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Jane Velez-Mitchell

Closing Arguments Made in Casey Anthony Trial; What Will Casey Anthony`s Fate Be?

Aired July 04, 2011 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST (voice-over): Tonight we`re on verdict watch in the Casey Anthony trial. The prosecution gives its last remarks before the jury is sent off to deliberate. And boy, did they deliver.

LINDA DRANE-BURDICK, PROSECUTOR: Ask yourself a simple question: whose life was better without Caylee?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Guilty or innocent? Life or death? We`re on verdict watch, live from Orlando, Florida, and we`re talking your calls.

ISSUES starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DRANE-BURDICK: My biggest fear, and I do not under any circumstances mean this as an insult, my biggest fear is that common sense will be lost in all of the rhetoric. No person would ever make the accidental death of a child look like murder.

The defendant was lying about everything.

CINDY ANTHONY, CASEY`S MOTHER: That`s the newest story out there.

CASEY ANTHONY, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER: Surprise, surprise.

DRANE-BURDICK: Whose life was better without Caylee? Was Cindy Anthony`s life better?

CINDY ANTHONY: I called a little while ago, the deputy sheriff`s. I found out my granddaughter has been taken. She has been missing for a month. We`re talking about a 3-year-old little girl. There`s something wrong. I found my daughter`s car today, and it smells like there`s been a dead body in the damn car.

DRANE-BURDICK: Was George Anthony`s life better? Mr. Ashton went over what George Anthony`s life was like.

JEFF ASHTON, PROSECUTOR: This is the cry of a man who just doesn`t understand the world anymore.

"Caylee Marie, I miss her. I miss her. I want my family back."

DRANE-BURDICK: Whose life was better? That`s the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road, dead.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Good evening. I`m Jane Velez Mitchell, coming to you live from Orlando.

Another extraordinary day. It`s wild. We have got a storm, another one of those monumental storms going on. We`re not going to have any fireworks here in Orlando tonight unless it clears up, but let me tell you something: it`s the Fourth of July. We`ve got fireworks for you. We`ve got fireworks in court.

It was yet another absolutely extraordinary day in the Casey Anthony trial. Let me tell you this. The jury has now gotten this murder case. You see Casey shaking her head. Yes, she`s shaking her head because she doesn`t like what the prosecutor said in its closing.

But let me tell you something: it finally went to the jury. They got it shortly after noon. The jurors, seven women and five men, deliberated for five hours, 49 minutes and 24 seconds, all right? And we`re going to put up a little clock that`s going to be frozen, because we are following this as it comes down. And we`re going to keep you updated on exactly how long this jury is deliberating as we go through this here on HLN, wall-to- wall coverage.

Now earlier, these jurors, before they went to deliberate, they heard Linda Drane-Burdick`s final words, and these words were explosive. She ripped into the defense claims that the state just wants to make Casey look bad. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: Thirty-one days is really meaningless? Did I hear that? Did I hear a version of that? Counsel suggested that the detailing of what was Ms. Anthony doing during these 31 days gad more to do with the state trying to prove that she was a slut? Did I hear that? Yours truly (ph), sheriff`s office, in an effort to help her, was trying to backtrack and find out where she was, what she had been doing, because they told them she was conducting her own investigation. They were using her cell-phone records to try and track down this Zenaida to find Caylee Marie Anthony, to help the defendant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. I`ve got breaking news to tell you about, and it involves the Anthony home. We have just been told that Orange County sheriff`s officers, once they reach a verdict, will send deputies into the subdivision at the Anthony home to basically close it off.

You`re looking at people who are very peacefully and in a respectful way come to leave mementos to little Caylee. They`ve gathered there, and they are -- they continue to gather. As soon as it stops raining, they go back. There`s teddy bears. There`s signs, as you see.

They are worried, the people who live near the Anthonys, that there`s going to be something ugly. And you know that we have seen ugly, ugly protests at the Anthony home. So we`re going to show you that as we tell you what they`ve decided to do. They`re going to close off that entire subdivision, we`re just being told, when a verdict has been announced, to prevent people from coming in and doing anything that might be offensive or violent in and around the Anthony home.

