointment with this NOT GUILTY verdict. Some jurors came out and claimed the State did not prove their case. Hmmmm. Let's see: 31 days a missing child goes unreported; there's a decomposing hair that matches mitrochondrial DNA of Caylee Marie in Casey's trunk; there's numerous testimony about Casey's trunk smelling like "death;" there's duct tape found around Caylee's skull and jaw and scientific testimony that a human body does NOT decompose with the skull and jaw stuck together; and pieces of this duct tape was found still around Caylee's jaw, which BTW matched the specific duct tape "Henkel   Brand" that was found by police in the Anthony home.

I could go on and on -- but I get so angry just thinking about a jury of folks who either A) wanted to go home and didn't care about justice, or B) didn't have the presence of mind to look at any piece of evidence or ask even one question (see A) to the judge. If I sound like I'm being too hard on these folks -- please forgive me. I just keep thinking about Caylee -- and where's the justice for that baby?  If ever there was a time for bloggers and social media folks to unite, it's now. Let's get Caylee's Law passed so this child does not die in vain. 

TUNE IN: Behind the Casey Anthony Verdict, an ID Investigates Special premieres tonight 9 p.m.

 

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Casey Anthony Release Date Recalculated; Now July 17

July 08, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – A notification from Chief of Due Process Services Karen Levey advises that Casey Anthony, who was scheduled to be released from the Orange County Corrections facility in Orlando on July 13 is “no longer correct.”

“After receiving the signed order this afternoon on the sentencing of Casey Marie Anthony, Orange County Corrections conducted a detailed recalculation of the projected release date. The projected release date is now Sunday, July 17, 2011.”

The announcement was signed by Allen Moore, JD, APR, Public Information Officer, Orange County Corrections Department, Orange County Government, Fla.

Regarding a release plan for Anthony, the Orange County Corrections Department’s only statement about release plans or method of release regarding Casey Anthony is:

“Due to the high profile nature of this case and intense, emotional interest by the public, appropriate measures will be taken to release the individual into the community in such a manner so as to preserve the safety of the individual and the public.”

Both notices were received by InvestigationDiscovery.com on the evening of July 7.  Evolving legalities in Casey Anthony’s acquittal for the capital murder of her daughter Caylee and the capital case’s complexities since it began in July 2008 keep the case before the public. 

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Anthony’s sentencing hearing for four convictions of providing false information to law enforcement was held on July 7.  At that time, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick for the state of Florida also presented to Judge Belvin Perry a Motion to Tax Special Costs of Investigation and Prosecution and to Reserve Jurisdiction until a final tally is available for the state’s expenditures during the case.  A hearing to resolve the matter is scheduled for August 26, with Judge Perry set to preside.

Anthony may be responsible for various expenses related to what she initially claimed as a kidnapping of her two-year-old daughter Caylee by a fictitious “nanny.”
Although Anthony was acquitted on the first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse charges, she has been incarcerated and awaiting trial since August 2008.

The 25-year-old unmarried woman was sentenced today for the remaining charges, receiving four years’ imprisonment and $4,000 in fines for lying to investigators.  Because her prior jail time reduces today’s sentencing, Anthony’s release date has been calculated and recalculated, with the newly announced July 17 release date being the most recent provided by authorities.

Casey Anthony’s attorneys told Judge Perry at the July 7 hearing that they would be appealing their client’s fines.  The judge directed the soon-to-be-released prisoner to file insolvency papers for eligibility to receive a court appointed attorney that will represent Anthony in the matter.

 

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Photo Caption: Casey Anthony with her attorney Jose Baez during her sentencing hearing at the Orange County Courthouse Orlando, Fla. on Thursday, July 7, 2011. Anthony will remain in jail serving time for her convictions of lying to law enforcement. She was acquitted of murdering her daughter Caylee Anthony. (Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony to Be Released July 13

July 07, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – Judge Belvin Perry has sentenced Casey Anthony to the maximum of four years in jail and fined her $4,000 for providing false information to police on June 16, 2008, but with time spent and time accrued for good behavior, Anthony will be released next Wednesday, July 13, 2011.

Casey Anthony has returned to the Orange County Women’s Detention Center to serve six remaining days at that facility, where she has already spent 1,043 days as an inmate.

Wearing a pastel blue sweater and with her long hair in a ponytail, Anthony initially appeared happy and carefree, but the former party girl assumed a solemn expression as she listened while Perry handed down her sentence.

Counts Four through Seven

Judge Perry ruled each lie Anthony told to Orange County lead detective Yuri Melich was a separate offense because police had to respond differently to each.

Casey was found guilty of the following counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer:
o    That she worked at Universal Studio in Orlando during 2008;
o    That she left Caylee with a babysitter named Zenaida Fernandez Gonzalez;
o    That she told Jeffrey Hopkins and Juliette Lewis that Caylee was missing;
o    That she received a phone call from Caylee on July 15, 2008.

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

The state, represented by Linda Drane Burdick and Frank George — prosecutor Jeffrey Ashton has since retired — has 30 days to determine how much money Anthony’s “wild goose chase” cost law enforcement.

The 25-year-old woman also must pay court charges; in addition, prosecutors are determining costs incurred during the investigation and will present invoices at an Aug. 26 hearing before Judge Perry.

Anthony told the judge that she is indigent and plans to appeal his sentence. The judge instructed her to apply for “insolvency” and said he would appoint a lawyer for her.  Although he spoke little today, allowing Cheney Mason to respond to the judge’s questions, Baez seemed to indicate that he will continue to represent his client.

On July 5, a jury imported from Pinellas County/Clearwater found Casey Anthony not guilty of the top charges she was facing: first degree or felony murder, aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse.

 

Related Links:

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Photo Caption: Casey Anthony talks with her attorney Dorothy Clay Sims for her sentencing on charges of lying to a law enforcement officer at the Orange County Courthouse Orlando, Fla. on Thursday, July 7, 2011. Anthony was acquitted of murder charges on Tuesday. (Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony Sentenced to Four Years for Lies, Time Served to Be Considered

[From the Investigation Discovery Editors]

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Casey Anthony was sentenced to the maximum amount of time for each of the four misdemeanor counts this morning by Judge Belvin Perry -- one year in jail per count, to be served consecutively.

Casey Anthony and counsel returned to the courtroom this morning for sentencing on four counts of providing false information to police officers. 

The defense argued that since all four lies came out of the same interview with police, it would be unconstitutional to hold her accountable on four separate counts.  They requested that the court consider the four counts as a single act.

Judge Perry however indicated that every time she lied, it sent investigators on a wild -- expensive -- goose chase. In addition to jail time, Anthony has been fined $1,000 per count.

The prosecution is also seeking to recoup costs associated with the investigation, including the massive search that ensued from Anthony's lies. Whether Anthony will be held accountable for any of these costs is yet to be determined by the court.

The court will also decide this morning how much time Anthony will actually serve, based on the three years she has already spent in jail, including any consideration of good behavior.

Anthony was found Not Guilty for murder on Tuesday, July 5.  The complete counts follow:

* First-degree Murder - Not Guilty

* Aggravated Child Abuse - Not Guilty

* Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child - Not Guilty

* Four counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer - Guilty

The jury deliberated a little over ten hours before reaching their decision.

 

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Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer
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The Casey Anthony Acquittal: How Juries Deliberate

July 06, 2011

 [ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University.  Read his Bio >> ]

Juries, like people, have personalities.  Some are thinkers, some are emotional, others are idealistic and others are some combination of all the above.  Voir dire, meaning jury selection in the trial process, determines the personality of the jury for better and for worse.  The jury personality is determined specifically by its dominant individual traits, including as a conservative composition (strict legal constructionists), or a liberal composition (social engineers).  Simply put, a conservative jury will be more likely to convict if the only letter of the law was violated.  A liberal jury will be more likely to acquit if only the letter of the law was violated.  The defense always prefers a liberal composition, no surprise there.  But this is only the beginning.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Individual traits brought collectively to a jury generate a mean age, gender domination and mean intelligence that predisposes a jury to its collective personality, very much as the individual voices of a choir will combine to create a recognizable (read in, predictable) collective voice.  For example, middle-age white women jurors tend to be social engineers and often will not vote to convict a black man on a first offense.  Middle-age black men tend to vote (conservatively) to convict young black men, but rarely to convict young black women.  This is nothing new to those in the jury consultation industry, but perhaps these issues eluded Judge Belvin Perry in the jury selection process.  Or perhaps they didn’t.  For example, not being able to vote for the death penalty in a death penalty case – normally a sufficient reason to exclude a potential juror – was not sufficient for dismissal by Judge Perry in this trial.  Vocalizing displeasure at being called to jury duty and open antagonism with the court also was not sufficient reason for dismissal of another juror.  Additionally, one juror empanelled admitted that she was not able to pass judgment on anyone.  Over the objections of prosecutors, the juror was accepted by the judge.  In a system where a unanimous vote is necessary to convict, it seems rather predictable that a guilty verdict was not forthcoming in this trial.

Again, in determining the personality of a jury in any trial, the three attorneys present (prosecutor, defense and judge) assemble the traits of those selected in voir dire into a single, collective persona.  But then again, it is the judge who makes the final determination of who sits in the jury box and he can reject or accept defense and prosecutors objections, essentially seating whomever he pleases.  Such was the case in State of Florida v. Anthony and doubtless this highly experienced and well-respected judge knew exactly what he was doing.  A liberal jury was empanelled that vocalized in advance its inability to reach the death penalty and questioned out loud its own capacity to convict.

Knowing this, it isn’t difficult to imagine that the Anthony jury took the elements of each charge and the lesser charges of the criminal complaint and noted point-by-point where the state failed to make its case; as opposed to a conservative jury that would have tried to match up the evidence with each charge.  There really is no right or wrong in this, no best practice, there’s nothing to correct.  It’s simply the way we conduct jury trials in the United States.

Related Links:

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Photo Caption: Defense attorney Dorothy Clay Sims, in gray jacket, covers her client Casey Anthony in a hug along with the rest of the defense team after Anthony was acquitted of murder charges at the Orange County Courthouse Orlando, Fla. on July 5, 2011. (Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony ‘Not Guilty’ Verdict: Winning 'Bella Vita'

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. – The court clerk who read Casey Anthony’s “not guilty” of murder verdicts on July 5, 2011, seemed to be choking back tears, but the words brought immeasurable relief and broad smiles to the accused child murderer and her numerous attorneys.  Save the defense team, who else was smiling?

