He screwed up: His theory of what happened to Caylee simply doesn't hold water, and even worse, he failed to keep out of the courtroom hours of video footage showing his client Casey Anthony in the worst possible light.
Now, I am not a lawyer, I am a journalist, and believe it or not, while the professions are certainly different -- especially the pay scale, though reporters tend not to be saddled with the kind of student-loan debt attorneys carry -- there are similarities, as well.
First, and I am simplifying, we both seek the truth; we interview people, knowing which questions to ask to get the information we want. We take the information we have from various sources, whether people or reports or other forms of communication, and organize it. Reporters, however --and I am not referring to editorial or op-ed writers or bloggers or special formats of journalism--reporters write straight, objective news stories and do not take one side and, of course, do not stand before a judge and jury and argue.
We put our findings in the story; we are no one person's advocate; we are truth's advocate; we are advocates of the deft conveyance of information to readers, whether to help them in some way, interest them, wake them up, educate them, anger them, make them smile or crack a chuckle -- anything but put them to sleep. And, in my most favorite quote, journalists: "Speak truth to power."
But you don't have to be a journalist to see Baez screwed this up. He broke the Casey machine when he stood and gave his opening statement in which he put all the blame on father George -- not only did Casey's father bury Caylee's body and keep it secret, he engaged in some sort of sexual acts with his daughter when she was a child, Baez told us. And brother Lee also had wandering hands. That is what Baez told us.
As for Casey, she's suffering from the trauma of having her father's p----s in her mouth, Baez's words. She knew Caylee was dead on day one, when the child drowned in the pool; Casey begged her father/rapist to help her by hiding the corpse of the dead child. Casey invented the stories, the names, the addresses -- she walked several police officers through the Universal Studios offices for no reason until she literally reached a dead end and had to confess, "I don't work here." It's all George's fault, Baez says, and that is it. She is to be excused for every act she has taken since Caylee's death; every lie, her plays for sympathy, her crocodile tears -- everything is George's fault.
Baez bet all his chips on one hand he thought was strong, but like all gamblers for time immemorial, he had no idea what his opponent was holding. And again, he bet all his chips. Know roulette? Well, Jose, in a manner of speaking, piled all his chips high on top of one number. And the wheel is spinning and it isn't looking good for him. If he loses, though, he'll move on to the next client; Casey, perhaps deservedly, could feasibly move into the death house.
He's locked into a defense the way Casey is locked in a cell when not in a courtroom. He was the oily, snake-charming smoothy-smooth who had the truth, he told the jury in his opening statement; he was the man with all the answers. Of course the cops spent -- wasted -- a month on Casey's bullshit instead of finding Caylee. Of course Casey is a pathological lier. What else can you expect? She was molested, and that is a get out of jail free card. (A couple of young men with the surname Menendez may differ in opinion.) Baez spoke as if doling out the revelation of a fait accompli. But it is not. He screwed up. Did he drink Casey's Kool-Aid, or did he elicit the answers he wanted from her, pulling them out of thin air -- in other words, from between Casey's ears via her flapping mouth -- and manufacture his game-changing (so he thought) story.
After years of the nation wondering what really happened to Caylee, he gets up in front of the court and tells us as casually as you say you had a chopped salad for lunch that Caylee drowned. And then he says that the police focused on Casey and locked her up and now have the audacity to attempt to execute her; BUT they never investigated the case properly. They never read Casey's mind to learn what really happened. Wait, they can't read minds. But, hold on a minute, couldn't Casey have just told them?
Those hours and hours and hours of prison video footage afford us the opportunity to view a sociopath give an Academy Award performance right up to the end, when Baez tells us, "Wait a minute, don't look there, don't you all know you should be looking here?" The curtain fell after Casey's two-plus-years performance reached its conclusion, there in court on trial for her very life.
Baez objects to a lot of things and is mostly overruled. He tried like hell to keep that prison footage out of the trial -- he did not want the jury to see two destroyed but still-loving parents doing whatever they could to help their, we now know, lying, thieving, murdering daughter; they must maintain support for Casey's innocence -- after all, they are the girl's parents, her mommy and daddy. Unlike Caylee, Casey knew her father, and neither of her parents ever deigned to murder her, as far as we know: Baez's full defense has yet to roll out. Yet George and Cindy no doubt all along harbored serious doubts in their minds; both are way too intelligent not to have considered the worst of the worst.
Still, they did this and they did that to find Caylee, they told Casey, both of them wearing T-shirts with Caylee's face on them, along with phone numbers and requests for help. Caylee's very eyes, two pairs of them, from the two images of her face on the parent's T-shirts, staring at Casey through prison glass.
