Casey Anthony Trial: Lawyers’ Private Exchange Overheard During Break, Day 8 - Criminal Report Daily

Casey Anthony Trial: Lawyers’ Private Exchange Overheard During Break, Day 8
May 18, 2011

Casey-anthony-trial CLEARWATER, Fla. -- During the final sidebar on the eve of swearing in the jury in Casey Anthony’s death penalty murder trial, prosecutor Jeff Ashton and lead defense attorney Jose Baez conferred privately on how they could keep Judge Belvin Perry from swearing in a jury before either side had opportunities to strike jurors they did not like. Though the overheard portion of their conversation was brief, the May 17 interval, transmitted by the courtroom’s sensitive microphones, revealed a kinder, gentler exchange between the legal adversaries. Fancy that.

Away from the flurry of lawyers and bailiffs, one in the duo of lead attorneys remarked warmly to the other, “I do agree we need to send them home.”

“Them” was a reference to “bad,” or strike-worthy jurors. Throughout jury selection, despite intentions to do so, the set-in-his-ways chief judge was not making the process quick or easy for either side.

Obviously, a trial marriage of prosecution and the defense was necessary to quash the chief jurist’s way of doing things, a.k.a., the chief jurist’s “Perry Plan.”

Heard next: “Judge Perry is sitting there in front of his ‘people’ ... ” Could this be the voice of Type A prosecutor, Jeff Ashton?

http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2011/05/casey-anthony-trial-lawyers-private-exchange-overheard-during-break-day-8.html