In a verdict heard around the world, following a trial watched around the world, Anthony, 25, was found not guilty of the top charges: murder, aggravated manslaughter and aggravated child abuse; she received four guilty verdicts for providing false information to police working the June 2008 investigation for her missing child.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

“Walk Out Arm-in-Arm ...“

With time served and various judicial tweaks, Anthony may “walk out of the courtroom arm-in-arm” with Cheney Mason on June 7, as the senior defense lawyer said in a recent interview. 

Caylee Marie Anthony, age two, was seen last with her mother, Casey, on June 16, 2008, on Dec. 11.  The toddler’s skeletonized remains were located in the woods near the home the two shared with the defendant’s parents, George and Cindy Anthony.  Scraps of the “big trouble comes in small packages” motif on a shirt belonging to the child were recovered at the site.

Following the verdict reading, Casey Anthony hugged lead defense attorney, Jose Baez; at the same time, prosecutor, Jeff Ashton shook his head in disbelief.

Police Escort

Casey Anthony’s parents immediately left the courtroom without speaking to their daughter, en route to an undisclosed location.  Heavy police presence was evident inside and outside the Orange County courthouse complex’s 23-level main tower; in an Orlando suburb, police riding all-terrain vehicles escorted squad cars and mounted police to patrol the Anthonys’ Hopespring Drive residence. 

Shock, then disappointment rapidly swept over throngs gathered outside the courthouse and a contingency of protestors held signs with sentiments about the victim, Caylee Anthony.

At a news conference immediately after the hearing, Jose Baez said, “While we’re happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case.”

Baez added, “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,” said the attorney — who in his opening remarks let fly graphic terms to accuse George Anthony of molesting the defendant, his daughter as a child — “and today, our system of justice has not dishonored her memory by a false conviction.”

Baez maintained in his defense theory that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool, and that Casey, with the help of her father, covered up the crime and hid the child’s body.

“Accident that Snowballed Out of Control”

”It was an accident that snowballed out of control,” George Anthony allegedly told his one-time girlfriend, Krystal Holloway.

The state believes the single mom chloroformed her daughter, wrapped duct tape around her mouth and nose, placed her in a blanket and then into garbage bags.

Fanning the Fire of Sensationalism

Seeking the death penalty for Caylee’s murder, prosecutors presented a streamlined body of evidence that encompassed the case from the premeditated computer searches until 911 calls brought investigators to the home to address a “missing child” who Casey claimed was kidnapped by a fictitious babysitter, ”Zanny the Nanny.”

Prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick ended her rebuttal summation to the jury by saying, “At the end of this case, all you have to ask yourself is whose life was better without Caylee?”

Projecting a nightclub ”hot bodies” contest photo of Anthony in a revealing dress, and beside the image, an evidence photo of the accused murderer’s bella vita, or “beautiful life” tattoo — that she acquired the day after her daughter likely died — Burdick said, “This is your answer,” nodding her head to the images.

Those same iconic images inflame popular incredulity and disagreement; the Casey Anthony verdict likely will change the way the media fan the fires of sensationalism and hype for high-profile criminal cases in the future.

The case already has drawn criticism from legal pundits for “overreaching” in seeking Florida’s death penalty and “over-charging” the defendant with capital murder of her child.

A “Dry Bones” Case

Deliberating for less than eleven hours over two days, reportedly, few jurors took notes during testimony and did not ask for testimony read-backs or clarification.  The jurors declined media interviews after the verdict was read and returned home immediately. 

The court has conveyed written questions from the media to the yet-to-be-identified jurors.

“We are disappointed with the verdict today,” noted State Attorney Lawson Lamar, “and surprised because we know the facts.

“It was a dry bones case, very, very difficult to prove,” Lamar added.  “The delay in recovering little Caylee’s remains worked to our considerable disadvantage.”

 

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Photo Credit: State Attorney's Office

Aphrodite Jones Reports: How Did the Casey Anthony Jury Come to Their Decision?

July 05, 2011

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.  Read her Bio >> ]

As we sit stunned about the Casey Anthony verdict, people are trying to understand what went through the jurors' minds. Did they feel that, since there was never any cause of death established, they just could not convict Casey?

There is the fact that this became a case of dueling experts. Whenever that happens, someone can begin to doubt the truth. Here, we had the prosecution expert telling them that someone in the Anthony home searched for the word "chloroform" 84 times. But the defense computer expert testified that it was a myspace account that was searched for 84 times. That's only one of the elements in this case that seemed vague and perhaps confusing.

Another problem was the idea that Caylee died from someone suffocating her with duct tape. Even though the jury was shown photos of Caylee's skull with some duct tape attached, the fact that a meter reader testified that he actually picked up Caylee's skull with his meter stick, can give a moment for pause. If the alleged crime scene was tampered with, how can the jury be sure that the duct tape was held exactly in place on Caylee's skull for months, through storms and other environmental events?

In the end, maybe the jury could not see the forest through the trees. They got caught up in the specific details without being able to see the whole picture. The circumstances begged for a guilty verdict. ... And a reasonable person would come to that conclusion. But then, who's to say what level of "reasonable" is actually reasonable? It's a conundrum of our justice system, that, let's face it, you're never going to know what any given jury will do.

Today, we have a day that reminds us of the OJ verdict. Is anyone really a winner? Not when we will always have a mystery surrounding Caylee's death.

 

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Aphrodite Jones Reports: Stunning Verdict, One of the Greatest Courtroom Defeats in Recent History

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

Simply stunning -- the verdict is in -- Casey Anthony has been found Not Guilty of the murder of her child.

She was acquitted on all three of the top counts against her. The gallery was silent and stone faced as the Clerk read the decision, and, with all the media hype -- no one expected it.

I can only equate it to the verdict day to that of OJ Simpson. The defense team made a statement about the remarkable NOT GUILTY verdict, chastising the media for trying Casey without knowing all the facts of the case.

Jose Baez said he saved a life today, and reminded us that this day is one of mixed feelings -- there are no winners, because Caylee has passed on. Baez was happy that our system of justice has not dishonored the memory of Caylee by handing out a false conviction.

The reaction of Casey and her defense team after Judge Perry left the bench was that of relief, then tears, soft crying on Casey's part and open sobbing by the female members of her defense team. Casey Anthony had her day in court, and the prosecution sat stone-faced as they lived through one of the greatest courtroom defeats in recent history.

 

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Photo Caption: Co-counsel Cheney Mason (left) and Dorothy Clay Sims talk with Jose Baez, lead defense counsel for Casey Anthony, at the press conference after his client was found not guilty in her first-degree murder trial, at the Orange County Courthouse, in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, July 5, 2011. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/POOL)

Aphrodite Jones Reports: The Jury Reaches a Verdict

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

The jurors are coming back so quickly -- after 10 hours and 40 minutes -- it tells you they are using their common sense.

People are in shock and are speculating that a quick verdict for Miss Anthony can only mean one thing: guilt.  The real question is, if the jurors come back with First Degree Murder, will she the be sentenced to death?

At this point, it seems the jury determined Casey Anthony's guilt -- even before they began deliberations. Their decision -- either way -- promises to be very painful and dramatic for the Anthony family.

 

The jury has reached a verdict which will be announced today, July 5, at 2:15 p.m. EST.

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Casey Anthony Trial: Closing the Door Behind the Jury

July 04, 2011

[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University.  Read his Bio >> ]

Closing arguments are completed in the Casey Anthony murder trial and the rest is left to the jury at this writing.  The jury has been asked to discern truth from fiction in a month of testimony and decide the fate of an accused child-murderer.  In a standing-room-only case of liars, perjurers, the dysfunctional and delusional, the jury’s task won’t be easy.

Judge Belvin Perry’s jury instructions were right from the book, as they should be, and included an admonition not to make any judgments based on whether one likes or dislikes attorneys from either side.  Over the past month the defense and the prosecution made it abundantly clear that all lawyers in this case were taking the proceedings very personally.  Cheering sections formed for the legal opponents on court television programs and otherwise very bright people shrieked hot vitriol at digital lenses in support of one camp or the other, with no hope of influencing the outcome.  Although the jury didn’t see the talk shows, we hope, they surely may have been caught in the rivalry.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

There are a few things I would have preferred to see in closing arguments, but didn’t.  The prosecution never uttered the words, “Casey Anthony murdered Caylee Anthony,” a j’accuse moment, if you will, that one might expect in a death penalty case.  Prosecutors came to the threshold several times and suggested that the jury may find the defendant guilty of murder, but no one never actually uttered the phrase.  I bet the jury noticed that.  One can’t help but wonder if the jury will question if the prosecution believes its own case. 

On the other hand, I sincerely wish that Jose Baez would not have said that the case is not about Caylee Anthony.  Caylee Anthony is the center of the case, the victim of a terrible tragedy.  I bet the jury will notice that too.  One can’t help but wonder if the jury might not hold it against the defense for minimizing the significance of little Caylee.  Surely someone in the jury room will say, we cannot forget the victim.  Well, one can hope, since prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick asked the jury to use common sense in their deliberations.

Our own Aphrodite Jones once adroitly commented that she relies on the jury to arrive at a common sense verdict, which means that from her perspective it looks good for Ms. Burdick but doesn’t look good for Casey Anthony.  On the other hand, I’ve known juries to do some remarkable, inexplicable, and whacky things at the end of a trial and have generally found them to be as unpredictable as a stray dog.  Will the jury arrive at a common sense verdict?  In a trial where a juror was impaneled who can’t pass judgment on anyone, I’m not so sure.

 

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Casey Anthony Trial: Prosecution Rests, Jury is Out

 [This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Photo Finish: Death penalty qualified jury begins deliberation.  State concludes capital murder trial with defendant’s “party pic,” evidence photo, Bella Vita tattoo.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Prosecutors Jeffrey Ashton and Linda Drane-Burdick delivered to the jury the state’s final remarks on July 4, 2011, at 11:03 a.m. EST.  In his markedly streamlined rebuttal, prosecutor Jeff Ashton related key points of the case for the jury that will determine Casey Anthony’s fate. 

“Happy Fourth!”

Beginning with “Good morning and a happy fourth,” the usually animated prosecutor coolly and methodically reviewed the science testimony, simplifying the jury’s task of wading through the mass of evidence by comparing state to defense conclusions.  Ashton told the panel that “the best way to understand the science is to look at what they [experts for both sides] agree on and whether you believe it or not.”

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Greek Tragedy Involving Cutting-Edge Science, Social Media

For the drama-filled case described as a Greek tragedy — simultaneously billed as the first high-profile capital trial associated with social media — both lawyers for the state delivered a brilliant and incisive summation rebuttal, vaulting through this morning’s final proceedings.

The heretofore unassuming, even-tempered Burdick today appeared more outspoken, punctuating her remarks with key videos, still photos and jail telephone recordings.

“I Want Tony’s Number!”