Good job, great, Casey tells them, and maybe she believes it, but maybe she also thinks if she can create enough noise and distraction, keep this "thing" rolling just a little longer, maybe Caylee's corpse will deteriorate until nothing is left, not even skin and bones. No body, no murder. And the tape with which Casey used to murder her child, suffocating her by blocking her mouth and nasal passages (and putting a tiny heart-shaped sticker in the middle of where tiny pink lips once lived, right on the spot where Casey and mother Cindy no doubt planted countless kisses, a last effort born perhaps from the faintest maternal instinct), also will dissipate through the erosion and decay of passing time, and maybe hungry, nibbling bugs would help speed the process.
Baez wants that footage out, and he fought like hell to get it out. But he lost and the tape continued to roll.
But that wasn't a fait accompli, either. Baez could possibly have had the tapes thrown out. He had until December 2010 to file motions and to argue, to move heaven and earth, to get the videos out. But he didn't do it -- he either forgot or chose to sit on his hands, and waited until the game had begun and it was legally too late for him to do anything about it.
His opening statement, which he thought would indemnify Casey, hide her behind the ad-hoc manufactured guilt of her molesting, raping father, appears not to have worked, though we will have to wait until the verdict is read and the jurors speak to know for sure.
And if he had had the foresight to fight the prison videos before the deadline, perhaps they would not be playing seemingly endlessly for the jury. Irony. He thought he'd captured the juries' attention with his opening statement. But his story, though certainly a shocker, is nothing compared to the story Casey tells in the videos, where her true face -- if she even has one -- is visible for all to scrutinize. Almost as interesting as watching the videos is watching Casey herself watch them. There she sits, emotionless, crying only when she sees herself crying in the videos. Her sympathy for herself is most pure.
But I believe her primary concern is her appearance -- how she looks in the videos. If one video captured her on a bad-hair day, she might grow misty eyed.
Journalists have deadlines; we know we have to file our story by a certain time, or we are screwed. Baez didn't forget the deadline; it looks like he didn't even know there was one. But he had to be aware of the videos, or maybe he was daydreaming when that was discussed.
He is screwed, and by extension, so is Casey. And even if she doesn't get the needle, think of what she does get: life without parole, a fate probably worse than death. That would be fine with me.
Anyway, before I wrote this, I did a little digging around to find out who this Baez is. How could Casey hire an attorney who is capable of making such elementary screw ups in a death-penalty case. I realize I am glad she hired Jose for that very fact, thought the specter of a mistrial does haunt me from time to time.
I came across this somewhat prescient blog entry, written in January of 2009. I present it here in its entirety, courtesy of Backseat Lawyer. And please remember, this was written about two and a half years ago...
1/15/2009
Who Is Jose Baez Besides Being Casey Anthony's Attorney?
After reading today at Examiner.Com that Jose Baez's past experience involves winning 32 out of 34 trials while working as an intern at a Public Defender's Office as well as doing internet training at Lexis-Nexis, I was shocked.
How did this guy get to be the lead counsel on the biggest case of the year? And however snooty this may sound, Casey Anthony BETTER have a dream team if this is the type of experience we're talking about here.
Most defense attorneys work years before they take on felony cases of this magnitude, where the death penalty is involved. And that's before you add in all the media hoopla. What gives?
Here's what I found out about Jose Baez.
1. First of all, his website doesn't allow you to read his bio page - it just clicks back to the home page when you attempt to go there. Nice, expensive website. (Even today, early June of 2011, the links on the site don't work; it is an advertisement, providing no true insight - Requiem)
2. WESH-TV in Orlando reports that it has checked out his recent past experience in their records; however when you compare this to the Baez site with its four "success stories," it's duplicative.
Plus, there's only FOUR and they are the kind of wins you'd expect an aggressive, Young-Turk type of defense attorney to have on his site at this point. NOTHING near to the complexity of the Anthony matter.
3. You can't pull up his information at Martindale, when is a site owned by Lexis - purportedly, his former employer. He's not in Martindale???? What?????? (Martindale.com is a search engine designed to help people find lawyers; obviously, from the blogger's reaction, it must serve as an industry bible, the "whose who" of attorneys in the United States. Now there is a Jose Anibal Baez listed on the site, but he is located in New York and does not practice criminal law, so it is not the same Baez - Requiem)
4. The Florida Bar Association shows Jose Angel Baez to be in good standing with them, with offices in Kissamee, Florida. He was admitted to practice in September 2005. (Still holds true; he remains in "good standing," according to the bar - Requiem)
5. I found a site, avvo.com, that reports Jose Baez got his law degree from St. Thomas School of Law - while Investigation Discovery quotes Baez's website as Baez having a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Criminology from Florida State University. Same source also quotes the Baez site as Baez working for the Public Defender's Office since 1995. (On avvo, there is a "client review" written two months ago that, well, is not very flattering. We put no credo in that review; is it anonymous, and he is on the national stage now, a target for anyone with familiarity with the case and a computer with Internet connection - Requiem)
Okay.
