[QUOTE =believe09;3376460]Actually, my understanding of the law was that she cannot take the Fifth in an action which includes a counter-suit. She is essentially saying she has been harmed by the plaintiff, zfg-she has to answer interrogatories and have a deposition if she is going to take this stand. The judge should have forced Baez to drop the counter-suit in order to allow her to take the Fifth against self incrimination.
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She can't take the Fifth in her counter-suit if she wants to succeed with her counter-suit. But she can refuse to talk about her possible involvement (yeah, I know... in my opinion it is her certain involvement) in a crime. If someone (ZFG's attorneys or anyone else), using an arm of the government (the civil or criminal court; subpoena) were to force her to speak in a way that would incriminate her, well... they can't force her. What if Morgan insisted that she testify, and she admitted that she said a lot of bad stuff about ZFG (which she did)? Then there are various crimes she would be incriminated for, in addition to the murder. She would have been forced to incriminate herself. Aw, poor Casey.
You say she cannot take the Fifth in an action which includes a counter-suit. True--in a way: if she goes ahead and takes the Fifth, which is her right, then her counter-suit is thrown out. That's the consequence she faces. Too bad for her.
Morgan already has the fool, on the police tapes, saying "ZFG did this" and "ZFG did that". She's already stupidly NOT claimed her right to remain silent, in the past. But she hasn't waived it (to my knowledge) for the future. Morgan can profit from the statements she has already given.
If there were a stay of the civil suit, it wouldn't be out of consideration of the parents' and brother's rights. They have no rights to not testify in the civil suit. But if there were a stay to protect Miss Casey's rights, they would just happen to benefit from it.
As for the time it's taking, I'm sure ZFG's lawyer is used to that. Those personal injury lawyers know that their cases may take a long time, because some personal injury defendants (and their lawyers) are very good at delaying. Casey hasn't thought of anything new if she uses delay as a tactic.