Presumed Guilty

by Jose Baez

  CHAPTER 9

  THE DAY CAYLEE WAS FOUND

  AS FAR AS EXPERTS, I wanted the best. From the beginning, I thought to myself, I have to be ready if Caylee is ever found deceased, and one of the people I will need is a forensic pathologist. Right off the bat my first choice was the famed Michael Baden.

  On December 10, 2008, I was in New York having dinner with Baden and his wife Linda Kenny Baden.

  I had followed Baden since the O. J. Simpson trial and had always been a huge fan of his work. Geraldo Rivera knew Michael and introduced us. As we were having dinner, we were talking about different things, and I was getting to know him. My wife Lorena was with me, so this was a social situation more than business.

  We also didn’t have a body so our discussion was a bit premature, except that I wanted to be ready when I needed him—if I needed him. I didn’t know for certain that Caylee was dead. I always hoped for the best and planned for the worst, so I was meeting with Michael. At the end of dinner, his conclusions were, of course, “You don’t have a body so you don’t need a forensic pathologist, but if you need any help, let me know, give me a call.”

  I flew home in time for a court appearance in Casey’s case the morning of December 11. I arrived in court along with fifty other lawyers there to argue pretrial motions in other cases. The media were there, and all the lawyers knew who I was and whom I was representing. When I walked into the courthouse, I could literally feel the chill from the other local lawyers. Not a single lawyer came up to me and said, “Hey, Jose, keep up the fight. You’re doing a good job. If there’s anything you need, here’s my number. Don’t hesitate to call.” Not one said, “Hi, how are you? I’m so and so and I wanted to meet you.” That would have been the norm in just about any other case; it’s part of the networking that lawyers do.

  Jose, you’re on your own with this one, I thought to myself, and later on another lawyer told me, point-blank, that was the reality.

  A pretrial hearing was scheduled in our case to get the parties together and to find out where everyone stood. If the defense needs a continuance, one will ordinarily be granted. If the defense and state are ready for trial, the judge sets a date within three weeks.

  We were nowhere near ready. We were receiving mountains of discovery. I asked for a continuance.

  A lot of so-called experts second-guessing my every move were sure I would announce, “Ready,” in order to force the prosecution into trying the case immediately.

  I never for a second considered doing that. I don’t think any good lawyer would take that risk. That’s like playing chicken, and you never play chicken with someone else’s life on the line. So at that point I asked for a continuance. I stated we weren’t ready and that we were still getting discovery.

  However, by asking for a continuance, the defendant automatically waives her right to a speedy trial.

  The judge granted the continuance.

  WHENEVER I CAME into the courtroom, the media were always waiting for me, and I always said, “Let me do my work. When I’m done, I’ll meet you guys outside.” This was on the condition that they didn’t follow me to my car and harass me with questions along the way. We had worked out this deal, so usually after I was done in court, I would speak outside the courthouse, go off in my car, and be done with it.

  This day was no different. I walked out of the courthouse, got peppered with a bunch of questions, and then it was Tony Pipitone who asked me, “Jose, were you not taking a risk by asking for a continuance instead of trying the case immediately, since they don’t have a body?”

  “No,” I said, “because we still believe Caylee is alive. We really don’t have any evidence to the contrary.”

  I wasn’t ignorant to the strong possibility she was dead. But if you’re going to speculate, why not think positively? So I said, “We believe Caylee is alive, and hopefully she will be found before this case ever comes to trial.” Just as I was saying these words, a man by the name of Roy Kronk, an Orange County meter reader, claimed to be relieving himself in the woods near the Anthony home when he stumbled across Caylee’s remains. He called his bosses to say he had found Caylee’s body.

  When I left court that day, I didn’t know anything about this. I went back to my office, and I was there maybe twenty minutes, when I received a call from Sergeant John Allen.

  “Jose, do you know where I can find the Anthonys?” he asked excitedly.

  “They’re in California,” I said. I knew they were there doing an interview on Larry King Live.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I need to talk to them immediately because we just found Caylee.”

  “Are you sure this isn’t another false alarm?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “I’m about a quarter mile from the Anthony house right now. I’m looking at the skull. She had the same color hair, the same length of hair. It’s a child. I’m quite sure it’s her.”

  “I’ll try to get hold of them right away,” I said, “and I’ll get back to you.”

  I called the Anthonys in California. They didn’t answer the first time I called, but I got them the second time.

  “Have you heard the news?” I asked Cindy.

  “Yes,” she said, “we’re at the airport. We’re getting ready to board the plane and come back.” Then Cindy asked, “Do you know if it’s her?”

  “They think it is, Cindy,” I said.

  Cindy had been down this road before, so I don’t know whether she was in denial or what. Under the circumstances she seemed pretty together.

  I told her to call me after they arrived back in Orlando.

  “I will,” she said.

  I told the people in my office that I was going to see Casey at the jail. I hopped in my car, and the first call I received was from Geraldo.