While the “nimble liar” shook her head in disagreement, Casey’s voice seemed more her Doppelganger.  Declining to testify on her own behalf, Anthony heard her own voice from taped telephone calls for the jury to reconsider, newly jailed, in efforts to obtain boyfriend Tony Lazzaro’s number.

“I want Tony’s number!” Casey demanded first from her mother, Cindy, then from her brother, Lee and finally, from Lee’s fiancé, Mallory Parker.

“I haven’t talked to him since this morning!” Caylee’s mother complained, referring to texts they exchanged before being jailed.

“Calling You Guys?  A Waste.  A Huge Waste.”

The jury also heard Anthony’s cringe-worthy, “waste, a HUGE  waste” telephone conversation, in which the recently incarcerated young woman attacked Cindy for her mother’s media “cameos,” severely scolding, mocking her words and shouting obscenities at the distressed grandmother.

“You don’t know what my involvement is [in Caylee’s disappearance]?”  Casey asked Cindy.

“No, sweetheart,” Cindy told her daughter, “I don’t know your involvement.”

The jury also heard two audio recordings that represented opportunities for Casey to “come clean” and help law enforcement, to halt massive searches for her daughter by law enforcement and Texas Equusearch.

“They’re going to pin this on me if you don’t find Caylee!” Casey told her mother.

In her final remarks to the jury, Burdick said, “the only thing you need to answer is whose life was better without Caylee?”

Bella Vita

Gesturing to pictures of Casey Anthony at Fusion nightclub, “dirty-dancing” in a short blue dress and the forensics photo documentation of “Bella Vita” or “beautiful life” tattoo,” Burdick finished her presentation with, “there’s your answer.”

After a brief recess, Judge Perry read all charges to the jury and gave instructions on how they must render their verdict(s).

Job One: Elect Foreperson

The jury is now in deliberation.  Judge Perry advised the panel that their first task was to elect a foreperson, who is “like a chairman of the board.”

Casey Anthony stood trial for murdering her toddler daughter Caylee and for secreting the toddler’s body, first in the trunk of a car and then dumping the badly decomposing body in woods near the Anthony home in suburban Orlando. 

Casey Anthony was 22 years old when the crime occurred.  Her daughter Caylee would have turned three in August, two months after prosecutors believe her mother used chloroform and duct tape to kill her on June 16, 2008.

In a conventional approach to subvert attention from their client’s misdeeds, Anthony’s defense attempted to shift suspicion to her father, George, who they implicated by showing he had the rare brand of Henkel duct tape in his possession during searches for the child. 

Caylee’s remains included the duct-taped skull; the tape also was visible in a media shot of one “command center” photo. Police also found duct tape on a red metal gas that Anthony had removed from one of the sheds on the Hopespring Drive property.

“An Accident That Snowballed Out of Control”?

Ironically, although George was again the prime target during the defense closing on July 3, Casey Anthony’s legal team adopted his words to alleged mistress Krystal Holloway, offering that Caylee’s drowning death was “an accident that snowballed out of control.”

Twelve regular jury members retired at 12:09 p.m. EST to begin deliberations.

There are approximately 349 evidence items.

Verdict watch has begun.

 

Related Links:

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Casey Anthony Trial, Day 32: Defense Rests as Anthony Declines to Testify

July 02, 2011

 [This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Closing arguments Sunday, July 3.  No proceedings in the trial Saturday, as attorneys for both sides prepare for closing remarks on Sunday.

ORLANDO, Fla. -  Clearly in control of her faculties, Casey Anthony stood before Judge Belvin Perry and declined to testify on her own behalf in the capital trial for the murder of her daughter, Caylee, age two.
 
With her lead attorney Jose Baez by her side, Anthony gave crisp “Yes, sirs” and “No, sirs” to the judge’s routine questions, exhibiting marked awareness that calls into question the defense’s June 25 competency scramble: a state of emergency that led the judge’s appointment of three psychologists to determine if the young woman could continue to assist her lawyers during the trial.

Thus, Jose Baez’s opening statements — that in June 2008, Caylee drowned in the family swimming pool, and that Casey Anthony tried to hide the “accident” because her father and brother sexually abused her — will not be directly answered, forcing the defense to continue exploring  other means, and using witnesses to tell the defendant’s  story as “defense theory” has modeled it.

 

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

None among Anthony’s cadre of attorneys have provided the jury with a timeline of events  surrounding Caylee Anthony’s “accidental drowning.” 

Instead, in their 13-day case, defense lawyers have attempted to dismantle piecemeal the prosecution’s largely circumstantial case involving Caylee’s first-degree murder by chloroform and duct tape and other related charges.   Prosecutors say that after Casey killed Caylee, the 22-year old single mom secreted her daughter’s body in a car trunk for some days, and that she dumped the body in a nearby, trash-littered wood.

Krystal Holloway, a.k.a. “River Cruz”

Final witnesses for the defense included Krystal Holloway, aka, “River Cruz,” a former Caylee Anthony search volunteer who testified under oath that she had a three-month affair with George Anthony. 

George Anthony had testified earlier that he had visited Holloway only two or three times to comfort the “brain tumor” victim. 

Telling the court George said Caylee’s death was “an accident that snowballed out of control,” Holloway testified that the defendant’s father visited her, sent text messages and letters and that they “slept together,  maybe twelve times ... around Thanksgiving,” during the months  before the toddler’s remains were found on Dec. 11, 2008.

One text message from George Anthony to Holloway said, “Just thinking about you.  I need you in my life.”

On prosecutor Jeff Ashton’s cross-examination, a testy interchange between  witness and unrelenting prosecutor brought out Holloway’s reason for selling her story to the National  Enquirer :  the reporter offered the opportunity to tell her complete story.

On receiving $4,000 from the tabloid newspaper, Holloway added, “I took what I could because they told my story.”

On his redirect, Baez attempted to rehabilitate in part the alleged mistress, eliciting that the media had sought Holloway, and that Holloway did not have a criminal history, contrary to some media reports.

Recalling George Anthony to the witness stand, Baez asked the defendant’s father if he had used his own duct tape to put up missing posters of Caylee. 

The frequently-testifying witness  stated  he “didn’t recall,” even when shown a composite photo depicting a roll of the rare Henkel duct tape discovered in a video showing one of the Publix Supermarket “command centers” and after being shown  a “missing”  flyer of Caylee Anthony that was affixed to a pole with the same tape.


Anthony Pet Burials for “Mandy,” “Ginger” and “Bo” Used Plastic Trash Bags and Duct Tape

Baez took the defendant’s father through a long history of family pets that had died, including “Mandy,” “Ginger” and “Bo,” all that were prepared for burial using plastic trash bags and duct tape.  The defense attorney asked George if he buried his pets in plastic bags bound in duct tape.

Prosecutor Jeff Ashton asked George if he had ever tossed a dead pet in the swamp, which the former policeman denied.

During  a prosecution cross-examination, Cindy Anthony established that Casey was present for some of the more recent pet burials and knew the family tradition by the time she was a high school senior. 

When prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick asked if she had ever used chloroform to kill her pets or put tape over their mouths, Cindy said no.

After the defense rested on trial day 32, Perry recessed the court in order to address a purported discovery violation by prosecutors concerning Cindy Anthony’s work records.

 

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Casey Anthony Trial, Day 31: Defendant’s Father on Losing Caylee

 [This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

“You would think this would have grown old by now, but some things never change.”
                                          —Judge Belvin Perry, on a possible defense discovery violation

ORLANDO, Fla. – With a stony resolve, while many around her were visibly moved, Casey Anthony witnessed her father’s misery laid bare as he testified about his January 2009 attempted suicide.  Seated directly across from the defense table, jurors watched both defendant and father perform a “dance” with no embrace, a dance of tragic misstep, of no going back ever to make it right.  What did jurors parse from George Anthony’s words, or from his inability to speak them?

When recalling the day he learned of his granddaughter’s death, while elsewhere, after CSIs and evidence technicians had left the scene and before a rousingly popular chief medical examiner and TV star had made her own baleful announcement that scattered remains found off Suburban Drive near his house were those of Caylee Marie Anthony, George said he had held out hope that Caylee was alive “every day from July 15, 2008, until the day we were told it was Caylee.”

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Reduced to sobbing, George’s upheaval caused Judge Perry to ask, “Does the witness need a break?  Do you need a break, Mr. Anthony?”

George Anthony to Judge: “I Need to Get Through This.”

With effort, George replied, “No, sir.  I need to get through this!  I need to have something inside of me get through this!”

Seizing the opportunity to interrogate the nearly broken man before him — the same man who suffered public humiliation during opening remarks of this, his daughter’s defense lawyer — Jose Baez questioned George on the bad smell in his daughter’s car.

Without warning came the abrupt inquiry: “You of course, would never admit to molesting your child, would you, sir?”

“Sir,” George replied, “I never would do anything like that to my daughter.”

“My question is,” Baez pressed on, “you would never admit to it, would you, sir?”

George replied, “Sir, I would never do anything to harm my daughter in that way.”

Baez a “Bulldog”

In the early months after his daughter’s final arrest for murder, when Jose Baez was still assembling a defense team — the relatively unknown lawyer that some colleagues now term a “bulldog” for his extreme counter-attacks on presumably innocent people — was asked during a television interview about his would-be character assassinations on meter­reader Roy Kronk. Shrugging impassively, Baez said that during this case, he would be “ruffling a few feathers in the process” of defending his client, Casey Anthony.

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Photo Caption: George Anthony listens to testimony during the murder trial of his daughter Casey Anthony at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Friday, June 17, 2011. (Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

 

Casey Anthony Trial: And the State Rests

July 01, 2011

 [This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Jury could have case by Sunday, July 3

ORLANDO, Fla. -- At 4:34 p.m. on July 1, Linda Drane Burdick announced to the court that prosecutors had completed their rebuttal case in State of Florida vs. Casey Anthony. 

The final state’s witness in the first-degree murder case was lead detective Yuri Melich, who presented cell phone records for George and Cindy Anthony.

On cross-examination, Jose Baez asked Melich if the Orange County detective was aware the Anthonys used ‘Boost,’ pre-paid cellular telephones.

Gentiva Chief Compliance Officer Testifies

The crux of the state’s presentation today was Cindy Anthony’s work computer and computer searches for ‘chloroform.’

The state called Gentiva chief compliance officer John Camperlengo and later examined Cindy Anthony’s direct supervisor, Deborah Politano, who oversees Anthony’s work and has supervisory access to the defendant’s mother’s computer at the Orlando Gentiva company site.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Impeaching Cindy Anthony’s Testimony

In painstaking direct examination for specific times and dates — March 4, 17 and 21, 2008 — Burdick appeared to impeach Cindy Anthony’s previous testimony that she -- and not her daughter -- had searched for the word ‘chloroform’ on the family’s HP desktop computer at the residence.

