Long Road to Justice for Caylee Anthony

Casey parties after Caylee is gone

by Diane Fanning

This morning, Tuesday at 9 a.m., in an Orange County Courthouse in Orlando, the state of Florida will step to the podium to present the opening arguments in favor of the conviction of Casey Marie Anthony for the murder of her toddler daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony. 

Following that, the defense will present its arguments for a not guilty verdict. Attorney Jose Baez has promised that he will explain why Casey didn't report her daughter missing and answer a lot of other questions in the first three minutes.  Odds are he will claim the death of Caylee was an accident, or he will point the finger of guilt at a member of Casey's immediate family, or perhaps at one of Casey's friends.

The body discovery site

This day of reckoning has been delayed for quite some time. From the moment of Caylee's death in mid-June 2008, her road to justice has been long and full of obstacles. She spent days unnoticed in the trunk of a car driven by her mother, Casey Anthony. She was then dumped in the undergrowth--her location unknown to anyone but her killer.

No one else even knew for nearly five weeks that she was gone.  It was then that her grandmother, Cindy Marie Anthony, reported her missing.  Nearly six months after Caylee was last seen alive, the poor child's decomposed body, with duct tape wrapped around her skull, was found less than half a mile from the Anthony home.

Still, her mother would not admit to what her daughter had done.  She lied again and again and again. Each prevarication more outrageous than the last. And, somehow, Casey seemed to think she would be believed if only she kept lying. 

That string of lies will surely be part of the deliberations of the jury at trial's end.  They'll also consider some controversiaal evidence--the cans of air taken from Casey's car. The defense argued that allowing the jury to smell the contents turns jurors into witnesses. I did not find that argument compelling because it is only a matter of which sense is being invoked. Juries are taken to crime scenes all the time. There they use their eyes to observe. Here the state wants them to use their noses. I can't say that I've seen all that much distance between the two. But as Stacey Dittrich said on the Levi Page Show, the odor from those cans will permeate the area where they are opened. Let's hope for everyone's comfort that they are taken outside to sniff and not expected to smell the odor of decomposition inside a closed space.

Judge Belvin Perry has estimated that the trial will last six to eight weeks.  That length of time seems as optimistic an approximation as his prediction that the jury would be seated in one week; it took twice as long.  Six hundred and forty seven subpoenas have been issued to witnesses--an enormous, time-consuming number. Even if only half of them are called to the stand, it's hard to believe it could be all over before the end of July.  At this point, there is really no way of knowing how long this trial will last.

From June of 2008 until May of 2011 is a long time--nearly three years after Caylee Anthony died. By the time the trial is over, we will be near the date that would have been Caylee's sixth birthday. She's waited a long time for justice. Let's hope Caylee Anthony finds it in the courtroom of Judge Perry.

Diane Fanning is the author of the best-selling Mommy's Little Girl, the only book about the death of Caylee Anthony. Watch for updates about the Anthony case on Diane Fanning's blog, Writing is a Crime,

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Interview with Diane Fanning, Author of Casey Anthony Book

As the jury selection in the Casey Anthony trial came to a screeching halt this week, WCI's own Diane Fanning sat down with us for a question-and-answer session. Diane authored Mommy's Little Girl, a critically acclaimed, serious look into the disappearance of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony. When court adjourned May 18 in the midst of jury selection, Diane shared her insights about the murder that grabbed the nation's attention as Caylee's mother Casey was charged with the death of her little girl.

Q: Diane, what's your take on the difficulty in seating jurors in this case?

DF: The latest is that Judge Belvin Perry suspended jury selection at lunch time on Wednesday, May 18. Many in the jury pool say she's guilty. One potential juror was released because he posted on Facebook that he was writing a book; another, because she admitted watching Nancy Grace's daily TV [case] coverage. 

