Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [115]
So for almost two years we knew that we would be arguing this case before a jury from somewhere other than Orange County. At one point, the defense filed a motion for change of venue and Baez suggested, big surprise, Dade County, where he was from (the judge denied his request). Our laws give the judge some guidance in choosing the new venue, and demographic similarity is to be considered in the selection process. As a practical matter, though, the venue change is more about who will take us than where we want to go. A high-publicity trial from out of town can be a very disruptive affair. Judge Perry would have to schmooze his fellow chief judges from around the state to get one of them to help us out, but if anyone was up for the job, he was. Of the five out-of-town trials I’d done, four were with him. He knew what was involved in the process.
Wherever the trial took place, we knew that the jury would be sequestered, meaning that once the jury was selected, they would be shielded from any outside influence whatsoever. They would literally be prisoners in a gilded cage. There was no way we wanted to take the chance of a juror going home at night and seeing something on the news or overhearing someone talking about something they shouldn’t hear and causing a mistrial. As discussion about the change of venue progressed, we had a thought: since we were going to have to sequester the jurors anyway, we argued and the judge agreed, we might as well have the trial in Orlando and avoid the expense of putting all of us up in hotels in another city, too. So it was decided: we would pick a jury somewhere else and bring them to Orlando. That way, I would only be away from Rita and the kids for a week or so for the jury selection, as opposed to six weeks or so for the trial.
SHORTLY AFTER HE’D JOINED THE case, Judge Perry had told us he was going to keep our eventual location a secret until right before the trial. His main concern was that if the media got hold of the location, they would be on the streets days before jury selection began, doing man-on-the-street interviews and further tainting any prospective jury pool. As we got closer to the trial, the lead time the judge said he would give us to make arrangements at the new location kept getting shorter. First he said we would find out two weeks before the trial, then one week, then finally it was the Thursday before the start of the trial. From time to time, Judge Perry would drop little clues, and then smile that mischievous smile of his. I was pretty sure he was messing with everyone, but he really enjoyed pulling your leg sometimes.
Judge Perry also created a process whereby the media could, by signing a confidentiality agreement, get the location a day in advance. This would allow them to get their equipment in place but prevent them from publicizing the location. It was a nice thought, but some of the news outlets appealed the order, and the district court agreed with them that the court couldn’t force them to sign an agreement as a condition to finding out where we were going. Instead the ruling stated that the judge didn’t have to tell them where we were going at all. So he didn’t.
Finally, the Thursday morning before the start of the trial, Linda was called to the judge’s chambers with Baez to get the news. First Judge Perry made them sign copies of his order specifically naming those involved in the case or those who would need to make the travel arrangements and ordering us all under pain of contempt not to reveal the location. Linda came back to her office where Frank and I were waiting. She smiled like the Cheshire Cat as she entered.
“Where is the best place you can imagine we’d go?” she asked.
“Tampa,” I said.
She looked at me and said, “Pinellas County.”
So for all of Baez’s efforts to get this jury from his old stomping grounds, we were going to get them from mine. I was going home.
Though the criminal courts complex had been