Cross-examination by defense lead attorney Jose Baez established that some forensic software programs used by Orange County only produced web addresses and not site information.

Postmortem: ‘Saw Open’ a Skull

Additional state’s testimony attempted to establish that it is not necessary to ‘saw open’ a child’s skull during autopsy. 

The state’s forensic anthropologist, Dr. Michael Warren, testified that, contrary to forensic pathologist Dr. Werner Spitz’s outspoken opinion, there is no protocol or universal set of instructions to follow during the autopsy of a skull.

Citing guidelines of the Minnesota Protocol, Warren said one reason why he did not routinely open children’s skulls during postmortem examinations is because the bones are delicate, splintery and fracture easily.  Such damage, Warren noted, would make future examination of the opened skull more difficult.

Warren, the state's expert, said on re-examination of an evidence photograph (credited to the well-known medical examiner and defense expert Spitz), he inferred that he found a new skull fracture possibly attributable to Caylee Anthony’s postmortem examination conducted by the defense forensic pathologist.

There are 349 pieces of evidence for the jury to consider in the first-degree murder case.

Currently, court is in recess as Judge Perry confers with lawyers on both sides.  

Final Arguments, Jury Instruction on Sunday, July 3 at 9 a.m.

The court reconvened at 4:50 p.m. on July 1.  Judge Perry set final arguments and jury ‘instruction of law’ for Sunday, July 3, at 9 a.m.

No Holiday Schedule for Jurors?

Clearly wishing to return jurors to their Clearwater area homes at the earliest, Judge Perry intends for every day through the holiday weekend to proceed on non-holiday schedules.

The court recessed at 5:06 p.m. on July 1.

‘When Everybody Gets Up’

Lawyers and the judge will participate in a teleconference on jury instructions ‘when everybody gets up’ tomorrow, on Saturday, July 2.  The relaxed schedule for the conference appeared to reflect noticeable easing of tension between sides of the adversarial judicial system.

Depending on the speed of court matters scheduled for Sunday, the jury possibly could begin deliberating on July 3.

Related Links:

How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
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Casey Anthony Trial, Day 30: Casey Didn't Want Brother Lee Near Caylee

June 30, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Star defense witness Roy Kronk found Caylee’s body in woods near Anthony home

ORLANDO, Fla. — Big news on Day 30 of Casey Anthony’s murder trial.  The thing is, the jury wasn’t around to hear it.

“The Secret”

With Anthony’s peers sent off to what Judge Perry called an “evening engagement,” Jesse Grund — once himself engaged to the defendant — let Judge Perry in on “the secret.” 

Seems his ex-fiancée Casey didn’t want Caylee around her uncle Lee, Casey had explained, because Lee had once tried to grope the defendant while she was sleeping.

Smacking of hearsay, argued prosecutors, that testimony was deferred until the judge was able to think it through, before ruling if Grund could repeat it for jurors.  Related testimony previously had come from Casey’s latest ex-boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro, who also told the court about the defendant’s “secret.”  That testimony also aired without the jury being present.

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Glowing Reviews

The murder trial’s direction seemed to detour when Sgt. Dennis Moonsammy, a supervisor for Orange County Department of Women’s Corrections, testified to Casey Anthony’s behavior and emotional state.  Moonsammy gave Anthony a glowing review, saying the former party girl was a “model inmate” who was always pleasant and happy when he performed his required daily contact with inmates; his testimony brightened Anthony’s expression, and she managed a few brave smiles. 

Marlene Baker, one of Casey’s jailers who had worked in the women’s unit for 18 months, was not that effusive, but observed her charge was consistently happy.

Star Witness for Defense

After Anthony’s favorable reviews came an introduction to the defense’s “star witness:” the “morally-bankrupt” meter reader, Roy Kronk.

Defense counsel Cheney Mason ambled up to the lectern to introduce calls from a county employee that detailed circumstances surrounding Kronk’s discovery of Caylee Anthony’s remains off Suburban Drive.

Having finally taken the witness stand (Kronk had been among the first mentioned during Jose Baez’s opening remarks), Kronk recounted his January 2009 interview with lead detective, Yuri Melich, during which time the seemingly hapless Kronk said he was “99.999% sure in August 2008 that he saw a skull in the woods.

“Morally Bankrupt” Witness Gets Cash

While not appearing to be “morally bankrupt,” the utility worker recounted a labyrinthine story of third time’s a charm on his December revisit to the Suburban Drive dumping ground, into which he ostensibly had stepped to relieve himself.

Admitting he pocketed $15,000 from “Good Morning America” with the licensing of a dead snake photo, Kronk also allowed he had come by a Crimeline cash reward.   Advising his formerly estranged son that his father was going to be “famous,” Kronk told the young man to watch for him in the news.

A Skillful Cross by the Prosecution

At the ready, prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick partly rehabilitated Kronk by her skillful cross-examination explaining some of his actions.

Never, Kronk maintained, did he have access to the Anthony’s house, nor to her car, the garage, computers, laundry bags, Caylee’s clothes or to what prosecutors view as the murder weapon: Henkel duct tape.

In his far-fetched and shocking introduction, defense lead attorney, Jose Baez, had claimed in his opening remarks that Kronk somehow had acquired the child’s body in August, keeping it to himself for four months before alerting authorities.  In efforts to distance Casey Anthony from the charges, the defense in effect made their client disappear within the pages of the “terrible tragedy.”

How, then, had Kronk discovered Caylee’s remains?

"Close to Home"

One of Kronk’s co-workers testified that he had suggested Caylee’s body might be located in the soggy vegetation off Suburban Drive.  Telling the court that Kronk had encountered a snake during their search and that the reptile had distracted the men’s attention.

On cross examination, David Dean had suggested to Kronk that Caylee’s body might be in that area because of its location and also because Casey had told her mother she felt Caylee was “close to home.”  Dean explained that the weather in August had been dry; the tropical storm had not arrived at that time.

 

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Photo Caption: Lee Anthony testifies in the murder case against his sister Casey Anthony at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Friday, June 24, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony Trial: Competency, Insanity and the Casey Anthony Defense Strategy

June 29, 2011

[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. ]

It was a busy weekend recently for Casey Anthony and an unexpected weekend off for the jury.  Legal pundits and trial watchers from far and near are scratching their collective heads wondering what in the world stopped the trial in its somewhat wobbly tracks.  Nevertheless, we should be able to calculate what transpired with some degree of certainty or at least narrow the possibilities.

To begin with, we should look at what happened and clarify the process by contrasting it with what did not happen.  What did happen is that the Casey Anthony defense team requested a psychological examination to determine if the defendant is competent to participate in her own defense and determine whether or not she fully understands the charges against her.  Usually such examinations are made before voir dire to derail the trial before it begins.  Nevertheless, in mid-trial the defense team made a motion that Judge Perry order a competency test for their client and, thereafter, three psychologists were tasked with conducting evaluations.  Casey Anthony was examined and each psychologist found the accused child murderer competent to stand trial.  And so, the trial continued on Monday with little more said about it; at least for the time being.

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What did not happen was a psychological examination to determine whether or not Casey Anthony is insane, which is a threshold far beyond that of competency.  Insanity, a legal concept more than a concept in psychology, suggests that the defendant has no grasp of what is real and what is not and has no concept of right or wrong.  Competency only applies narrowly to the defendant’s ability to be a participant in the trial and not merely be the object of the trial.  Therefore, the purpose of the examinations was not to determine Casey Anthony’s sanity.  And so, what was this all about?

A few things immediately come to mind.  To begin with, we must consider the possibility that Casey Anthony’s private conduct had become so worrisome to the defense that they genuinely were concerned that she was no longer able to contribute to her own defense.  Given her history as a pathological liar, and in light of the suspicious origins of her “drowned child” story, it’s entirely possible that the defense team lost all confidence that self-proclaimed “such a good liar” Casey Anthony is forthcoming with the truth, even with those who represent her.  A corollary to this notion is that the defense team certification motion was designed to shake the defendant in unambiguous terms that her life is literally in their hands and therefore generate better cooperation in providing the truth to counsel.  Consider the possibility.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the entire issue was contrived.  Whereas, the jury will never see the psychologists reports, if provided with a transcript of the trial they will see the defense motion to have the client certified competent to continue with the trial.  And if the jury is deliberating whether or not to apply the death penalty, a motion such as this will surely raise the specter of insanity in the deliberations.  Yes, I know that it shouldn’t; the defendant was found competent and sanity was never an issue.  This doesn’t mean the jury will understand the nuance.

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Photo Caption: Casey Anthony, 25, sits at the defense table in courtroom 23A. After meeting with defense attorneys first thing Saturday, June 25, 2011, Judge Belvin Perry Jr. unexpectedly said court would recess for the day and resume Monday at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Florida. Perry said the court had to consider a legal issue. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 29: Casey Competent to Stand Trial

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

"Liars when they speak the truth are not believed."
— Aristotle

ORLANDO, Fla. -– Casey Anthony gave her lawyers enough concern about her ability to aid her defense that Judge Perry abruptly cancelled the scheduled extended Saturday trial session on June 25.  Tapping three Florida psychologists to evaluate Anthony, jailed since August, 2008, the defendant submitted to competency examinations on Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26.

Florida mental health professionals who examined Casey Anthony to determine if she meets competency guidelines were: Dr. Harry A. McClaren, a Chattahoochee forensic psychologist, Dr. Daniel Tressler, an Altamonte Springs psychologist and Dr. Ryan C.W. Hall of Lake Mary, a forensic psychologist.

Casey Anthony Competent to Stand Trial

After reviewing the three evaluations — all which found Anthony to be competent — Judge Perry ruled that the sensational capital trial, in its sixth week of testimony, would go forward. 

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Parade of Eight Witnesses

During a day that did not end until after 7 p.m., a parade of eight defense witnesses testified in defense attempts to meet head-on prosecution experts, whose opinions support the state’s largely circumstantial case.

Jose Baez questioned the Orange County lead detective Yuri Melich about cell phone records of meter reader Roy Kronk.  Melich told the court that the reason why K-9 units were not deployed around the Anthonys’ remaining two vehicles was because the other cars did not harbor the smell of human decomposition.

Correcting his previous testimony, Melich said he examined Roy Kronk’s cell phone records for June and July 2008 — Kronk initially contacted authorities when he found a skull extruding from a garbage bag in August —and that he had not reviewed the meter reader’s phone records for August, as he previously testified.

Dr. Furton for the Defense: On Trash and Chloroform

The day’s most hotly contested, litigated witness, Florida International University’s Dr. Kenneth Furton testified as an expert chemist.

