Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [160]
When it came time to present, I was in my element. I began first to discuss the comparison of the testimony of Dr. G to Dr. Spitz, and to expose the ridiculousness of his claim that the skull was moved and duct tape placed on it before it was returned. I then moved to a discussion about the significance of the duct tape to prove premeditation.
If there was one thing I had complete confidence in, it was the strength of our forensic experts compared to theirs, so I set up a direct contrast, pitting our bug guy (Haskell) vs. theirs (Huntington), and our medical examiner (Dr. G) vs. theirs (Dr. Spitz). Walking through what Baez had said about Dr. Vass point by point, I explained the unavoidable truth to Dr. Vass’s findings and Dr. Vass himself: His findings were conclusive, and he was the leader in his very legitimate scientific field. I even went so far as to refer to Dr. Vass as an unapologetic science geek. (Dr. Vass told me later he received a lot of teasing from his colleagues over that, and a couple dozen pocket protectors pinned to his office door.) Everything in his experience told us that there had been a dead body in the back of Casey Anthony’s car. Baez could try all day to tie the smell to nonexistent food in the trash or blame the police for drying out the trash; the bottom line was that the science was in our favor. I tried to hit that point hard. As with the forensics, I wanted to tackle Baez’s claims about George’s attempts to “implicate” Casey head-on. Discussing each one individually, I tried to drive home just how ridiculous it would be for someone involved in a crime to then expose himself to suspicion by bringing evidence of that crime to the attention of the police. I saved my best ridicule for the Kronk issue and how impossible it would be for Kronk to get the tape from the Anthony home even if he were perverse enough to want to in the first place.
From my three decades in criminal law, I knew full well that jurors sometimes concoct scenarios that no one has argued, so I repeated our theory but allowed that they might have imagined other scenarios and explained how those, accidental death while giving Caylee chloroform, or while using tape to silence her, would still be murder.
I ended with a discussion of George’s suicide letter. I recall I actually got choked up when I was describing the pain and anguish he felt as he penned the words on those pages.
I sat down and Linda took over. She began by poking a bit of fun at the Wheel of Fortune moments of Jose’s closing, saying that “posters and pyrotechnics” were not her style. She harkened back to the opening statements that she and Baez had given six weeks earlier, and in another jab at the defense pointedly stated, “I meant what I said,” a reference to the fact that Baez had not come through on his promises in opening statements. Her next comment turned out to be prophetic:
“My biggest fear,” she said, “is that common sense will be lost in all the rhetoric of the case.”
She implored jurors to look at the big picture of all of the evidence and what it revealed. When discussing the original kidnapping story, Linda asked jurors to consider its genesis and what it illustrated about Casey’s awareness of guilt, reminding them once again that Casey had multiple opportunities—both with investigators and with Cindy—to assert that Caylee’s death had been an accident. No such claim had been made—at least not until Casey was out of all other options.
As she began to wind down, Linda played the first call Casey made to home from jail and pointed out how it showed Casey’s real focus was on Tony, not Caylee. Referring to Casey as a pathological liar, Linda reminded the