Casey Anthony: lawyer's audio dies; messages alive and kicking

A gurney used to perform lethal injections   (Wiki Commons photo)
      Defense attorney Andrea Lyon, who in 2008 lectured before the Florida Association of Capital Defense Lawyers on her strategies to help convicted criminals avoid capital punishment, is a death penalty specialist and member of Casey Anthony's legal team. In the controversial speech, Lyon says she tells jurors that "life means life," when they are considering whether or not to hand down a death sentence. AP photo           (Wiki Commons image of CD/Ivy Bigbee graphic). 

Adding more controversy to the high profile murder case, reactions to Anthony defense lawyer Andrea Lyon's 2008 death penalty lecture tape, obtained "without permission," and now removed from an Orlando TV's Internet site--continue, as two criminal attorneys and a watchful blogosphere sustain a heated debate over the material's shocking content.

In Orlando, TV station WFTV pulled the highly inflammatory Andrea Lyon recording--in which the Casey Anthony defense lawyer describes negative, or "ugly" courtrooms encountered during cases she has tried, prompting her to remark that "sometimes 'ugly is presiding" in a courtroom.

In the taped speech, Lyon also opines that some victims' advocates "wear strap-ons," and categorizes certain women with blue hair who carry "pocketbooks" as "killer" jurors.

Although the tape is no longer viewable on the TV station's web site, controversy over Lyon's lecture continues, reflected in two opposing legal analysts' blogs, reported in Orlando's newspaper, TV stations and as expressed by people who listened to the recording of Lyon's lecture before it was removed.

On Nov. 23, WFTV's Kathi Belich aired what the Orlando Sentinel's Hal Boedeker terms an "eye-opening report on Andrea Lyon," now the death penalty counsel for Casey Anthony, facing trial for the murder of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

The tape was posted in conjunction with Belich's report. Currently, Lyon's lecture is available on YouTube.

In the still-accessible tape, the strident, anti-capital punishment lawyer and DePaul University's director of the Center for Justice in Capital Cases, recommends tactics she uses during the penalty phase of criminal trials, when she argues against the death punishment for convicted criminals that the jury could "kill," she states.                                                                                                                                                                                                  In remarks concerning the Lyon tape, Bill Sheaffer--WFTV's outspoken legal expert critical of the Casey Anthony defense--who says his real interest is "justice for Caylee," requests people not hold all defense lawyers in the same light as they view Andrea Lyon, whose "scorched earth policy," "take no prisoners" case strategies appear in the "Death is Different," 2008 seminar where Andrea Lyon spoke.

Part of the controversy surrounding the tape has to do with it being obtained for WFTV by their legal analyst, Bill Scheaffer, through possible subterfuge.

Mainly, however, the public reaction is strong because the lecture's shocking content was never intended for public consumption.

The public may view the tape's "chance" discovery by itself as akin to betrayal, sources tell Examiner, holding that added to Casey Anthony's fabrications and crimes, the tape injects additional elements of distrust, manipulation and even more lies above those tendered by Casey Anthony.

Via another blog, Richard Hornsby--a second legal analyst who sometimes comments for television-- has a different view, posting about his colleague, Bill Sheaffer, who is associated with Belich's Anthony trial reporting:

"Mr. Sheaffer called FACDL headquarters and claimed he was having a hard time hearing the audio and would like to have a copy sent to him. He went so far as to say he needed it so that he could maintain his death penalty qualifications."

Hornsby continues, "FACDL [Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers] believed Mr. Sheaffer and sent him the audio as he requested –he immediately turned it over to Ms. Belich. The rest is history – just like his reputation among his colleagues."

Clearly, Andrea Lyon was not speaking to the general public about her methods to help convicted capital murderers avoid the death penalty, but delivered remarks "in-house," to defense lawyers who may try capital cases.  

To maintain their eligibility to practice, lawyers must accrue a certain number of post-graduate education credits or hours, to sustain membership in various law associations--and, in this case, to attend death penalty-related seminars, much as physicians are required to attend continuing medical education seminars and courses to maintain their board specialty certification.

The Orlando Sentinel's "TV Guy," Hal Boedeker, stated on 11/24 that neither the story by Belich, nor the audiotape of Lyon's keynote address to the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is available now, quoting WFTV news director Bob Jordan, who said, "We took it down," that  "it was an editorial judgment," and that  "our feeling is the story had its run."

Boedeker says that the station "had received a call from Barry Wax, a Miami lawyer who puts on the seminar and gets the speakers for the professional group."

After saying the "story had its run," Jordan was also quoted by Boedeker to have said, "We pulled it down as a courtesy to the attorney," noting Wax complained the tape "compromises his ability to get attorneys to come to his seminars as presenters."

Before the Andrea Lyon tape exited the TV station's web site, numerous listeners responded on blogs published by two Orlando legal analysts for TV stations. Comments citing Ms. Lyon's crude language, and certain of her pithy disclosures of how to get a jury to vote for life instead of a death sentence, continue to produce public outcry.

Although WFTV has removed the tape and all references to it, Andrea Lyon's remarks are being  discussed in posts on both Scheaffer and Hornsby's blogs.

In light of Lyon's speech, put with the recent realignment of the defense's posture, characterized as a more aggressive stance most recently demonstrated in the 40-page Motion in Limine, it is unclear whether this new slant on pre-trial activity will impact the courtroom case, itself.

Will the audio of a lecture-- created prior to Casey Anthony's capital murder indictment--espousing Andrea Lyon's "scorched earth," jury manipulation tactics--influence the jury pool and on voir dire, and will it drive the process by which potential jurors are accepted or excused?

Regarding voir dire, Law.com Law Dictionary states:

" ...  one of the unspoken purposes of voir dire is for the attorneys to get a feel for the personalities and likely views of the people on the jury panel."

If the defense were to inject into voir dire questions that might determine a potential juror's knowledge of the Lyon tapes, or "Tapegate," lawyers could interpret responses using a kind of backtracking, to identify a pro-prosecution/death penalty-"allower," or pro-defense and obviously anti-capital punishment juror.

From jury pool outward, the tape's appearance and continued controversy seemingly is exacerbating pre-trial opinions reflecting both sides--to new heights: months before opening statements in the State of Florida versus Casey Marie Anthony.

An added voice in the pre-trial clatter is the recent promise from blogfellow, Richard Hornsby. The self-deprecating Hornsby, who describes himself as "the guy in the neighborhood who doesn't cut his grass often enough, but one who vows he'll be [bearing down] on WFTV legal analyst Bill Scheaffer "like white on rice."

In lock-step with the defense's saber-rattling, Hornsby's strident sounds against defense critic Sheaffer may resonate as music to Baez and company, while the resulting mashup might fall on the prosecution's determindly-deaf ears.

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To read the defense's Defendant's Motion in Limine to Introduce Prior Bad Acts and Other Circumstantial Evidence Pertaining to Roy M. Kronk,  click here  

To watch Orlando WKMG TV report/summary of Motion (above), click on arrow below:

Note: Andrea Lyons' tapes are available on YouTube; Examiner.com does not encourage content with inappropriate language.