[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Here's his take on the recent horrific crime making headline news this week. Read his Bio >> ]
A little past noon on Sunday, February 5, 2012, Joshua Powellmurdered his children, Braden, 5, and Charlie, 7,and took his own life in a deliberately set gas explosion. According to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, the explosion that destroyed Powell’s Puyallup, Washington home was the result of a murder-suicide. Moments before the explosion took the lives of Powell and his children he sent emails to his attorney, family and friends saying, “I’m sorry, goodbye.” In voicemails left to relatives Powell said, I am not able to live without my sons.”
Autopsy results of the children later revealed that they perished of smoke inhalation; however, both boys had been attacked with a hatchet. Charles suffered a hatchet wound to the neck and younger brother Braden had been struck in the neck and head by Powell. According to autopsies, hatchet wounds were not the cause of death of either child. It is speculated by authorities that after failing to kill the children with his hatchet, Powell ignited a five gallon can of gasoline at their feet and the explosion that followed caused their deaths.
Powelllost custody of his children following the disappearance of his wife Susan in December 2009 when the investigation led to the discovery of child pornography in the family home. Powell’s father Steven was charged in the crime and was in custody at the time of the blast.
A custody battle raged between Powell and his missing wife’s parents Charles and Judith Cox who were given custody of the children following the grandfather’s arrest. A petition to regain custody filed in a Washington State Superior Court was dismissed and Powell was ordered to be examined for psycho-sexual disorders.
Early Sunday afternoon a contract worker for the state delivered the two little boys to the Powell home for a scheduled, supervised visit. Apparently the children ran ahead of the case worker and Powell, who had been waiting outside, brought the boys into the house and locked the door behind them. The case worker knocked on the door and smelled gas, but Powell never answered. Apparently Powell attacked the children with his hatchet as soon as they entered the residence. As the case worker was notifying her supervisor that Powell was alone with the children, the house exploded in a fireball, killing everyone inside. The bodies of the children were found in a central room with their father.
According to CBS News, the children recently had begun to relate additional details regarding the disappearance of their mother Susan, 28. Powell always maintained that his wife had walked away from the marriage when he and the children went on an impromptu camping excursion on a snowy, frozen Utah night in late 2009. However, in published reports the boys told investigators that on the night of their mother’s disappearance, she had accompanied them “in the trunk” and later she walked into the desert with Powell. When he returned alone, he is alleged to have told the children that “mommy got lost.”
With these revelations and presuming their veracity, it is easy to speculate that the single-most important witnesses in the disappearance of Susan Powell have been silenced. The murders of these children are inexplicable, except that perhaps their father did not want them to testify against him in a criminal court. Consider that Powell has been described as a narcissist and recently had been ordered to undergo a court-ordered psycho-sexual evaluation. Given the recent revelations of the children, Powell surely was threatened with being charged as a murder suspect. He may have seen no other way out than to murder the children and himself. The witnesses against him are now forever silenced and he will never be tried for killing his wife as the children’s statements clearly infer.
West Valley, Utah police have issued a statement that they are not yet sure how these developments will impact the investigation into the disappearance of Susan Powell. Josh Powell had always been a point of interest in the disappearance of his wife and all roads lead directly to him, according to investigators. And now, but to find Susan Powell, there is little left to do but bury the children.
Powell explosion credit: Pierce County Sheriff's deputies and Graham Firefighters work around the smoldering remains of a house near Fredrickson, Wash., Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012, where, according to a sheriff's spokesman, three bodies were were found. The bodies are believed to be Josh Powell and his two sons. The explosion occurred moments after a Child Protective Services worker brought the two boys to the home for a supervised visit. (AP Photo/John Froschauer)
Susan Powell credit: A flier seeking information on the whereabouts of Susan Powell, who was reported missing Dec. 7, 2009, in Utah, is shown, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009, at a press conference in Puyallup, Wash. Powell's family said Thursday they are saddened but not surprised that her husband Josh Powell has been named a person of interest in the investigation. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Josh Powell credit: In this Aug. 23, 2011 file photo, Josh Powell, husband of missing Utah woman Susan Cox Powell, walks to a court hearing in Tacoma, Wash. An explosion at a Washington state home has killed Josh Powell and the couple's two young sons, officials said Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Here's his take on the recent sex crimes against children making headline news today. Read his Bio >> ]
Recent headlines have been filled with news regarding the arrests of teachers for the alleged sexual abuse of children. For example, football coach Jerry Sandusky of Penn State dominated these sensational stories late last year beginning with reports of a co-worker who saw Sandusky rape a 10 year-old boy. Since the original allegations were made, others have come forward with similar accusations. Sandusky is currently awaiting trial on fifty-two counts relating to the sexual abuse of twelve children.
Here in California, two teachers from Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles recently were arrested in separate cases. Police allege that Mark Berndt, 61, had sexually abused as many as twenty-three children during his thirty-two year career. According to published reports, complaints about inappropriate sexual contact between Berndt and elementary school children date back as far as 1990. It was unclear what actions the school district may have taken during that period, but Berndt was not arrested based on student allegations until recently.
Martin Springer of Miramonte Elementary was arrested on Friday, February 3, 2012, for allegedly fondling a 7 year-old girl. The police statement announcing the arrest suggested there were two victims, but more specifics were not given. Springer and Berndt worked together and were involved in school functions and recently it was alleged that at least one of the victims was shared in 2008. The shared victim, a young girl, reported separate incidents to her parents who notified police; however, the parents never heard back from authorities and the parents took no further action.
Neng Yang recently pled “not guilty” to forty-five counts of child molestation and recording the abuse while he served as a teacher at an elementary school in Clovis, California. The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office charges that Yang sexually assaulted a seven year-old girl and photographed the acts on his cell phone. Yang has also been charged in Federal Court for producing child pornography.
Recently I was asked by a NBC News affiliate if child molestation by teachers was on the rise, and I responded with a sound-bite: probably not, but reporting the crimes was substantially up. Whereas this is true, the real answer is much more complicated than that. To begin with, no one really has any idea how much child sexual abuse is going on.
The FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report is limited by what the states’ Attorneys General reports to them. The states’ Attorneys General data is limited by what the local and state police tell them is reported on the official record. You can see the actual number of crimes dwindling already. There are also cases that never make it to the courts for “insufficient evidence” but for the victims’ statements and those crimes never reported to the police by the parents or school. Remember that we as a society have “hushed-up” past crimes such as these to avoid scandal. In handling past offenders, a sex predator teacher might be dismissed quietly and, thereafter, teach at another school to molest children again. With none paying attention to the crimes, they go unnoticed, unreported, and ignored; thus, the child molester will strike again. And that truly is a tragedy.
To make matters worse, the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (US Department of Justice), is a massive undertaking to determine anonymously how much crime really occurs in the United States, reported and not. However, the NCVS does not collect information from anyone who is a crime victim under the age of twelve. Therefore, incredibly, child sexual abuse is largely unaccounted for in US crime statistics and the offense is ignored by those responsible for crime accounting in America.
The problem as I see it is this: no one is really listening to the children. Even if they do what they should and tell their parents about abuse, do the parents report it to the police? Are the police and the courts handling the matter responsibly? Not always, is the unsettling answer to both questions. And what of the school districts? It may be telling that the complaints against one of the Miramonte defendants go back at least two decades and nothing effective was done by the school district to stop the abuse. At this writing, at least one law suit has been filed charging as much. As for the federal government, the NCVS is not interested in child sexual abuse victims and it hasn’t been interested since its inception. Thus, the crimes committed by child molesters do not exist in the eyes of our own government.