Previously, prosecutor Jeff Ashton had reported to Judge Perry that Furton’s PowerPoint presentation contained new expert opinions about chloroform: perhaps this was another defense “trial by ambush” incident.   Judge Perry allowed the prosecutor to depose Furton during a court recess.  

In a presentation buttressed with oversized analog charts and graphs, Dr. Furton stated that chloroform can be found in fatty foods, household products and that the compound is virtually “everywhere,” especially in garbage. 

Under Ashton’s cross-examination, Furton did acknowledge that human decomposition could have been present in Casey’s car, although the chemist later testified that food items such as Velveeta cheese and salami share the same fatty acids as chloroform.   

Jurors Smell Food Containers from Garbage in Car Trunk

During his cross-examination of Furton, prosecutor Jeff Ashton was permitted by the judge to pass to the jury a Velveeta cheese box and other paper remnants contained in a bag of trash recovered from a tow yard dumpster, where it had been thrown in efforts by George Anthony to rid his daughter’s car of the decomposition smell.

Since the jurors today smelled food containers that had been in Casey Anthony’s trunk, it is possible that during the state’s rebuttal presentation, the jury could smell the canned air samples also from the trunk. The air samples have been accepted into evidence.

 

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Photo Caption: Casey Anthony listens to her attorney Will Slabaugh before the start of court in her murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Monday, June 27, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Aphrodite Jones Reports: Defense's "Star" Witness, a Dim Light

June 28, 2011

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

Roy Kronk was the defense star witness today. They want to make it look like he moved Caylee's remains in order to collect approx $250,000 in reward money. Kronk was in here for a long time, with the defense making all kinds of inferences about him seeing Caylee's skull -- yet not screaming it out to the media, who were just down the street -- camped in front of the Anthony's house.

So, okay -- the guy was more interested in collecting reward money than anything else. I think the defense showed that. Still, when Kronk tried to be a hero and report the skull (while on Suburban Drive by himself, after he had already seen it with co-workers), the meter reader was chewed out by a member of law enforcement for wasting taxpayer dollars. Worse yet -- the law enforcement people who met Kronk at Suburban Drive, only did a cursory "look around" in the area.

The saddest thing is -- these folks could have found poor little Caylee -- months prior to December -- if only they would have listened to Kronk. Do I think it's immoral for Kronk to allow his co-workers to get distracted by a snake, rather than come help him identify Caylee's human skull -- which was right in the neighborhood where the Anthonys live?  Yes -- in a way -- I really do.

But at the end of the day -- to say he moved the remains -- that's a leap. And even if -- and it's a big if -- Kronk did move Caylee's remains in order to collect a big reward and become rich  -- what has this got to do with this poor little girl's murder? It's a big red herring being thrown out to the jury, and I am just praying that they see through this cloud. I'm watching them pretty closely, and I believe they are reading through the lines here ... But who knows??

In my opinion, the defense painted Kronk to be a snake in the grass, perhaps. But the meter reader is no killer.  He never knew the Anthonys and unless the defense proved that Kronk had been linked to their family in some real way, he's not responsible for Caylee's death. It's much ado about nothing. Unlike yesterday, where we may have had a whole new trial had Casey been deemed incompetent -- today seems to be a bit of a let down. The defense's star -- turned out to be a dim light.

 

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Photo Caption: Roy Kronk, who discovered Caylee Marie's remains while working as an Orange County meter reader, testifies during the Casey Anthony trial at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Tuesday, June 28, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony Trial: Cindy Anthony Had Access to Massive Medical Database, Despite Testimony

June 27, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Cindy Anthony’s employers have a comprehensive health information website, despite her testimony regarding her internet searches.

ORLANDO, Fla. — On June 23, Cindy Anthony seemed willing to possibly perjure herself in order to keep her daughter from the death penalty.  From the witness stand, the grandmother of Caylee owned up to some of the most damaging computer searches — previously attributed to Casey — found during forensic examination of the family desktop computer.

Is Cindy’s Testimony Perjury?

Related to the much noted computer searches for chloroform, Cindy Anthony spun an improbable tale, based on her sworn narrative that one of the family dogs had been tired and that she was concerned about it having eaten some bamboo from plants in the backyard.

Searching for “chlorophyll” “was the prompt that led me to "chloroform,” Anthony explained, admitting that she also searched for “chest injuries, hydrogen peroxide and alcohol,” during a time when work records showed she was at the company.

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Ready Answer

Telling the court that she adjusted her work hours to reflect overtime the company did not pay, basically, Cindy Anthony appeared to have a ready answer, however improbable or convoluted it was and that her time cards were not an accurate indication of whether she was home or at work.

Cindy’s Former Employer, Gentiva, has Reference Site for Medical, Substance Reference

Since 2005, Gentiva, the home care nursing company that employed Cindy Anthony, has maintained a significant medical science and primary care–oriented web site that exists for both patients and clinicians’ reference use. 

The purpose of Gentiva’s Online Health Education Center for Patients, Families, Referral Sources and Clinicians, is to provide broad-based information about [medical] “conditions, nutrition, medication, herbs and supplements, procedures, The Body Explorer (an interactive teaching section where the user points to an area and the information appears), self-assessment tools, medical dictionary, health and wellness and journal notes: condensed versions of articles from top medical journals.“

According to Gentiva’s main web site, “the ... Health Education Center has been launched in partnership with EBSCO, a worldwide leader in electronic education.”

Indicating its accessibility, the reference site “may also be accessed by visiting the Gentiva home page — www.gentiva.com — and clicking on the ‘Health Education Center’ box to the right.”

Gentiva Database with Over 800 Drugs

Under “Medication,” Gentiva company information notes “featuring a database with easy-to-read information on more than 800 drugs.”

Under “Herbs and Supplements,” the company information notes “Information on herbs, vitamins, minerals and other supplements.”

Had Cindy Anthony even tried to look up the information she says she sought on the Internet at home, it seems likely she would have noted she tried to look up the information she sought from her company’s databases.

It is unknown if investigators have considered Gentiva’s web site upon Cindy Anthony’s recent testimony for the defense.  The prosecution was contacted but had not responded at the time of this post's publishing.

 

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Photo Caption: Cindy Anthony had access to Gentiva.com, a website featuring medical information and a database on more than 800 drugs.  (Credit: www.gentiva.com)

 

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 27: Lee Anthony Felt Rejected by Family

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. — Lee Anthony appeared distraught during his June 25 testimony for the defense, prompting Jose Baez to ask if the defendant’s older brother needed time to compose himself.  Indicating he could continue, Casey Anthony’s brother conveyed his hurt during earlier times to the jury.

Revisiting the obviously painful period in his life, Baez questioned Lee about the time when he was shut out of the suddenly revealed secret of his sister’s pregnancy, feeling that his mother and sister did not want him at the hospital.

“Leave it Alone”

Regarding his sister’s pregnancy and immanent birthing, being told by Cindy to “leave it alone,” Lee said, “I was angry at everyone — that they didn’t want to include me” in either the birth or at Casey’s baby shower, given by their mother after the baby was born.

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“I was just angry at everyone in general that they didn’t, that they didn’t want to include me." 

“My role was to be in the background,” the intermittently sobbing witness shared with the court, while describing his impossibly broken family. 

Simultaneously, Casey orchestrated tears while seated at the defense table.

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Photo Caption: Lee Anthony testifies in the murder case against his sister Casey Anthony at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Friday, June 24, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

 

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 26: Is Cindy Anthony’s Testimony Credible?

June 25, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

“I don’t know what my computer does while it’s on.”
Cindy Anthony, on cross-examination by prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick

ORLANDO, Fla  —  In jarring testimony on June 23 that she searched the Internet for "chloroform," Cindy Anthony told prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick that she was home from work on March 17 and that it was she, not her daughter, who used the family desktop computer in searches for the consciousness-altering substance.

“I started looking up chlorophyll and that prompted me to look up chloroform,” disclosed the defendant’s mother, Cindy Anthony.

Dogs Eating Bamboo

“I was searching for “chlorophyll” because I was worried that it might affect my dogs, she offered.  “I was worried about them eating bamboo.”

In order to establish her home location and that she was not working in the early afternoon when the searches occurred — three months before Caylee disappeared — the registered nurse said that she juggled her work time records, manipulating her hours because employers, Gentiva, do not pay overtime.  Read: Anthony’s work records do not reflect whether or not she was actually on the job at the company’s location.

“Were you at home March 17, 2008, between 1:43 and 1:55 p.m.?," Burdick asked.

“If those computer entries were made, then I was home,” replied Anthony.

Anthony’s answers under cross examination were largely equivocal and appeared to exasperate the prosecutor, who sought to clarify Anthony’s schedule.

“Is it your testimony that you were home?” queried Burdick.

“It’s possible,” answered Anthony.

“Were you or weren’t you?”  Burdict was becoming notably angry.

“I can’t tell you exactly when I went home,” Anthony added.

Probing further, Burdick asked Anthony if her memory improved after her medication was changed.

Anthony said yes.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

How to Make Chloroform

On the stand, Cindy Anthony denied searching for “how to make chloroform,” “neck-breaking” and “making weapons out of household products.”

The chloroform searches on the desktop computer — discovered by Orange County computer forensics specialists armed with the software programs EnCase, NetAnalysis, and CacheBack — speak to Anthony’s premeditation in her daughter’s death, prosecutors believe. 

In testimony prior to Anthony’s, John Bradley, who wrote the computer forensics program, CacheBack, identified as having been deleted, search terms that included: inhalation, self-defense, meningeal artery, ruptured spleen, alcohol and head injury.

Cindy, a registered nurse who worked in a nurse supervisory position, did admit looking up acetone, rubbing alcohol, inhalation, peroxide and hydrogen peroxide because she wanted to know more about those chemicals.  She also had received an email warning of hand sanitizer dangers relating to small children, she explained.

Concerns as to Cindy Anthony’s explanations originate with computer mechanisms per se; the fact that experts found the terms in deleted areas suggests the grandmother’s searches were meant to be removed from the system.  Logically, why would Anthony seek to erase the searches if they related to home safety?

Cindy Anthony’s Sworn Testimony

In a defense attempt to eliminate another aspect of state’s evidence, when shown a state’s evidence photograph of her daughter’s car trunk featuring clearly visible stains, Cindy Anthony said in sworn testimony that the curved, “basketball-sized” markings were present in 2000, when she and her husband George purchased it from “one of the [Orlando] dealerships on Colonial Drive.” 

The couple bought the vehicle, Cindy testified, for Lee’s and Casey’s use.