And in fact, ISSUES, one of our producers just spoke to a neighbor, a neighbor of the Anthony family, and they say -- this is a quote -- "We hope the Anthonys make a huge deal, a television interview, make a lot of money and move from the neighborhood, because we can`t take it any more." That`s how crazy it is down there at the Anthony home.

Now I`m taking your phone calls: 1-877-JVM-SAYS. But I want to start with a man who has been at the center of this since the beginning. And speak up, Leonard, because we`ve got a storm behind us.

LEONARD PADILLA, BOUNTY HUNTER: Got it.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Linda Drane-Burdick`s closing, if you had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, tell us what you think she accomplished today.

PADILLA: Let me tell you: I`ve been around 1,000 of those closing arguments. I`ve got some at the law school that we record for the students to learn from. I would say it`s the most effective and the best close I`ve ever heard. If Lady Justice is blind, Linda made America see today. She took that blindness away. And today, Caylee maybe she wasn`t wanted by her daughter -- by her mother today, but today Caylee is America`s daughter, after that -- after that closing.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It is getting rave reviews. I want to play another clip of Linda Drane-Burdick, ending her closing argument with a very powerful -- you might call it a question, and she also brings in two images, two images that jurors are sure to remember. Check this out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: Whose life was better? That`s the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road dead. There`s your answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, now, Susan Constantine...

SUSAN CONSTANTINE, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Yes.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: ... you`re a body language expert. You`re also a jury consultant. What she did in the courtroom today was very different from what the prosecutors had done in the past. She actually kind of took control, and she started moving around. And she actually approached Casey Anthony and sort of gestured at her. Like owned the room. The prosecution owned the room. Tell us about that.

CONSTANTINE: OK. What she did was kind of an investigative technique. And you want to move in onto proximity and distance to put the pressure cooker on. So that was a really good move, to move inside that natural zone, and then put the pressure cooker on. You could see that Casey Anthony was not, you know, accepting that kind of closeness. You could see that scorn and frustration and anger. And you could actually see that she`s really forming a strong hatred towards the defense -- or the state.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to go out to Mike Belnessieri. I hope I`m pronouncing your name right, Mike. You were a juror in the Scott Peterson case, another case that absolutely riveted America. We`re trying to get an understanding tonight. Can you hear me, Mike?

MIKE BELNESSIERI, JUROR IN SCOTT PETERSON CASE: Sure can.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. We`re trying to get an understanding of what these jurors are going through. They have been sequestered. It`s been a 35-day trial so far. And they`ve been sequestered during all that as well as the weekend. And I want you to give us a sense of what these 12 jurors are going through right now, as they have to ponder this life-or-death decision.

BELNESSIERI: Well, right now they just got the case. And this being the first day of deliberations, what they -- what they`re doing, hopefully, is they`re setting up how they`re going to be conducting those deliberations, laying some ground rules that -- that they`ll follow relative to discussion of, you know, all evidence and testimony at hand.

And then, once they`ve finish that, hopefully, then they`ll get into the actual deliberations, having picked their leader and overseeing these things. They`re going to be discussing and questioning what was offered in testimony, looking at evidence.

And I can tell you that, you know, because of the -- because a child is involved, I`m sure it`s going to be a very emotional and very stressful deliberations. Not that it hasn`t been stressful just to be a juror so far. I mean, when these people are coming and working seven days a week, and jeez, you know, I mean, they just want to push forward and move it on. Gosh, I mean, it`s going to be very difficult for them. And when -- when they finally reach that verdict, it`s going to be literally a stone pulled off their back, so to speak. It`s, you know, their...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wow, you went through it with the Scott Peterson trial. And you were a juror on that trial. It`s really one of the biggest trials. There`s only a handful that have had this kind of impact. O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson child molestation, Scott Peterson and this. So you`re one of the very few people who can really know what`s going on in the minds and hearts of these jurors.

I just want to tell you, we`re going to go to break. We`ve got so much on the other side. But these are the jury instructions, and they`re thick. And they`re filled with all sorts of really complicated language. This is the verdict form. It`s not just "guilty" or "not guilty." It`s pages and pages of choices. We`re going to analyze it.