In the end, if one truly wants to ferret out child sexual abuse by teachers, perhaps it’s best to begin by starting at home and having a chat with those under your own roof.
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]
Justice was swift indeed. It was just before Christmas, on December 2, 2011, that Ryan Brunn lured 7 year-old Jorelys Rivera into a vacant apartment in Canton, Georgia where he raped, tortured and murdered her. Thereafter, Brunn placed Rivera’s body in a garbage bag and then discarded her remains in a nearby trash compactor. When police responded to the report of a missing child they were told how little Jorelys left for home a few hours earlier to get sodas for her friends. She never returned.
According to published reports, Canton Police and the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office have come under fire for mishandling the case. In retrospect, at the time, why would the police take the disappearance of a 7 year-old girl seriously? Jorelys’ mother Joselinne routinely let the children go unsupervised and the girl was probably just hiding at a friend’s house. Besides, other little girls have gone missing from this apartment complex and they reappeared. It was just another day at the office and surely nothing happened to Jorelys. It’s just a waiting game in which the child surely will reappear and life will go on.
Police Chief Jeff Lance took a morning off during the search, which in my experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing during a murder investigation. Chiefs who “take over” murder investigations are more often in the way, than not; however, Chief Lance was considered too laid back in his handling of the incident and ultimately lost his job. Still, murder investigations should be handled by murder investigators, not executive policymakers; even in towns with as few as 50 police employees and a handful of detectives. Common sense dictates as much in any case. Whether the chief was there or not, little Jorelys lie dead in a dumpster of the apartment complex where she had lived and where her murderer worked as a laborer. Nothing Lance might do could change that.
In time, little Jorelys was found. Days had passed since she was murdered. By then Brunn had surfaced as the prime suspect. He was arrested and soon thereafter confessed, to the surprise of friends and relatives who publicly had maintained his innocence. Brunn later testified before the judge who sentenced him that he lured the little girl into an apartment, raped her and then cut her. When she didn’t die fast enough, Brunn beat her to death. And then he discarded her small body in a trash compactor.
However, Brunn had failed to consider how long it would be before the trash would be collected. It was just another day at the office for the apartment complex laborer and he had not given a thought to trash pick-up schedules. For investigators, this would be a break. Little Jorelys lay in the apartment trash for 3 days as police searched all around her.
In the end, Brunn pled guilty to Murder and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was transferred to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson where he was evaluated and found not to be a suicide risk. Brunn was then placed in a cell by himself and no precautions were taken to safeguard him from harm. After all, it was just another day at the office at the Georgia State Prison and no precautions should be necessary. Brunn’s body was found hanging in his cell, dead of a suicide less than 50 days after he murdered Jorelys Rivera.
And meanwhile an angry Georgia public, outraged over the death of a child, blames local police for inaction. According to the autopsy, little Jorelys was already dead by the time Canton Police were notified that she was missing. And nothing that the police might have done will change that, except one thing. There will never be just another day at the office in Canton, Georgia ever again.
[ 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 Cayleein 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...
[ 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?
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]
Levi Aron has confessed to the July 2011 murder of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, this much is clear. This tragedy, this Shakespearean catastrophe that shocked a peaceful Hasidic community has become the stage on which many speculate a circus trial will begin late next year. The supporting cast of characters already has begun to assemble in the wings.
For example, Aron’s attorney Howard Greenberg is publicly preparing an insanity defense for his client. To plea a defendant “not guilty by reason of insanity,” the defense first concedes that the accused actually did the crime; however, at the time of the crime he either did not know right from wrong or suffered in some way from a misperception of reality (very simply put). Early psychological reports say that, although Aron apparently is deeply troubled and suffers from schizoid tendencies, he is competent to stand trial. However, schizoid tendencies are quite a distance from a schizophrenic psychotic break from reality, which is what Greenberg would be legally obliged to prove at trial.
At the same time, “competent to stand trial” is not a decision regarding the defendant’s sanity at the time of the crime, that’s a matter for the jury to decide. If a defendant is competent to stand trial, it only means that he has the capacity to participate in his own defense. Usually these decisions are made well in advance of a trial (as is the case here); but recall that Jose Baez requested a competency hearing for Casey Anthony midway through the defense case, presumably because his client was not being any more forthcoming with him than she was with the police. The point is that this determination can be made at any time and in Aron’s case it was very early.
In open court Greenberg speculated that because Aron is the offspring of an incestuous relationship, he is genetically deformed. “Everybody knows when blood relations have offspring, there can be genetic defects.” He added that if Aron isn’t found “not guilty,” he will quit the legal profession. These dramatic and gratuitous remarks aside, linking genetic flaws stemming from an incestuous relationship, specifically genetics that predispose someone to violent psychosis must be proven scientifically to be introduced in court as evidence. And that means Greenberg’s remark that “everyone knows ... ” will have to be backed with a little empirical research. And “can be genetic defects,” must be proven to be “genetic defects discovered.”
To pull this off, first, the defense must show that Aron was the product of incest. Next, the defense must show that, specifically as a result of incest, the accused is genetically flawed. Next, evidence must show that empirical research demonstrates that it is possible to be predisposed to violent psychosis because of the genetic flaw caused by incest (recalling that not all psychosis is violent, by far). And finally, it must be shown that, with all of the factors present, the genetic predisposition to violence was the proximate cause of Aron’s psychotic break that lead to young Leiby Kletzky’s death.
It strikes me that it would be much easier to find a psychiatrist to testify that Aron was psychotic at the time of the crime and leave genetics out of it. Still, one must wonder aloud why Greenberg is considering the genetic flaw defense, unless he has serious doubts that there are any board-certified psychiatrists who would testify that the defendant was insane at the time of the offense. This is not to suggest that Aron will be adjudged sane and, therefore, culpable. Frankly, the barbarous acts surrounding the murder of Leiby Kletzky speak quite loudly for themselves and at this moment in time one must concede the possibility that Aron is quite insane and in a legal sense too. There is much yet to be learned about the defendant and his mental state at the time of the murder. However, to connect this act of unspeakable violence to genetics is a path that likely shall lead to nowhere.
Mr. Greenberg is well-advised to scan Monster.com in the coming months -- he has an uphill battle.
[ 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 the Penn State sex scandal. Read her Bio >> ]
A civil suit just filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is the latest legal salvo fired at former Penn State assistant coachJerry Sandusky. The newest accuser in the schools sex abuse scandal has a shocking account of a 2004 sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by Sandusky. It involves whiskey and sodomy. Investigation Discovery has exclusive details.
Attorney Charles Schmidt tells me his client, who will be 20 years old in January, was a participant in Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile. According to Schmidt, his client who was 12 years old at the time of the alleged incident was involved in an educational exercise where according to Schmidt, the children were answering questions about current affairs and history. Those who answered correctly were awarded a prize.
Schmidt told me that when his client correctly answered a question pertaining to a presidential quote, Sandusky announced that there were no more prizes but he would see what he could do.
According to Schmidt, Sandusky escorted the alleged victim to his office where the former coach began talking to the boy about his mother’s death the year before. (She suffered from severe diabetes and died as a result.) The boy was under a great deal of stress and still grief-stricken.
Schmidt says that after engaging the boy in conversation for a while, Sandusky brought out a bottle of whiskey, poured a glass and told the boy to drink it. Moments later, according to the accuser’s account, Sandusky “pulled his trunks down and sodomized him.” Then he says, Sandusky “cleaned him off”, gave him a couple of Penn State sports mementos, walked him back to the Second Mile area and handed him off to a counselor.
The accuser said he avoided Sandusky after the incident and never again had physical contact with him. Schmidt says for years his client was agonized by the incident believing he was the only one who had experienced something so terrible.
