Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [123]
Another hurdle was how the law severely restricted our ability to persuade the jury to focus on the victim. The appellate courts are very sensitive to attempts to evoke naked sympathy for the victim that may affect the jury. However, the courts rarely restrict the ability of the defendant to play the sympathy card under the guise of a legitimate defense. Even the best judge will often err on the side of excluding evidence about the victim that does not relate to an issue in the case.
Ultimately, though, we thought the weak points of our case were minor, and easily surmountable with the right jury. We knew that in the opening remarks we would be safe introducing Caylee to the jury in a general way, but that eventually she would be reduced to a mere piece of evidence in the case. We could only hope the seed we planted early would be enough to make the jurors care enough about Caylee to sustain her image throughout the weeks. After that, it would be up to the jurors to keep her at the forefront.
There is this common belief that jurors’ hearts go out to children who are the victims of homicide, but in my experience that is less the case when a parent is accused of the crime. They have a much easier time accepting the homicide when it has been committed by a stranger. It is too horrible to comprehend that a parent could kill his or her own child, especially one so young and defenseless. For a jury, maternal filicide was the most difficult crime of all.
Our theory was as follows:
What we knew of Casey was that the primary motivating force in her life was herself. There is a self-centeredness that comes with adolescence, and while most teens outgrow it, Casey never did. We knew we would never fully understand the real relationship between Casey and her mother. Cindy’s denial prevented that. But from everyone we’d talked to and from what we’d witnessed ourselves, we did know that there was conflict.
George and Cindy had expectations of Casey, seeing that she was living in their home. They expected her to work and contribute to the household. Exactly why Casey didn’t work, we don’t really know. Maybe she was just lazy, maybe she wanted to spend more time with Caylee, or maybe she felt entitled and didn’t want to work. Eventually, lying about what she did during the day was easier than explaining to her parents why she was unemployed. But not working meant she had no money. Because she had created the illusion that she was employed, she couldn’t pretend she needed money, because supposedly she was making her own. Therefore, she started stealing from her parents, which soon became as easy as spinning her lies.
Casey now had two things in her favor: she had her parents off her back because they thought she was working, and she had money skimmed from wherever she didn’t think it would be noticed. The problem remained that she was with Caylee 24/7. After spending the entire day with her toddler, she wanted to get out in the evening to socialize, as any young adult would. However, based on our conversations with Cindy’s coworkers, we speculated that Cindy was hard on Casey about that. After all, Cindy thought Casey had already been out all day at her job, so to her, Casey going out at night meant she was shirking her responsibility as a mother. And of course, Casey couldn’t explain that she’d just been with Caylee for eight hours straight, because doing so would reveal the lie about her job.
When she started a relationship with Ricardo Morales at the beginning of 2008 and wanted to be out late, she told her parents she had been promoted to event planner at Universal with flexible hours. It was brilliant. Now, any time she wanted, she could say she had to work in the evenings.