Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [64]
In addition, there were two other problems to consider, each of which could have a potentially devastating effect on our ability to prosecute Casey if Caylee’s body was ever found. The first was that, in Florida, we have what is referred to as a “speedy trial” rule, which states that when a person is arrested, he or she must be charged and tried within 180 days. That right is waived if the defense delays the case or requests more time to prepare, but the prosecution can’t count on that. If a case is not taken to trial within the required period, you can’t prosecute it even if new evidence is discovered.
So the first concern we had was whether Casey’s arrest in July had started the clock running on the murder charges. The tricky part was that the rule states that the defendant has to be tried in that period for any related crimes as well. Would the law consider the child abuse charge and the murder charge as related crimes? As with many things in law, the answer was uncertain. There were good arguments on both sides, but if we choose the wrong course, then some appellate court years from now could decide we were wrong and Casey might walk, even if we found Caylee’s body and she was convicted of murder.
The second issue was double jeopardy. The U.S. constitution prohibits someone from being prosecuted twice for the same offense. Whether child abuse and murder would be considered the same offense was again a question without a clear answer and with potentially devastating consequences if we were wrong. We could convict her of child abuse, find Caylee’s body, and be forever prohibited from prosecuting her for murder.
While our course of action was open to debate, the one thing we felt certain of was that Casey had had a hand in the death of her daughter. Whether she had deliberately killed her and disposed of her body, which was my personal belief, or had killed her accidentally, maybe with an accidental overdose of chloroform—either way it was first-degree murder. Linda, Frank, and I were comfortable with the evidence we had when it came time to go forward with the murder charges. At this point, the only potential murder weapon that we had was the chloroform. We had lengthy discussions about every possible chloroform scenario—that Casey had chloroformed her daughter on purpose, but only to render her unconscious so that she could party; that she had accidentally administered chloroform and killed Caylee, still a felony murder; or that she had used the chloroform to kill her deliberately.
The bottom line: We believed she’d killed her daughter, and we couldn’t wait for a body to be found. We had to go with what we had. Here were the facts: We had a young mother who left home with her daughter and from that point on appeared to begin a new life without her. She got a tattoo expressing her feeling that she was living a beautiful life. She lied repeatedly about her daughter’s absence for months and instead of looking for her, went out partying. When she was called out for her lies, she was uncooperative and continued to tell more lies. She blamed her daughter’s disappearance on a babysitter who did not exist. She was offered the opportunity on two occasions (first by Sergeant John Allen in the interview at Universal Studios and later by Cindy Anthony during one of her visits to Casey in jail) to adopt an “accident” account of what had happened to her daughter, and she scoffed at it both times. And of course, she was driving a car that contained a very suspicious odor, along with one of her daughter’s hairs and high levels of chloroform in the trunk.
AS WE SURVEYED ALL