Casey Anthony Trial Wrapping Up?
COOPER: "Crime & Punishment" tonight, back to our breaking news. The defense says it's going to rest tomorrow in the Casey Anthony trial. After prosecution rebuttal, the jury will be hearing closing arguments. You could start deliberating Sunday night. Today the defense continued to focus on whether alleged sexual abuse by her father and brother can explain her behavior after 2-year- old Caylee went missing. But frankly, they haven't proved any sexual abuse occurred at all. George Anthony was in the witness chair again today, sobbing as he recalled hearing Caylee's body had been found. As he wept, you can see his daughter there, sitting stone-faced, listening. Later, she turned emotional when a grief expert testified that losing a child could lead to bizarre behavior, like telling lies and not showing emotion. We start tonight with a major surprise. This morning, for the first time in the trial we heard Casey Anthony speak in the courtroom. Martin Savidge reports.</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eight-thirty a.m. As the court took up a critical issue of a possible mistrial, there sat Casey Anthony, completely alone. Her defense team was late. Not a single one of her attorneys was in the courtroom. And only one, Ann Finnell, was on the phone. The arrangement led Judge Belvin Perry to ask a question directly to Anthony. And it was the first time she would speak at her own trial.</s>BELVIN PERRY, JUDGE: Ms. Anthony, do you want to ask that question now or do you want to wait until Mr. Baez and Mr. Mason and Miss Sims arrive?</s>CASEY ANTHONY, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER: I can answer that now.</s>PERRY: OK.</s>CASEY ANTHONY: I agree with Miss Finnell.</s>PERRY: Thank you, ma'am.</s>CASEY ANTHONY: Thank you.</s>SAVIDGE: The drama was just beginning. For most of the morning it was Anthony's father, George, who found himself in the cross hairs of defense attorney Jose Baez, who walked Caylee's grandfather from one emotionally charged subject to the next, including incest.</s>JOSE BAEZ, CASEY'S ATTORNEY: You know, of course, that sex with a child under the age of 12 years old is life in prison, don't you, sir?</s>GEORGE ANTHONY, CASEY'S FATHER: Sir, I never would do anything like that to my daughter.</s>BAEZ: My question is, you would never admit to it, would you, sir?</s>G. ANTHONY: Sir, I would never do anything to harm my daughter in that way.</s>BAEZ: Only in that way.</s>SAVIDGE: Then Baez took George Anthony, a former police detective, back to the smell in Casey's car, which the prosecution says came from his granddaughter's remains. The defense says it was something else.</s>BAEZ: There's also a difference, sir, of saying it's human decomposition and not human decomposition?</s>G. ANTHONY: I didn't say anything about not -- I said decomposition. I'm going to clarify that again. I think I've done that very well. You're trying to take this joy of my life away from me, sir. And you can't do it anymore.</s>BAEZ: Would you...</s>G. ANTHONY: I'm going to answer this to you, sir. The decomposition that I smelled in the trunk of my daughter's car on July 15, 2008 at Johnson's Towing smelled like human decomposition.</s>BAEZ: Would you like...</s>G. ANTHONY: To me, sir. That's what it smelled like to me. I can close my eyes at the moment, sir, and I can smell that again. How dare you, sir, try to tell me that I -- that I did something different to what I did?</s>SAVIDGE: The prosecution took Anthony back to his attempted suicide six weeks after Caylee's remains had been found.</s>JEFF ASHTON, PROSECUTOR: Why on that particular day did you decide to take your life?</s>G. ANTHONY: Why that particular day I picked, I really don't know. All I know is my emotional state even through today is -- is very hard to accept that I don't have a granddaughter anymore. But for that particular day, I don't know. It just felt like the right time to go and be with Caylee.</s>SAVIDGE: But for George Anthony, the final emotional straw came when he was asked how he felt when his granddaughter's body was found.</s>ASHTON: What effect did that have on you when you learned that Caylee's remains had been found?</s>G. ANTHONY: A deep, deep hurt inside. Tears. The whole gamut of just an emotional loss, a breakdown inside of me and seeing what my wife and my son went through.</s>ASHTON: Up to that moment, had you held out the hope that Caylee would be found alive?</s>G. ANTHONY: Absolutely. Every day from July 15 until the day we were told it was Caylee.</s>ASHTON: In January of 2009, you went -- I'll give you a minute.</s>BELVIN PERRY, JUDGE: Do you need a break, Mr. Anthony?</s>G. ANTHONY: No, sir. I need to get through this. I need to have something inside of me get through this.</s>PERRY: Do you need a break?</s>G. ANTHONY: No, sir, I'm fine.</s>SAVIDGE: Through it all, Casey Anthony sat stone-faced and emotionless. But that would change in the afternoon, when the defense put a grief counselor on the stand, trying to show that Anthony's partying lifestyle while her daughter was missing wasn't a sign of guilt but grief.</s>OLIVIA PITKETHLY, MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR: They'll then act out because they've decided that they don't want anyone to be near them because everyone that's near them leaves them. And so -- and it doesn't -- know you all know that death isn't the only loss in the world.