When the alleged victim became aware last month of the grand jury indictment against Sandusky, he says he got the courage to tell his story to police. The accuser has been interviewed by the State Attorney General which is investigating the claims. At this point he is not part of the criminal case which involves 10 other accusers.
This latest case is the second civil suit filed against Sandusky. Schmidt said he wanted to file the suit before the statute of limitations expires.
Other parties named in the suit include Penn State University and The Second Mile. “We believe our case will hold up in court. Our witness is credible”, says Schmidt. He adds, “When we interviewed him, he was in anguish. We could see the emotion in his face. It was hard to get him to talk to us. He relives the incident constantly.”
Schmidt says his client is apprehensive about moving forward with the lawsuit because of his fear of the publicity it will generate but “he’s doing it so he can get some sense of retribution. The assault took away part of his childhood.”
At the time of this posting, Sandusky’s attorney, Joe Amendola could not be reached for comment.
[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.
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?”
[ 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 the Penn State sex scandal. Read her Bio >> ]
When I informed a prominent Los Angeles defense attorney that Jerry Sandusky waivedhis preliminary hearing today, I was surprised at his response… “That is so punk! He didn’t have the guts to face his accusers!” That’s exactly how I see it. Eleven witnesses mustered up courage-formed a united front—and prepared themselves for what would have most certainly been a painful and grueling experience, especially for the alleged victims. But the accused child molester wasn’t up for the confrontation.
That’s interesting when you consider the fightin’ words Sandusky spouted today. Wearing what seems like a perpetual “killer rabbit” smile, the former coach rattled off football terminology, vowing to “fight to the death”, “stay the course” and “fight for four quarters”. Really? It seems to me Sandusky forfeited the game “by running off the field” and having his lawyer, Joe Amendola hold an endless “Jerry is a victim” post-game news conference outside the courthouse.
Sure, I understand that legally it’s a tactical move. Imagine the horror stories the alleged victim’s would tell on the witness stand. Their accounts would be posted, tweeted and recounted all over the globe, further damaging Sandusky’s “image” and perhaps tainting the jury pool. This way, the public doesn’t get wind of the horrid details surrounding the allegations and his lawyer can spin, spin, and spin before the hordes of hungry reporters. Essentially, all you’re really going to remember today is the face of Amendola, preaching practically uninterrupted before the cameras.
This isn’t just a legal strategy—it’s a public relations tactic as well. Amendola is brilliant in his ability to control the narrative outside the courtroom, disparaging the credibility of Sandusky’s accusers by stating, “We’re pursuing a financial motivation. Finances and money are great motivators.”
Amendola praised the virtues of his client saying Sandusky is a “loving guy, an affectionate guy” who did nothing that violated the law. Amendola even drew comparisons to his own Italian-American heritage saying “everybody hugged and kissed each other.” As an Italian-American myself with lots of uncles, brothers and cousins, I can attest to the fact that everybody hugged and kissed each other. But showering together? Nope.
At least one of the accusers will not be discouragedby today’s events. He released a statement through his attorney Ben Andreozzi. It reads in part: "I can’t believe they put us through this until the last second. I will stand my ground, testify and speak the truth.”
Now the witnesses will save their testimony for the trial which will be held sometime next year. Unless of course, Sandusky agrees to a plea bargain before then. (His attorney insists there is no deal on the table.)
As of now, the beleaguered ex-coach remains under house arrest, facing more than 50 counts of sexually abusing ten boys over 12 years. His next court date is an arraignment scheduled for January 11th.
So here’s the question…
Is Sandusky gutless for waiving the preliminary hearing today?
(All along, while professing his innocence, Sandusky acknowledged that he couldn’t wait to face his accusers.) Or do we give Joe Amendola credit for masterminding the tactic that kept the accusers quiet and allowed him the lone pulpit? Cowards or brilliant strategists? You be the judge.
Photo Credit/Caption: Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, second from left, and his wife Dottie Sandusky arrive for a preliminary hearing at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >>]
Today, Dec. 9, 2011, a New Haven jury recommended that Joshua Komisarjevsky be sentenced to death by lethal injection for the 2007 murders of sisters Michaela, 11, and Hayley Petit, 17, and their mother Jennifer Hawke-Petit. Of the 17 counts on which Komisarjevsky was convicted, six carried the potential for a death sentence. The jury applied the death penalty on all six counts.
Komisarjevsky and co-defendant Steven Hayes were convicted separately in the attack on the Petit family that left Dr. William Petit critically injured. Komisarjevsky and Hayes were alleged to have raped Michaela and her mother and then set all three bound women on fire, first dousing them with gasoline. Defense counsel argued that head trauma from an auto accident, the death of a grandparent, the potential for psychological damage to Komisarjevsky’s daughter and sexual abuse Komisarjevsky endured as a child were mitigating factors in the crimes; therefore, the defendant should not be held fully accountable for his actions. The various traumas, physical and psychological, injured the defendant permanently; hence, the death penalty should not apply as his culpability in the crimes was diminished.
To better understand exactly what the defense offered on behalf of Komisarjevsky, a few terms should be understood. First, the prosecution must show that aggravating circumstances are present for the crimes to be punishable by the death. Aggravating circumstances include murder by torture or by a particularly heinous or depraved act, multiple murders, or the murder of a child (among others). And indeed this was what the prosecution alleged during the penalty phase of the trial. On the other hand, defense counsel was faced with providing mitigating circumstances, meaning reasons the jury should lessen the prescribed penalty, and this is where the law often gets murky regarding what a jury can or cannot hear. Judges are most often quite open to broad defense arguments of mitigating circumstances rather than risk having a death penalty decision overturned by an appellate court. In other words, death penalty juries are almost certain to hear a wealth of information that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. However, there is significant precedent law that says an abused past of a defendant charged with a capital crime must be considered by the jury making the penalty decision.
Normally, a mitigating circumstance indicates that the defendant did not participate in the whole commission of the crime (but rather some insignificant part), or in some way assisted the police in solving the crime. Additionally, it could mean that the defendant's youth, diminished mental capacity, or a history of childhood abuse might be considered by the jury in deliberating punishment in a capital case. Komisarjevsky was abused as a youth, argued the defense, and there was some evidence to support this; however, Komisarjevsky was also a sexual predator according to his sister who also was one of his young victims over the course of several years. The defense strategy was to resurrect this abuse as evidence of Komisarjevsky’s past as a mitigating factor to be considered by the jury in sentencing; however, in so doing, the defense better illustrated that Komisarjevsky was a predator, not the prey.
Raising the issue over Komisarjevsky’s grandmother was puzzling, not to mention irrelevant to the issue of mitigating circumstances. Nearly everyone on the planet first experiences the death of a loved one with the passing of a grandparent. To the best of my understanding, there is no literature, no competent research at all, to suggest that the death of a grandparent is causal in the development of a homicidal personality. And there is also the defense contention that a bump on the head received by Komisarjevsky in a car accident as a youth diminished his capacity to reason. But to suggest diminished capacity is far short of proving it, and a mere suggestion is short of the mark in an affirmative defense. Then again, it’s often amazing what a jury will believe.
In a video recorded interview played for jurors in the penalty phase of Joshua Komisarjevsky’s murder trial, the defendant’s 9-year-old daughter answered questions posed by a social worker. The child’s interview was punctuated with laughter and play, and the purpose of it all often was hard to discern. Only about 20 minutes of the nearly hour-long interview were shown to the jury and only two minutes regarded Komisarjevsky, who the child calls “nana’s son.” She spoke of him as she would have if Komisarjevsky was a distant relative that she used to know. But everyone in the courtroom who heard the testimony understood that the purpose of it all was to suggest that to sentence convicted multiple murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky to death would be the same as sentencing this bright, laughing little girl to a life of misery.