Attempting to rub out the “new stain” inference, that a child’s body and human decomposition had been in the Pontiac Sunbird, Cindy Anthony’s testimony suggested that Casey Anthony did not hide her daughter’s body in the trunk, before dumping it in woods near the Anthony home.

If successful, the testimony puts a dent in the prosecution’s case.

It is likely Anthony is attempting to save her daughter’s life with her undeniably equivocal testimony, although it is not clear why she would cooperate with Jose Baez: the lawyer who in opening remarks accused her husband and son of sex acts against her daughter, defendant Casey Anthony.

Cindy Anthony’s credibility reportedly has garnered the attention of law enforcement since the case broke in early July 2008.

Justice for Caylee: Threats and Denial

In one episode involving Orange County police, the owner of the website Justice for Caylee, whose purpose was to provide a forum for public venting about the case, accused the child’s grandmother of threats she reportedly made in November 2008.

The incident occurred one month before Caylee’s remains were discovered by a utilities worker.

The Orlando Sentinel had reported that prior to her granddaughter’s remains being found, Cindy “[couldn’t] stand to hear Caylee is dead,” and that the embattled grandmother had telephoned the site’s owner, Sunny Welker, saying she would “ . . . most definitely kick [her] ass.” 

When contacted by a reporter from Orlando television station WFTV, Anthony denied making the threat, and counter-complained that the web site was selling bumper stickers.

According to WFTV, Welker stated, “I explained we were not selling anything on the web site.  It’s there for information and to discuss the case, and if they want to help and volunteer, there is a link for [Texas] Equusearch.”

No charges were filed concerning the dustup, the news report said.

 

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Photo Caption: Cindy Anthony testifies for the second day in a row during the defense portion of the murder trial of her daughter Casey Anthony at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Friday, June 24, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

 

The Casey Anthony Trial: Nothing but the Truth?

June 24, 2011

[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. ]

In every American courtroom witnesses are sworn to an oath before questioning and, in some variant or another, all promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  The progress of the Casey Anthony trial thus far has put the oath itself on trial and stretched thin its meaning.

In a trial that has focused on the bizarre, deceptive conduct of the defendant, allegedly to conceal the murder of her daughter, recent discoveries suggest that Casey Anthony may have lied not only to family, friends, the police, press and general public, but also to her attorney regarding the death of her daughter.  The tale of Caylee Anthony’s drowning in the family swimming pool remarkably parallels that of the defendant’s tragic jail cellmate whilst locked up several years ago.  Nevertheless, Casey Anthony telling teary lies has become so commonplace that it is rarely news anymore and we greet each new slander with a shrug.  But what of the other courtroom players?

 

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The defense expert witness in so-called “touch DNA” who promised to tell the whole truth, omitted to reveal in direct examination regarding his scientific credentials that he has no terminal degree in biology, anthropology or physics and was, in fact, a student lab technician who works in a barn.  Another defense expert witness who promised to tell nothing but the truth testified that she believed a dog or coyote had buried Caylee Anthony’s skull, a suggestion so silly that it drew a reluctant, macabre laugh from the gallery.

And another defense expert witness who swore an oath to tell the whole truth castigated the medical examiner for performing a shoddy autopsy on Caylee Anthony because she did not remove the top of the child’s skull to examine the interior of the empty brain pan.  On the other hand, commonly accepted protocol for an autopsy on skeletal remains does not require removing the top of the skull, particularly since there has been no testimony from either side to suggest that head trauma was suspected in the death.  And so, in a procedure that paralleled arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, the witness sawed child’s skull in half.  What did he discover?  Nothing unusual.  It may not be actionable to suggest that the medical examiner’s work is shoddy, but intellectual dishonesty while under oath in a murder trial should be.

Meanwhile, George Anthony’s purported mistress volunteered to the National Enquirer that in an intimate moment he revealed that Caylee Anthony’s death was an accident.  But earlier she told police investigators that she was not intimate with him.  Was she lying then or is she lying now?  Consider exactly what she is saying and you be the judge: she lied to police investigators conducting an investigation into the murder of a child, but she told the National Enquirer the truth.  Soon she will promise to tell nothing but the truth and I imagine that thereafter we’ll know even less than we do today.

We have yet to see the defendant take the stand; but before she does, Casey Anthony will have to swear to tell nothing but the truth.  Why don’t we just skip this step for brevity’s sake, it doesn’t mean a thing in this trial.

 

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Casey Anthony Trial, Day 25: More Science, Less Casey

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. — This week has been much ado about forensic science and had little to do directly with defendant Casey Anthony.

The closest jurors got to Anthony were her shoes, which were tested for soil and minerals by FBI geologist and forensic examiner, Maureen Bottrell.  


Shoe Check

The CSI technician checked nearly two dozen pairs of shoes from the Anthony home and the shovel Casey Anthony borrowed from neighbor, Brian Burner.

Although Bottrell found no soil on the shoes, the forensics mineral and soil expert noted that its absence is not indicative of anything and that such inspections are useless in establishing someone’s presence or not at a scene.

The FBI’s report on the shovel is as follows: 

Multiple soils were recovered from the shovel and label on the shovel (Q46 and  Q46.1, respectively). This examination was discontinued after the discovery of the victim's body.

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Expert: “Hair Not Best Sample”

FBI forensic toxicologist Madeline Montgomery testified about a hair toxicology screen performed on the clump of hair associated with Caylee’s skull.  Using a liquid chromatograph mass spectrometer, no drugs were identified, after tests for commonly used or abused drugs, including Clonapin, Benzodiazapam (or Valium), Rohypnol (commonly called "the date rape drug" or “rufies”) and ketamine (a veterinary tranquilizer seen in nightclubs).  Montgomery said hair tests were negative for the drugs.   

Telling the jury that “hair is not the best sample for drug exposure,” Montgomery said she was unable to test for chloroform, noting a drug given to someone around the time of death would not show up that quickly in hair.  The much hyped “cool blue” Gatorade bottle found at the dump site contained a “whitish, murky liquid,” reported FBI forensic chemist Michael Rickenbach.

The liquid appeared to be a mix of some type cleaning fluid and testosterone, Rickenbach said, noting he found low levels of chloroform.  Since many cleaning compounds contain chloroform, it is unclear how the objects fit in defense theory.

Casey Anthony’s Pontiac Sunfire also underwent testing for chloroform, which was not found, according to Rickenbach. 


Chloroform on “Momma”?

Caylee’s favorite doll, “Momma,” found in the car, tested positive for the noxious chemical solution, but low chloroform levels did not warrant further investigation.

This is the same doll Cindy Anthony had discovered seated in Caylee’s car seat after the car’s return from Johnson’s tow yard.  Caylee’s grandmother testified about trying to eliminate the decomposition smell on the doll by washing it with disinfecting wipes and letting it air in the garage.


No Closer to Caylee’s Death?

In following the long and tedious procession of scientific experts, the jury, which may be losing patience with the defense case’s minutia, is no closer to learning about Caylee’s purported drowning.

 

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Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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Photo Caption: Casey Anthony talks with her attorney Jose Baez during a recess in her murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Wednesday, June 22, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

 

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 24: Embattled Defense Soldiers On

June 22, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

Chorus of defense witnesses ends on sour note  

ORLANDO, Fla. — Marcus Wise’s courtroom debut as an expert witness went well, but the analytical chemist’s experiments failed defense lawyer Jose Baez. 

Other troubles for Baez, however, arose.


Inmate’s Pool Drowning Story Similar to Anthony's Account

A former jail mate of Casey Anthony, Amy Whalen's story of her child’s drowning mirrors Casey Anthony's defense -- state attorneys are currently investigating.   Whalen may be called to testify.

This potential wrinkle in the thin fabric of the defense strategy arrived when a citizen’s phone call late last week prompted authorities to look further at a woman whose five-day Orange County jail stay in June, 2009, put her in the same dorm as Anthony.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Cells Not Soundproof

April Whalen's booking records indicate she had been arrested 10 times between 2000 and 2009.

With the jury absent, prosecutrix Linda Drane-Burdick conveyed the information to Judge Perry, noting that the state has sent investigators to interview Whalen.

The 15-month-old son of Casey’s former jailmate reportedly drowned on Christmas Day, 2007, and was discovered by his grandfather.

Although there was no direct contact between the two prisoners — Casey Anthony is in protective custody and therefore closely monitored — cells are not soundproof and voices carry. 


“Judge: Enough is Enough.”

Having already tested the patience of Judge Perry for the second straight day, Baez and prosecutor Jeff Ashton had angered the jurist, who halted yesterday’s 23rd day of trial, sent the jury out and indicated his displeasure for the two, pronouncing, “enough is enough” of “gamesmanship” and “friction between attorneys.”

The two lawyers had been practicing what Perry identified as “trial by ambush.”

In Baez’s case, not conveying to defense experts the necessity of including last-minute reports made it difficult to prepare cross-examination questions. 

With his witnesses list out of order and having some experts who were not allowed to testify in full, Baez was struggling to put on science evidence that had any discernable flow.

Wise, an analytic chemist from Oak Ridge laboratories, tested carpet samples from Casey Anthony’s foul-smelling car trunk, and reported he found unexpectedly high chloroform levels.


Chloroform “Peaks” “Surprise” to Wise

The amiable witness, who kept his cool despite extensive questioning by both sides, could not explain the chloroform “peaks” or “base levels” obtained from the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, or GC-MS tests, even sitting down to discuss his results with colleague Arpad Vass, who testified for the prosecution on decomposition related assays of carpet samples from Anthony’s car.

Testifying prior to Wise, Dutch forensic scientist Richard Eikelenboom handed the jury information concerning “low copy number DNA,” in which very small amounts of the genetic substance could be used to obtain profiles from duct tape covering the mouth area of murder victim Caylee Anthony.

Relating that DNA materials could have stuck to the tape’s adhesive side, Eikelenboom admitted during cross that heat and water would have had “a very detrimental effect” on the material attached to the child’s skull, and on the separate tape found on the ground and away from the skull.

Ashton also drew from the Dutch researcher that his academic status was somewhere between a bachelor’s and below a master’s degree, and that his laboratory is in a converted barn.

In 2008, Eikelenboom's DNA work helped to free Tim Masters, who was convicted for murder, after Eikelenboom and his wife found new DNA evidence.  Eikelenboom said prosecutors didn’t want to him to have possession of the Henkel duct tape -- the testimony launched Jeff Ashton into heated objections.

Without the jury, Perry questioned Eikelenboom on whether he knew that opinions he planned on presenting should be submitted in writing by a certain time, with the DNA lab founder saying Baez did not make him aware of that.

Ruling the defense violation “willful” and “substantial,” Perry scheduled a hearing for more of Eikelenboom’s future testimony.  