We know that he's been licensed to practice for around 3 years when he takes the Casey Anthony case.
We know that he's got an office in Kissamee, and he's paid for a very nice website.
We know he's not listed in Martindale (a real red flag to lawyers out there).
Today, I can't get anything off the website. However, it appears that those seeking information about Baez have had access to it, and it's been from his own website that they've reported his "success stories" as well as his background and experience.
Personally, I'll give Jose Baez this: as a trial lawyer, you go into a courtroom and take responsibility for another human being.
It takes a whole lot of chutzpah to do that job. Courage, huevos, whatever you want to call it.
And it's clear that Jose Baez has that in spades.
What's not clear is what the heck Jose Baez thinks he's doing, representing Casey Anthony. Her defense is something that even the most seasoned of advocates would find challenging.
He's gone out and got himself some co-counsel. Good. Great.
Because there's a thing called "ineffective assistance of counsel" that every jailhouse lawyer can chant like a mantra upon appeal and if my search of the web is all we've got to put in an appellate brief here, well - Katie Bar the Door.
Point of Error comin'.
Unless, of course, on the first day of trial we get a Surprise Change in Lead Counsel -- a Mystery Lawyer who reveals himself or herself as things tee up (wouldn't that make a great Nancy Grace Bombshell?)....
After reading today at Examiner.Com that Jose Baez's past experience involves winning 32 out of 34 trials while working as an intern at a Public Defender's Office as well as doing internet training at Lexis-Nexis, I was shocked.
How did this guy get to be the lead counsel on the biggest case of the year? And however snooty this may sound, Casey Anthony BETTER have a dream team if this is the type of experience we're talking about here.
Most defense attorneys work years before they take on felony cases of this magnitude, where the death penalty is involved. And that's before you add in all the media hoopla. What gives?
Here's what I found out about Jose Baez.
1. First of all, his website doesn't allow you to read his bio page - it just clicks back to the home page when you attempt to go there. Nice, expensive website. (Even today, early June of 2011, the links on the site don't work; it is an advertisement, providing no true insight - Requiem)
2. WESH-TV in Orlando reports that it has checked out his recent past experience in their records; however when you compare this to the Baez site with its four "success stories," it's duplicative.
Plus, there's only FOUR and they are the kind of wins you'd expect an aggressive, Young-Turk type of defense attorney to have on his site at this point. NOTHING near to the complexity of the Anthony matter.
3. You can't pull up his information at Martindale, when is a site owned by Lexis - purportedly, his former employer. He's not in Martindale???? What?????? (Martindale.com is a search engine designed to help people find lawyers; obviously, from the blogger's reaction, it must serve as an industry bible, the "whose who" of attorneys in the United States. Now there is a Jose Anibal Baez listed on the site, but he is located in New York and does not practice criminal law, so it is not the same Baez - Requiem)
4. The Florida Bar Association shows Jose Angel Baez to be in good standing with them, with offices in Kissamee, Florida. He was admitted to practice in September 2005. (Still holds true; he remains in "good standing," according to the bar - Requiem)
5. I found a site, avvo.com, that reports Jose Baez got his law degree from St. Thomas School of Law - while Investigation Discovery quotes Baez's website as Baez having a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Criminology from Florida State University. Same source also quotes the Baez site as Baez working for the Public Defender's Office since 1995. (On avvo, there is a "client review" written two months ago that, well, is not very flattering. We put no credo in that review; is it anonymous, and he is on the national stage now, a target for anyone with familiarity with the case and a computer with Internet connection - Requiem)
Okay.
We know that he's been licensed to practice for around 3 years when he takes the Casey Anthony case.
We know that he's got an office in Kissamee, and he's paid for a very nice website.
We know he's not listed in Martindale (a real red flag to lawyers out there).
Today, I can't get anything off the website. However, it appears that those seeking information about Baez have had access to it, and it's been from his own website that they've reported his "success stories" as well as his background and experience.
Personally, I'll give Jose Baez this: as a trial lawyer, you go into a courtroom and take responsibility for another human being.
It takes a whole lot of chutzpah to do that job. Courage, huevos, whatever you want to call it.
And it's clear that Jose Baez has that in spades.
What's not clear is what the heck Jose Baez thinks he's doing, representing Casey Anthony. Her defense is something that even the most seasoned of advocates would find challenging.
He's gone out and got himself some co-counsel. Good. Great.
Because there's a thing called "ineffective assistance of counsel" that every jailhouse lawyer can chant like a mantra upon appeal and if my search of the web is all we've got to put in an appellate brief here, well - Katie Bar the Door.
Point of Error comin'.
Unless, of course, on the first day of trial we get a Surprise Change in Lead Counsel -- a Mystery Lawyer who reveals himself or herself as things tee up (wouldn't that make a great Nancy Grace Bombshell?)....
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