Oddly enough, it was Komisarjevsky himself who objected to his daughter’s testimony. In a statement to the judge, Komisarjevsky pointed out that his daughter may be singled out and bullied for being his daughter, that her life would be a tortuous journey in the shadow of her father’s heinous acts. Defense attorneys pointed out that the execution of Komisarjevsky would not be for many years; and so, the child would grow up in the uncertainty of the pending death of her own father at the hands of the state. And that surely would be a reason not to execute Komisarjevsky.
But Komisarjevsky missed a great deal of the child’s life, having done quite a bit of prison time and only saw his daughter on occasional visiting days. Additionally, her alleged drug-abusing mother apparently was little help in rearing the child, spending time locked up in a psychiatric institution. While Komisarjevsky was imprisoned for burglary he successfully petitioned for custody of his daughter on his release, taking the child from her mother. For the most part, Komisarjevsky’s daughter was reared by her maternal grandparents and, given the character of the child in the interview, apparently they did a very nice job sheltering her from the self-made domestic disasters of her parents.
The defense managed the penalty phase with a “throw it all against the wall and see what sticks” approach. They suggested that convicted accomplice Steven Hayes was the driving force who took a simple, workaday burglar like Komisarjevsky and turned him into a murderer; therefore, Komisarjevsky isn’t fully culpable in murdering the Petit family. Komisarjevsky allegedly was raised by religious zealots and sexually abused as a child; therefore, it’s someone else’s fault that he raped and murdered the Petit family. Komisarjevsky was thinking about getting a job and talked about getting a job; therefore, Komisarjevsky was on the brink of rehabilitation when Hayes lured him back into a life of crime. Once again, Komisarjevsky isn’t fully culpable and shouldn’t be sentenced to death. And finally, if Komisarjevsky was sentenced to death, it would ruin the life of a poor little girl. But the recorded interview of the child demonstrated rather well that Komisarjevsky and his daughter were not a tight knit pair and rarely had contact. For the defense, this was a problem.
For Komisarjevsky’s defense team to play the recorded interview for the jury, presuming that they actually viewed it before playing it in court, they surely must have understood that it all might backfire. With no clear emotional tie between the father and daughter, indeed the jury might feel less compassionate toward Komisarjevsky than the defense might hope. Another downside for the defense was patently obvious: the child Komisarjevsky raped and murdered, little Michaela Petit, was about the same age as his own daughter and the vision of Komisarjevsky’s happy, bright little girl will be stuck in the jury’s collective conscience. Surely the jury can do the math.
[ 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 the Penn State sex scandal. Read her Bio >> ]
Accused child molester Jerry Sandusky has come up with the funds to get out of jail. Using $200,000 dollars in real estate holdings and a check for $50,000 from his wife Dorothy (more on her later) Sandusky will be able to go home—but his freedom won’t be absolute.
There are conditions attached—such as electronic monitoring. And he’s not permitted to have any contact with victims or witnesses either. ( I wish the order read that he can’t be near ANY CHILDREN).
In the wake of allegations from two new accusers, the charges against Sandusky are mounting. He faces more than 50 counts and will be in court next Tuesday for a preliminary hearing.
One accuser says Sandusky plied him with alcohol. The other alleges that while he was being assaulted in Sandusky’s basement, he screamed for help but no one came.
Sandusky of course insists it was all just horseplay…..
Photo Caption/Credit: This Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011 photo provided by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General shows former Penn State football defensive coordinator Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky. Sandusky is charged with sexually abusing eight young men. Also, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and Penn State vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, 62, are expected to turn themselves in on Monday in Harrisburg, Pa., on charges of perjury and failure to report under PennsylvaniaÌs child protective services law in connection with the investigation into the abuse allegations against Sandusky. (credit: AP Photo/Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General)
[ 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 the Penn State sex scandal. Read her Bio >> ]
Jerry Sandusky is back in handcuffs today, rearrested and charged with additional counts of sexual assault. Two new alleged victims told the Grand Jury they too met Sandusky through hischarity, The Second Mile. One of the accusers said the assault took place as recently as 2004.The other in 1997.
The slew of new charges, added to the 40 he already faces, include involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors.
Get ready to be dizzy with disgust regarding details of the alleged assault on one of the two new victims. It’s graphic. According to the report, “Sandusky also attempted to engage in anal penetration of Victim 9 on at least sixteen occasions and at times did penetrate him”. The victim said that on at least one occasion, while in Sandusky’s basement, he screamed for help, knowing that Sandusky’s wife was upstairs, but no one ever came to help him
Given the ever expanding laundry list of charges, I say any judge would be well within their right to find this man to be a clear and present danger to society and simply deny bail! Or at the very least, set the bail so high, it would be the functional equivalent of no bail. (Assuming Jerry’s financially solvent buddy network doesn’t come to his rescue.) Prosecutors sought a $1million bond, but the judge set it at $250,000. As of this posting, Sandusky was not able to make bail and sits in jail.
And while Sandusky may think his well-placed interviews with various news media are helping his case, all his jabbering about being innocent doesn’t appear to be intimidating his accusers---it’s only serving to incense them.
The floodgates have opened, and accusers are finding strength in numbers. As of now, there are a total of ten.
Meanwhile, if you read my post yesterday, I made the comment that if I saw anyone sexually assaulting a child “I would tackle the creep, scream like a crazy woman and call the cops.”
That statement prompted some of my friends and colleagues to ask themselves the question… ”What would I do?”
So now I pose the question to you. This requires some really honest self-analysis.
Are you the type who simply cannot get involved?
Would you do nothing?
Would you not intervene, but tell someone in a position of authority, such as a teacher, boss or coach?
Would you call the police?
Would you actually intervene?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. There are true consequences to getting involved or becoming a witness. It takes courage and willingness to be raked over the coals by the accused and his or her defenders. One’s reputation can be shredded. There can be a backlash. Think about it.
Back to Sandusky…he’ll be in court next Tuesday for a preliminary hearing. I ask you…should he be resting in the comfort of his own home until then, or should he be denied his freedom given the seriousness of the charges against him?
Photo Caption/Credit: This Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011 photo provided by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General shows former Penn State football defensive coordinator Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky. Sandusky is charged with sexually abusing eight young men. Also, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and Penn State vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz, 62, are expected to turn themselves in on Monday in Harrisburg, Pa., on charges of perjury and failure to report under PennsylvaniaÌs child protective services law in connection with the investigation into the abuse allegations against Sandusky. (credit: AP Photo/Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General)
[ 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 the Penn State sex scandal. Read her Bio >> ]
As more alleged victims come forward, former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky finds himself swimming in an ever widening cesspool of heinous allegations. His attorney Joseph Amendola is denying reports that he will discuss the option of a plea bargain with his client. Amendola is continuing his media attack against the credibility of the accusers.
One of the new alleged victims (not originally part of the criminal investigation) has filed a civil suit claiming Sandusky abused him more than 100 times over a four year period starting when he was ten years old. Equally sickening, the accuser claims Sandusky threatened to harm his family if he ever told. That’s standard operating procedure for child sex predators according to famed Los Angeles attorney, Robin Sax. As a former sex crimes prosecutor, she knows the perpetrators method of operation. “There are two main ways to gain entrance and access to kids.
The first is to groom the victim through kindness, love, gifts and empty promises. The other is through fear, threats and blackmail. The predator uses them both and keeps the child conflicted”, says Sax.”
