Casey Anthony Hearing - April 1 Hearing Homework

I'm being optimistic here and hoping the Frye hearings will end up by the end of the day on April 1. However, I have a feeling that things will drag on. Perhaps if we all cross our fingers, we'll get our wish.

There is some leftover business from the last hearing. Jeff Ashton presented his witness, Dr. Arpad Vass and Jose Baez did his cross-examination. We should be hearing from the defense and their experts on the matter at this hearing. One will probably be Dr. Kenneth Furton and another, Dr. Barry Logan.

I also believe that I heard Jose Baez say that he had another expert for the cadaver dogs. That would possibly be Dr. Logan, who spoke about cadaver dogs in his deposition. However, Jeff Ashton did mention at a recent hearing that Logan had backed away from testifying about them when they did his deposition. As for Dr. Furton, it will be especially interesting to hear what questions Jeff Ashton will have for him about his time in Oregon.

We will finally get to the rest of the motions in limine which have been hanging around for a very long time.

The first motion is the Motion And Memorandum Of Law In Support Of Defendant's Motion To Exclude Irrelevant Evidence Of Stain In Trunk Of Car. Here is what I wrote about the motions previously:

The defense uses the terms "imaginary, silhouette or fantasy image" to describe the stain. They argue that if found relevant, the information would be more prejudicial than probative. (Remember all the internet speculation that the stain is an outline of little Caylee's body in the fetal position, spurred on by comments by a lab worker?) Also, the defense argues that testing by the FBI indicated that the stain was not biological in nature. There was no DNA found.

The State reply, Jeff Ashton stated that "the State does not concede the accuracy of the statement of facts and does not stipulate that the defendant's burden of proof is satisfied by their mere claim that certain facts are true. If the history of this case has proven anything, it is that attorneys can make extravagant claims in pleadings that are not borne out upon closer examination."

Ashton points out that the Oakridge Labs tested the stain and found that it contains "volatile fatty acids consistent with decomposition" and that the stain was, "the approximate size of a small child."

The Spoliation of Evidence (Odor in Trunk) motion wants the odor or all mention of the odor in the car kept out. They want no mention from Cindy on the 911 call, no testimony from people who have previously smelled decomposition to qualify it as such. That would disqualify an awful lot of people who have testified to that odor! The defense cunningly amended their ancient Spoliation of Evidence motion to explain that there was spoliation of evidence due to the fact that the CSI's dried out the contents of the garbage bag. The defense claims that by allowing the various items to air out, they lost their odor. They also want to implicate here that the rotting garbage in the bag was the source of the odor.

Finally there is the Heart Shape Sticker motion. We all know that the supposed "heart shape" was observed by fingerprint examiner Elizabeth Fontaine is the only person to have seen the shape after "super glue fuming" and the image was destroyed by further testing.

These last two motions are about scientific issues, but are not Frye issues. There is a challenge to the quality of the evidence. As far as I can tell, there are no responses from the State on these. I am eager to hear them discussed from the prosecution point of view.

So we will have quite a couple of days! I look forward to watching the hearings with you all!