Casey Anthony’s defense team has submitted a list of statements made by Casey and others that they are wanting declared as hearsay or as prejudicial and omitted from being entered into evidence during trial. The defense has basically bunched these statements in categories that they believe show they are prejudicial or hearsay. Those categories are:
- Characterization of Anthony Family Relationships
- Characterization of Casey as liar
- Hearsay
- Contents of Trunk
- Double (dammit) Hearsay
- Characterization of Casey as bad mother
- Characterization of Casey as thief
- Remains of Caylee
- Jesse (Grund) as father of Caylee
- Casey pregnancy
- Roy Kronk tip
- Characterization of Casey as drug user
- Characterization of Casey as frequent partier
- Hearsay (psychic) – (which must be a special subset of double dammit hearsay when a psychic is involved)
- Casey stealing (versus Casey being characterized as thief?)
- Casey’s second pregnancy
- Finding of Caylee Remains
Now, the ones that are “characterizations” or about Casey’s pregnancies pretty much boil down to – they don’t want anybody saying anything about Casey, or the Anthonys. UNLESS, that person is going to say that Casey was a good mother and the Anthony family was a good, wholesome family, and they were all fine, upstanding individuals. I think we can all see the problems with the defense trying to make that play out. While I have no doubt they can find SOMEONE who will make these statements about Casey and/or the Anthony family, the problem is they are going to get cross-examined. I don’t see that part of the witness-box time going well for the defense. In other words, the defense can’t put Amy Huizenga or Maria Kissh on the stand and ask “Did you think Casey was a good mother?” to which they probably would answer yes, without the prosecution getting up and asking “Did Casey take Caylee to parties where there were [fill in the blank - drugs?, smoking?, drinking?, etc.]? Did Casey leave Caylee unattended? (to which the answer is going to be yes)
As to whether Casey is a thief – that really doesn’t play too much into whether she murdered Caylee or not. But at the same time, the defense isn’t going to have too many options in showing Casey to have integrity as far as being self-sufficient, employed, a manager of finances, etc. And, again, any attempt to portray her as possessing these qualities is just going to open the door to the prosecution asking the right questions to the same witness and bringing out the fact that Casey didn’t work, didn’t financially support Caylee, and most likely lead to the revelation that the way she supported her own lifestyle (because that’s where all the money went – Casey, not Caylee) was through unapproved appropriation of funds! What a nice way to say – stealing!
To avoiding characterizing Casey as a liar, I say good luck. The problem the defense has with this is that Casey’s lies are part of her crimes. They “bleed over” into the cover up of the truth of what happened to Caylee and they contaminate the formal investigation. While the defense may be successful at preventing the presentation that Casey appears to have been a liar-extraordinaire for many years prior to Caylee’s death, they are not going to be successful at suppressing the fact that for a critical 31 day period in which Casey claims her daughter was kidnapped; claims she had no knowledge of her daughter’s whereabouts or welfare; and did not report either of those “facts” to the authorities, she lied to her family, her friends, and her casual acquaintances concerning where Caylee was. Nor are they going to be able to suppress that she never has tried to correct the record on any of those events.
Everything Casey did in the month that Caylee was missing and not reported go toward her state of mind, her consciousness of guilt, and her intentional acts to cover up that Caylee could NOT be accounted for. And that’s the main problem the defense has. While they have every legal right to request that Casey’s prior bad acts – or in this case, prior bad living – not come into play in trying to paint their client as…she is (lol), the problem is that her WORST period of behavior is in the month that is critical to the cover-up of her daughter’s murder. That month is not filled with “prior bad acts” but with contemporaneous, connected bad acts. Part and parcel of the reason Caylee was not reported missing for a month, evidence was allowed to be destroyed with time and exposure, and the true nature of Caylee’s death destroyed for prosecution purposes ARE Casey’s lies and bad behavior in that month. And as we’ve covered in a prior article, The Power of Circumstantial Evidence, there is precedence that intentionally not reporting your crime in order to make it “go away” doesn’t sit well with jurors, or with appellate judges!
Now, let’s turn to the hearsay that they want suppressed. Here’s where they create a true sticky-wicket due to the double-edged manner in which this could cut. Let’s just give an example of how this will hurt the defense’s only “strategy” we have hints of to date. On page 4 of the list of statements the defense has filed they want excluded is
Cindy tells Britney Schieber about finding the car.
The defense wants this declared hearsay and excluded. The problem is this means that one of the defense’s bulleted reasons in support of moving to have Kronk declared a suspect in Caylee’s murder…
A statement indicating that Mr. Kronk knew of the location of Caylee Anthony’s remains and indeed may have had possession or control of them in November 2008, weeks before he alerted law enforcement on December 11, 2008.
…becomes hearsay as well. And to be clear, this isn’t JUST a bulleted line item in support of declaring him a suspect. This is THE reason for wanting to declare him a suspect. This is the alleged phone call Kronk was supposed to have had with his son in November. The sword cuts both ways. If Cindy making any statements to anyone about her thoughts on the events surrounding the finding of the car is declared hearsay, anything Kronk said to anybody about his thoughts on what he had reported in August becomes hearsay as well. Which utterly destroys the defense’s only rabbit hole they had to hide in (not).
And there are many more examples that can be made to show how the defense’s move to declare statements of certain nature hearsay will have an extremely crippling effect on their attempt to establish Caylee’s body was NOT on Suburban Drive during the period from August to December, 2008, and that Kronk may be connected with the entire murder! This two-edged hearsay sword will literally cut the legs out from under the defense team.
But let’s back up and talk about how trying to avoid “negative characterization” of Casey is going to hit them. If Casey’s propensity to party with her child present is excluded, so will Kronk’s propensity to do the ol’ duct tape, hot-monkey sex thingy. If Casey’s inability to tell the truth, even when the truth is better for all involved, is excluded, the allegations that Kronk playing World of Warcraft is some type of bizarre evidence he can’t tell fantasy from reality will be excluded. If Casey’s characterization as a “bad mother” is excluded, Kronk’s “possible” (serious…POSSIBLE) history of inappropriate behavior with young girls (which by the way has so far been based ENTIRELY on the “double dammit hearsay” category) will be excluded.
Which leads to the final cut – that is the majority of the only strategy the defense has hinted at so far (i.e. pinning it on Kronk) will lay like so many bad scenes from a B movie on the editor’s floor. Basically what you’re left with in the defense’s motion concerning naming Kronk a suspect is the title and the signature page. All the guts kind of fall out.
Valhall.
Related posts:
- A Review of the Submitted Hearsay
- Today’s hearing: Casey asks for her Bloody Black Backpack Back
- Caylee Anthony case: The de-Kronking of Roy Kronk
- Kronk, Damn it, Kronk!
- Caylee Anthony case: Rulings on defense motions and hearing today 01/24/11
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