We`re taking your calls: 1-877-JVM-SAYS.

The prosecution pulling out all the stops at the 11th hour, right before the jury is sent to deliberate Casey`s fate. They deliberated today for about 4-1/2 hours. They`ve broken for the Fourth of July, and they will be back for tomorrow morning. We`re just getting started. Hang in there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: "Well, Casey provided food and shelter and clothes for Caylee. That makes her a great mother." No, that makes her a mother. Maybe an adequate mother. But in reality, the food, the clothes, the shelter were provided by her grandparents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: So during an argument where the most well-documented liar ever seen in a courtroom accuses everybody of perjury, of fraud, of lying, the irony is rich indeed.

JOSE BAEZ, CASEY`S ATTORNEY: Your honor, violation of paragraph number 5 of this court`s order and move to strike.

BELVIN PERRY, JUDGE: Overruled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: There were so many objections as prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick hammered at defense, and Jose Baez tried to stop it, but he couldn`t. He was overruled repeatedly.

I want to go to Martin Lujay (ph), noted criminal defense attorney here in Orlando. This is being called one of the most effective closings. Leonard Padilla says it`s the best one he`s ever seen in his entire -- decades in this business. Your thoughts?

MARTIN LUJAY (PH), CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It was an excellent. It was a great closing. But not so much as it relates to the passion, but the undertones and the organization and the strategy was spectacular. I think Jeff Ashton did an amazing job. I think Linda Drane-Burdick coupling up, she did a spectacular job.

Let me tell you what she did that was so terrific. The jury heard Casey Anthony at trial today. She didn`t take the stand, but they heard her at trial. And they saw the worst of her. They saw her lying. They saw her conniving, or they saw her -- they listened to her. They listened to her being uncaring, unfeeling. They listened to her be the worst of the worst. They heard her friend more concerned about Caylee than she was. They heard all the ugly, and it was right there, a full ten-minute run from the jail and the other calls. And they were able to put Casey Anthony on the stand and did a perfect job of it.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. You know, I think the most powerful moment for me was when she took on this whole issue which Jose Baez kind of spun to being imaginary friends. Casey had a lot of imaginary friends. He made a chart with her picture as a young girl and all these imaginary friends.

And what she said is, "Hey, that`s for kids. This woman`s imaginary friends, they`re nothing more than lies." Listen to Linda Drane-Burdick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: for the longest time, Caylee was alive. Nobody killed Caylee. Caylee is alive. Until her remains are found. The defendant`s lies changed. They got bigger. They got better. They involved more people. Those weren`t imaginary friends. Those were lies. Every one of them was a lie, a lie designed for a specific purpose: to get Casey out of a jam.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: May seem a little unfair, because the defense didn`t speak today, so we`re playing what happened today. We all know the prosecution has the last word because they have the burden of proof.

I want to go out to Judge Larry Seidlin. You have been very favorable to the defense, yet this seemed to be a day when, oh, my gosh, the prosecution hit a home run at the very time that they absolutely needed to.

LARRY SEIDLIN, JUDGE: The prosecution was smart; they were clever. They used the female prosecutor, Linda, to appeal to the jury. They`re asking for the death penalty. And who best to ask for it but a woman appealing to the jurors? "She`s committed murder one, and we want the death penalty."

And she was convincing and strong. And then she used the videos from the jail visits and the phone calls, showing that the defendant was more interested in her boyfriend than in the death of her daughter.

It was very dramatic. It may change the process of this trial. It may change the jury`s mind. It was dynamic today.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Let`s check out one of the more dramatic moments for me. I was doing an interview outside the courthouse, and all of a sudden, I heard that the defense attorneys are leaving. Check this out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Donna Marini, I can`t believe that you told me you were 43 years old. It was right before -- oh, hold on a second. Wait. We see over here, people are running, because there`s somebody -- there`s some kind of drama. Donna, hang on. I`m going to be back to you. Let`s see what we can find out here. We`re going to chase them down. Hold on. We`re chasing them right now. This is live television in progress. You can see the media.

