Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story (51 page)

Juror number five
was a seventy-one-year-old Caucasian woman who was retired. She was also a Democrat. She didn’t own a computer, so I knew she wouldn’t be affected by the hate on the blogosphere. She was just a nice laid-back lady. She wasn’t crazy about the death penalty either, and what we also liked, she didn’t have young children. We knew she’d be fair.

Juror number six
was a thirty-three-year-old Caucasian male, who worked as a chef. His only downside was he had two young children living at home, but we liked him because he appeared to be fair, and we thought that since he was a chef, he’d bring an artistic quality to the jury. Even though he was a Republican, we felt he’d be on the liberal side. We figured if we were going to get a parent with small children, it should be a male. This juror didn’t grade high, but for us he was adequate.

Juror number seven
was a forty-one-year-old divorced Caucasian female. She was another Democrat, an executive assistant and a youth counselor, so she was another person who we felt would be tolerant, wouldn’t be so judgmental. We did the research on the place where she worked—this was where Dorothy and her crew were so phenomenal—and their mission statement said, “We base our concepts on a belief in God, and the uniqueness and inherent worth of each individual.” Not exactly pro-death penalty there.

Juror number eight
was a sixty-year-old Caucasian woman who was a service representative at Verizon Wireless. She was middle of the road for us. She had had prior jury service, and we noticed that a few times she smiled at Cheney. I even told him, “Flirt with her. She likes you.” She didn’t have any small children, of course, and we had a good vibe about her. Also she was not very pro-death penalty.

Juror number nine
was a fifty-three-year-old Caucasian male. He was unemployed, I assumed because he was retired, but he once had been a logger. He was very laid-back, seemed like a very nice guy, and again he wasn’t too pro-death penalty. For a short while we had a concern he might be a stealth juror, but we didn’t feel that strongly about it, so we kept him on.

Juror number ten
was a fifty-seven-year-old Caucasian male who also worked for Verizon Wireless. He was a customer service representative, and we were concerned that he knew juror number eight. He didn’t. I went to a sidebar with him, and I found him to be a nice gentleman.

During a trial there is usually one juror with whom you make the most eye contact, and for this trial it was this juror. Most people avoid eye contact, but he was the type of person who would look you in the eye. I felt a very good connection with him.

Juror number eleven
was a thirty-eight-year-old Caucasian physed teacher at a high school. He was a Democrat, a very good-looking guy who some in the media called “George Clooney.” Burdick certainly seemed smitten by him. We also liked him because he wasn’t crazy about the death penalty.

I remember liking him immediately because of something unique that he said.

During the questioning he was asked, “Did you think when you saw the media coverage that Casey was guilty?”

“I suspected something,” he said, “but guilty of what?”

During the three weeks of our picking a jury, no one gave a better answer.

“Guilty, yeah, but of what?”

It was the basic definition of our case. We weren’t going to parade Casey up there as being completely innocent, but we certainly weren’t going to let them say she was guilty of murder. This was somebody who wanted it proven to him, rather than his just assuming it.

There was another thing we liked about him. While he was initially okay with jury service, the next day he came back to say the school he worked for had a course they were offering him, and he wasn’t sure he would get that course if he had to leave to be a juror. Basically he didn’t want on, which made us like him even more, because we then knew he wasn’t a stealth juror.

He ended up serving, and from the first day of the trial he was the one who took the most notes, and we all knew he was going to be the foreman.

And then there was
juror number twelve.
She was a sixty-one-year-old Caucasian female who worked for Publix supermarkets as a cook in the deli department. She was the only juror who was strongly in favor of the death penalty, and the reason she made the jury was that Judge Perry didn’t give us any additional peremptory challenges, and we couldn’t strike her. Even so, I felt,
Eleven out of twelve isn’t bad at all.

In fact, when we were done, I thought to myself,
This is a phenomenal jury—fair and impartial. I don’t think I’ve ever picked a better one.

CHAPTER 24

A FLOWER IN THE ATTIC

I
HAD A COUPLE OF DAYS before the start of the trial to fine-tune my opening statement. I estimated it was going to be about two hours long, and my biggest challenge was how to keep the jury’s attention for that length of time, especially after sitting through two hours of listening to Linda Drane Burdick.

My idea was to keep them alert and awake through the use of different types of visual aids. The idea was to blow up whatever point I wanted to make. This is where Jim Lucas was so creative. I used the standard trial exhibits which sat on an easel, and in addition Jim created a magnetic board for me to put up information as I was making a point; I had a hand board—smaller-sized exhibits I could hold in my hand—giving me the opportunity to get closer to the jury to better create a bond with them; I used a standard PowerPoint so the jurors could use the television screens in front of their seats; and I used a standard whiteboard that I could write on. The purpose of these different types of visual aids was to stimulate the jurors’ visual perspective in different ways to keep them interested.