  “Hey, I’m hearing that they might have found her,” said Geraldo.

  “I don’t know if it’s true or not,” I said. “I’m on my way to see Casey now.”

  “All right, man,” he said. “Good luck. I’ll talk to you later.”

  On the way I called Michael and Linda Baden. Michael answered the phone.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, “but they found Caylee’s body.” Harking back to our dinner conversation of the night before, I said, “The moment is here. We didn’t expect it to come this soon.”

  Michael and I talked, and he said, “Jose, I’ve done a large number of interviews on the case on Fox and other stations. You need to think twice about wanting me on your team.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I need to look at it a little more closely. May I speak with Linda?”

  He passed the phone to her. Linda has a vast knowledge of forensic science. She had just finished trying the Phil Spector case, and she had achieved a hung jury based mostly on science. In addition, she was an incredible lawyer.

  “I’d like for you to get involved in the case,” I said. “I’m on my way to see Casey right now. I need to act and I need to act quickly.”

  “We need to find a forensic pathologist,” Linda said. “Are you authorizing me to make some calls and try to get some people together?”

  I was. She made a three-way call and the first person she called was Dr. Werner Spitz, the dean of forensic pathology. He wrote the book that all forensic pathologists read. He works out of Michigan and has worked on huge cases. He testified at hearings on both the Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy assassinations.

  After he agreed to join us, I said to Linda, “We need more experts.”

  “Go see Casey,” Linda said. “I’ll work on that, and we’ll talk after you get out.”

  I arrived at the jail and immediately noticed that something was weird. I was standing there, but they wouldn’t let me pass the gate.

  “I need to get in,” I said. “I need to see my client. What the hell is going on?”

  “We’re sending the sergeant down to talk to you,” said the guard.

  I waited perhaps fifte
en minutes when the sergeant came over.

  “What we’re doing,” he said, “We’re taking Casey to medical.”

  “Is she okay? Did something happen to her?” I asked.

  “No, no, no, she’s fine,” he said. “We’re doing that as an extra precaution.”

  “I still want to see her,” I said.

  “You can’t,” he said, “not until she gets back from medical.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I am demanding access to my client. I want to see her—now.”

  “Sorry, you can’t.”

  “I want to speak to your supervisor,” I demanded.

  “We’ll have Captain DeFerrari come down and talk to you.”

  I knew they were stalling, but I didn’t know why.

  DeFerrari was a woman, first name Nancy, and she told me, “We took her to medical as a precaution. We’re waiting until she gets out, and if she wants to speak to a psychiatrist, we’re going to let her do that.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to speak to her first. No one can speak to her until I speak to her.” They were denying her right to counsel under the ruse that she was getting medical attention, but apparently there was nothing I could do to stop them.

  “We have rules here,” she said. “If someone is in need of medical attention, we’re not obligated to let them speak to their lawyer first.”

  I had no choice, it seems, but to sit there and wait.

  About thirty minutes later, I was let in to see Casey. I walked into the classroom, where Casey was waiting with two uniformed officers, and I could tell she was distraught.

  I apologized to her for not getting there sooner. I asked if she was okay, and she said, “I’ll be all right.” Caylee was dead, and she was in mourning, and it was one of those moments where you just don’t know what to say.

  “This is what I know,” I said, and I repeated what Allen had told me, and after I said that, one of the officers came in and handed Casey a sedative caplet with some water to swallow it down.

  “I want to stay here and spend time with you,” I said to her, “but you’re going to need me on the outside more than you’ll need me here.”

  “I understand,” Casey said. “I hope this pill will make me sleep.” She began to weep.

  I called my associate Gabe and told him to come and stay with her.

  “There are a lot of things we need to do,” I explained to her, “and I need to be free to do them.” After spending about an hour with her, I left.

  It was only later that I found out why the police wouldn’t let me see her when I first arrived at the jail. As soon as the police got to the site where Caylee’s remains lay, Commander Matt Irwin, the head of the missing person’s unit, came up with the bright idea of calling the jail and asking if there was a room where they could take Casey and videotape her reaction to their finding Caylee’s remains.

  “We can take her into the medical unit,” he was told. “There’s a TV there. We can turn on the TV and record her reaction to their announcing they had found Caylee’s remains and hopefully she’ll say something, maybe flip out and confess.”

  This was the “medical care” I was told she was getting that prevented me from seeing her.

  They sent someone to Casey’s cell. They shackled her legs and hands in chains, marched her to the medical unit, sat her down where there were several correctional officers and a couple of nurses standing around watching her, and forced her to watch the breaking news that police had found Caylee’s remains so they could record her reaction.

  On the tape you can see Casey start to breathe heavily and start to hyperventilate, see her double over a couple times, and see she was in tremendous, tremendous mental and emotional pain.

