Imperfect Justice_ Prosecuting Casey Anthony - Jeff Ashton [98]
The first real legal addition to the defense team came in the form of Terrie Lenamon, an experienced capital defense attorney from Miami, who joined the case in the fall of 2008 when we were originally debating whether to pursue the death penalty against Casey. At that point, of course, we didn’t have a body, but we had told the defense to provide us with any information they would like us to consider regarding the death penalty. Lenamon gave us a brief, which basically argued that Casey was a good mother and had never done anything wrong before, so therefore if Caylee was dead, the death may have been accidental. The document was not particularly helpful, since it didn’t provide any new information or allege any particular mental health concern that might have explained her behavior. In the end, it didn’t impact our decision not to seek the death penalty, and after we announced that decision in October 2008, Lenamon left the case, leaving Baez to do as he pleased.
All that changed when Roy Kronk stumbled back into that Florida swamp. On December 11, 2008, the day Caylee’s body was found, Linda Kenney Baden entered the case. A defense attorney from New Jersey who was heavily involved with the forensic science community, Baden was the wife of Dr. Michael Baden, a celebrity forensic pathologist who was always on TV. I’d heard her name, but had never worked with her before, and my initial impression of her was not favorable. A month or so after she came on board, her new book, Skeleton Justice, coauthored with her husband, was released with much fanfare, so it was easy to speculate that she was chasing the spotlight. However, after taking witness depositions with her, I came to respect that she knew what she was doing and ended up enjoying her as opposing counsel.
During the early days of Baden’s involvement, Baez filed more than twenty “emergency” motions with the court, attempting to involve his experts in the processing of the crime scene and the evidence. One motion asked that their forensic pathologist observe our medical examiner, Dr. G, during her autopsy and for a second autopsy. The second autopsy was no problem for us, but Dr. G didn’t need any rubberneckers. Baez and Baden suggested that a forensic expert be appointed by the court to control the processing of the evidence. They also wanted what is called a special master, sort of an extension of the judge’s authority, to preside over their examination of the evidence, a process from which we would be excluded.
By January 8, we were in court hearing those and sixteen other “emergency” motions, most of which were either for materials they would have eventually received in the normal course of discovery or things they would never be entitled to anyway. We figured that most of the motions were drafted by Baden since they didn’t seem to show an in-depth understanding of Florida law. Ultimately, the majority of them were denied, but we agreed to give the defense access to the crime scene when the sheriff’s office was done.
Meanwhile, we filed a motion of our own to restrict the disclosure of photographs of Caylee’s remains. A while back we’d heard rumors that Jose had engineered Casey’s sale of photos of Caylee for $200,000 to ABC, and we did not want to see photos of Caylee’s body end up the same way. The defense agreed to the motion and so those photos were not seen in public till the trial.
Whenever an attorney becomes involved in the financial affairs of a client aside from the payment of fees, it is a matter of concern. We had no specific information, but our concern was that if something inappropriate had occurred that Casey didn’t know about, our entire effort might