Television sees a tough day for Casey Anthony’s defense

Casey Anthony: Television sees a tough day for Casey Anthony’s defense

posted by halboedeker on May, 11 2010 6:10 PM

How bad a day was it for Casey Anthony and her defense team?

The story was at the top of 5 p.m. newscasts on WFTV-Channel 9, WESH-Channel 2 and WOFL-Channel 35. And it was the top story at 6 p.m. on WFTV, WOFL and WKMG-Channel 6.

“A tough day for Casey’s defense,” WESH anchor Jim Payne said.

“Gut-wrenching … for Casey and her mother, Cindy, as they had to sit there and listen to hours of talk about the death penalty,” WESH’s Bob Kealing said.

“Her lawyers tried to get her life spared in a hearing that brought Casey to tears and led her lawyer to talk about the nastiest things being said about her,” WFTV anchor Bob Opsahl said.

WFTV replayed a snippet of defense attorney Andrea Lyon citing one of those nastiest things: “She’s a whore, so she should die.”

Judge Belvin Perry today rejected death-penalty arguments made by Casey Anthony’s defense team. One defense motion said the death penalty is applied unfairly to women and another defense motion accused the prosecution of trying to bankrupt Anthony’s defense by seeking the death penalty.

Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.

WFTV’s Kathi Belich said Anthony is the first mother in Orange County to face a possible death sentence for murdering her child. “And prosecutors say that’s because she’s the first mother accused of premeditated murder who cannot blame mental illness for what she’s done,” Belich added.

WFTV anchor Martie Salt said the station’s research had found that no mother had ever been executed in Florida for killing her child.

WOFL anchor Amy Kaufeldt said that Florida has executed only two women since 1924: “Black Widow” Judy Buenoano and serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Kaufeldt also noted that there is one woman on Death Row in Florida, Tiffany Ann Cole, who was convicted of killing two people.

On WOFL, legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said the state will have to explain more of its game plan because of one Perry ruling on a defense motion. “The government’s theory, thus far, seems to be that this was an accident gone horribly, horribly wrong,” Napolitano said. “That’s not a basis for the death penalty. The death penalty requires serious premeditation, plotting, planning and killing, almost execution style in a horrific and horrendous way. So the government’s going to have to lay out something more than she used chloroform to put the baby to sleep so she could go out and party.”

But on WESH, attorney Richard Hornsby saw “a shallow victory” for the defense in getting the state to explain the aggravating factors in seeking the death penalty. “It proves nothing, advances the case no further,” Hornsby said. “[Prosecutor] Jeff Ashton is going to consider it a waste of his time.”

Even so,defense attorney Jose Baez told WESH’s Kealing that the defense will continue pursue the matter if it doesn’t get the detail it’s seeking from the prosecution.

During a break today, Anthony was able to tell her mother twice that she loved her, Kealing reported.

WKMG shared readers’ comments on the case. Tom wrote, “The health care bill didn’t take this long.”


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