Presumed Guilty

by Jose Baez

  It was huge.

  We then talked about the shorts that had been found along with Caylee’s remains. She had outgrown them. They were size twenty-four months, when Caylee wore a 3T. Whoever put them on her hadn’t had much experience dressing her.

  Cindy testified that she hadn’t seen those shorts in six months.

  When Dr. Henry Lee inspected the shorts, he had found rips in them. Whoever put them on her was so desperate to get them on, that he ripped them as he fought to get her body into them. It would have been nice to have had Lee’s testimony. It was another piece of evidence we had that we never got to produce.

  Who could have been the one to have dressed her like that? We believed we knew exactly who, but I don’t know that the jurors made the connection.

  We went to our grief expert, Dr. Sally Karioth. I had taken her class at Florida State University back in 1994. Her class was hard to get into, and she talked about grief and how people grieved in different ways.

  The basic premise behind her testimony was that a person of sound mind and body grieved in the usual way, but those suffering from trauma, like sexual abuse or other mental health issues, grieve in a very different way—in a way that people just can’t understand. She said that the way Casey pretended nothing was wrong was a common way that sexual abuse victims conduct themselves after suffering trauma or loss.

  There aren’t that many people who are qualified to testify about grief. Her specialty is unique, and she was criticized by many in the media who had no clue as to what they were talking about.

  The day we were about to drop Sally off at the airport, she said to me, “Jose, when this trial is over, I want you to call me, because you’re going through a traumatic event, and you’re going to need me. In fact, not only you, but your whole defense team.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “that’s very kind of you.”

  And I thought to myself, I don’t think so. I’ll be fine.

  And looking back, I can’t tell you how right she was.

  WE THEN CONCLUDED OUR CASE with the evidence that showed that in the past whenever one of the Anthony family pets died, George would wrap it in a blanket, put it in a trash bag, and wrap it with duct tape so it remained inside. And then he would bury the animal in the backyard.

  Cindy had told that to Janine Barrett, our mitigation specialist. Oddly, Cindy hadn’t told that to anyone else. She only told us. But I figured if Cindy knew, then Lee knew, and so I asked Lee about this—and again, this was the benefit of us having access to Lee—and Lee said, “Oh yeah, that was the way my dad did things. He would take the dead dog, wrap him in his favorite blanket, put him in a plastic bag, and put duct tape around the bag. That way the bag stayed tight to the body.”

  I thought, Wow, as much as George has talked to the police, he never mentioned that to them?

  Our defense team held a meeting about how to use this little tidbit of information, and we all felt really strongly that this was the way we needed to end our case. I can’t claim credit for it. Everyone in the room said, “The biggest impact and significance wasn’t just that this was the way George buried his pets, but it was the fact he never said a word about it to the police. If he had buried his pets that way for so many years, and his granddaughter turns up the same way, the obvious conclusion had to be: If he hid this from the cops was it because he had something to hide?

  His not telling anyone about the way he buried his pets pointed the finger right at him.

  His silence was purely an act of self-preservation.

  I put George on the stand and introduced the video of George talking at the command center. On the table, in full sight, was the Henkel duct tape, sitting next to the donation jar. Both sides stipulated facts about the command center, including its location.

  When I asked George about where the command center was, he said it wasn’t that location. He fought me on the point.

  I thought to myself, George is lying about facts stipulated to by the prosecution!

  After he dodged my questions about his access to the Henkel duct tape found at the command center, I asked him, “When you lived in Ohio, sir, did you have a dog named Mandy?”

  Jeff Ashton objected, asking for relevance.

  I told him it would come soon enough.

  “Twenty years ago?” said Ashton.

  “I will be tying it in,” I said.

  Ashton called for a sidebar.

  “The witness will testify that, yes, he went to a vet, that they began burying their pets in a manner of putting them in a blanket, a black plastic bag, and wrapping them in duct tape,” I said to Judge Belvin Perry.

  “What he did …” said Ashton.

  “He won’t say duct tape,” said Linda Drane Burdick.

  “What he did with a dog twenty years ago,” said Ashton.

  They didn’t like where this was going. This piece of information was was not going to turn out well for them.

  “And that tradition continued when they buried numerous pets in their backyard,” I continued.

  Ashton continued to state his objections.

  “It is relevant because it shows that my client was two or three years old and couldn’t have been the one who learned how to do this and bury their pets in this manner,” I said.

  “I stand on my objection,” said Ashton.

  “He knows there’s more testimony that would suggest his client did know,” said Burdick.

  “Well, yeah, she did know, but this began long before …”

  “Who began the tradition isn’t relevant if counsel wants to ask about what they did in this millennium. But twenty years ago in Ohio is not,” said Ashton. His argument was ridiculous.

  “Because it shows that this began before—while she was at the age of three …” I said.

  “Go ahead,” said Judge Perry.

  “Is counsel planning on bringing out more recent …” said Ashton.

  He was hoping beyond hope that I wasn’t.

  “I am,” I said. “I will.”