Let`s see if Jose Baez wants to say anything. Hey, Jose, quick comment? Anything at all, Jose? Anything at all? I mean, come on. We`ve -- we`ve gotten to know each other.

BAEZ: How have you been?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`ve been good. I`ve been good. I would love to talk to you. How`s Casey holding up? Jose, how`s Casey holding up?

All right. Well, just innocuous questions, really, trying to get some answers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. They weren`t in the mood to talk, and I don`t blame them. They were just coming off of Linda Drane-Burdick`s very powerful last remarks.

OK. We are all over this. Stay with us. I have got the very latest coming up. For example, Twitter. I`m going to tell you about my Twitter, and you can follow everything. ISSUESwithJVM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: If he was home, as they suggested, when there was an accident in the pool, he would have called 911. He would have tried CPR. He would never have scooped up his granddaughter and put her in a bag and threw her in the woods. Never.

No paternal instinct? Did we watch the same jail videos? Mr. Ashton has covered this, but did we watch the same videos? Mr. Anthony said he would trade places with his daughter in a second.

BAEZ: Argued by Mr. Ashton.

PERRY: Sustained.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. Do you remember these posters? I`m going to show them to you right now. These are posters that were put up. "Have you seen me?" And I`m holding one here. I got this from the woman I`m going to interview right now. She distributed these photos in the fall of 2008 when everybody thought that Caylee was alive and Caylee had been kidnapped. And I want to introduce Wendy Keeler.

You helped search for Caylee. Thank you for coming here in a storm, by the way. And you actually spoke to George in approximately September of 2008. I was talking today...

WENDY KEELER, VOLUNTEERED TO FIND CAYLEE: August, September, yes.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: August, September. So obviously, the defense has accused George Anthony of being a molester. On top of that, they say that he`s the one who found the little girl`s body drowned and that he pulled the little girl`s body out and that he participated in a cover-up.

Now that was supposedly in June of 2008. You met him in September of 2008. What was your reaction? Do you think he was hiding something?

KEELER: No, no. I think George was the nicest guy I ever met in my life. He was wonderful.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And how did he feel about little Caylee?

KEELER: His main focus was finding Caylee. I think he loved that little girl more than anything else in the world.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, and you had a conversation with him about buying Christmas presents in the event that Caylee...

KEELER: Right.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: In the hopes that Caylee would come home. Tell us about that.

KEELER: Well, I had asked him about, you know, what Caylee was getting for Christmas. And he said that he and Cindy had been shopping and, I guess, people had been sending gifts for Caylee for when she came home.

And I asked him if Caylee had a Cabbage Patch doll, and he said yes, and he said, "And her name is Rosemary." And it touched me so much that he knew his, you know, granddaughter`s doll`s name.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.

KEELER: And it just -- I thought this guy is special. To know that.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Here he is today in the hall. Look at this man. He seems tortured, just standing there in the hall as his daughter`s fate is now being deliberated by the jury.

Do you think -- getting back to what the defense said, do you think he knew at the time he spoke to you in September of 2008 that his precious granddaughter was dead and that he had covered it up?

KEELER: No way. Absolutely no way. I know at the command centers, people would drive by and say horrible, nasty things. And I think that, if he knew something was wrong, he wouldn`t have -- he wouldn`t be out there. He wouldn`t have everybody out there.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, OK. Wendy Keeler, it`s so great to have you on.

She helped look for little Caylee and tragically, the child was already dead at the time that these were being handed out.

We`ll be back in a moment with more highlights from today`s explosive, explosive closing arguments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ASHTON, PROSECUTOR: It is up to you to decide whether a doubt which has been proposed by counsel are reasonable doubts or whether they are speculative, imaginary, fanciful and absurd doubts.

LINDA DRANE-BURDICK, PROSECUTOR: If this truly was an accident in the pool, Caylee Anthony would have been found floating in the pool, not floating in a swamp down the street.

If this was an accident, we wouldn`t be here today. I wouldn`t be here. They wouldn`t be here. She wouldn`t be here. You wouldn`t be here.

