by Jose Baez
And it turned out this guy was selling a machine which was supposed to be able to identify whether chemicals came from a dead body. Someone stood to make millions if only he could make it known how great his data was in this trial. The trouble was that the data was faulty, and as it turns out, there is no reliable chemical signature of human decomposition yet. It’s in its infancy stage, and some of his work is groundbreaking, but it doesn’t make it sound science. That doesn’t make it true.
The prosecution was pushing the boundaries of science. That’s what Vass was doing here. When I questioned Dr. Marcus Wise, his collegue, Wise said it was impossible to tell how much chloroform there had been in the trunk because a quantitative test was scientifically impossible. Meanwhile, another chemist said the main component found in the trunk of the car was gasoline.
Was the state giving jurors the truth when someone’s life hangs in the balance?
The jury had to look at the lack of evidence and wonder why some of these questions weren’t answered. I suggest that this lack of straightforwardness is unacceptable.
This is the level of absurdity, the desperation that the prosecutors will take it to. They asked the jurors to see things that weren’t there. They asked the jurors to imagine fictional science. It was a fantasy of forensics. That’s what it was. And nothing more.
We have the most advanced crime-fighting tools available to us anywhere in the world, and they couldn’t find a single link from Casey to Caylee’s death. Not a single link. But yet they wanted to create things? For what? The cameras? Because it was a high-profile case? No. Because it was all about winning. Winning at all costs. No matter how much it cost. No matter what it cost. No matter how much justice was perverted.
Then I took the jury to where I thought the evidence showed where this case reached its most outrageous level, and that is the computer searches. A report came in that someone—the state said it was Casey—had visited a chloroform site one time. But at trial the man who made the report, Sergeant Kevin Stenger, didn’t testify. Instead, John Bradley testified that he developed a new program that indicated that someone had visited a chloroform site eighty-four times.
“There were eighty-four searches for chloroform” was what was spread to the world via another atomic blast from the media via the police.
It was a jaw-dropping moment for me, and it turned out the second program was faulty. The reality was Casey had looked up chloroform once after Ricardo Morales had sent her a Myspace photo entitled “Win her over with Chloroform.” And it turned out she had spent exactly three minutes finding out what her boyfriend was referring to.
The evidence he testified to, when challenged, failed and in the faulty report, the Myspace searches weren’t even there.
We called the man who wrote the report to the stand to expose the truth. You see why even though we had no burden to do so, we called witnesses, police officers to the stand, to bring the truth to light so the jury could render a just verdict.
This was their murder case? How could they come forward with this evidence? How was that the truth? That’s why there were more questions than answers. Fantasy searches, phantom stains, all of this nonsense and no real hard evidence. No DNA. No fingerprints. Nothing but Casey was a liar and a slut. Convict her on that. And she lied. And she didn’t act the way she needs to. She made some stupid decisions, but let’s make her pay with her life.
That’s what the case was all about.
I continued in that vein for another couple of hours. As I was standing there in the courtroom reciting act after act of duplicity by the cops and the prosecution, I became angrier and angrier. Was I the only sane one in this courtroom? If you read the papers and watched the TV, you never would have guessed it. Here I was, the rookie lawyer from Kissimmee, spending twenty hours a day in a battle with trained scientists and veteran police officers to free a client who the world wanted to see jailed and even put to death.
I felt I was someone out of Alice in Wonderland, where some crazy queen was going around hollering “off with her head.” The only way the lunacy was going to stop, I knew, was with a not-guilty verdict.
After the prosecution closed with its usual rant about Casey’s bad character and how badly she behaved during the thirty days after Caylee’s death, it rested.
The case would soon be in the hands of the jury.
CHAPTER 33
JUSTICE
I FINISHED MY CLOSING ARGUMENTS, and I sat down. Cheney followed with a very good closing argument explaining reasonable doubt to the jurors in a very eloquent and patriotic way.
My work was done. There was nothing more I could say or do in this trial before the jury would deliberate. We then took a break, and I did with Casey what I do with all my clients in all my trials. I walked over to her, knelt down, and I said to her, “That’s it, Casey. There’s nothing more I can do. I hope you know I fought like hell for you, want you to know I tried my best, left no stone unturned, and I hope you’re satisfied with the work I did. I really do.”
“I know you did,” she said, “and I will never be able to thank you enough for it.”
It was an intimate moment, and a reporter from In Session, Jean Casares, reported on it, saying that Casey and I had a “tender moment,” and she speculated on what she was seeing—she couldn’t hear what we were saying—and it was a rarity—the very first time in three-and-a-half years that any of those speculative reports got it right.
After Cheney spoke, we took a break for the day. The morning Jeff Ashton made his closing arguments, and while I was listening to him, I kept wishing I could have had another shot at him, because some of the things he was saying amazed me.