Expect to hear more DNA testimony from the gene material-hunting pioneer, who related in his prosecution deposition that it is possible to recover DNA from human decomposition fluid.

That information prompted arguments from Baez, but Perry deferred his decision on whether to allow it, until a hearing could be scheduled to iron out this and any other potential “ambush” issues, “since it looks like we’re going to be doing this for the next two weeks.”

Related Links:

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Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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Photo Caption: Defense attorney Jose Baez during the Casey Anthony trial at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Tuesday, June 21, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

 

Aphrodite Jones Reports: On Celebrity in the Casey Anthony Trial Courtroom

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.  Read her Bio >> ]

I wrote a piece in today's NY POST talking about all the "star" journalists and TV personalties who have descended on this trial: Geraldo, Greta, Nancy Grace, Jane Velez Mitchell, Ashleigh Banfield, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Judge Alex Ferrer --- have all been here. We "national media folks" are hidden up in the balcony of the courtroom (yes -- there's a balcony!). 

The OC Court administrators did not want jurors distracted by Greta or Nancy Grace sightings -- which makes sense -- but is also just a weird fact of today's world that people fuss over TV reporters. Seems media stars are as much of a draw for the public as the actual trial itself.

I must say, that on a day like today, where the testimony is so scientific and dry -- with witnesses breaking things down to "ionized molecules," perhaps the jury could use a break from these dry FBI witnesses, who all seem to be monotone in their delivery.  I'm sure the jurors are taking their job very seriously -- and they are listening carefully to this scientific jargon and trying to make sense of it. Still, I bet they could use a dose of the "celebrity factor" right about now. Anything to distract them from testimony that is almost as painful as having a tooth extracted -- would probably be welcomed by the jurors. Today, more than ever, I feel their pain. We are not experts -- we are not scientists -- and the battle of the experts does NOT take away the stench of death inside Casey Anthony's car. The jury will use their common sense when they get back there to deliberate. So far, in my 22 years of trial coverage, that's been my experience. In the end, common sense wins -- or at least -- I hope so!

 

Related Links:

NY Post: Inside the Casey media carnival
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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Casey Anthony Trial, Day 23: Sweetening Casey Anthony's Motherly Image

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s not about the knot.  Really.  It’s about what the knot represents: the knot resulting from Casey Anthony’s back-handed tying of her sweater’s slack material into a tight, round ball at the back of the pale green garment’s waistline for her court appearance today.  

Sugar-sweet

In efforts to present her to the jury as a modest, caring, sugary sweet mother caught up in a grandly dysfunctional family, whose toxic relationships made her do all the things we know she has done — and possibly more — the defense has provided Anthony with a number of casual and understated tops, blouses and sweaters to wear during trial. 

Reportedly, Casey’s chair has been lowered to make her look very tiny, to suggest “poor little Casey against the world.”

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

“O.J. Courtroom”

Anthony must be experiencing some hand circulation issues, as well — recalling her “attacks” during jury selection — that require warm clothing.  Nothing out of the ordinary there; reportedly the newly constructed suite, nicknamed the “O.J. courtroom,” is cold.

The woman’s defense is trying its best, they believe, to defend her and save her life.  Doubtless they are too busy with witnesses and an irate judge to notice Anthony’s styling gaffs or that her body language and grooming gestures continue to shout, “Notice my figure!”


Chatty Casey

The defendant could not be left alone.  Various people sat down with Anthony, chatted for a while and left, to be replaced immediately with another team member.  Anthony seemed to respond to each person with the same degree of excited chattiness, which does indicate she longs for regular conversation.

If the former shot girl eliminated the constant preening, pulling at clothes, arching her back and throwing her chest forward, Anthony might seem more sympathy-deserving.  No easy thing to look on her now.

It is troubling that Casey Anthony is on trial for her life, and that she seems more concerned — no, obsessed — with keeping her shirts tightly tucked-in or vamping in revealing sweaters.  This is distracting and a no-no that her team’s strategists easily can fix.  And they should.

Her defense speaks one thing: that she was sexually abused; but Casey Anthony’s behavior says another.  She is reminiscent of an animal grooming its fur, meticulously, repeatedly washing itself: behavior likely to be “explained” by another expert witness.

Related Links:

NY Post: Inside the Casey media carnival
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

Photo Caption: Judge Belvin Perry talks to attorneys about delays in the Casey Anthony trial before the start of court at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Monday, June 20, 2011. The case was recessed for the day without the jury ever being brought in because of problems brining in witnesses for the defense. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 22: Defense Medical Examiner Calls Dr. G’s Work 'Shoddy'

June 21, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

‘This is not my first rodeo.’
—Judge Perry while scolding lawyers

ORLANDO, Fla. — Casey Anthony’s defense team wants the jury to believe their experts, one of whom is an eminent scientist and the very picture of a distinguished and revered scholar.  How well though does their Dr. Werner Spitz’s testimony hold up under the wrath of prosecutor, Jeff Ashton’s decimate cross-examination?
 
“Known as a Legend”

Relating that the silver-haired clinician/academician was “known as a legend” in the arena of forensic pathology, defense attorney Jose Baez called on Dr. Spitz to attack the testimony of Dr. Jan Garavaglia, an icon in her own right, and who performed the initial autopsy on Caylee Anthony’s remains.

Dr. Spitz, who said he was “denied attendance” at Caylee’s initial postmortem, called the District Nine (Orange-Osceola) Medical Examiner’s work on the remains “a shoddy autopsy, because she didn’t open up the brain.”

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

Case of the Unopened Skull?

Dr. Spitz stated that a step was missing in Dr. G’s autopsy, and that she should have opened the skull to determine manner of death, explaining that if there was discoloration of the interior skull bones, that would suggest there was bleeding inside the head, which would suggest asphyxiation.

The doctor, though, didn’t see any such discoloration when he opened the skull and “saw for himself.”  Autopsy, after all, means “to see for oneself.”

For those who felt sorry for the beleaguered witness, reportedly, Dr. Spitz heartily congratulated the prosecutor on his cross-examination.


“Caylee May Still Have Been Alive.”

During prosecutor Jeff Ashton's cross-examination of defense bug expert Dr. Tim Huntington, he got into court records more than once that Caylee “may still have been alive” when she was placed in the trunk of Casey’s car.

In this 22nd day of Casey Anthony’s murder trial, you wonder whether TV movies ever could approach reality’s intensity.  Can any film ever do justice to the drama in Courtroom 23?

 

Related Links:
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Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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The Casey Anthony Defense: A Glance at Their Case

[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. ]


In making a motion for acquittal, defense attorney Cheney Mason offered interesting insight into the plans to defend Casey Anthony.  It helps to understand the defense strategy and, in a very straightforward look at it, above all else the Anthony defense team is required to “best represent” the client.  In so doing, they will do their level best to see that the jury will not be able to convict Casey Anthony because:

1.    Caylee Anthony was not murdered by anyone, she died accidentally;
2.    If Caylee Anthony was murdered, it wasn’t by Casey Anthony;
3.    If Casey Anthony participated in any crime, it was to conceal an accidental death;
4.    The police acquired evidence illegally, and
5.    The story that Caylee Anthony died in the family pool is no more or less plausible than the story line offered by the state.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

If the defense is successful in any of these, the jury will not be able to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony murdered her child.  Nevertheless, it will be an uphill battle.

Before readers get too cynical about the defense motion to acquit, understand that it is common practice in any trial for the defense to make such a move at the closing of the prosecution’s case.  And it is equally important to understand that the defense understood that likely they would be unsuccessful since, statistically speaking, the tactic rarely works.  But in making the motion, the defense shows cards, so to speak, that it would prefer not to.  Anticipate that in closing remarks at the end of the trial the defense will resurrect all of the above points.  Remember, it is not necessary for the defense to prove any of the above; it’s only necessary to offer an alternative explanation to the state’s case that causes one juror to have reasonable doubt.  Without a unanimous vote of the jury to convict, Casey Anthony is found not guilty.  Surely, defense counsel will poll the jury if a guilty verdict is reached, in hopes that someone may change their mind at the last minute.  It’s been successful before.

In one telling revelation, in his motion to acquit, Mason stated that the accidental drowning scenario was, “a hypothesis,” rather than a fact.  The jury did not hear the slip.  Mason suggested that in jury instructions (already presuming a denial of the acquittal motion), the judge should instruct that they should consider disregarding statements made by Casey Anthony to police, citing constructed custody that would require Miranda warnings that were not given to the defendant at Universal.  There is a wealth of law (Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492 (1977), for one example), which says that without custody, there is no Miranda warning requirement, but if custody is constructed by the police, Miranda is required (Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, for one example).  In short, grounds already are being laid for appeal of Casey Anthony’s conviction.  Once again, this is a very common defense practice.

And finally, the defense will assert to the jury that circumstantial evidence is somehow insufficient to convict in a murder trial.  Nothing could be further from the truth, particularly since most murder convictions are the product of circumstantial evidence, which holds the exact same weight as direct evidence in a criminal proceeding.  Nevertheless, the defense will play on misunderstandings of the jury acquired from a lifetime of legal training whilst watching television fiction.  It’s been successful before too.

 

Related Links:
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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Photo Caption: Defense counsel Cheney Mason argues for acquittal after the state rested its case during day 19 of Casey Anthony's 1st -degree murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse, in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday, June 15, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/POOL)

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 20: Defending Caylee’s Mom

June 18, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

‘I don’t have a hearing problem.  The amplification of questions is not needed.’
— Judge Belvin Perry

ORLANDO, Fla. — To a mournful undercurrent of Caylee Anthony’s memory, on the third anniversary of her last visit with grandparents Cindy and George Anthony, rising tension in the courtroom over an issue long thought dead: the findings on paternity of the victim, Caylee Anthony.  It was the defense’s first day of their case-in-chief, and Jose Baez was asking if the defendant’s brother, Lee Anthony, was her father. 

Although Lee Anthony was found via FBI DNA tests not to be Caylee’s father, Jose Baez seemed to want — and did get — that same information in front of the jury, much to prosecutor Jeff Ashton’s objections.

Baez:  “Just Asking ... “

While stating he was “just asking about the report,” during the defense attorney’s lengthy direct examination of FBI DNA/forensics expert, Heather Seubert, Jose Baez was in effect re-airing the technician’s assignment to make the determination.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Prosecutor Jeff Ashton strongly objected to Baez’s line of questioning, to which Judge Perry ruled in a sidebar that the jury could hear the question, but they could not learn who did the testing.

His judicial view fixed evenly down the middle between Baez and Ashton, in attempting to clear the mine field-like courtroom, Judge Perry asserted, “I don’t have a hearing problem.  The amplification of questions is not needed.” 