The way these remains were disposed of shows complete indifference to the child. It speaks volumes about how the person who disposed of her really felt about her.

CINDY ANTHONY, MOTHER OF CASEY ANTHONY: Casey, you have to tell me if you know anything about Caylee. If anything happened to Caylee, Casey I`ll die. You understand? I`ll die. If anything happens to that baby.

CASEY ANTHONY, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF DAUGHTER: Oh, my God, calling you guys a waste, huge waste.

DRANE-BURDICK: As we have come to find out, accusing others of lying is classic Casey Anthony. The defendant`s actions and responses during those 31 days answer for you the only real question left: who killed Caylee Anthony?

The question is no longer where is Caylee? We know where Caylee Marie Anthony is. The question is no longer what happened to Caylee Marie Anthony. We know what happened to Caylee. The question is who killed Caylee?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN HOST: All right, and if I haven`t said it, Happy Fourth of July. If you missed the fireworks, you`re in the right place because there were fireworks in court today as the prosecution delivered its final, final closing argument. We`re going to play the highlights of Linda Drane-Burdick`s comments for you.

The jury then got the case, deliberating for five hours, 29 minutes and 34 seconds. Now, I have to tell you, we have the verdict forms here which I`m holding in my hand. We also had the jury instructions. And I`m talking about a mountain of paper.

If you think this is going to come down in an hour or two, well that ship has already sailed. But if you think it`s going to happen by tomorrow morning, I doubt it because just going through these jury instructions, very, very complicated. They also have to pick a jury foreperson.

But what they have echoing in their minds, the words of Linda Drane- Burdick. The prosecution gets the last say because they have the burden of proof. Let`s listen to what`s being described as an A-plus closing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: Casey Anthony is the only person who had access to every single piece of evidence: the duct tape, the laundry bag, the blanket, the shorts, the car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to go straight out to my very special guest Tim Miller who is the founder and director of Texas Equusearch, a search organization that has been at the very heart of this case.

Tim Miller, undoubtedly you watched Linda Drane-Burdick today. Give us your review?

TIM MILLER, FOUNDER, TEXAS EQUUSEARCH: Do you know what, it was kind of amazing. I`ve watched very little of this trial for a few reasons. I mean I`ve got a very bitter taste in my mouth for ever being involved in the search efforts. And the second reason is we still have families out there who have missing loved ones and I`m all over the country still searching.

But you know what? What I did see today and fortunately I was home is the same Casey Anthony I met when I went to her house. And I said this before and I`ll say it the rest of my life, the very worst phone call I ever got in my life from a family of a missing loved one was when Cindy Anthony called me.

And I will never, ever forget walking in that house, meeting Casey, meeting Cindy. Jose Baez got there about ten minutes after I got there.

And I knew something was very, very strange early on, Jane, when Jose Baez said, "Mr. Miller thanks for being here. You can do whatever you need to do to find little Caylee, but you cannot ask my client one question about her daughter." And I found that strange. And what I found strange was Cindy also was not "thanks for being here". Cindy`s reaction immediately when I walked in was that Sheriff Barry is going to be leaving office in November and he wants to leave on a real positive note and all they want to do is prosecute my daughter for my granddaughter`s disappearance and that did not happen.

And the other thing, Jane -- and this is all happening within ten minutes from when I`m in that house -- George`s friend, George`s best friend, he`s a captain out of Ohio with the police department. His first name is Jim -- I can`t remember his last name. But Cindy was on the phone, Casey went back to her room and I introduced myself to Jim and I said by the way, how is George doing? He said not doing well. I said I can understand that.

He said he`s on his way home from work right now, you can meet him. And Jim said and he said it loud enough for Casey to hear this. And Jim told me, he says, "George knows the answer is in that bedroom and she will not talk."

So my very first day on that search, I knew that Cindy knew, that George knew, the whole family knew and we were being lied to. And on the fourth day that I was there, I washed my hands from the search. I said I`m not involved with this search anymore. And I was flying back to Texas and the next morning the Sheriff Barry called me up --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me say this, Tim. You`ve raised some absolutely valid points. Leonard Padilla who`s also on set here with me has echoed that very sentiment.

