Orlando Lawyers Hear New Perspective on Casey Anthony Trial {& O.J. Simpson} Two Trials of the Century

Keith-Long Journalist On Call

Orlando Judges & Lawyers Hear New Evidence From Casey Anthony Trial

Feb 24, 2015 575Views 3Likes 0CommentsShare on LinkedInShare on FacebookShare on Google PlusShare on Twitter

Friday, February 20, Kissimmee, Florida -- I was invited to speak to the Osceola County Bar Association. The prosecutor for the Casey Anthony trial is a member of that Bar near Orlando. In attendance were three judges, several prosecutors, and an over-flow room of interested attorneys and law students. It was a full house. Still you could hear a pin drop throughout my presentation. There were questions from Bar members, and warm applause at my conclusion.

Quotes: "I am burdened by an open mind."

"It was a circumstantial evidence case."

Forensic Psychologist "She is not capable of killing her daughter."

Here are excerpts from the speech: Casey Anthony, a Landmark Success for the American Judiciary.

Thank you for your invitation to present an outline of new evidence from the Casey Anthony trial held in Judge Belvin Perry's courtroom in Orlando, 2011.

Ultimately, a judge establishes the rules for trial in her court, but it’s a jury of citizens who determine guilt or innocence for the accused.

Which brings me to Casey Anthony.

On television everyone saw the same pictures: A single mom who knew her two-year-old child had been killed and never reported it. She didn’t appear to grieve. When her mother called the sheriff to arrest her, she lied to investigators. It seemed assistant prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, spoke for all of us when he said in words the entire country seemed to second: “If a mother doesn’t report the death of her child, she’s guilty.”

Caylee’s death was a tragedy that gripped the nation. Ashton’s comment summarized neatly the theory of prosecutors and he also won the public’s agreement that the young mother’s behavior was damning consciousness of guilt.

In the court of public opinion, the question was asked, “what mother would not report the death of her child, and then go to a nightclub and pose for pictures? How could a mother lie to police about where she worked and make up a story about a fictitious nanny who she said kidnapped Caylee?” It seemed like she didn’t care about her own daughter’s death. Early on in the court of public opinion, it was “case closed.”

The prosecution’s theory was that Casey Anthony tired of being a single mom: she wanted to party. In short, she was a horrible mother, and killed her child for that reason.

I have researched my book exclusively from trial evidence. I read all the prosecution interviews and witness statements several times. In the event, I have grown to admire the prosecutors’ skills. Still, as a writer I have to note there was no evidence in support of that theory. In fact, all the evidence gathered, and it is voluminous, argued the exact opposite.

More than a dozen close friends, many single moms with their own children were interviewed by detectives and asked to describe what they observed in Casey’s relationship with her daughter, Caylee. They volunteered anecdotes of her unique and protective bond with Caylee. They told investigators Casey Anthony was an good mother. They were right.

Before addressing the issue of her behavior after Caylee’s death and consciousness of guilt, let me say for those who recall details of the trial, I will address those issues during Q & A.

Such things as hair banding, an odor of death in the car, and chloroform evidence in the trunk, these are all explained in my book. I can say this: If the sum total of evidence brought against the accused were interpreted in a light most favorable to the state, {a standard the defense does not have to meet} there would still be nothing that ties any of that evidence to the defendant.

It was a circumstantial evidence case. The state’s most important physical evidence related to the car she drove. But the title was not in her name, and her father, George, had his own set of keys and drove the car during the 31 days when Caylee’s disappearance went unreported. It’s a note of some significance that both George and Casey were home when Caylee was killed. It could have been either who removed the body from their home and left her in a swamp only a block away.

For the state in Judge Perry’s court and for the media’s court of public opinion, it was the behavior of the defendant after her child’s death that led to the conviction she must be guilty. If her behavior didn’t demonstrate consciousness of guilt, then what would?

