WESH asks if Jose Baez wants to put her on the stand in 'risky, all-or-nothing strategy'

WESH asks if Jose Baez wants to put her on the stand in 'risky, all-or-nothing strategy'

posted by halboedeker on May 13, 2009 4:41:13 PM

Does Jose Baez want to put Casey Anthony on the stand and claim that Caylee's death was an accident?

That theory came from a legal analyst during a WESH-Channel 2 report this afternoon.

And the theory grew out of a TV interview. Terence Lenamon, a Miami attorney who quit the Anthony defense team, talked to Nancy Grace on her Headline News show Tuesday night. Lenamon said he believed the defense's approach should be mental-health-related and explained that he had clashed with Baez.

That's where WESH came in with the legal speculation. Defense attorney Richard Hornsby, who has offered analysis for the NBC affiliate, suggested that Lenamon's statement means that Baez wants to put Anthony on the stand.

She is charged with daughter Caylee's murder.

Baez's approach suggests that he is in over his head on the case, Hornsby told WESH's Bob Kealing. And Kealing said Baez's approach could be "a risky, all-or-nothing strategy" at trial.

Mental health can only be argued in the penalty phase to keep a defendant from a death sentence, Kealing explained.

"Once you put her on the stand, you're saying there is nothing is wrong with her," Hornsby said.

But if Baez goes that way, he can't come back in the penalty phase and cite mental health, Kealing added.

It was a provocative report -- could this be possible?

Hornsby saw Lenamon's approach as more conservative than Baez's.

"It boils down to Lenamon is more concerned about making sure that Casey Anthony stays alive than making sure she gets out of jail," Hornsby said.

Baez today conducted three depositions, including one with a DCF child-abuse investigator.

WFTV-Channel 9 supplied its own legal analysis from wise Bill Sheaffer. He called Lenamon's statement a bombshell.

"In order to employ a mental-health defense, one has to admit the act," Sheaffer said. "We must assume that prior to making this statement, that this attorney was fully apprised of all the facts in this case."Sheaffer suggested that what this bombshell means is that Anthony won't back away from her story that a mysterious nanny was responsible.

In another report, WFTV's Kathi Belich noted that the DCF investigator said that Anthony -- before Caylee's death -- called her daughter "that child."

Belich reported that Anthony told the investigator that Caylee's father was a middle-school classmate who had moved to Kentucky and died in a crash.

Anthony said the man's family had moved to Italy, Belich added.

At noon, Belich discussed Baez's arrival at the state attorney's office for the depositions. Baez "showed up all alone today" and "didn't stop to talk," she said. "Baez never even took his sunglasses off."

And she added: "After facing criticism for complaining that the murder trial should be moved because of all the publicity in the case, when he is the only one who conducts regular interviews, he seems to be clamming up."

WESH's Kealing noted that Baez "kept a very low profile and did not comment on this rift in the defense team."

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2009/05/casey-anthony-wesh-asks-if-jose-baez-wants-to-put-her-on-the-stand.html