Sorry for the delay but here is the final segment of the show.
DP:
Joining me today is the attorney who defended Casey Anthony, Jose Baez. Now, do you know if George and Casey have reconciled at this point?
JB:
There are reports that state that they have reconciled. I, unfortunately, am not at liberty to discuss anything anything with Casey absent after I stopped representing her, per our agreement. I have to respect that.
DP:
And she does have representation now, is there someone that...
JB:
She does. She has someone handling her civil case, which is the only thing she has open right now.
DP:
And she has a, you don't know whether she's taking bankruptcy our not?
JB:
I, yes, I read that she has declared bankruptcy.
DP:
Declared bankruptcy. Would that in Florida, would that be a way to escape accountability through a civil suit?
JB:
Well first of all I think the civil suit, in my legal opinion, is extremely frivolous. Casey never described this woman who is, who is alleging that she was defamed by Casey. A lot of these lawsuits, anytime someone mentions Casey and wantso to sue her, they get a lot of press coverage and a lot of publicity out of it. The best thing for Casey is to try and get some type of help. That's something I've been adamant with her to do and I certainly hope and wish she does that.
DP:
If you knew then what you know now, would you have taken Casey Anthony's case?
JB:
(laughs) ummm, you know, taking this case when I took it I had no idea it was going to be what it ended up becoming, and I made a lot of personal sacrifices, um, with my family, ummm with my business, with my reputation. I became public enemy number two, and I look back now and I say, would I do it again? Yes, I would. I extremely regret the strain it had on my family. I would do it again because I believe. I'm a true believer. I believe that everyone deserves a string defense. Would I want to do it again? Probably not, but would I? I think it's my oath and my obligation to, and I would say yes, I have to.
DP:
Now I've challenged to the fact of whether or not you had a good faith basis for some of the things that you said about George in this trial. So everybody understands, there is a remedy on the part of the court and if anybody had found you in violation of those canons (?) Of ethics, you could have been sanctioned, any number of things could have been brought to hold you accountable and none of those things came to pass.
JB:
I will say that they tried. During the course of representing Casey I had 26 bar complaints, and I was under fire, being watched, but the very first thing that I did, that a lot of people don't know is that I hired an ethics lawyer to be part of my team and every single thing I did I made sure I covered it with him and it's a trying experience. I worked long and hard. I was the very first person in my family to graduate from college, to become a lawyer. It was very difficult for me and I went through a lot of adversity and there's nothing I value more than my law license and I had to stand in the line of fire when I represented Casey, and fortunately, the Florida Bar agreed with every single thing I did and, ummm, found me , found all of them not to have any merit whatsoever.
DP:
Well that's why I wanted to bring that up. I also wanted to point out that not one person had found you in violation of any of the canons of ethics for zealously representing your client, so I wanted to point that out as well in fairness.
JB:
Thank you.
DP:
Fair enough?
JB:
Fair enough.
DP:
Next, I'll tell you one thing I know for sure about this trial.
commercial break
DP:
We have a lot of fun here in the studio audience. Right? We have a lot of fun. If you're going to be in the Los Angeles area and you would like rr tickets go to .........
I want to thank my guests today including Jose Baez. He's an attorney and author of "Presumed Guilty....." And it's really well written, you did a really good job on this. By the way, everybody in the audience is going to go home with a copy of this book. I know many of you at home have string opinions about Casey Anthony so be sure and log on to drphil.com, facebook, twitter. Let me know what you think. I'll tell you the one thing I know about this case for sure is that do often we get frustrated with what juries come back and do and there is such a huge difference between what we think we know in the court of public opinion and what the jury gets to know in the court of law, and I have to tell you that most of the time I believe jurors get it right, based on the evidence and based on the definition if the law, they get it right, even though it's frustrating sometimes when we know things the jurors can't know.
We'll see you next time. Thanks so much.