One thing made my jaw drop. He admitted that the prosecution didn’t believe that Roy Kronk was credible, that he wasn’t being truthful. Once again it was, don’t trust the messenger but trust the message. After saying that there was no way that George Anthony could have been involved in any way, shape, or form, he began to give crazy arguments of alternative ways in which Caylee might have died, either with duct tape or chloroform. He was saying, “If she died this way, you can find the defendant guilty. If she died that way, you can find the defendant guilty,” and it was right about then that I looked over toward the jury and I could see juror eleven, who would soon be the jury foreman, look at Ashton with his eyebrows clenched together as if to say, Are you kidding me? What is this that you’re throwing at us?
I just shook my head. From start to finish, instead of giving the jury evidence, he fed the jury emotion and anger.
Linda Drane Burdick closed out the prosecution’s case. Before, Burdick was always monotone, but when she got up this time I witnessed a totally different Linda Drane Burdick. Her arguments were perfectly delivered. She was articulate, and she was brilliant. I was watching a lawyer in the zone.
She finished on an incredibly high note, asking whose life benefitted from Caylee’s death, and she put up on the screen a photo of Casey partying side by side with a photo of her tattoo La Bella Vita, and she said, “There’s your answer,” and she sat down, walking away leaving the images there for the jury to ponder.
The jury broke to deliberate, and I walked over to Burdick and said to her, “That was incredible. I’m not sure I’ve seen a prosecutor give a better closing argument than that.”
“Well,” she said, “I watched yours, and you had me really scared.”
We agreed at a future date to sit down and talk about the case, one professional to another and hopefully learn from each other’s presentation as well as mistakes.
We broke for the day. The case was over for the lawyers. The members of our defense team, including our interns, went across the street from the courthouse to a restaurant called Terrace 390, where we had beers and a couple of drinks.
We were relaxing at the bar, unwinding, when the prosecution team, Frank George, Burdick, and Ashton walked in.
“Hey, let me buy you a drink,” I said to George. I did that, and I bought Burd
ick a drink, and I said to them all, “Hey, let’s all sit down together and have a well-deserved drink.”
George and Burdick started to come over, when Ashton said to them, “No, I don’t want to sit with them. Let’s go sit over here,” and they went and sat at the other end of the bar.
“If he tried, I don’t think he could be a bigger asshole,” said one of our interns.
The next day was the fourth of July, and we stayed in court as the jury continued to deliberate. I wasn’t nervous during deliberations. A lot of lawyers are, and I used to be when I first tried cases, but it’s futile. I can’t go bang on the door of the jury room and try to say one or two more things to them to change their minds. It is what it is, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.
I was relaxed, and during that day I went to church a couple of times. As I sat there in a pew, I was thinking about wanting to save Casey’s life, and praying for my family. Right then and there, I realized how much I had sacrificed for Casey, how much this case took me away from my family, and how it took something away that I may never be able to get back, including my life savings, my home, and nearly my practice.
I gave everything I had in this case, I said to myself. Maybe I gave too much of me. I prayed about that, asking God to make me a better person, a better father, a better husband, because I knew I hadn’t been any of those.
In my search for serenity that day, I drove to the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Orlando. It’s a beautiful property, and there’s a spot I find very peaceful, and I went back there to relax and take my mind off things. I sat down, admiring the palm trees and the flowers, and not twenty minutes went by when my phone rang. Karen Levy, the court administrator said, “I’ve been instructed to call you to say that the jury has reached a verdict.”
She said it with such a happy tone, and I was trying to figure out, Does she know? Does she have the verdict forms? Does she know what the verdict is? If so, why is she so happy?
The jury had been out a day and a half for approximately ten-and-a-half hours. I drove to the courthouse and brought my car around to the sheriff’s bay so I could escape the mob, and I walked upstairs.
I was led through the side entrance, but the prosecutors walked through the normal entrance past a legion of spectators. Ashton was so sure Casey was going to be found guilty that he was seen by numerous people high-fiving the spectators on his way in for the verdict.
When I arrived in the courthouse everybody was already there. I was the last to arrive. Judge Belvin Perry had set a time limit for us to get there, and I made it with ten minutes to spare.
I could see Burdick over at the defense table talking to Cheney.
“Hey, how are you?” I said to Burdick.
“I want you to know that I wish you the best of luck in your career and in your future,” she said.
“I wish you the same,” I replied, “but only after the next fifteen minutes.”
We both had a chuckle, and she walked back over to her side of the room.
Judge Perry took his place, and he called everyone to order.
“I understand the jury has reached a verdict,” he said.
The jury walked in. A lot of lawyers say they can tell what the jury has decided by looking at their faces. If the jurors do not look at the defendant or at the defense table, a lot of times it’s because they have found the defendant guilty.
A couple of the jurors had looked over at me frequently during the trial, but this time they weren’t doing it. They all were stone-faced, but I could not get a sense whether their vibe was negative or positive. I just couldn’t read them.
The foreman, it turned out, was the physical education teacher, the juror who had taken the most notes. This wasn’t a surprise. He seemed the most likely candidate for the job.