Sax is concerned about the timing of the newest accuser’s civil suit against Sandusky. “He’s certainly entitled to pursuit a civil lawsuit, but seeking monetary damage now has the potential to send the wrong message in a case that is an example of prolific, long term sexual abuse. Sax believes the criminal case against Sandusky is solid and worries a civil suit at this point might muddy the waters.
Leonard Levine, one of L.A.’s most successful sex crimes defense attorneys says a civil suit filed now can work against the alleged victim. “Every victim of alleged sexual molestation has a right to seek civil damages, but when it’s done prior to the conclusion of a criminal prosecution, it provides the defense with a claim that the accuser was motivated by financial gain and may be fabricating some or all of the allegations. The motives are less questionable if he agrees to become part of the criminal case and allows his allegations to be investigated and prosecuted.”
No doubt the alleged victims must prepare themselves for psychological warfare. Last week it was revealed that Jerry Sandusky’s first accuser was apparently bullied so badly for coming forward, he had to leave his high school. When it comes to fallout over the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal my biggest fear has been realized. The alleged victims will be victimized.
Fear, intimidation, smear campaigns, threats, taunting—it’s all part of the tactic and weaponry used in such scandals to crush those who dare to emerge from the secret painful darkness in order to shine the light of truth on their perpetrators.
I don’t know if Sandusky is guilty of any of the allegations against him. But I’ve covered enough of these cases to know what’s coming down the pike.
When I heard the former coach’s measured, seemingly emotionless response to Bob Costas’ brilliant questioning, I could feel a wave of dread pass over me. Why in the world would he speak to the media? Well, consider it the start of a well-crafted public relations campaign. Get into people’s living rooms. Call the vile allegations a matter of just “horsing around” with the kids. Discredit the whistleblower.
Today, Amendola is using terms like “jumping on the bandwagon” to describe those who are just now coming forward. Sure, that makes a lot of sense. Fabricate some lies and false accusations, subject yourself to public humiliation and private ruination, get bullied, harassed and flogged…all for the sake of “jumping on the bandwagon”. But renowned attorney Thomas Mesereau, who successfully defended Michael Jackson against child molestation charges challenges my cynicism. He says these kinds of cases, when leaked to the public “whip up a frenzy” and open up a “Pandora’s Box of false accusations.”
I suppose Sandusky could argue that public access to the grand jury report is damaging to him—and that he has the right to defend himself in the same public arena. But Sandusky is part of what one might consider a bullet-proof machine and my fear is that the truth seekers will be blocked by the impenetrable two headed monster of denial and cover-up.
A MODERN DAY DAVID VS GOLIATH:
One might consider the case against Sandusky and the two Penn State top officials who are accused of lying, a modern day David and Goliath. The machine (Penn State) is flush with money, power, influence and prestige—a powerful defensive line—capable of rolling over an intimidated offense.
I read an article recently about Joe Paterno’s extraordinary rule at Penn State. The former vice-president for student affairs, Vicky Triponey says she did battle with the coach over disciplinary issues involving his players. She claims he interfered in her probes and demanded and got favorable treatment for the team. It was a battle of wills and she was ultimately forced to resign. Football reigns supreme. Everything for the sake of the “program.”
I know this world. I grew up in football crazed Columbus, Ohio and graduated from The Ohio State University. We all knew the players lived in their own sovereign universe—with their own set of rules. Oh well, we shrugged… it was beloved BUCKEYE FOOTBALL after all. Scarlet and Gray all the way!
I can tell you this…if I had witnessed anyone in the pigskin hierarchy (or anyone else for that matter) violating a child, I would have tackled the creep, screamed like a crazy woman and called the cops. I know that’s easy for me to say—the proverbial armchair quarterback statement—but I’m pretty sure my outrage would supersede my love of the Buckeyes.
I am heartened by the fact that Penn State president Rodney Erickson promised yesterday that the university would raise the standard of ethics “to a new level”. The school is also pledging $1.5 million dollars to sex crimes advocacy organizations.
Jerry Sandusky and the alleged co-conspirators deserve media fairness and their day in court. But today I implore Penn State to allow transparency to prevail. That’s the only way to recover from the media beating your school has taken. Plus…it’s the right thing to do.
And most importantly, I implore the alleged victims to not buckle under any circumstances.
It’s going to be painful, emotionally searing, devastating, soul crunching and life-altering. But imagine what is to be gained by speaking up not just for yourselves, but for the millions who suffer in silence and need to hear your voices.
Barbara Dorris, who is a victim of child sexual assault, now runs the victim’s outreach program for SNAP. (The Survivors Network of those abused by Priests.) She tells me the phones have been ringing off the hook in support of Sandusky’s alleged victims. “It’s important for survivors to protect others. They want to do something”, says Dorris. But Dorris is convinced there are countless silent witnesses who were “in the know” at Penn State and need to speak up. “We can’t put it all on the victim’s. We need witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. Without their cooperation nothing changes and these kids who need help are trapped into being silent.”
ABUSE STATISTICS:
If you haven’t already heard the horrifying government statistics, ponder this: between one in four girls will be sexually abused by the age of 18. For boys, it’s one in six. Those statistics are more than likely low because they don’t take into consideration the countless victims who will never find the courage to report.
When I was a correspondent with “America’s Most Wanted” I interviewed a young convict who had molested over 100 boys by the time he was 21. He told me he preyed on “sad kids with slumped shoulders”, kids who needed a friend or mentor. He told me how easy it was to get past unsuspecting parents who had no idea what clues to look for when their children were being abused.
I also interviewed a former county sheriff who molested all five of his children…in the presence of his wife. Fifty percent of child sex abusers are married! There are all kinds of reasons why spouses don’t rat out the abusers. Some are legitimately fooled. But in many cases says San Francisco clinical psychologist Dr. Carol Walser, “they are putting themselves above their child. They don’t want to threaten the stability and togetherness of the family, so they sacrifice their abused child to protect their own security. It is self-serving.” In my mind, that’s being an accessory to a crime. There’s just no excuse for looking the other way. The deniers are just as guilty as the perpetrators if you ask me.
So today, we’ve got a plethora of investigations into the Penn State scandal. Former FBI director Louis Freeh is heading up the schools internal investigation. There’s the NCAA, the State Attorney General and the federal Department of Education probes. Not good enough. I want more. I want the FBI on this. A big machine with as much firepower as Penn State.
Accuser number one may have been bullied at school and that breaks my heart and fills me with anger, but according to his mom, he has no intention of backing down from his story. Remember, the truth is your slingshot. If you are telling the truth, the giant will be slayed!
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]
With the recent convictions of Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky for the brutal 2007 murders of Michaela and Hayley Petit and their mother Jennifer Hawke-Petit in New Haven, Conn., one might speculate how frequent or rare are crimes such as these? The simple answer is that, although the stark brutality of the Petit family murder case is unusual, pairs who murder are not rare at all.
The 1959 murders of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, closely parallels the Petit family massacre in several ways. To begin with, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who murdered four members of the Clutter family, met in prison; Komisarjevsky and Hayes met in a halfway house after serving prison sentences. All four killers were on parole at the time of their crimes. Smith & Hickock and Hayes & Komisarjevsky burglarized their victims’ homes before killing those inside. Both pairs raped or considered rape, recalling that Hickock was about to rape Nancy Clutter but Smith stopped him. Smith later shotgunned the girl in the head. Both Komisarjevsky and Hayes raped their victims.
Smith & Hickock and Hayes & Komisarjevsky each bound their victims before murdering them and separated them from each other as well. All suspects brought a murder weapon to the crime, but Hayes & Komisarjevsky burned their victims alive, not using the pistol. All of the suspects were considered predators before the murders that brought them to prominence and, since his recent conviction, Hayes is alleged to have confessed to being a serial killer. His claims are not improbable.