Of course consciousness of guilt behavior, although admissible, is circumstantial and needs corroboration to meet a criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Courts have said the following: “Acts of concealment by an accused are competent to go to the jury as tending to establish guilt, yet they are not to be considered as alone conclusive, or as creating a legal presumption of guilt; they are mere circumstances to be considered and weighed in connection with other proof, with that caution and circumspection which their inconclusiveness when standing alone require.” Hickory v. United States, 160 U.S. 408 (1896).

However, the same court said, “attempts on the part of the accused to suppress evidence, to suggest false and deceptive explanations, and to cast suspicion without just cause on other persons…tend somewhat to prove consciousness of guilt, and when proved exert an influence against the accused.” Hickory v. United States, 160 U.S. 408 (1896) (citing Commonwealth v. Webster, 5 Cush. 295, 316 (1850)).

Another federal court said, “It is truthfully said by learned counsel that there is no standard as to how a defendant upon trial for an infamous crime ought to demean himself; that exhibitions of shame, temperament, and nervous strain are likely to be interpreted as signs of a guilty conscience. The same observation, however, may be made as to a person's demeanor when arrested or suddenly charged with crime. There is no standard as to how a person ought to behave under such circumstances. Conduct will vary according to sex, age, temperament, and past experience. Still demeanor on such occasions has always been held competent evidence as bearing on the question of the defendant's consciousness of guilt. See Waller v. United States, 179 F. 810 (8th Cir. 1910).

So in discussing the Casey Anthony case, it seems important to frame the discussion at the outset by understanding that the state’s case was circumstantial. The essential evidence against the accused was consciousness of guilt behavior after the death of her child. As it turned out all of the state’s evidence in total could have just as easily pointed to another member of the Anthony family.

As noted, my sources are exclusively from trial evidence. In the event, I discovered an explanation for her behavior that argues strongly in support of the jury’s acquittal. I also discovered the identity of the person or persons that withheld information from detectives and wanted her charged with Caylee’s murder.

There were two people home when Caylee was killed: Casey and her father, George. There are three independent sources who said George knew more than he admitted to detectives about Caylee”s death.

As an investigative journalist, I am burdened by an open mind. I don’t find it difficult to consider the possibility that the killer of two-year-old Caylee was some other member of the Anthony family and not Casey.

The acquitted defendant was evaluated and interviewed by nine different forensic psychologists over a two-year period. They reached a consensus that she was not a sociopath, or a psychopath. Whatever else one thinks about her, it is for certain her behavior was a reaction to the traumatic death of her child, Caylee, a death she says was caused by her father.

The nine forensic psychologists reported that there was no DSM-4 category of mental illness that applied to her. One psychologist who had worked on 2000 death penalty cases told a national TV audience on Dr. Drew that she was not capable of killing her daughter. That is also what her friends told detectives. It was simply out of the question for those who knew her, many since she was eight-years-old.

I uncovered new evidence. The most startling is the role that Casey’s mother, Cindy, played in the narrative of this case. There is rich irony in this trial of the century. Nobody liked the defendant {after she was charged}. I found three sources that didn’t want to support her innocence, but were compelled by their commitment to tell the truth and did support her innocence.

First, her friends wanted to distance themselves from her, and were not happy to be in the media’s eye when called in by detectives to be interviewed about the case. However, they eagerly reported she was a good, caring mother.

Second, one of the psychiatrists wanted to be excused from his subpoena to testify about his evaluation of her. He was concerned the media might report he was advocating for her innocence. Prosecutors learned she said her father, George, abused her beginning when she was in third grade, and they asked a top psychiatrist who evaluated her directly if there was any reason he did not believe what she said. He told assistant prosecutor Jeff Ashton, “No, there was no reason not to believe her.”

Third, the jury cried when they realized their decision to acquit would not be understood by their friends and neighbors, but they voted as Judge Perry instructed them anyway. One of the jurors literally was forced out of town when the trial ended because of the public’s reaction to their verdict.

I am sure there are defense attorneys who pray for a jury that can ignore wholesale media attacks on a defendant and deliberate solely from the evidence presented within the four corners of the court room. That is what the Casey Anthony jury did. It was the social media trial of the century, and this jury’s decision stands as a landmark success for the American judiciary. Thank you, and now Q & A...

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