Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Casey Anthony's Attorneys Want It All From TES, AGAIN! State Files Intriguing Motion

Between shoveling snow and repeated power outages, I've been looking at two new motions filed recently.

The first motion is a very interesting one. It has sparked quite a bit of discussion among those who are following the case closely. In the motion, entitled MOTION FOR INCAMERA EX PARTE HEARING.

Filed on February 3, Assistant State's Attorney Jeff Ashton states the following:

1. Certain materials and information have come into the possession of Law Enforcement.

2. Those materials and information are discoverable under F.R.C.P. 3.220.

3. There is good cause to delay disclosure of these materials and information pursuant to F.R.C.P. 3.220 (k).

The State wants to speak to the judge without the defense being present. They have new information and materials and are asking the judge to delay discovery for what they must consider to be a good reason.

We can speculate all we want, but we'll all have to wait on this one.

Once again, the defense is going after Texas EquuSearch for all their records.

Yesterday, the defense filed a new motion. Entitled MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE SUPPLEMENTAL AUTHORITY, Baez & Co. again wants every piece of paper that TES has on the search for the remains of Caylee Anthony.

This is not a new topic, to put it mildly. The defense originally asked for this information January, 2009, just after Caylee's remains were found.

If you would like to review the history of the quest for the names of all the searchers and their pertinent information, re-read the following articles I posted about them.

August 16, 2009 Motions and history from January, 2009

August 23, 2009
Review of the August 21 hearing.

Here is the full video of the August 21 hearing.

The latest motion filed is in response to a statement TES attorney Mark NeJame made to WESH on February 4.

In the article, NeJame is reacting to the previous motion filed by the defense on November 23, 2009. He told WESH that

“The motion is wrong, and they're wrong,” ...

He said his door was open for the defense to examine anything they wanted.

“Come by. Take a look. If you see anything, let us know and we'll bring it to the court,” NeJame said.

NeJame allowed News 13 to examine reports and notes taken by EquuSearch volunteers. They list team leaders, cell phone numbers of volunteers, details about items found and locations searched.

There are more boxes of notes and reports, and the defense wants them all.

The motion was supposed to be heard at a hearing last week, but was taken off the schedule.

NeJame said he's submitted a list of available dates and thinks the motion may be heard before the end of the month.

The new motion cites this article and that NeJame had negated the privacy issue by his actions.

The disclosure by Mr. NeJame of these records, including volunteer names and phone numbers, seriously undercuts the argument made by TES against giving them to Miss Anthony. If disclosure of search records in the media is the source of this "chilling effect" it is not entirely clear why Mr. NeJame allowed Orlando News 13 access to such records. What is clear, however, is that disclosure of records to Miss Anthony and her defense team would have significantly less of an effect. Being that TES is no longer concerned about the "chilling effect on volunteerism" and has taken to allow media access to its records, there is no reason to prevent disclosure to Miss Anthony as well.

Fact is, NeJame did NOT disclose the information to the media. He allowed the media to look at the information. There were no names published, no phone numbers, and probably no notes were allowed. NeJame invited the defense to do the same and IF they found something of interest, they could bring it to court as was settled in the previous hearing.

There is a good reason the defense hasn't gone down and examined the information for themselves. They want to have all the information in their hands so that they can have someone call every single searcher and ask if they went off on their own and searched the Suburban Drive area. That is very clear from the get-go. At the August 21 hearing, Andra Lyon even stated that the searchers had gone off on their own after working with TES. In their November 23 motion, the defense mentioned two searchers who had gone off on their own. Joseph Jordan illegally taped his conversation and it was sealed. Laura Buchanan also is mentioned and gives a brief, vague statement that she didn't see buzzards or smell decomposition when she and a few others searched that area on their own.

What is notable in that motion is the fact that NONE of the others who searched with Jordan and Buchanan are mentioned. I would bet the farm that if even one of them had backed up their stories, they would have been mentioned as well.

So, it's still a big fishing expedition for the defense.

What's disturbing to me is that the defense has spent more time on getting all the TES records than they have on deposing witnesses in this case. Someone from the State mentioned that it would take from now to the fall for the defense to depose all the State's witnesses. The defense still hasn't submitted a witness list longer than three names. It seems to me that the defense is still counting on finding a needle in the haystack of TES volunteers on which to base their defense. Well, there's the Roy Kronk stuff as well! If I were Ms. Anthony, I would be very worried about the state of my case!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for your article. Love the way you explain things, easy for me as a layperson to understand it.
Fishing expedition indeed! I am so sick and tire of KC's defense team that it is not even funny!!!
Maybe defense's money is running out, or JB wants to save money and have TES' papers handed over to him. Despicable defense!!!

Sprocket said...

I don't think the defense has to go to the expense to "depose" every witness the state has, but it is surprising that they haven't done any informal interviews, or tried to speak to them before trial.

I remember clearly the frustration DDA Alan Jackson had when cross examining Doron Weinberg's witnesses in the Spector retrial. (One specifically was Greg Sims.) A few times the witnesses added significant information, or embellished testimony beyond what they gave in their original deposition or interview with Weinberg. In one or two instances that became a discovery violation...for the defense.

A few times, Jackson and Ms. Do were able to get a defense witness to speak to them before they took the stand... and sometimes there was quite a bit of behind the scenes bickering involved in that process.

ritanita said...

Sprocket,

I agree that the defense doesn't have to depose every witness, but there are people they really need to talk to.

One good thing about Florida is that the defense has the right to depose any witness by subpoena.

I think that one reason they haven't done so yet is that the average deposition costs the defense $1000, according to Baez.

Anonymous said...

Chablis....Me
Hmmmm didn't know about the $1000 per depo cost..interesting. However, we all know when the defense does any depos, nothing is going to come out of them except confirmation that Casey did it and the defense does not want their "no answer" to the prosecutions allegations to be confirmed in the public eye. Wake up, defense. The public eye, me for one, is way ahead of you. We know you won't discover anything helpful to you in defending Casey by doing any depos just as you do. So that's no excuse for using the need to still do them as a DELAY TACTIC.
Just admit you have no defense. Sheesh. Not admitting that makes you look even More Stupid if that's even possible.

shari said...

Is it possible that this "new evidence" is very incriminating, but that it needs further testing or investigating to make sure it is genuine and the prosecution doesn't want it released until it is verified, or tested???? If it is released now to the defense and it later turns out to be false or not relevant, the prosecution doesn't want Baez and Co. to use it as a weapon against them at trial. Whatever it is, I hope it is relevant to the 1st degree murder charge.