In 1924, University of Chicago law students Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in an attempt to commit the perfect crime. Believing themselves to belong to a superior race, Leopold and Loeb lured Franks into a car and bludgeoned the boy to death to defeat the system, to literally get away with murder. Convicted in a sensational trial, Leopold and Loeb proved to the world that they were mere cheap thrill killers, nothing more and certainly not supermen.
Another pair of spree killers were Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, who in 1957 to 1958 murdered 11 victims in a line that stretched across five states. Like Leopold and Loeb decades before, Starkweather related that after his first murder he had reached a new plane of existence that made him above and outside the law.** Although Fugate’s participation in the murders is still uncertain a half century later, Starkweather claims to have killed for his girlfriend, including murdering Fugate’s mother, stepfather and infant stepsister. Starkweather was executed in 1959 and Fugate was paroled in 1976.
In the 1960s, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady kidnapped, raped and murdered five children from Manchester, England, and buried their victims in a nearby moor. The couple often returned to the grave sites and would have sex atop the buried children’s corpses. Like Leopold and Loeb, Brady viewed himself as a superman, a master criminal who couldn’t be held to the same standards as common men. The couple was arrested in 1966 and maintained their innocence until more than 20 years after their convictions.
Fellow Britons Fred and Rosemary West murdered 10 women in Gloucestershire, U.K., in the late 20th century. Typically, they would lure women waiting at bus stops into their car and take them home to be tortured and murdered. Fred committed suicide while awaiting trial and Rosemary was convicted of murder in 1995 and is now serving a life sentence.
Over a five month period in 1979, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered five women along California’s Pacific Coast Highway. The pair met in prison and continued their relationship once out on parole and were finally arrested after bragging about their crimes to a fellow former inmate.
Truman Capote once speculated that neither Perry Smith nor Richard Hickock were capable of committing murder alone; however, when together the pair formed a third personality, a psychopathic personality, that was homicidal. Hayes recently complained that Komisarjevsky was a poor accomplice and likely Hayes would have killed him soon if they hadn’t been arrested. Komisarjevsky was not brutal enough and didn’t measure up to Hayes’ superior standard, it appears. Perhaps this pseudo-superman phenomenon is more frequent than science has considered and when two criminal personalities merge the outcome is predictable. And, surely, such unholy alliances can have deadly consequences.
** [1] I have some doubts about the attribution of Starkweather’s statement, although it has been attributed to him in many publications. However, by all accounts Starkweather was a dullard and likely not given to reflection about his “plane of existence.”
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]
Joshua Komisarjevsky has been found guilty of 17 criminal counts including Capital Murder at his trial in a New Haven, Connecticut, court. After the jury sorted through mounds of grisly evidence, including a detailed, taped confession, Komisarjevsky now faces the death penalty. Co-defendant Steven Hayes was found guilty of Capital Murder nearly a year ago and sentenced to death in the July 2007 murders of a mother and her two children in suburban Cheshire, Conn. Komisarjevsky, alleged to be Hayes’ accomplice, is accused of tying Petit sisters Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, to their beds, sexually assaulting one child and then pouring gasoline over both before setting the house ablaze. Hayes is alleged to have raped and strangled the mother, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, in her bedroom. Dr. William Petit had been brutally bludgeoned and left to die in the basement of his suburban New Haven home but managed to escape. Hayes later complained that he was surprised Petit escaped because he believed that he had tied him well.
In the aftermath of these gruesome crimes, activists (predictably) reared their heads in protest. Calls for gun control, extended parole periods (both defendants have prior convictions for burglary) and a general call for stricter treatment of criminals were loudly demanded and all were dutifully noted in the press. Indeed, it is a natural thing for people to look for something or someone to blame in the wake of crimes such as these: the criminal justice system is to blame; there ought to be a law; if only the police had done this or that differently. But no law would have stopped this, no regulation, no procedure. No law could have stopped this. It is beyond common sense that any who callously rape and mass murder will have much regard for legal nuance. Still, in a crime so appalling it is not surprising that the general public is overwhelmed and demands an explanation.
Often criminologists in varied sub-disciplines weigh in on crime causation in aberrations such as the Cheshire murders and collectively find themselves stumbling for a suitable explanation. Psychologists will call it sociopathy; sociologists might suggest an upbringing by a loveless mother; economists will suggest impoverished desperation; and the police will suggest drugs, as they always do. Not to say that these are necessarily bad explanations, but in all fairness it is likely that no single explanation will suffice.
Criminologists are asked to identify the causes of crime, ostensibly so that society can devise solutions to stop or reduce its frequency. But nearly all criminologists (that I’ve met, at least) agree that the real causes of crime are beyond institutional control, including legal institutions such as courts or legislatures. And that leads to a very unsatisfying conclusion. I don’t know why the Petit family was attacked, it just doesn’t make sense; however, I do know there is little if anything that any of us can do about it. Deliberations regarding Komisarjevsky’s fate begin Oct. 24.
The Betrayal: Corey Brown seemed to be a doting husband; he’d leave love notes for his wife and make her breakfast in bed. But when Brown’s wife left in the evenings to work a nightshift, he turned his affection towards two of his daughters, who he abused, sexually, mentally and physically.
The Break: Corey Brown’s wife received a call from school officials to come in to pick-up her 9-year-old daughter. When she arrived, she knew something was wrong; that her daughter had been hurt. But it was a bigger nightmare to learn that the man hurting her daughter was not someone from the outside, but a devil she knew very well: her own husband.
Brown claimed he let his relationship with his daughters get out of control; it changed from playful tickling and teasing to nights spent in his room. His wife knew he had an interest in pornography, but his background check had cleared before their marriage, and she never suspected anything sinister.
At sentencing, Judge Nancy Schneider charged Brown with 14 felony counts, which total two life sentences plus 30 years.
"Never in their lives will they ever have to deal directly with you again, but they will be dealing with the effects of what you've done to them all their lives," [Schneider] told Brown.
[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."
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.
[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.
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.
[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.”
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.
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]
The sunny, hot Sunday aboard the Newport Harbor tour boat was interrupted by a loud argument between a man and a woman, and the crying of a frightened little 7-year-old boy. Sloane Briles, 35, of Irvine, Calif., walked away from the fight with his girlfriend toward the front of the boat and the tyke followed him. It was then that, according to witnesses, Briles struck the child several times, telling him to stop crying. And now the boy, who had been terrified because daddy was fighting, was now crying because he had been struck. “Stop crying or I’ll throw you overboard,” the crowd heard Briles threaten. Doubtless, the child couldn’t have stopped crying if he wanted to. According to law enforcement, the father of this terrified, injured little boy threw him from the moving boat into Newport Harbor.
Nearby boats immediately came to the child’s rescue, saving his life. After the child had been pulled to safety the father jumped into the water to save his son. And with that somewhat belatedly heroic act, he demonstrated that he knew that throwing his son into the harbor was inherently dangerous with potentially lethal consequences. Being able to stop for a moment to speculate, one might wonder what exactly the father had intended his next move to be having thrown his injured and crying son into the harbor. I suspect we’ll never know. Surely we can all be grateful for the quick actions of nearby Good Samaritans for saving the boy.
After the suspect wrestled with local sheriff’s deputies, he was charged with Child Endangerment and Resisting Arrest. Child Endangerment in California can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances surrounding the crime. Or, if we might discuss this matter frankly, the District Attorney’s office has the ability to charge high and plea low. Briles, the father of the victim in this matter, may be charged with a felony and later plea bargain to the lesser misdemeanor. According to law enforcement, daddy had been drinking before arguing with his girlfriend, throwing his son overboard and fighting the deputies. Those of us with some courtroom experience anticipate that Briles will receive a misdemeanor conviction for Child Endangerment, the Resisting Arrest charge will be dropped and probation will be assigned to the defendant with an Alcoholics Anonymous program requirement attached.