  For ten minutes they sat her there watching the horrible news made more horrible by the sensationalist media until one of the nurses said, “Okay, I think she’s had enough.” And that’s when they took her back to the classroom.

  Meanwhile, oblivious to what they were doing, I was outside trying to get in while they were torturing her. Clearly this was a violation of her right to counsel and what two of the correctional officers would later testify to be cruel and unusual punishment. It was another end around, where the police were trying to get something from her. In my opinion, it was one of the cruelest stunts I have ever seen the police pull on someone. They made her watch the worst tabloid channel—WFTV Channel 9, the local ABC affiliate—a channel so inflammatory it was just a notch below Nancy Grace.

  To this day it was one of the cruelest and most disgusting things I have ever seen the cops do. After the trial was over, the video was made public on September 30, 2011. That day, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the jail’s public information officer, Allen Moore, “said the decision to move Anthony was done by jail administration independently out of concern for the inmate’s health and well-being.” And Public Information Officer Angelo Nieves said, “Video was available to us. We availed ourselves to it, and it became part of the case file.” Shamelessly, they were characterizing their actions as coincidental and not intentional. These public officials treated the public as if they were stupid. This is our government at work. They should be above this foolishness, but they are not. It’s scary, and what makes it even scarier is that the media, the so-called “watchdogs,” never called them out on it. They just kept taking the guided tour. It wasn’t the first time and unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last.

  WHEN I LEFT THE JAIL, the media were in a feeding frenzy. It was nuts. “What did she say?” they all screamed.

  I refused to answer any of them. It was raining, and the reporters were getting in my way and getting aggressive. I wouldn’t talk to them because it was none of anybody’s business what her personal turmoil was at that moment, and that was all they wanted to know about.

  All through the trial, whenever anyone asked me the question, “How is she doing?” my answer was always the same. I would say, “I’m her lawyer. She hired me to handle her legal case. I don’t think it’s my place to observe and comment on what she’s going through. So unless I am specifically authorized by her, I’m not going to do it.” And I never did. (Note: this is the first time I have ever publicly commented on anything that went on with Casey behind the scenes, and it’s only because Casey has authorized me to do so.)

  The media would hate me over that, but I wasn’t in the business of public relations. I was a defense lawyer and I was just doing my job.

  And as I was leaving the jail after seeing Casey, I again told them I had no intention of answering their questions about her reaction to the police finding Caylee’s body.

  That day the media were totally out of control, pushing me and trying to agitate me as much as possible. Ignoring them, I got in my car and drove away.

  I wanted to find a place where I could have a little peace and quiet. I needed time to myself. Caylee had so quickly become a huge part of my life, and I didn’t even know her. I was instantly overwhelmed with sadness and just needed a little time to compose myself, to say a prayer for the little girl who was my first thought when I woke up in the morning and my last before I went to bed. I also needed to make some important phone calls in private and I knew my office wasn’t going to be that place because the reporters were all over there, and that was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want to have to go through that again.

  I pulled into a gas station and as I was pumping gas, a media truck drove by and saw me. I could hear one of them shout, “There he is.” They drove up to my car, and all I could think of was, Oh shit.

  I stopped pumping the gas, put the gas cap on the car, got in, and drove off, with the media truck in hot pursuit.

  You know what? I thought to myself. You ought to go home.

  I live in a gated community and I figured if I beat them to the gate, they couldn’t follow me. But I didn’t want them to know where I lived so I tried to lose them. I sped off, but they managed to stay up with me.

  Finally I gave in and pulled over.r />
  “Listen,” I said, “I have nothing to say so I would ask that you please respect my privacy and just let me go on my way, because I’m not going to say a word.”

  “You know we can’t do that,” said the reporter.

  “Why?” I asked. “I’m not going to say anything.”

  “We’ll lose our jobs,” he said. “We just can’t let you go.”

  It was as though I was placed under arrest by the media.

  “Please, just go on camera with us for one minute,” he said, “and then we can justify letting you go.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  I told him, “Yes, I saw Casey, but I can’t tell you what she said. I can’t tell you anything about that conversation. And that’s it. I’m working.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “How did she act?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “What are you planning on doing?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  He asked five or six questions, and I wouldn’t answer any of them. He said, “Thank you very much,” and I got in my car and left. And they didn’t follow me, so I went home.

  I took a little time for myself and after I pulled myself together, I thought my client needs me, so get focused and be a professional.

  I went back to work. I made my calls. I called Linda back. We started to talk about what we were going to do, and one of the things we wanted was to have immediate access to the crime scene—at least to be able to observe. We talked about making an emergency motion for a hearing, asking to observe the autopsy when it occurred, and asking to have immediate access to the scene.

  I turned on my TV set to WKMG Channel 6, the local CBS affiliate in Orlando, in an attempt to closely watch what was on the news. And I watched as Sheriff Kevin Beary, a huge man, somewhere around six foot two and tipping the scales at around 350 pounds, was talking about the case while wearing full riot gear.