Open Thread The Nancy Grace Show 10/21

For those of you watching the Nancy Grace show while at your computer. Here’s your thread to discuss the show while it’s on and others can follow. I will post video, and transcripts when available.

Note: Some of the regulars here on the site are named Nancy. Inevitably, during our Nancy Grace open threads, someone wanders onto this site and starts chatting up one of our regulars thinking they are talking with Nancy Grace.

We’re quite certain Nancy Grace follows our blog, but during the show she simply doesn’t have time to blog live with us.

Filed under: Casey Anthony, Nancy Grace Show, caylee anthony , casey anthony case, caylee anthony, Open Thread, The Nancy Grace Show 10/21

Lawyer With Death Experience Joins Casey Team

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Casey Anthony’s rookie lawyer is getting some help. Jose Baez doesn’t have the credentials to try a death penalty case, so he’s enlisted the help of a Miami lawyer who’s defended some brutal murderers.Miami criminal defense attorney Terence Lenamon has joined the Casey Anthony defense team. Two of the three high-profile murderers Eyewitness News knows he’s defended are on death row. The other is serving five consecutive life sentences.

Terence Lenamon would not talk to Eyewitness News on Tuesday. He’s now part of accused killer Casey Anthony’s defense team. She could face the death penalty for the murder of her daughter Caylee. Her attorney, Jose Baez, is not qualified to handle death penalty cases, but Lenamon is.

Lenamon is a highly-rated defense attorney. Still, two of three high-profile murderers he’s defended in recent years are on Florida’s death row.

 One of them is known as “The Miami Stranger.” Harrel Franklin Braddy, 59, was sent to death row last year for literally feeding little Quatisha Maycock to the alligators in the Everglades after strangling her mother and leaving her for dead. The jury voted 11-1 for death. Braddy had already been convicted of choking a corrections officer. Lenamon had tried to convince the jury the little girl’s murder was not intentional, but “a horrible mistake”.

 Two months ago, a jury voted 8-4 to send another of Lenamon’s clients to death row, 31-year-old Wadada Delhall, for murdering a key witness who testified against his brother in a murder case.

One of his high-profile Miami murder clients did escape the death penalty. Cesar Mena, 29, a member of the so-called “Orlando Boys,” who raped and killed Ana Maria Angel and stabbed her high school sweetheart, is serving five consecutive life sentences.

 Casey’s defense attorney keeps insisting Caylee is still alive, even though a grand jury indicted her for premeditated murder after hearing the evidence the FBI and Orange County sheriff’s investigators have against her.

If Caylee’s body is not found before trial, it’s unlikely Baez will need help from a death penalty-qualified attorney, because without a body there probably would be no push for the death penalty.

Copyright 2008 by WFTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report

Filed under: caylee anthony

Child-Neglect Charges Dropped

The State Attorney’s Office has dropped its child-neglect charge against Casey Anthony.

The decision was made in light of the grand jury’s recent indictment of Anthony on charges first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and four counts of providing false information to law enforcement.

In a statement released this morning, the State Attorney’s Office explained: “The neglect charges were premised on the theory that her child, Caylee Marie, was still alive. As the investigation progressed and it became clear that the evidence proved that the child was deceased, the State sought an indictment on the legally appropriate charges.”

The release said the State Attorney’s Office would not comment further   Orlando Sentinel October 21, 2008

Filed under: Casey Anthony