“Never Forget Almost Every Case is Won Or Lost When The Jury Is Sworn”
Clarence Darrow
Clearwater, FL- This Morning, the 8th day of jury selection Linda Drane Burdick, prosecuting attorney for the State v. Casey Anthony, renewed her argument to use their peremptory challenge to strike a female African American for cause, that she could not “judge others” for religious reasons.
Chief Judge Perry required Burdick to read back the transcript of the Vior Dire exchange, and held the state to task for the “brief questioning” of this juror as compared to the first juror, of over 3 hours. What he neglected to remember, was that immediately after that juror, the judge rebuked both sides that if this was going to take this long, he was going to speed them up whether they liked it or not.
Again, limited the vior dire questioning time for either the prosecution or defense is a reversible error. While the judge did not limit either side, the message was clear.
Attorney for the defense, Jose Baez, objected both procedurally and on the grounds he would wish to receive transcripts of other jurors questionings to respond. Translation: Rule my way or the cans of worms this is going to open will be gushing out the doors of this cavernous courtroom.
It did not even get that far.
Judge Perry decided to let his earlier ruling stand: The State did NOT provide the court with a “Race Neutral” reason for cause, and therefore would not be permitted to utilize it’s peremptory challenge, as to do so would be “discriminatory” and against the Florida Supreme Court .
Here is the problem- Can we say that under Melbourne- a true inquiry or finding as to the reasonableness and GENUINENESS of the State’s motive for wanting to strike the juror for race neutral reasons occurred?
Melbourne Excerpt
No way. A window to how this does not stack up, was Jeff Ashton’s last comment on the matter immediately following Judge Perry’s original ruling.
” .. Does the court not believe the state’s reasoning..?”
-Jeff Ashton
This juror was not the only African American on the panel, not the only woman, and at no time did Judge Perry say why the court did not believe the reasonable basis for the challenge was not racially neutral. (more…)
Pinellas County, FL– Throughout the first week of jury selection, we got our first glimpse of Casey Anthony’s new mitigation specialist and BFF, Rosalie Bolin. She is the wife of convicted killer and rapist Oscar Bolin, currently awaiting execution on death row.
I could not think of a better way to sum up Ms. Bolin’s background, than to let her own daughter tell you. Katherine Martinez, one of four of Rosalie’s daughters she relinquished custody of to marry Oscar Bolin, made a documentary about it, while attending FSU.
Oscar Bolin, in eight seperate trials, has been convicted of the rapes and vicious murders of Natalie Holley, Lyn Matthews, and Stephanie Collins.
While Ms. Bolin through tears, tells her adult daughter that she “started something and you have to finish what you started”, it appears that concept did not apply to her parenting of 4 small children because she thought “they had people around that love them.”
That’s not all. Rosalie Bolin is the owner of Criminal Specialist Investigations, Inc, and is currently suing the State of Florida to get paid in a case where the judge called her work as a mitigation coordinator “overpaid”. She recently won an appeal to quash that order, and is seeking funding from the JAC.
That would be the same JAC distributing the state’s funds for the defense of Casey Anthony.
Defending the State’s position on the issue, is none other than Terence M. Lenamon, former counsel to Casey Marie Anthony.
Chief Judge Belvin Perry promised to rule on 2 outstanding motions by her defense team today.
Update #1 4:45PM.. Motion to exclude trunk stain… D E N I E D
Rulings on Critical Motions regarding a hair with a "deathband" that could only belong to a deceased individual and either Casey or Caylee Anthony, and the air samples tested by Dr. Arpad Vass and found to contain chloroform levels he has never seen, in his 22 year career.
The air samples themselves are not in contention as the "hardware" and methodology in their extraction are used widely in the scientific community, and the defense team, through a stipulation agreement to withdraw contempt proceedings against him, could not argue about anything else. The defense argument was largely about the interpretation of the data that was yielded from the samples as they relate to a decompositional event in the trunk of Casey's car.
Both motions were a combination of a Frye/exclusion attempt by the defense that took several days in court to conclude, in which many observers felt were disorganized and poorly argued in contrast to the deft responses by the prosecution.
Yesterday, for the second time, Jose Baez on behalf of Casey Anthony filed a response to the State's motion to let his already withdrawn "experts" Dr. Danzinger and Dr. Weis be permitted to testify as to what Casey told them during their interviews with her.