I also brought with me a tape measure to demonstrate how close Caylee’s remains were to the street. I wanted to show that she was on the side of the road to be found, not in the woods to be hidden.

I was ready. I knew the facts backward and forward. I had gone over my opening countless times. My detractors always talked about my swagger and my cockiness, but my confidence came from being prepared. It was nothing more than that. I knew going in that I knew the case better than anyone in that courtroom, and it was only through hard work that you get that way. One of my favorite expressions is “Opportunity favors the prepared mind
.”

One of the things my mother always said to me was, “If you want to be the best, study the best, and become better.” The week before the opening statement I would turn off the sound of the ballgame and read Clarence Darrow’s autobiography,
The Story of My Life,
and read his closing arguments in the Leopold and Loeb case. I watched trials of the old masters like Johnnie Cochran in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. I watched Roy Black during the William Kennedy Smith trial. I watched Gerry Spence, any of the masters, to see what made them persuasive. I had studied them before, but they always served as a great refresher.

I knew this was going to be my moment, that if I did it right, someday people would watch me.

T
HE TRIAL DAY CAME
, and I wasn’t nervous. Rather I was anxious, like a racehorse ready to burst out of the gate. I had the feeling,
I can’t wait to go.
As usual, I drove to Cheney Mason’s office opposite the Orlando courthouse and parked in his garage. We’d meet in his office and walk across the street together. That day I was carrying Clarence Darrow’s autobiography with me, intending to read a passage or two during breaks in the proceedings.

From across the street in front of the courthouse, I could see the media vultures getting ready to pounce. As soon as we crossed, they attacked us, and it was far more chaotic and hectic than I had ever seen before, except for the first time when we got Casey out of jail. The crush of media was overwhelming, but we kept walking forward, and I felt like a boxer surrounded by his entourage getting ready to walk into the ring.

They threw questions at me left and right, but I didn’t answer any of them. I was determined not to speak to the media during the course of the trial.

I remember hearing one question from a reporter, who said, “Jose, you look like you have a little extra bounce in your step. Are you expecting to drop some major bombshells today?”

Oh shit
, I thought to myself,
you better calm down. I don’t want to come across as overconfident
.

I didn’t answer her.

When we reached the courtroom, I couldn’t believe how packed it was. There was real tension in the air, and for the first time in my career a little nervousness crept in. I knew my entire defense team was looking for me to start this trial off with a bang.

In a trial, you always want to start strong. The opening statement is critical because it gives the jurors a framework from which they will look at the evidence. If you don’t set up the framework at the outset, it becomes very difficult to make them see it in the middle of the trial.

After we walked in, in came the prosecution, Frank George, Jeff Ashton, and Linda Drane Burdick, who was wearing a red jacket. In the three years I had known her, she had never worn anything but gray or blue. Nothing flashy. Nothing bright. Plus she had had her hair done, and she looked very nice. It was as though she had gone on one of those television shows and had had a makeover.

She got up and began her presentation. She began with something like, “The time has come to tell a story of a little girl named Caylee,” and right away I knew the prosecution was going to do exactly what I was sure it would do: appeal to the jury’s emotions.

Who’s going to be able to overcome the death of a beautiful little girl? Let me grab your hearts and keep them.

Her approach was no surprise. The prosecutor’s number-one card, one that they always play, is to try to appeal to the jurors’ emotions, trying to get them angry about the crime. After all, isn’t that what the television news does all of the time? That’s why the prosecutor and the TV news reporters work so well together.

While the prosecution was appealing to the jurors’ emotions, I knew that I was going to have to appeal to their intellect. Of course, if I could grab their emotions here and there, it wouldn’t hurt.

One thing I’ve noticed about prosecutors: They always have themes and expressions, which are usually ridiculous. In this case Burdick’s theme revolved around Day One, Casey did this, Day Two, she did this, Day Three, she did this, until she went through the entire thirty days when Caylee went missing. The mistake she made was that thirty days is a
long
time, and the jurors got bored. In fact, they had to take a break right in the middle of her opening statement.

She started talking about the events of Day One, and then Day Two, and then Day Three, Day Four, and so on. While she was recounting Casey’s activities for the thirty days, ten times she must have said, “Where’s Caylee?” But she left out the key question, which was not,
Where’s Caylee?
Rather the most important question—and my focus—would be,
What happened to Caylee? How did she die?

My mentor, Rick DeMaria, taught me to take the prosecution’s ridiculous theme and bring it up again and again to make it seem as ridiculous as it is. And that’s what I did with Linda Burdick’s Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four recitation. Over and over I told the jury, this case isn’t about Casey’s actions during those thirty days.

No, this case is about one thing and one thing only:
How did Caylee die?