It comes to mind that this result falls far short of most peoples’ sensibilities regarding what exactly “justice” should be. A hundred years ago, one man who did the same thing to another might be hanged, for one extreme example. But we are more enlightened nowadays and when an adult endangers the life of a child, our courts often do what they can to be magnanimous – to the offender, not the victim. It would be nice to think that as this unfortunate child grows up, he will continue to be surrounded by Good Samaritans watching over and protecting him. And, let’s share the same wish for many other children too, because sadly the courts offer little protection at all.
[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.”
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.
[ Aphrodite Jones gives her perspective on the release of the West Memphis Three. Check in for her regular reports. Read her Bio >> ]
As I see it, the power of media, and of social media, had a direct hand in changing the fate of the West Memphis Three. When the landmark deal was signed in the Arkansas judicial system last week, somehow, thousands of us played a role in helping three falsely accused teens find a form of justice. The notorious WM3 ended up making an unusual plea deal, pleading guilty to triple homicide in exchange for their freedom. It's perhaps a sour victory for the three boys, now men -- but now, after years and years of fighting, they are no longer behind bars. Who knows what the three young men, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley Jr., will do with their new-found freedom? It must seem surreal for them to be on the outside, having spent so many years in prison, falsely accused ... Their new-found freedom will be difficult, no doubt.
Still, if it weren't for the two HBO documentaries that chronicled their case, which ultimately caught the eye of Hollywood and the likes of Johnny Depp and Natalie Maines (of the Dixie Chicks), I'm not sure this injustice would have ever been corrected. I truly believe that the media -- the highlighting of the case on CNN and other news sources -- along with the push from so many voices in social media, helped land this case under review in the State of Arkansas Supreme Court.
How far away we are now from 1993, when Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley Jr., were charged with a mysterious slaying of three 8-year-old boys who were slaughtered, hog-tied and buried in the back waters of Arkansas. In the early 1990s, when the boys' bodies were discovered, people in the small town of West Memphis believed that the three teens were "acting out" a satanic cult killing by sacrificing three 8-year-olds. Fueled by local news sensationalism, a "satanic panic" set in and West Memphis investigators built a triple homicide case around bogus claims of black magic and a flimsy "coerced" confession from Jesse Misskelley Jr. Two separate trials resulted a death penalty conviction for Damien Echols and lifetime prison sentences for Misskelley and Baldwin.
Yes, the plea deal struck last week was shocking -- especially since the three men accused were asked to plead guilty to murders that they did not commit. Let us never forget that the real killer of these three little Cub Scouts still walks free -- and that three victims' families may never get any real answers or any form of closure.
But for the WM3, this was a compromise that allowed a most unusual form of justice to be served. For those who fought to free the West Memphis Three, this victory may taste slightly bitter but for me, it tastes very bittersweet.
Three men convicted of beating, mutilating and murdering three 8-year-old boys in 1993 were freed from prison today, after submitting new pleas in their case. They served 18 years.
Using the Alford plea, a rare legal maneuver, Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley Jr., dubbed the 'West Memphis 3', changed their original plea from not guilty to guilty -- with this tactic, they maintained their innocence but acknowledged the prosecution had enough evidence to convict them.
Craighead County Circuit Judge David Laser changed their sentence to the served 18 years and a 10-year suspended sentence, which means they could return to jail with any future violation of the law.
According to CNN, Baldwin did not want to accept the deal but finally agreed to change their plea to guilty to help release Echols from death row. "This was not justice," he told CNN. "He had it so much worse than I had it ... It's just insufferable to put a person through that."
Baldwin, Echols and Misskelley were found guilty of murdering three Cub Scouts in a satanic worship ritual. Police discovered the bodies of the children in a ditch in West Memphis, Ark., on May 6, 1993. Steven Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore had been bound and one of the boys appeared to have been castrated.
An HBO documentary, Paradise Lost, which aired in 1996, elevated the case and drew national attention, including support for the three from a number of celebrities.
In 2007, attorneys for the men submitted new evidence that identified DNA present at the scene but did not match any of the convicted threesome.
Watch Aphrodite Jones' original report on the case:
Eighteen years after the bodies of his son and two young friends were found, John Mark Beyers shares the moment that he realized something was terribly wrong:
[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 Sentinelarticle 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.”
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.
[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.
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.
[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.
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.
[ By Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan, a criminologist at California State University. Read his Bio >> ]
Warren Jeffs, former FBI Top Ten Fugitive and president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was convicted on Aug. 4, 2011, of sexually assaulting two children, 12- and 14 year-old girls. The victims were alleged to be two of polygamist Jeffs’ “spiritual wives.” He was charged under Texas law with felony bigamy, aggravated sexual assault and assault. In his defense, Jeffs and FLDS members have argued that Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith once married a 14-year-old child; therefore, marrying children in polygamous relationships surely must be permissible as a matter of religious freedom. But not so, according to the Mormon Church that (minimally) outlawed polygamy in the late 19th century. Nevertheless, polygamy remains the least prosecuted felony in Utah.
Jeffs’ sexual assault on two children in Texas is somewhat different than the 2004 incestuous homosexual sodomy that he was accused of in a Utah civil action involving his 5-year-old nephew; however, the statute of limitations had expired and barred criminal prosecution. In a later criminal trial Jeffs was found guilty of rape but the 2007 convictions were overturned and later dismissed by Utah state prosecutors with prejudice. In other words, Jeffs couldn’t be retried for the rape, even though the appellate retrial order regarded only improper jury instructions. Apparently in Utah, there is an exception for prosecuting the sexual misconduct of prophets.
In an Oedipal twist, among Jeffs’ spiritual wives (numbering nearly 80 at last count), are the widows of his late father. Whilst enjoying the spousal company of his father’s widows or his own wives or perhaps the company of his child brides, as FLDS president he also has arranged and rearranged marriages for others, whether they consented or not, even allegedly taking the wives and children of one husband and giving them all to another. This practice has included the forced marriage of children.
Examining this case, one can’t help but wonder where are the parents of these children, those who should defend their daughters from all that can harm them, mom and dad who should tuck them in at night with stuffed animals in tow and keeping them distant from harm? Is it possible that the mothers of the Texas victims willingly and knowingly offered up their daughters to this madman to be raped? The very unsettling answer is most likely yes. Indeed, what kind of parent would give up their own 12- or 14-year-old child to marry a convicted rapist, a pedophile; therefore, it seems appropriate there must be another level of prosecution in this case. And one might wonder too why Jeffs and his cronies have been given government-issued child abuse get-out-of-jail-free passes for so long. With hope, those days may be finished and raping in the name of God will be prosecuted in Utah.
Since the FLDS was founded more than 70 years ago, the sexual exploitation of children within the organization has become institutionalized. Perhaps in the end we all should be grateful that they don’t participate in religious offerings of human sacrifice. Then again, in a sense maybe they do.
[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]
ORLANDO, Fla. – Casey Anthony’s probation is on hold following an Aug. 5 emergency hearing to address the complex legal issue and Anthony will not learn whether she must serve a year’s probation before Aug. 10.
Although Casey Anthony was not present at the Aug. 5 hearing that may have a significant impact on her life as a free citizen, the court action to determine whether the newly acquitted 25-year-old woman will add “probationer” to her single-job resume depends on Judge Perry, who heard arguments from Jose Baez and fledgling attorney, Lizabeth Frye for the defense and from Frank George, who represented the state’s interests. Although both prosecution and defense cited numerous prior Florida cases that dealt with probation served during inmate incarceration for separate crimes — in Anthony’s case, the crimes were check fraud and alleged capital murder — Judge Perry says he will have to research further before issuing a ruling.