  “I stand on my objection, Judge,” said Ashton.

  “Overruled,” said Judge Perry. It was one of the rare times when Judge Perry overruled one of Ashton’s objections, and it came at a crucial time.

  I asked George whether he had a dog named Mandy in Ohio.

  “Yes.”

  “Did there come a time where the dog had to be either put down or was deceased?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how was that dog buried?”

  “In our yard where we used to live.”

  “Did you pick the dog up at the veterinarian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, and was the dog wrapped in a blanket?”

  “To the best of my recollection, probably, yes.”

  “Was the dog then placed in a plastic bag?”

  “I don’t remember that exactly, but the dog was deceased and the dog was taken to our home and placed there, yes.”

  “Was it also wrapped in duct tape?”

  “Sir, I have no idea,” said George. “You’re going back almost thirty years.”

  “And was that before Casey was born?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, when you moved here, did you have a dog named Bo?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did Bo pass away?”

  “I can’t remember the exact year, sir.”

  “Okay, was it fifteen years ago? Ten years ago?”

  “Could have been more than fifteen or more years ago.”

  “Okay. How old was Casey at the time?”

  “Probably about four or five years old. I’m just rough guessing here.”

  “Okay. And was Bo buried in a blanket, in a plastic bag, wrapped with duct tape?”

  “I do not remember exactly what he was buried in.”

  I asked him about another dog by the name of Ginger. I asked him if Ginger was wrapped in a bag with duct tape wrapped around it.

  Again he said he didn’t remember exactly how th
e animals were finally put to rest.

  “What about Cinnamon?”

  “Again, that would be the same answer.”

  “Okay, when you found out that your granddaughter was found with a blanket and with a plastic bag and with duct tape, did you tell law enforcement at any time over the last three years that that is the way you used to bury your pets?”

  Ashton jumped up, objected, and asked for a sidebar.

  I fully understand why he was objecting. His case of innuendos and phony evidence was unraveling so fast, his head was spinning. At this point, if I could have, I would have put Ashton on the stand, and I would have asked him why law enforcement never bothered to investigate George for the things Casey was accused of doing.

  AND AGAIN, this was the amazing drama unfolding, three family members sitting together in the courtroom, watching each other testify, with George getting on the stand and making his denials, and Cindy and Lee getting on the stand and impeaching his credibility.

  Cindy went so far as to describe exactly how George used the duct tape to secure the bags holding the deceased pets.

  “The tape was used to secure the top of the bag so it wouldn’t open?” I asked Cindy.

  She replied, “The tape was placed around the bags in two locations, the top and the bottom so that when we rolled it to keep the air out—we were trying to keep things from getting into the bag. So we placed tape like at thirds, one-third and two-thirds.”

  Added Lee, “She was placed in a plastic bag, and I do recall there being duct tape used to secure the bag.”

  We couldn’t have asked for anything better.

  Lying takes its toll, and during this trial the one who constantly was lying was George. That’s the primary reason these jurors couldn’t stand him.

  During the state’s rebuttal case it called to the stand Dr. Michael Warren to impeach Dr. Werner Spitz. Warren is a forensic anthropologist and Spitz is a forensic pathologist, so that was like calling a podiatrist to impeach an optometrist. It was ridiculous and so off the mark.

  The state’s desperation was starting to show.

  CHAPTER 32

  THE LAUGHING GUY

  AFTER WE RESTED, we were feeling really good about how the case was going. One of our most important decisions was whether or not to let Casey testify, and there were times throughout the case that I thought she might have to. However, it all changed when we started to make some progress with George, which was the result of Jeff Ashton parading him up on the stand time after time, giving me more and more shots at him.

  We made up a lot of ground with George, especially when you consider the last time he testified, he lied about the pet cemetery, about the duct tape when he wrapped the plastic bags to bury his pets. As I said, the man couldn’t tell the truth to save his life, and I was sure that was the way the jury was seeing him.

  My office staff met, and we tossed back and forth the question of Casey’s testifying.

  “What do we have to gain?” I asked.

  What could she talk about? What happened the day Caylee died?

  I thought we had made our case with Cindy and the pool photos, and at the end of our discussions, I said, “You know what? She doesn’t need to.”

  If we had been in a more desperate position, maybe. By why should we give the prosecution a strong day when it hadn’t had one in a while?

  We had everything to lose and very little to gain.

  I talked it over with Casey, and Casey agreed; it turned out to be the right decision.

  In the courtroom Judge Belvin Perry asked if I intended to present more live witnesses.

  “No, sir. We do not.”

  “Will the defendant be testifying?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  He asked Casey, “Is it your decision not to testify?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Has anyone used any force or pressure in making you arrive at that decision?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay, and that decision is your decision freely and voluntarily?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  The jury returned.

  “Okay, Mr. Baez,” said Judge Perry. “You may call your next witness.”

  “The defense rests,” I said.