He handed over the verdict forms. Judge Perry also was stone-faced, and I could see him look down at the verdict forms and see his face turn angry.
He checked each form, and then he checked them again.
Why’s he doing that? I asked myself. Why is he checking them again?
My antennae went up.
“Madame clerk,” he said, “you may read the verdict.” He handed her the forms.
Then Judge Perry took a quick glance over at us, and I thought, This is going to be interesting. It told me he was not happy with the verdict.
The clerk started to read and stumbled as she spoke, but she regained her composure and said, “As to the count of murder in the first degree … not guilty.”
When she said that, I said to myself, I did it. I saved her life. And at that moment, I reached over and squeezed Casey’s hand.
Then the verdict came in as to aggravated child abuse.
“Not guilty.” I squeezed her hand even tighter.
Then the verdict as to aggravated manslaughter of a child.
“Not guilty.” And I squeezed her hand so hard I feared that I had broken a bone.
I was looking at the clerk, and as to the next charges of lying to law enforcement, the clerk announced: “Guilty.” But I thought to myself, Wait a minute. The serious charges are gone. It’s over. It’s over. Oh my God. This is incredible. We did it.
The jury was polled, and then I hugged Casey and put my hand on the side of her head, and I said, “We did it, kiddo.”
“Thank you,” was all she said, and she hugged me.
The judge put a stop to that by calling us over. He said he was adjudicating her not guilty on the first three charges but guilty on the fourth and that he would set sentencing two days hence, on Friday.
What a phenomenal, incredible rush for all of us. We were all crying and hugging. When I hugged Jeanine Barrett, our mitigation specialist, she completely lost it. At one point William and Michelle and Cheney and I all hugged together. We were so happy for Casey. This poor girl had suffered through her childhood, suffered through the loss of her daughter, was thrown to the wolves by her father, and was ripped to shreds by the media. We were hoping that after being found innocent, she would be able to resume a normal life. George and Burdick walked over and shook our hands. Ashton did not.
We remained in the courtroom after the judge, the jury, the prosecution, and all the spectators left. All that remained were members of the media who wanted to watch us and report on how we were reacting.
I won’t lie. Numerous times I had allowed myself to dream about what I would say to the legion of all my media detractors when Casey was actually found not guilty, and I thought to myself, Wow. You’re finally going to have the opportunity to rub their noses in it and really tell them where they can stick it.
But as I looked over at them, I then decided, You know what? It’s not worth it. They’re not worth it, and when we held our after-trial press conference, I was very subdued. I thought of Caylee, and I thought of the prosecutors, and I said, “There are no winners here. We’re happy for Casey, but at the same time Caylee passed far too soon.” I took the high road and complimented the prosecutors, saying they had worked hard and had served the state of Florida very well.
“They didn’t deserve anyone’s criticism,” I said, calling them out individually. And by that I mean I included Ashton.
For me this was like a boxing match. During the match you try to rip the other guy’s head off, but when it’s over you shake hands and have a mutual amount of respect for each other.
I thought it would be that way, but unfortunately, this case proved otherwise.
We were taken out of the courthouse by a SWAT team, who didn’t want us going out the front door because it was too crazy out there. We got into white vans under SWAT team cover. We were literally dropped off across the street in front of the Terrace 390 restaurant. It was a very short ride.
Once in the restaurant we were alone. The owners had closed it down for us, and we had a very badly needed drink. We figured, Okay, let’s watch the media coverage, and for the first time we really did that. We ordered champagne, and we had a toast, and Cheney said, “To the Const
itution of the United States.” And we toasted the U.S. Constitution.
A crowd began to form outside the restaurant. There are few secrets anymore, as fifty media representatives, many with cameras, pressed their noses to the windows.
Geraldo Rivera was the only media representative I allowed in. He came in and gave me a hug and said he was proud of me. Cheney let in Jean Casares, but before I knew it, she was on her phone reporting what she was seeing inside, and I made her stop. This was for us, not for the media.
Other media people wanted to come in, but I said no. I wanted to be with the team, and this was our time to spend together in celebration. We loosened our ties and relaxed, and while we were chatting, members of the national media called me on my cell phone and each network said the same thing, “Jose, your first media interview is a big one. You can have any correspondent out there to conduct it. Name the person, and we’ll make it happen.”
I knew exactly who I wanted: the incomparable Barbara Walters. A few years earlier, I had watched her interview Tom Mesereau after he had won the Michael Jackson case, the biggest trial of the time, and I said to myself, One day I’d like to be in that position. If I were to work hard, I would hope my talents would be recognized.
And here it was, a dream come true.
I didn’t hesitate to say I wanted the interviewer to be Barbara Walters, and not twenty minutes later I got the call, “Barbara wants to talk with you.”
Barbara and I spoke briefly on the phone, and she said, “We’ll fly you up tonight, and we’d love to have you here.”
I couldn’t believe it. I had been talking on the phone to Barbara Walters.