You may recall, during the State's deposition attempt of Dr. Danzinger, Judge Perry put the kibosh to it after receiving a call from Jose Baez, and both depositions have since been sealed. Judge Perry referenced testimony about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, but legal experts agree that in itself would not be grounds for suspending a deposition and immediately sealing it.
It is this editors opinion that during the deposition, Dr. Danzinger recounted parts of his interview with Casey Anthony that may have been incriminating to her.
It was abundantly clear that the defense strategy is/was to attempt to have these witnesses speak about parts of their interviews with Casey Anthony as a way to repeat her "defense" without ever taking the stand, subjecting her to cross-examination by the state.
It is also abundantly clear that Jose Baez et al did not understand the Judge's comments about these depositions the first time around.
The only way these "Docs" will be permitted to testify to anything Casey Anthony told them, is if Jose Baez presents an exception argument to the hearsay rule, and since the "declarant" or Casey Anthony, will never take the stand, 'not gonna happen.
Yesterday afternoon, the defense depositions of Tony Lazzarro and Amy Huizenga were filed with the court.
While there was largely previously known information contained in both depositions, there was one noteworthy tidbit in Ms. Huizenga's which the defense glossed over in a hurry.
Reported exclusively by www.blinkoncrime.com, the Anthony's withheld a major plumbing emergency at their home that sent someone from Hopespring Drive in a panic to locate Caylee.
For the first time, it is confirmed that Casey knew about it, and told Amy it was one of the reasons they could not move in:
Casey Told Amy About A Pipe
This article will be updated when Judge Perry rules this afternoon.
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When you have a family that both refuses to cooperate with Law Enforcement in a productive way, and in this editor’s opinion, outright obfuscates efforts to investigate the location of a victim and the circumstances to which Caylee Anthony became same, we are forced to look at what I will term, available objective data .
Analyzing data in conjunction with the verifiable evidence in this case, allows us, and eventually jurors, to better sift through the ever-changing accounts of those closest to Casey Anthony, without adding metaphorical dryer sheets to cover the smell.
As all www.blinkoncrime readers have known since my earliest coverage of this case, I have long stated it is my belief that the concern for Caylee’s welfare and whereabouts started with the Anthony’s backyard renovations the week of Cindy Anthony’s vacation over the fourth of July.
In fact, one might interpret Cindy Anthony hits her panic button during this time.
I have also written extensively that I believe that the defense team is going to intimate, if not outright accuse, George Anthony of culpability in the death of his own beloved granddaughter.
On Friday afternoon, following the conclusion of the last defense motions presumably prior to trial (insert laugh track) the state released additional video evidence to the defense. As we brace ourselves to see video of Caylee with her Mother and Tony Lazarro having lunch, should we also prepare to see Cindy and George shopping for those backyard improvement supplies?
Or… Other?
Cindy Anthony’s bank records show 3 separate charges to The Home Depot posted June 30th. As the purchases were made on Cindy’s check card, we can’t be sure if the purchases are made on June 29, June 30th or a combination of both.
Will we see the purchase of new gas cans, concrete mix, weed barrier, or something else?
Cindy or George Anthony began furiously calling her daughter’s cell phone, in the wee hours of July 1 at 1:43am.
Calls to Casey from the Anthony landline are made to her at 1:43, 1:51, 1:52, 2:02, 6:56, 7:33, and 7:50 AM.
Casey does not answer her cell phone, but she DOES check her voice mail after every one of them, and attempts unsuccessfully to reach someone at the Anthony home at 7:54 AM, possibly due to a busy signal. This pattern of calls suggests an emergency of some kind, not Cindy checking if Casey was going to finally bring Caylee over as Cindy had requested. In fact, there is a small break in the action, pun intended, when a different number is dialed from the Anthony home:
In no interview, in no deposition, will you find either Anthony disclosing the obvious plumbing nightmare necessitating 2 calls to Rainaldi Plumbing 4 minutes after their listed hours of operation in the yellow pages, and the subsequent service call resulting in a $283.96 bill. Ironically, the check number, out of sequence, follows one Casey Anthony wrote on her Mom’s account in December
Spoiler Alert: The only reference to any plumbing emergency appears in one of Cindy’s letters to Casey, but two years after the July 1, 2008 incident.
..” I don’t know if Jeanene told you, about the water pipe we had broke on Friday, we had water from the pipe outside of Caylee’s room, leek into her room, mostly in her play corner- carpet was soaked and walls were damp. Everything is drying out but the carpet smells bad. (I better watch how I describe it they may take it for discovery). It’s amazing how even clean water can smell rancid after it sits for a while. Fortunately one of our church friends was able to come out and fix the pipe…”
Facing a capital murder charge, and already convicted of economic felony, it begs the question:
Why would a member of Jose Baez defense team, Jeanene Barrett, need to relay information to Casey about a broken pipe leaking into her deceased child’s room?
If you are thinking this is more “Anthony Code Speak”, you are not alone. According to a blue print of the Anthony home, there is no plumbing on the outside wall of Caylee’s bedroom that would leak into the corner, the right lower corner or her “play corner” which abuts the outside wall.
As the bulk of “pipe bursts” or “breaks” go in Florida temperatures, in general they occur only through freezing, extreme temperatures, or water pressure stress (build up) of some kind. The source of the emergency plumbing call to Rainaldi on July 1st, 2008 is not known, but what is known, is that it gives new meaning to the signature of Casey’s inmate correspondence “FLUSH”.
What has always bothered me was what could have been found in either the backyard or now as we know, in the plumbing that would send Cindy Anthony into a clear and obvious panic, mobilizing Lee to track down his sister, and attempt to track down Caylee through her friends AFTER speaking with Casey.
George and Cindy Anthony’s versions of June 15th and June 16th 2008 have evolved it seems, after every new release of discovery. Specifically, George’s account of the last time he saw Caylee and what she was wearing. They have gone to painstaking lengths to establish that at least Caylee was home the evening of the 15th, and very much alive the morning of the 16th.
So where is the blue “dress” she wore to the Mount Dora Nursing home on Father’s Day, June 15th, 2008? It would seem to me if I wanted to establish an alibis, or timeline, that clothing would be critically important.
Is that what Casey meant when she uttered to Tracy Mclaughlin and Rob Dick that OCSO had no idea what they were doing and they had not even found her clothes yet? Was she talking about Caylee’s clothes, or Mama’s?
Again tomorrow, we have the continuation of the continuations from last week of the defense team for Casey Anthony's outstanding motions, with any luck, to fete de compli.
For those whose headache has since left them, a review- For the full clickety goodness, click the pic of the bic.
BYODS
Bring Your Own Dryer Sheet. Seriously, now she put them there, now she didn't. Depends on the meds that day she says. Cindy Anthony, a surprise witness to us, and likely herself, now says SHE put dryer sheets all over the Pontiac Sunfire after it was returned from the tow yard. As Jeff Ashton pointed out during cross-examination, this is in stark contrast to her state deposition where she denied putting any dryer sheets in the unlicensed hearse.
She blames this nearly 3-year-in-the-making epiphany on the fact that one night she was sleepwalking while giving a bamboo splitting tutorial with the neighbors shovel and she accidentally fell into the shed, breaking the lock, and all 100 of George's red gas cans not covered with sloppy duct tape hit her in the head.
Ok, that part, I made up.
She also claims to have emptied a can of Febreeze throughout the vehicle, left the vehicle trunk, sunroof, hood and all windows open within the garage and returned to work. That could definitely explain the terpenes found in the air sample of the trunk, but certainly not the chloroform.
As Dr. Vass astutely pointed out during his deposition:
" Well sure, I mean if there was a bottle of chloroform in the trunk and it was half gone, I mean, Duh."
Mrs. Anthony informs us this has been a traumatic experience for her, and that she is still remembering things to this day. I will just bet she is. I know of one; for another article, another day.
What I found very interesting, is at no time did the prosecution object to her change in testimony, or question her comments about her claim she was on new medications that affected her memory, although Linda Drane Burdick covered this thoroughly over 2 straight days of the deposition. At no time, although clearly Cindy Anthony gave hearsay testimony regarding the curiously absent George Anthony's activities on July 15, 2008, did the state raise the objection.
I would be concerned about why the state would not be moving to take another deposition based on her comments if I were her and her attorney, but that's just me. The protections of the subpoena with which she gave her deposition do not extend to one perjuring oneself. (more...)