The Casey Anthony case has received more pre-trial publicity than any case, including the O.J. Simpson trial. Surprisingly, though, Mommy's Little Girl has been the only book published on this case. This widespread publicity has made it difficult to find jurors who have not already reached a conclusion in this case. I think the judge would have had a bit easier time if he had paid attention to the media survey that showed the least media coverage in the state was in the Pensacola area. I think he made a mistake going just 100 miles away in Clearwater for the jury panel.

Q: Do you think the media attention in this case has tainted potential jurors?
 

DF: I think it has had an impact on some, but it is still possible to find people who have not been as absorbed in this case and are still capable of making a decision based on the information presented in the courtroom. Personally, if I were on Casey's defense team, I would challenge strongly for cause against any juror who has read my book.

Q: A cottage industry -- mostly T-shirts with a variety of sayings, good and bad, key chains, coffee mugs -- has exploded. Have you seen anything like this before?

DF: Certainly not to this extent. The products started coming out within a month after Caylee was reported missing by her grandmother, Cindy Anthony. Early products included voodoo dolls with Casey's face on them. Now they are everywhere. The two most common you see are ones that say "Justice for Caylee" and others with "Casey Did It." If I were Casey's parent, I would not be bothered by the former, but I would by the latter.  For some reason, though, it is the "Justice for Caylee" merchandise that has raised the Caseys' ire and legal action.

Q: Given your book, Mommy's Little Girl, and your probe, what is the most damning evidence against Casey?

DF: I do not think the jury can ignore Casey's lies or her behavior after Caylee's disappearance. She partied like a single 21-year-old without a care in the world. She never reported her child missing.  Forensically, I think the combination of the testing in the trunk of her car, the anecdotal remarks like the spontaneous utterance of Cindy Anthony ("It smells like a dead body in that car") and the response of the cadaver dogs definitely placed the blame for the death on Casey. The duct tape around Caylee's skull proves murder with malice. Casey's computer searches on ways to kill a child months before Caylee's death seal the premeditation.

Q: As Casey sits through the jury selection process each day, she fusses with her hair, flexes her hands, smiles and jokes with her team of attorneys. What do you make of her behavior?

DF: She is obsessed with herself and she is nervous. Can you imagine sitting in a courtroom looking into the faces of people who say to the court they are capable of sentencing you to death? Casey's stress must be over the top, as well it should be for any guilty person.

Q: Cindy and George lost their granddaughter, but, with the trial and a possible conviction, they face losing their only daughter, should the death penalty be handed down. Do you think that's why they're supporting Casey?
 

DF: They should not abandon their daughter no matter what she has done. But they have gone beyond that by proclaiming her innocence and even obstructing justice when you consider the hair brush incident.  Cindy intentionally gave law enforcement a hair brush that had been used by Caylee and others instead of giving them the one that was Caylee's alone. I think they have adopted the idea that they have lost a granddaughter and now do not want to lose their daughter, too.

Q: Casey refused to see her parents before the jury selection began. Why do you think that is?
 

DF: Only her mother asked for a visit and she did so on the day before Mother's Day.  I think it was heartless to deny that to any mother. But I think the reason Casey did it is because her legal team told her to do so. They knew Casey could not control her temper, could not control her mouth, and was incapable of doing anything during that visit that would not place her in a bad light.

Q: In your in-depth coverage of this case, what was your experience like when dealing with police, private investigators and contacting the family for interviews?

DF: I was knocked into a concrete wall by a member of Jose Baez's entourage. I was threatened by private investigator Dominic Casey. George and Cindy refused to speak to me. The State's Attorney Office was very helpful, and interviews with relatives outside of the immediate family and with friends and neighbors were very worthwhile.

Q: What was the family's response to your book?

A: The family has made no response to the book. I do know from someone who was close to them that they read the book, but I know nothing more. However, I am fairly certain that they did not like it at all.

Thanks, Diane!

Watch for updates about the Anthony case on Diane Fanning's blog, Writing is a Crime, as well as here on WCI.

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Ponderous Plodding toward Justice for Caylee Anthony

Casey Anthony

by Diane Fanning

Sometimes the gears of justice turn so slowly that they appear to be frozen in place. This month, Casey Anthony hit a milestone: 853 days in custody since her arrest in October 2008. She now has the distinction as the longest-serving female inmate in the population at Orange County corrections center, the area's county jail.

Nonetheless, with the trial less than three months away, it appears that justice is about to catch up to her and grind her to bits. Recent events look very grim for the defense.

Casey's attorney, Jose Baez, was fined by the judge for missing a deadline last December and has missed yet another one. He is under investigation for the second time in the last three years by the Florida Bar Association, and the prosecutor's office has launched a parallel tampering investigation sighting Baez in the crosshairs. The prosecutors are now asking the judge to hold the attorney in contempt of court.

A much ballyhooed defense witness, volunteer searcher Laura Buchanan,  is at the root of the tampering issue.  She signed a form swearing that Caylee's remains were not at the location where they were later found.  She wrote: "It is my opinion that the remains of Caylee Anthony were not there during the time of our search.  I personally searched near the privacy fence and worked my way towards and then beyond where the body was found.  I did not notice anything unusual."

Caylee Anthony

This statement supported the defense's claim that Caylee was placed in that spot after Casey was already in jail. Therefore, someone else committed the crime. However, Ms. Buchanan had a Texas Equusearch form in her possession that she should not have had. Buchanan has now admitted to altering that form after meeting with the defense. She said, "I can't say that to be true because I still to this day don't know where she was found, what area or what she was near."

On top of that, matters have not gone well for the defense recently in the motions they filed. Baez wanted the lying and stealing history of his client kept out of the courtroom.  Judge Belvin Perry, however, said, "The state may be able to introduce evidence of collateral acts--such as lying and stealing--which are inexorably intertwined with the crime charged if necessary to adequately describe the deed, provide an intelligent account of the crime charged, establish the entire context out of which the charged crime arose or adequately describe events leading up to the charged crime."

From Casey's MySpace page

Perry also ruled that Casey's MySpace entries in her "Diary of Days" were admissible to show Casey's state of mind at the time of the crime. He did exclude use of the Jib Jab cartoon about the case. He also stood with the prosecution on the issue of Casey's tattoo, "La Bella Vita," declaring that any possible prejudicial affect was far outweighed by the probative value.

As to the testimony of the Anthony's neighbor, Brian Burner, about his shovel, Perry said, "There is nothing inherently prejudicial about borrowing a shovel, nor is a shovel 'gruesome' evidence that would intend to inflame the passions of the jury."

Anthony Lazzaro

Although the judge tossed out testimony from Anthony Rusciano about sexual relations with Casey and ruled the same on details of her sexual liaison with Anthony Lazzaro, he did allow that her relationship with the latter Anthony during the time period in question was "highly relevant," viewing her demeanor at the time and in light of the fact that she never mentioned to him that her daughter was missing.

The defense motions to exclude evidence seem never ending.  We haven't heard resolutions to all of them yet.  I can't imagine the judge throwing out Casey's statements to the police in which she lied about the nanny and her daughter's whereabouts in the summer of 2008, but I am anxious to her the judge's ruling.

The case looks--almost--like a cakewalk for the prosecution. The one sticking point may be proving to the jury's satisfaction that Caylee was a victim of homicide. Medical Examiner Jan Garavaglia could not determine a cause of death because of the ravages of decomposition. Intuitively, it is obvious that Caylee was murdered; her body was found stuffed in a laundry bag and tossed in an overgrown area.

Will that be enough for the jury? Or will they demand more before convicting Casey Anthony of premeditated murder? We will find out soon, enough, because the trial is scheduled to start in May.

Diane Fanning is the author of Mommy's Little Girl, the only published book about the murder of Caylee Anthony.  When the Casey Anthony trial begins, currently scheduled for May, you'll find daily updates of the case on Diane Fanning's blog, Writing is a Crime.

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