  The prosecution’s rebuttal mostly had to do with proving that Cindy Anthony wasn’t the one who looked up chlorophyll and accidentally came up with chloroform on her computer. They obviously had to do this, because if Cindy made the search for chloroform, then Casey didn’t, but I had to laugh at the lengths they went to prove Cindy a liar in order to convict Casey.

  They called the chief compliance officer of Gentiva Health Services, Inc. where she worked to testify she was at work, not at home when she said she was looking for chlorophyll because, according to her story, her dog had eaten bamboo and had become lethargic, and she wanted to check out the connection.

  They called on Sergeant Kevin Stenger to testify that there had been no search for chlorophyll.

  Another computer expert testified that she couldn’t find any reference on the Internet that showed bamboo leaves were poisonous substances.

  I must say, they did a fine job making Cindy out to be a liar. Our strategy paid off big-time. They could have gone through our case and called rebuttal witnesses in any number of areas, but instead they were consumed with impeaching Cindy’s testimony.

  We accomplished our two goals:

  1) occupy their rebuttal case with things that benefit the defense and

  2) get the old Cindy back.

  They also called on Dr. Michael Warren to testify that opening up Caylee’s skull was a bad idea. He had been the one who had superimposed the duct tape on the color photo of Caylee, and I asked him, “That was done in Photoshop?”

  Ashton objected of course, but not as much as I objected to the despicable montage created by Dr. Warren.

  JUDGE PERRY ONLY GAVE US one day to prepare for closing arguments, and I knew my closing arguments were going to be around four hours long. It was mostly a matter of organizing the exhibits and the order I wanted to present my arguments.

  If you remember, I wrote my closing arguments first—before anything else, so I would know where we were and where we wanted to end up.

  On the day of closing arguments, Judge Perry ruled that we had submitted enough evidence to show that Caylee had died by accidentally drowning in the pool, but that I couldn’t argue anything about Casey being sexually molested by her father or her brother because we hadn’t proved it or shown any evidence of it. As far as I was concerned, there was as much evidence of sexual abuse in this trial as there was about murder, and I could reasonably make the argument that there was significantly more.

  There was no direct evidence. It was all circumstantial. I get that. But I argued that we showed that there was plenty of evidence: the paternity test done by the FBI to see if Lee was the father; that Casey hadn’t been to a gynecologist until she was nineteen years old; and that she had had her menstrual cycle since she was ten and that she had had an irregular menstrual cycle and other female problems. I mean, wasn’t that a pretty good indication that her parents were keeping her from a doctor so her sexual activity wouldn’t be found out?

  Judge Perry sarcastically commented that he had never had one of those exams in his life.

  “It is common sense,” I said. “Both sides will ask the jurors to use their common sense.”

  I continued, “The court can make a reasonable inference from the hidden pregnancy, and there is evidence about Ms. Anthony’s sexual background and behavior that stems from sexual abuse. I spoke of her other behavior, the compartmentalization, the lying which is consistent with someone who has been sexually abused.”

  “There’s no more evidence that this child was killed by chloroform than there is of sexual abuse. I think they’re equal. Both of these theories ask the jurors to draw from inferences, and the jury is going to hear arguments of chloroform
and of duct tape, of which there is also no evidence.”

  “While there are no witnesses, there is the testimony of Tony Lazzaro, that they had shared secrets. As the court knows, and as everyone knows, the testimony and the good faith basis is that the secret has to do with molestation, improper sexual behavior and incest. To ignore it or to pretend none of it exists just because someone didn’t get up on the stand and actually say it doesn’t make it less real. It’s the equal to what the state says about chloroform.”

  “The court hereby finds that there’s no facts in evidence or reasonable inference that can be drawn therefrom that there is evidence that either Mr. George Anthony or Mr. Lee Anthony molested or attempted to molest Ms. Anthony.”

  Here’s the crazy part. Judge Perry decided this on his own. The state didn’t make a motion to exclude this. He brought it up, and he ruled on it. In all my years of trying cases, I had never seen a judge do this before. Maybe some do, and I hadn’t seen it until then.

  Maybe the prosecutors wanted the issue to go before the jury so they could argue against it, ridicule it, criticize it.

  I don’t believe a judge should be making motions and objections.

  Just before I got up to do my closing arguments, I was very calm and ready. I was actually anxious, looking forward to it, ready to do it. My co-counsel Dorothy Clay Sims, one who was never shy about holding back what she was thinking, was worried; just before I was about to get up, she handed me a list of things to say during the closing.

  “How am I going to look at this now?” I asked, and I handed it back to her.

  “Don’t worry, Dorothy,” I said to her. “I got this.”

  With that I arose and did my thing.

  I began by telling the jurors that I was sure they had more questions than they had answers. I’m also sure that you, my reader, do too.

  “One question that will never be answered,” I said, “can never be proven, and that is, how did Caylee die? What happened to her? That evidence was never presented to you. In fact there were a great deal of things that you were probably looking for and never received.”

  I told the jury that the state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, that the prosecution gets to go last because it’s the state’s burden.