Let me tell you this. This dovetails exactly with what the prosecutor, Linda Drane-Burdick, said today that was absolutely brilliant. She took sounds -- ok, sounds and clips and showed that Casey had not one but two opportunities to reveal the accidental drowning which is the theory of the defense and she failed to do so. Check this out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YURI MELICH, DETECTIVE: I`ve sat down with mothers who rolled over on their babies accidentally. I`ve had to sit down with mothers whose kids have drowned in swimming pools. I`ve had to sit down with mothers who have had boyfriends who beat their kids to death, you know, who felt horrible about what happened. And then I had to go and help and try to explain to their families.

CINDY ANTHONY: Someone just said that Caylee was dead. That she drowned in the pool. That`s the newest story out there.

CASEY ANTHONY: Surprise, surprise.

DRANE-BURDICK: No person would ever make the accidental death of a child look like murder.

The defendant`s actions during those 31 days and her response to this are completely inconsistent with what people do 100 percent of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jayne Weintraub, you heard Tim Miller, you heard the prosecutor there; this accidental drowning theory doesn`t seem to hold very much weight amongst people who have been there with the family.

JAYNE WEINTRAUB, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you know, there are a lot of things to consider here, Jane. And first of all, Linda of course did a very effective job. She`s a good lawyer and she`s very experienced. And she has the last word, which is also very powerful. But more than that, she`s got emotion and she`s got the public support, period.

But she doesn`t have the cause of death. No matter what she says, no matter how dramatic she is, she doesn`t have what she needs for a first degree murder conviction. Dr. G -- no cause of death; that`s number one.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right.

WEINTRAUB: But as far as the accident is concerned, maybe we have seen ten sides of George Anthony. We have seen how volatile he gets on the stand when he doesn`t get his way. And when someone crosses him, he didn`t just answer the questions on that witness stand, he volunteered and blurted out things to deliberately convict his daughter of first degree murder. That is not what a father does.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Hold on I want to give Mark Nejame, who is twitching here to answer, a chance.

MARK NEJAME, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR GEORGE AND CINDY ANTHONY: Jane, in order for us to maintain credibility, we`ve got to call things the way we see them. And you cannot claim that a cause of death is relevant to anything. You don`t need to show the cause of death, you just have to show that somebody killed somebody. If, in fact, bones were found in a gutter, whether they were stabbed or choked or shot is irrelevant.

And this red herring --

WEINTRAUB: Mark, you have to have show who killed her.

NEJAME: Hold on, hold on, hold on.

(CROSSTALK)

NEJAME: A red herring -- all roads only lead to Casey Anthony. They eliminated every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. We all know that.

We`ve got to maintain that the defense did a good job at a certain point; we acknowledge that. The prosecution took them down. They did what they needed to do.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ok. Jayne Weintraub.

WEINTRAUB: I totally disagree. And what you need to show is a connection. You need to show not all roads lead to her, you need to show where they connect with a piece of rope. You need something to tie her to that, and that is what the state has failed to do because it doesn`t exist.

(CROSSTALK)

NEJAME: How about duct tape? How about chloroform? How about the fact that nobody else had a motive? How about the fact that she had --

WEINTRAUB: There is no motive, Mark. Come on. You try cases.

NEJAME: There`s no other person, you know that.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I told you, you wanted fireworks. It`s the Fourth of July, you got them.

Casey Anthony, now in the hands, her fate is, of the jury. Nancy Grace is following all the drama. She is going to have the very latest developments tonight in just a couple of minute. We are on verdict watch.

Did the prosecution save the best for last? What do you think? Give me a holler. Dana, Delaware I`m going to get to you right on the other side. Hang in there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: My biggest fear is that common sense will be lost in all of the rhetoric.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DRANE-BURDICK: Responses to grief are as varied as the day is long, but responses to guilt are oh, so predictable. What do guilty people do? They lie. They avoid. They run. They mislead.