</s>SAVIDGE: These are the final days in this trial. Each one, it seems, more emotionally strained, each one closer to justice for Caylee or Casey. Martin Savidge, CNN, Orlando.</s>COOPER: For more on what we can expect for the next few days, we turn now to Jean Casarez and Sunny Hostin, who's covering the trial for "In Session" on our sister network, TruTV. So Jean, the defense was trying to paint George Anthony as someone who was throwing his daughter under the bus, as they put it, but you say it actually ended up backfiring on the defense?</s>JEAN CASAREZ, CORRESPONDENT, TRUTV'S "IN SESSION": You know, the defense tried so hard to get testimony out of George that could lend itself to help the defense. But it seemed like the harder they tried, the more it failed. Let me give you one example. A question was posed: you were walking in the woods around here, weren't you? And the response from George Anthony was, "Yes, we were finding a new command center so we could try to find Caylee. At the corner of these two streets it is a wooded area, and that's where we set it up." At one point also he said, "Look, I never wanted to believe that my own daughter was capable of killing her own daughter." That stunned everyone in this courtroom.</s>COOPER: And it certainly seems to verify what Gary Tuchman learned from his attorney days ago, that his attorney told our Gary Tuchman that the Anthonys do not believe their daughter is innocent. They didn't say what she was guilty of, but they just said they don't believe she's innocent. It was, Jean, an incredibly dramatic day in the courtroom to see George Anthony just breaking down on the stand like that.</s>CASAREZ: He was sobbing on the stand. And Anderson, in that courtroom the jury is so close to the witness. And the sobbing and the emotion, the distraught in that man. But then right across the courtroom was Casey Anthony. And she was not only stoic but she was -- there was an expression on her face of just disdain.</s>COOPER: Sunny, you said the defense made a mistake when they opened up the door for the prosecution to enter George Anthony's suicide note into evidence. Why?</s>SUNNY HOSTIN, CONTRIBUTOR, TRUTV'S "IN SESSION": That's right. Because I think that argument cuts both ways. The defense started talking to him about this suicide attempt, and he did leave a note. And Jose Baez, the defense attorney, started saying, "And that said suicide note, it showed a little bit of guilt, didn't it?" Well, the prosecution then wants to open that door and put in place -- into evidence, rather, that suicide note. Well, that suicide note doesn't talk about anything of a cover-up. It doesn't say anything about his guilt. And one can assume that, if you're going to commit suicide and you're involved in this cover-up and you're involved in the death of your granddaughter, you would admit it at that time, right?</s>COOPER: The breaking news tonight at the top of our program was we learned that the defense plans to rest tomorrow. You believed that Casey would take the stand, because you couldn't imagine any other way for them to kind of salvage what they have to make the case of the sexual abuse.</s>HOSTIN: That's right.</s>COOPER: Do you -- do you -- it doesn't seem like she's going to take stand tomorrow. Do you think...</s>HOSTIN: I'm going to stick with my predictions, Anderson.</s>COOPER: Really?</s>HOSTIN: I think they have to, and that is because Jose Anthony [SIC] talked so much in his explosive opening statement about the fact that Casey Anthony was sexually abused by her father.</s>COOPER: Jose Baez.</s>HOSTIN: Jose Baez...</s>COOPER: Right.</s>HOSTIN: ... the defense attorney. He also said in his opening statement that Caylee died an accidental death by drowning. In my view, there is no evidence of any of those statements in evidence, only the opening statement. How else does the defense bring that in front of this jury? And I think it really runs the risk -- the defense does -- by not putting Casey Anthony on the stand, not putting that evidence in, and the jury's been waiting for it for what? Thirty-one days? And so I'm going to stand by my prediction.</s>COOPER: OK.</s>HOSTIN: I think it's still possible that Casey Anthony saves herself by testifying tomorrow.</s>COOPER: Jean, do you -- because I think you had said, Jean, also you thought she was going to testify. Do you still think that if in fact they're resting tomorrow? And if they don't call her to the stand, do we know what witnesses they have left to call?</s>CASAREZ: You know, Sunny is so right. There is no evidence of accident. There is no evidence of sexual abuse by the brother or the father. But I don't think they're going to put her on the stand. I just don't. I think they may believe they have some strength in what they have done.</s>COOPER: It's going to be an interesting day. Another one of many. Sunny Hostin, thanks very much. Jean Casarez, as well. Thanks.</s>HOSTIN (?): Thanks.</s>COOPER: The breaking coverage continues with the defense resting tomorrow, the jury possibly getting the case Sunday evening. Up next we'll talk with Dr. Phil about whether Casey Anthony should take the stand. He has a strong recommendation on that, and a prediction on that. And he has a strong opinion on Casey Anthony's allegations that her father abused her. And later, "The RidicuList." Elegance may be learned, but the countess apparently hasn't learned a lesson. "The Real Housewife of New York" is out with a new song, and it's on tonight's "RidicuList."