After hearing both sides, the outwardly composed Judge Perry admitted, “It’s a mess. There are no clear-cut answers.”
Exuding all the ease and confidence from his recent and spectacular victory in Casey Anthony’s acquittal, lead attorney Jose Baez presented the morning hearing’s first witness, who testified by speaker phone.
Anthony Received ‘Regular’ Probation Officer Visits While Jailed
Department of Corrections supervisor Susan Finigan testified that Casey Anthony received regular visits in jail from a probation supervisor, who confirmed that a probation officer “monitored” Anthony.
Finigan provided that it is uncommon for people to serve probation in jail, unless those individuals have cases on different court schedules.
"Scrivener’s Error"
Casey Anthony’s latest dilemma arose from a separate criminal case, in which she pled guilty to check fraud. Anthony stole her friend Amy Huizenga’s checkbook and depleted Huizenga’s bank account to fund scores of shopping trips to local stores, where store surveillance videotapes captured her buying food, sundries and beer for her boyfriend and his roommates, and lingerie and female sportswear, presumably for herself.
With groceries bagged and check charges wrapped up, the Aug. 5 hearing’s buzz term, "scrivener’s error" — meaning, a clerical mistake — helped to focus on the current issue before Judge Perry.
Legally, a scrivener’s error can relate to an order that caused a wrong result or outcome. If the issue involving Judge Strickland — in this case, whether Anthony served probation for her check fraud convictions while she was in jail and awaiting the murder trial — is a bona fide scrivener’s error, a judge can re-issue a corrected or clearer version of his intent.
Judge Strickland exercised that privilege, says the state, when he learned that Anthony regularly had been being visited in jail by a probation officer.
While defense attorney Frye argued that Anthony had served probation in jail and that Strickland was “disqualified,” the state countered that very few probation requirements were met.
Judge Perry reviewed Strickland’s sentencing and agreed that the judge intended for Anthony to serve her probation upon release from jail.
Predictably, the likelihood that administrative probation would cure the issue surfaced in the hearing. It is certain that both prosecution and defense met before the hearing, and came to an agreement that should Judge Perry uphold Judge Strickland’s ruling, Anthony’s probation could be supervised individually — by Perry, or possibly, by an appointee.
Administrative probation would satisfy both the aims of probation and more realistically but unsaid, the compromise also might calm the still outraged public following Anthony’s shocking acquittal for the killing of her two-year-old daughter Caylee.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia determined the child’s 2008 death was a homicide by undetermined means and unknown cause of death.
A final decision on whether Casey Anthony will serve probation could come from Judge Perry within days.
After both sides presented their arguments, Judge Perry posed a rhetorical question. He asked the assembly, “Can a judge correct a scrivener’s error? ... This is not a clear, black and white error,” Perry observed.
[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.
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.
[This article is by contributing writer Ivy Bigbee. She is a Washington, D.C.-based writer.]
West Stewartstown, N.H. – A post mortem examination of the body of Celina Cass has yielded no clues as to cause and manner of death, authorities said during an Aug. 2 press conference held at the small community located at the northern tip of the state.
Victim Last Seen on Evening of July 25
Eleven-year-old Cass, who lived with her older sister, mother and stepfather a mile from the Canadian border, was last seen using her home computer around 9 p.m. on July 25 and was missing the next morning, according to her stepfather, Wendell Noyes.
Body Discovered
On Aug. 2, a New Hampshire Fish and Game diver discovered the fifth grader’s body in water at a dam on the Connecticut River, within a quarter-mile of the family’s residence. That Celina Cass’ remains were located so near her house is a factor that could be significant to investigators.
Numerous law enforcement agencies had helped to search for her, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont state police, the FBI and U.S. Border Patrol.
After Cass’ body was recovered, for the second time, police returned to investigate the girl’s residence, where authorities found no signs of a struggle, no indication she ran away or that someone kidnapped her.
“We have made no determination on where her body was initially put in the river,' said Jane E. Young, New Hampshire’s Assistant Attorney General.
Young also would not say whether there were any suspects in the girl's death, nor would she divulge how long the 11-year-old girl’s body had been in the river. Authorities do provide that Celina Cass’ death appears to be “suspicious,” prior to her body undergoing postmortem examination.
A final ruling on the cause and manner of death cannot be determined until medical examiners review toxicology tests, which are pending. Additional investigations are proceeding as well.
More Information to Come
More details should arise from the screens routinely ordered following sudden or suspicious deaths; there are in fact nine different toxicology tests available to medical examiners.
In what tragically came to be her final year of life, Celina Cass, who reportedly was very shy, was a well-liked fifth grader at a small community school in her northern New Hampshire hamlet, whose population according to the 2010 Census was 386.
Victim’s Stepfather Has Mental Illness History
Among West Stewartstown’s few inhabitants is Celina Cass’ stepfather, Wendell Noyes, who was rushed by ambulance to a hospital on Aug. 1, after he lay on the ground and with outstretched arms in front of a house where he was staying after Cass went missing. Noyes’ odd behavior occurred on the same day but before the discovery of his stepdaughter’s body was announced.
According to an ABC News report, Noyes has a history of mental illness and had been medically discharged from the Air Force for that issue. Reportedly "uncooperative" when the police questioned him, the network also reported that the man previously had been committed involuntarily; during his hospital admission, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Noyes’ 2003 committal followed an incident concerning threats of violence he expressed against a former girlfriend.
ABC’s “Nightline” reported on July 28 that due to his mental diagnosis, Noyes was ruled incompetent to face charges brought by his ex-girlfriend, who accused him of breaking into her house as she and her children slept.
Biological Father: Celina ‘Very Kind in Spirit’
Meanwhile, the biological father of Celina Cass expressed confusion over his daughter’s death. Interviewed on CNN, Adam Laro said, “That’s the thing that puzzles me. I can’t see why someone would want to do that to my daughter. She was very kind in spirit.”
Laro has said that during a recent visit to his daughters' house, Celina’s mother told both girls to share their good report cards with their father. He told CNN that Celina was happy living with her mother and stepfather.
Growing Number of Facebook Memorials
Since her body was discovered, numerous Celina Cass memorial accounts on Facebook have appeared; however, the original account — which Cass maintained but was removed on Aug. 3 — listed friends, numerous personal details and the observation that “You can’t stand to live with your family but you can’t stand to live without them.”
[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.
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.
[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.
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.”
[ 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.
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.
[ 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.
[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.
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.
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)
[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.
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.
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)
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.
[ 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.
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.
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)
[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.
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.”
[ 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.
[ 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.
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)
ORLANDO, Fla. -- At 2:15 p.m. EST, Casey Marie Anthony was found not guilty for first-degree murder of her daughter Caylee.
Anthony has been found not guilty on counts one through three; she has been found guilty of counts four through seven, Providing False Information to Law Enforcement. Here are the complete counts and final verdict by the jury:
* 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.
Anthony will return to court on Thursday, July 7, 2011, at 9 a.m. EST for sentencing on charges four through seven.
What do you think? Did the jury make the right decision? Post your opinion in the Comments section below.
Photo Caption: Casey Anthony reacts to being found not guiity on murder charges at the Orange County Courthouse Orlando, Fla. on July 5, 2011. At left is her attorney Jose Baez. (Red Huber, Orlando Sentinel)
[ 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.
[ 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.
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.
[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.”
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.
[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.
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.
[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.”
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.
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)
[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.
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.
[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.
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.
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)
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