Other defense witnesses included: Gerardo Bloise, Orange County CSI, who processed Tony Lazarro’s Jeep and tested for blood.  None was found.  Boise also surveyed the Anthonys’ residence, looking for any biological fluid stains, and he found none. The CSI also noted he checked Casey’s “work” slacks, which Cindy Anthony removed from her daughter’s car and washed, not finding any stains.
 
On cross-examination, prosecutrix Linda Drane-Burdick re-established that Cindy Anthony had washed the pants because the garment contained the decomposition odor of the car. 

FBI chief agent Heather Seubert told the jury she found no blood on any clothes, none in the defendant’s car and that there were no biological stains of any kind on next-door neighbor, Brian Burner’s shovel, which Casey Anthony had borrowed around the time of Caylee’s disappearance and suspected murder. 

The FBI’s hair and fiber expert, Cary Oien, testified that he had found a small human hair on the shovel, but indicated the strand was too small for testing.

The infamous heart-shaped sticker appeared to have been discovered and then lost in the space of several FBI experts’ testimony, including Orange County CSI, Robin Maynard, who identified  where on a sectioned view of the scene the sticker had been collected,  i.e., “Lane 6,” and roughly 45 feet from the site’s baseline.

Orienting the jury to the sticker’s collection, Ronald Murdock testified that the sticker was about 30 feet from Caylee Anthony’s skull.

Resulting in a dramatic moment for the prosecution, Jennifer Welch testified that she collected trash at the scene, which did not undergo DNA testing. 

Trash a Common Thread

On cross-examination, Linda Drane-Burdick had Welch affirm that the area where Caylee was found was a “trash dump” — a statement that was not lost on the jury.  Trash and garbage are a common thread in the case of the winsome toddler.

FBI document examiner Lorie Gottesman used a video spectral comparator, or VSC, to look unsuccessfully for sticker residue on the duct tape associated with Caylee’s skull. 

 

Related Links:
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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Photo Caption: Jose Baez addresses Heather Seubert, of the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., during day 20 of Casey Anthony's first-degree murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse, in Orlando, Fla., Thursday, June 16, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel/POOL)

 

Aphrodite Jones Reports: Public 'Madness' Reminds us Justice for Caylee Anthony Must Prevail

June 17, 2011

 [ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

The situation outside the courtroom has gotten so out of hand, police had to be called to break up a fist fight that went on last night, as people are now resorting to sleeping outside the courthouse overnight -- in order to get a seat in court. I asked some of the "powers that be" at the courthouse about the crazy situation and if they're trying to contain it. The problem is they can't control what happens on the city streets around the courthouse. It's not their jurisdiction -- it's something that the Orange County Sheriff's Department needs to deal with. Still, the court officials in Orlando are looking into different ways that this "madness" can be reduced.

One thing I asked about was a lottery system. A lottery was used in the Michael Jackson trial which kept people from fighting each other for a position on line. The problem here in Orlando, it turns out, is that the OC Courthouse is huge and also is located in the heart of a busy downtown area. Public parking is limited and the court officials fear that if they announce a lottery system, 500 people could show up and thus prevent people who have court business from being able to park in the court parking structure. Even if 200 people were to show up, hoping to win a lottery seat, the same problem would arise. The parking structure would be over capacity and lawyers and court administrators would have no place to park. Everyone has lost the perspective that: The justice system must come first -- and this is not the only case being dealt with in Orange County!

Of course I understand some of this fuss -- because people have been sucked in by media and they want to see, for themselves, if Caylee Anthony will get justice. In part, it makes sense -- people here are being bombarded with 24-hour news cycles about this trial on local TV and radio. And of course, I can't deny that I am a part of the frenzy myself -- covering this trial for ID, HLN, FOX, and even Dateline. So, I too, am guilty as charged, of being overly interested and involved with the outcome of this trial and the mystery of Caylee's death.

BUT ... Let us all remember that this poor little soul needs to rest in peace. It's not atttractive to see people fighting to get seats as though this is an entertainment  event. For me, I can't help notice what strange times we live in. Some people are treating this death penalty case like it's a rock concert. Casey may be enjoying rock star status now (kind of) but when it all boils down to the nitty gritty, she most likely will be just another criminal, perhaps with the sick notoriety and prison following of someone like Scott Peterson.  Either way -- convicted or not -- her life will never be normal, that's for sure. And I wonder who among us, will ever look at her as a person they would want to befriend, after everything is said and done. Are we capable of mercy? Or only frenzy?

 

Related Links:
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

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Photo Caption: Defense attorneys Jose Baez and Cheney Mason present a photo in the trial of Casey Anthony, talking about autopsy results of the remains of Caylee Anthony at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, Fla. on Saturday, June 18, 2011. (Credit: Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)

Casey Anthony Trial, Day 19: Prosecution Ends Case-in-Chief, Defense Calls Surprise Witness, a Convicted Kidnapper

June 16, 2011

[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]

ORLANDO, Fla. — As prosecutors masterfully completed their case-in-chief, before Casey Anthony’s defense left court on a “fishing expedition” for the purposes of deflecting suspicion from their client, Casey Anthony, Baez and company tarried long enough to ask Judge Perry to acquit their client.

Perry denied the request.

Discovery of Vasco DeGama Thompson

A last minute defense witness, who seemed to emerge from the shadows, materialized on June 15 in the form of convicted kidnapper, Vasco Degama Thompson.  Reportedly found by defense private investigators, Thompson’s phone number appeared four times on George Anthony’s cell phone call record on July 14, 2008:  one day before Cindy Anthony’s 911 phone calls to report her daughter missing.

George Anthony reportedly has denied any knowledge of Thompson, whose own attorney, Richard Hale, scheduled a 4 p.m., June 16 press conference in front of the courthouse.

Additionally, the Anthonys’ attorney, Mark Lippman plunged into media interviews to maintain that his client, George, does not know, nor ever has known Thompson, opining that Anthony may be the victim of telephone number misdials.

 Follow the Timeline of Events in the Casey Anthony Case >>

 

Casey, Day by Day

Prosecutors Linda Drane-Burdick, Jeff Ashton and Frank George had put on a consistent and evenly-flowing case that began with Drane-Burdick’s appropriately righteous but methodical opening statements, which provided a detailed timeline of Casey Anthony’s behavior from June 15 to July 15, 2008.

The state maintains that Casey Anthony killed her daughter, Caylee, 2, on June 16, 2008, and that the murder weapons were chloroform and duct tape.

When not declaring that George and Lee Anthony sexually abused the defendant, the defense did manage to maintain a more modest presence during their adversary’s presentation. 

Center-Court Style: Telestrator vs. Analog Easel Displays

As to courtroom style, through all their evidence presentations, the state relied heavily on computer graphics and utilized an interactive telestrator, which allowed witnesses to circle or otherwise make notations on projected visuals, while Anthony’s defense preferred to hand-draw in real time on large, blank pieces of paper, “walking” visuals of large cardboard displays moved from place to place. 

Not lost in the legal shuffle: the graphics production firm’s name appeared in large letters on the backs of defense displays.  Possibly, that less-than-subtle advertising may have been in exchange for services.

Jose Baez favored a large drawing tablet on an easel and seemed to relish compelling witnesses to “stand down” and add information by hand.  Since this behavior seemed to slow down the dissemination of information, the means of illustration — subtle enough to get by the jury — was also designed to both record and keep defense points in jurors’ consciousness and to station them literally in front of the jury box.

Noticeably, the notion of telling witnesses to step down from the enclosed witness box adjacent to the judge and ordering them to stand beside a lawyer while testifying in part, was an example of the defense’s tactics on cross-examination of experts for the state. 

The unspoken meaning: “do as I say, step down from your expert position and write here what I tell you to write.”  But did the kindergarten scenes rebound in the defense’s face?

Baez is a ‘Bulldog”

It is becoming clear that defense attorney Jose Baez — whose legal tactics peers say typecast him as a “bulldog” — continues to cast Casey Anthony’s father in a bad light, taking both the jury’s attention — and the onus — from Casey Marie Anthony.

 

Related Links:
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

Aphrodite Jones Reports, Casey Anthony Trial: 'Craziest Defense I've Ever Heard'

[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective as she attends the Casey Anthony Trial. Check in for her regular reports.   Read her Bio >> ]

Today marks the 3-year anniversary of Caylee Anthony's death. I think of her, as she might be today -- a gorgeous 6-year-old dressed in pink frills and with bows in her hair, playing dress up in the doll house at her home. Instead, as we all sit here listening to matters of DNA, duct tape and a mysterious shovel -- her mom sits very still. It's amazing to watch Casey Anthony take on a freeze-frame position as her daughter's remains are being picked apart by legal and scientific banter. How does she do it? Nothing seems to unnerve her. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life! The only thing crazier is her defense -- that being abused made her hide secrets about her daughter's death. Only a man might believe that one. Every woman on Earth knows Mom a  would claw and kick to find a way to save her baby!

How ironic that this is the very day the defense is beginning its case. George knows he will be under attack -- but I believe his tears this morning came from the sheer grief he must feel at the loss of his little angel. I cannot fathom that Cindy had any idea about her daughter's involvement in Caylee's death -- but I do wonder if George somehow knew, and helped his daughter in a desperate attempt, perhaps, during the aftermath. Maybe his tears come from feelings of guilt as well; if nothing else, he sees now, in a court of law, just how cold/hearted his daughter is -- and she is a product of his upbringing.

On another related matter, let's not forget that Miss Casey is good at wrapping men around her finger. Just notice, now, what she has Jose Baez believing. I mean, really, there's no woman on earth who would buy the story that because Casey was allegedly abused, she did not show grief for her dead daughter. This is the craziest defense I've ever heard, just speaking as a woman. In fact, Casey has now managed to insult the victims of sexual abuse, inferring that they are not capable of showing feelings. And all of this -- for what?  To confuse the jury with the notion that she's a person raised to keep secrets. Okay. So -- what has that got to do with searching for your missing child?  Or crying for your dead child?  Any woman I know would raise hell to find their child ... And would shed tears to heaven ... If their child accidentally died.

 

Related Links:
How Much Do You Know About the Casey Anthony Case? Take a Quiz.
Discuss The Caylee Anthony Case
Full Coverage : Casey Anthony Case
Casey Anthony: Mom or Murderer

Dr G. Medical Examiner - Watch Other Cases on Discovery Fit & Health

 

Photo Caption: An image displayed on a courtroom monitor shows a photo entered into evidence in the Casey Anthony trial at the Orange County Courthouse on Friday, June 10, 2011. The photo shows Caylee Anthony and her mother Casey. An expert witness used this photo to superimpose an image of Caylee's skull to mark where duct tape found on the remains would have been positioned on the child when she was alive. (Credit: Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel)