Casey Anthony: How crucial will latest hearings be? - Hal

Casey Anthony: How crucial will latest hearings be?
posted by halboedeker on March, 22 2011 6:56 PM

Stations tonight provided previews of the Wednesday-through-Friday hearings on whether scientific evidence will be admitted in the Casey Anthony case. She is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.

WKMG-Channel 6’s Tony Pipitone set up the fight between state and defense experts over evidence claims. ”The state’s experts claim the trunk of Casey Anthony’s car held telltale clues of death — chemicals that could only have come from human decomposition and high levels of chloroform,” Pipitone said.

He explained that forensic chemist Barry Logan, a defense expert, will argue that the state’s position isn’t generally accepted based on scientific principles. Pipitone predicted that prosecutor Jeff Ashton will attack Logan and could call attention to Logan’s resignation from the Washington state crime lab last year. The WKMG report included footage from last year of Logan accepting blame for problems at the lab.

“Now it will be Logan casting doubt” about some types of evidence that have never been allowed in a murder case, Pipitone said.

But Pipitone added: “Ashton has a history of getting groundbreaking forensic evidence into court.”

WESH-Channel 2’s Amanda Ober explained that Chief Judge Belvin Perry will determine whether scientific experts can testify at the murder trial.

“It’s not up to Judge Perry to determine if the testimony is valid,” Ober added. “His job is simply to consider whether or not the experts’ testimony is based on generally accepted scientific evidence and tests.”

Central Florida News 13’s Jacqueline Fell turned to an attorney, David Fussell, to explain how crucial these hearings will be. ”If someone comes into court and testifies that they captured the scent of a decaying body and air out of trunk that belonged to the mother of a child, that’s going to be very detrimental to the case,” Fussell said. “On the other hand, it’s going to gut quite a bit of the state’s case if it’s not allowed in.”

WFTV-Channel 9 anchor Martie Salt read this update: “Prosecutors also filed paper work today arguing that even defense experts agree that the scientific methods used to find evidence of decomposition in the trunk of Casey’s car are generally accepted. The defense will argue this week that the evidence should be thrown out as so-called junk science. But when prosecutors recently questioned defense experts under oath, they acknowledged the science is well-respected.”

WESH anchor Martha Sugalski provided an update that the defense today filed more motions, including a second attempt to exclude the testimony of a forensic botanist. ”He will give his opinion of how long Caylee’s body was in the woods,” Sugalski added.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2011/03/casey-anthony-how-crucial-will-latest-hearings-be.html