They divert attention away from themselves and they act like nothing is wrong. What she was doing during those 31 days was in no way indicative of grief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: After that powerful closing argument by prosecutors and the jury instructions, the jury got the Casey Anthony case. They deliberated for five hours, 49 minutes and 24 seconds. They broke around 6:00. They`re going to be back tomorrow morning.

We`re all over it here on ISSUES; wall to wall coverage, 24/6. Let`s hope we don`t have to add 365 on that. We don`t know how long these deliberations are going to go.

I got to tell you, it could be short, it could be long. O.J. Simpson, we know famously they deliberated only four hours. But guess what, back in the Charlie Manson trial, they deliberated nine days. We don`t know.

Dana from Delaware, you`re so patient. Your question or thought, Dana?

DANA, DELAWARE (via telephone): No problem. And thank you for taking my call, Jane. I have a quick comment and then a question about something you touched on earlier. To me, the prosecution today knocked their rebuttal case 500 feet out of the ballpark. To me, they have more than proven their case against Casey Anthony.

My question is this -- I noticed Mr. Ashton today objecting to a lot of the prosecution`s rebuttal. And most of them were overturned by the judge. Do you think Mr. Ashton at this point is just pulling at straws because he knows or has a good feeling the defense --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dana, I think you`re making a very good point, but I think you`ve got some of the names mixed up. I think you`re talking about Jose Baez who`s the defense attorney who did objection after objection after objection.

Judge Larry Seidlin, 90 percent of those were overruled. You were a Florida judge. Is that going to be a basis for an appeal, the fact that those objections were overruled?

JUDGE LARRY SEIDLIN, PRESIDED OVER ANNA NICOLE SMITH CASE: Well, at times, at times this defense attorney Baez was fighting two prosecutors. The judge is a very strong advocate for the state, and then he`s got the prosecutor. He was at times very pro-prosecution, this judge.

And also, what you need to remember is the jury; the rich and famous don`t always serve as jurors. So this jury is not always very sophisticated. And they`re going to have to embrace, understand the jury instructions. And they`re going to have to set the facts to the instructions.

The first thing they`re going to do is spend time picking the foreperson, the foreman. They have to sect that foreperson.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Foreperson.

SEIDLIN: Yes. Well, it could be a female. I always said foreperson. And they are sacrificing their time. But they`re in a very decent hotel. They`re getting very decent food. They`re not digging ditches. It is a sacrifice. It takes them away from their home, but it`s still --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, judge. I want to come back, because I want to show you again the jury instructions, and each one of these pages filled with just stuff that would make your head spin. When the killing is committed by accident, this portion (ph) of doing any lawful act by lawful means with ordinary (INAUDIBLE) -- and it goes on and on, it`s like what?

There`s going to be a lot of discussion about that. And then it`s not just a guilty or innocent in this verdict form. Each count has all sorts of different possibilities. So when people say is she guilty or innocent? It`s not that simple.

(CROSSTALK)

SEIDLIN: No, it`s a jigsaw puzzle.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s a jigsaw puzzle. I want to go back to Tim Miller. Briefly, Tim, this whole case really centers upon the defense saying it was an accidental drowning and George molested Casey, that`s why she keeps secrets. You were in the household. Tell us briefly about something you observed.

MILLER: You know, there`s no love lost between Anthonys and me, and that`s ok. But I think Jose`s opening arguments or opening statements that George sexually molested her and stuff was hitting way below the belt.

You know, I still to this day know that George and Cindy knew in the very beginning. And when you touched on something earlier that Casey had opportunities to say where Caylee was, I remember on that fourth day of being in that house and I went in and got with George and Cindy and I said listen, you`re not going to appreciate this. I says anyhow, I had a map, I said where should I start searching. And George got Casey out of the bedroom, brought her out to the table and said "Casey, mark the damn spot, where do they need to go." Casey blew up, Cindy blew up and of course, that was the end of my relationship with the Anthonys.

But George knew then, Cindy knew then. And they`ve all played the game with us. They need to go to Hollywood; it`s where they all need to go.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: They knew that -- you`re saying that the child was dead or just missing and in a location.

MILLER: They knew -- they knew that baby was dead. They knew it.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, controversial. We`re here, all over it. We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DRANE-BURDICK: Let`s throw Cindy into the mix too as a possible perpetrator. Casey Anthony would have you believe this is all her mother`s fault anyway for leaving the ladder down. Let`s twist the knife in my mom a little more. The cover-up is her dad`s fault. Let`s twist the knife in him too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re on jury watch, the jury deliberated five hours, 49 minutes and 24 seconds today. They`re back early tomorrow morning. HLN is all over it.

I want to go to Susan Constantine, jury analyst. I can`t read this jury. You and I have been in the courtroom. I look at them; they`re enigmas. I can`t tell. What do you know?

SUSAN CONSTANTINE, JURY ANALYST: Well, I`ve been watching for the last two months. And what I`ve identified is that we really have seven jurors that are more pro-prosecution. I established they`re behavior, the body language, what they`re noting was important on their book.

And I really was able to compile all that information, find out who are more pro-state versus the defense. We have a couple also of neutral jurors so that really when they deliberate, it can go one way or the other.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Seven women, five men, at least half of them have kids, approximately. What does that tell you?

CONSTANTINE: Well, it tells you they`re sensitive to children but doesn`t always, Jane, make a decision. I think they`re getting right down to basics, simplicity. Just like Linda Drane-Burdick brought it right into focus, (INAUDIBLE) those four major issues: the duct tape, concealed, thrown in a bag, 31 days. That`s where we`re going to come in at.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Do you think it`s going to be a long deliberation or are they going to come back tomorrow?

CONSTANTINE: They may come back tomorrow, but I don`t think it will be until the wee hours of the night or late in the evening. Ten hours to two days is what I would say.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ten hours to two days. I`m going to say sometime by the end of this week is my guess. And that`s as close as I can get.

We have Pat -- I didn`t hear what state you were from -- but Pat, quick question.

PAT, INDIANA (via telephone): My question is, when this is all over with, are they going to try Cindy and George for perjury during the last trial? These people have been through --

(CROSSTALK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Mark Nejame? I agree. Mark Nejame.

NEJAME: I don`t like getting into that. I`ve never seen a case where they`re going to prosecute the family of a victim for something like this. I mean these are -- Caylee is gone. I couldn`t imagine such a thing.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. Judge Seidlin, I think that these people -- look at him --0 that`s George today. We have him also in the hallway with his head back, look at him today. This man has been through hell. I hope people leave him alone. Stay away from the home. The Orange County Sheriff is going to put guards around the entire subdivision where he lives at the time of the verdict because they`re so concerned that people could get ugly. Don`t do it, seriously.

And Judge Seidlin, 30 seconds, your thoughts.

SEIDLIN: Prosecutors don`t charge people for perjury. There is not enough jail space for all the people that don`t tell the truth when they`re under oath. I used to sit in the courtroom and swear people in and have them put their hand on a Bible. And sometimes I said, "What am I even doing this wasted exercise for?" There are some people that just don`t tell the truth. And we don`t have enough beds in the jails to fill it up with all the people that lie in a courtroom.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to ask Mark Nejame, a five-second question and you`re going to have to answer that tomorrow.

Don`t miss a moment of the Casey Anthony trial. Keep it right here on HLN. We`re on verdict watch. You won`t miss a thing. We`re staying on top of this trial; it`s the trial of the century and we have the best analysis anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Defense attorney, Mark Nejame, thoughts on the length of jury deliberations.

NEJAME: I think it`s going to be two or three days. I think that the prosecution with its effective rebuttal and closing argument, short in this case. There was a lot of confusion, there was a lot of debate going on about duct tape and chloroform matters such as that. They made those points clear, concise, simple for the jury; made it a lot simpler for them.

I said from the beginning, I confirm it now, jury is coming back with Murder One. They made it easy for the jury to decide. It will either be premeditation or it will be felony murder, but Murder One with one of those -- with one of those issues.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I will say, I was getting a lot of second degree tweets until that closing argument. Now the tweets I`m getting, it is going to be Murder One, but who knows. Never predict what a jury is going to do.

I`m serious. We do not know. They`re in a vacuum, we`re not.

All right. Nancy Grace is up next.

END