{"id":621,"date":"2010-09-09T22:27:12","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T02:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richardhornsby.com\/?p=621"},"modified":"2010-09-09T22:27:12","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T02:27:12","slug":"preparing-for-the-penalty-phase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/preparing-for-the-penalty-phase\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for the Penalty Phase"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RULE 3.202. –\u00a0EXPERT TESTIMONY OF\u00a0MENTAL MITIGATION\u00a0DURING PENALTY PHASE\u00a0OF CAPITAL TRIAL: NOTICE\u00a0AND EXAMINATION BY STATE\u00a0EXPERT<\/p>\n

(a) Notice of Intent to Seek Death Penalty. The\u00a0provisions of this rule apply only in those capital cases\u00a0in which the state gives written notice of its intent to\u00a0seek the death penalty within 45 days from the date\u00a0of arraignment. Failure to give timely written notice\u00a0under this subdivision does not preclude the state from\u00a0seeking the death penalty.<\/p>\n

(b) Notice of Intent to Present Expert Testimony\u00a0of Mental Mitigation. When in any capital case, in\u00a0which the state has given notice of intent to seek the\u00a0death penalty under \u00a0subdivision (a) of this rule, it shall\u00a0be the intention of the defendant to present, during the\u00a0penalty phase of the trial, expert testimony of a mental health professional, who has tested, evaluated, or\u00a0examined the defendant, in order to establish statutory\u00a0or nonstatutory mental mitigating circumstances, the\u00a0defendant shall give written notice of intent to present\u00a0such testimony.<\/p>\n

(c) Time for Filing Notice; Contents. The defendant shall give notice of intent to present expert testimony of mental mitigation not less than 20 days\u00a0before trial. The notice shall contain a statement of\u00a0particulars listing the statutory and nonstatutory mental mitigating circumstances the defendant expects to\u00a0establish through expert testimony and the names and\u00a0addresses of the mental health experts by whom the\u00a0defendant expects to establish mental mitigation, inso\u00a0far as is possible.<\/p>\n

(d) Appointment of State Expert; Time of\u00a0Examination. After the filing of such notice and on\u00a0the motion of the state indicating its desire to seek\u00a0the death penalty, the court shall order that, within\u00a048 hours after the defendant is convicted of capital\u00a0murder, the defendant be examined by a mental health\u00a0expert chosen by the state. Attorneys for the state and\u00a0defendant may be present at the examination. The\u00a0examination shall be limited to those mitigating circumstances the defendant expects to establish through\u00a0expert testimony.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What Does all of this Mean?<\/h2>\n

Jeff Ashton has already gone on record that the reason the State sought the Death Penalty was because Casey Anthony was the first women who did not have some mental issue that justified not seeking death penalty.<\/p>\n

This suggests that the State consulted with a mental health professional before seeking the death penalty to reach such a conclusion.<\/p>\n

This also suggests that when the Defense files their Notice of Intent to Present Mental Health mitigation pursuant to Rule 3.202 exactly twenty days before the trial is slated to begin, the defense fully expects that the expert the State selects to examine Casey Anthony will disagree that any mental health mitigator exists.<\/p>\n

Preemptive Defense<\/h2>\n

In anticipation of this, the defense brings Ms. Sims on board specifically to debunk the State expert’s methodology.<\/p>\n

And I think the support for this hypothesis of mine can be found in a quote of hers found in an article in NJEsq, Author says methods detect doctors\u2019 lies<\/em>,\u00a0which quoted her as saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that disturbs me\u00a0the most [about psychological\u00a0tests] are when they are misused\u00a0in criminal cases or – child\u00a0custody cases.<\/strong>\u201d Sims said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Smoke and Mirrors, Smoke and Mirrors.<\/h2>\n

Many would ask that if Ms. Sims is only being brought on to cross-examine penalty phases witnesses, why file a Notice of Appearance now.<\/p>\n

I believe that the timing was done solely to throw the State off. If they think Ms. Sims will be used only to attack Dr. Garavaglia, they likely would not prepare their chosen penalty phase mental health expert thoroughly.<\/p>\n

Whereas if Ms. Sims filed a Notice of Appearance\u00a0contemporaneously with the defense teams filing of their Notice of Mental Health Mitigator, the State would have no problem figuring out her purpose.<\/p>\n

Little Medical Evidence<\/h2>\n

Finally, my belief that this is the case is because there is actually very little medical evidence for Ms. Sims to attack.<\/p>\n

Dr. G’s autopsy report clearly states that Caylee died by unknown means, and the reason she ruled it Homicide is because of the duct tape and the peculiar circumstances of her disappearance and ultimate discovery. Quite frankly, there is little to cross-examine.<\/p>\n

So that is my story and I am sticking to it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RULE 3.202. –\u00a0EXPERT TESTIMONY OF\u00a0MENTAL MITIGATION\u00a0DURING PENALTY PHASE\u00a0OF CAPITAL TRIAL: NOTICE\u00a0AND EXAMINATION BY STATE\u00a0EXPERT (a) Notice of Intent to Seek Death Penalty. The\u00a0provisions of this rule apply only in those capital cases\u00a0in which the state gives written notice of its intent to\u00a0seek the death penalty within 45 days from the date\u00a0of arraignment. Failure to give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-law","category-popular-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}