The Trial Of The Century: Casey Anthony vs. State of Florida

Earlier today I made this post on a Yahoo Group when asked to comment on the Casey Anthony Trial:

I’d call this a heck of a win for Jose Baez and a humiliating loss for the prosecution.

Consider that Jose Baez was the “underdog” with no “death penalty case” experience prior to this case. Further consider that Jeff Ashton is a renowned Prosecutor with several murder trials under his belt. If you watched the media during the trial, almost every one of the commentators that are attorneys and investigators were putting Jose Baez under the microscope for what they all perceived as mistakes and praising Jeff Ashton for every little thing he did, with the exception of Sunny Hostin. Looking at these points you can only conclude that Jose Baez did a heck of a job on this case in the face of some overwhelming odds.

I have maintained from the beginning that Jose Baez was doing a really good job as the Defense Attorney on this case, and posted as much on another group before the verdict.

After having watched what I could of this case, I do not believe that Casey killed her daughter. I think that her daughter died as a result of an accident in the swimming pool and drowned. I think that Casey panicked and did not call the police. I think that Casey Anthony DID put the child’s body in the car. I think that Casey Anthony was trying to figure out how to dispose of the body without being caught. I think that the body did start to decompose while in the car. I think that Casey Anthony called her mother to help her figure out what to do with the body. I think her mother told her husband, George Anthony. I think George Anthony then stepped in and disposed of the body for his wife, who would have been grieving at that time and worried that she would lose a granddaughter and daughter if they contacted the Police. And I believe George Anthony disposed of the body in the same manner that he disposed of the bodies of the family pets when they died. Most of all, in my mind I think Jose Baez painted a real clear picture that this or something very similar occurred in this case. And none of this adds up to murder.

But that is just my opinion, it does not mean much.

Kudos to Jose Baez for a heck of a job and a heck of a win!

Ricky Gurley.

Well an associate of mine asked me to post this on his blog, and I did. This post has not made it to his blog yet, but I feel that it may; eventually. Now everyone that know me, knows how I am. I have to take my “shots”. Just gotta do it, so let me get those “shots” out of the way, and then we can move on to a more careful analysis of the Casey Anthony Trial.

Jeff Ashton will now be prosecuting bad checks and traffic tickets for the State of Florida; so I guess he figures it is time to retire. Linda Drane Burdick will be arranging plea bargains with defense attorneys for prostitutes and pot smokers; but with the help of some short skirts and low-cut blouses she may be able to “work” her way back up to prosecuting murder cases sometime in the next five years. And the other Prosecutor? Well he was smart enough to minimize his participation in this trial enough that I can’t even recall his name. He may have very well avoided the “career bullet” by minimizing his exposure (mind you that the only way Linda Drane Burdick is going to climb the corporate ladder so to speak, will be by “MAXIMIZING her exposure”). All of the “legal expert commentators” will be wiping egg off of their faces for the next month; and “Nasty Disgrace” will still have a few more runs at Casey Anthony and Jose Baez; despite the egg on her face. But we should all be thankful that “Nasty Disgrace” does have egg covering her face, if only for a little while. And all Mike Brooks has to do is slide the egg upwards to his bald head and it should slide right off; so he will be spewing more of his “judgmental non-sense” next week! But there is an upside;  Jose Baez gets to go home with the “gold ring”, and he has earned it. And I hope “Nasty Disgrace” and Mike Brooks get a good, long look at him as he is tilting his champagne glass to the sky! The ONLY News Commentator that demonstrated some real experience, high intelligence, and was completely unbiased on this case was Sunny Hostin. She called it right all of the way down the line!

Now onto the more serious side of this case.  Onto a more serious analysis of this case. When one considers the overwhelming odds that Jose Baez faced, the limited funds that he had to work with ($90,000.00 over 3 years), versus the unlimited funds and resources of the Florida State Attorney’s Office; all we can conclude is that Jose Baez is simply a brilliant and “top shelf” Defense Attorney! Jose Baez went into this case with no death penalty case experience, with the media putting his every move under the microscope and looking for errors while the media found every excuse in the world to praise Jeff Ashton and Linda Drane Burdick. And Jose Baez still overcame those overwhelming odds and produced what can only be defined as a WIN!  Was he aggressive? HELL YEAH! Did he attack the Prosecution’s case with a vicious brutality? HELL YEAH! Did he thoroughly cross-examine and break down the Prosecution’s witnesses? HELL YEAH! All of which is to say that he vigorously defended his client as any good Defense Attorney should do. Jose Baez did his job and did it well. Jose Baez did what he is legally obligated to do, and nobody can fault him for that!

The Casey Anthony Prosecution Team in their "What Do We Do Now?" Pose

Anytime a Defense Attorney has a client facing the death penalty and walks out of the courtroom with his client only being convicted of four misdemeanors; that is a WIN! No Defense Attorney gets a verdict like this in a case like this one on sheer luck. No sir, the Defense Attorney has to be skilled to do what Jose Baez did in this case!

The Prosecution’s case was damned to any intelligent Jury to begin with. The Prosecution used what I jokingly refer to as “The Doo Doo Head Strategy”. They did not have any forensic evidence whatsoever, and the Florida State Attorney General admitted this after the trial was over when he stated that they had “no smoking gun” and “a Dried Bones Case”. The Prosecution knew that they had no forensic evidence, so they relied on character assassination of the defendant in hopes that they could get the Jury to be emotional due to the loss of little Caylee Anthony, and  want to blindly convict Casey Anthony by making her out to be a terrible person. To an intelligent Jury the Prosecution would have had as much effect by standing up and saying “Casey Anthony is a Doo Doo Head”! The “forensic evidence” that the Prosecution presented was simply “babble”, disguised as smoke and mirrors that amounted to nothing once an intelligent person took a close look at it. And we had twelve intelligent people looking at it and one brilliant Defense Attorney exposing it for what it is to them!

Jose Baez getting ready to ask Jeff Ashton "What Kind Of Crap Are All Of You Going To Try To Pull Now"?

Nobody, not even Jose Baez ever stated that Casey Anthony was “salt of the earth”. As a matter of fact Jose Baez let it be known right up front that Casey Anthony had told a lot of lies, and was a dysfunctional part of a dysfunctional family. Pretty much everyone, even the defense acknowledged that Casey could fairly be considered an unsavory person. But the Prosecution wanted to spend 30 days hammering this point home. The sad fact is that the prosecution could not do much else, because this is all they had! And the one fact that the Jury kept in focus was that a liar, even a promiscuous liar, even more a promiscuous liar that will suggestively pose for the camera for a little bit of recognition, no matter how much we may not like someone like this, is still not a “murderer make”!

Does This Equal Murderer? REALLY?

In summary; one can never say what verdict a Jury will reach. The fact is that it is impossible to predict what verdict the Jury will come back with. But here, in this case; the jury got it right. The Jury did not allow the prosecution to “play on their emotions”. The Jury stuck with the facts and the evidence; or rather in this case the LACK of evidence. The Jury stayed the course; and we should all be thankful that they did.

I will leave you with this thought. Juries are called upon to perform an incredible task. The fate of another human being is held in their hands. Along with the Jury’s verdict comes a message. The message often times is that we as a society will not tolerate the victimization of our fellow man. But sometimes this message is sent to the prosecution or the state instead of the defendant; and in this case that is exactly what happened!

Thank you all for your readership.

Ricky B. Gurley

Ricky Gurley Hard At Work