Casey Anthony to be Released on Wednesday
VINNIE POLITAN, HLN HOST, "PRIME NEWS": Hello, I`m Vinnie Politan outside the Orange County courthouse in Orlando, Florida. Joy Behar will be with you in just a minute. But first, I want to give you the latest on the Casey Anthony story tonight. The headline right now is that Casey Anthony will be a free woman in six days. Judge Belvin Perry making a statement today by giving her the maximum sentence based on the jury`s verdict. But despite getting a four-year sentence today, Casey Anthony will be a free woman this time next week due to credit for time she has already served. She`s set to be released from the Orange County jail on Wednesday, July 13th. There`s still a lot of questions. Where will Casey live once she`s released from prison? What will she do? Live coverage of all the breaking details right here on HLN. Joy Behar picks up our coverage right now.</s>JOY BEHAR, HLN HOST: Casey Anthony, acquitted of the murder of her 2- year-old daughter Caylee, was sentenced today for lying to the police. Her release date is next week. Watch.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The defendant was given credit for 1,043 days and at this time, her release date has been calculated as July 13th, 2011.</s>BEHAR: Here now with more are Ryan Smith, host of "in Session" on TruTV who has been recovering the case in Orlando; Stacey Honowitz, Florida prosecutor; plus Jayne Weintraub, criminal defense attorney. Ok. Ryan, Casey walks free next Wednesday. Why so soon? Walk us through today`s sentencing if you will.</s>RYAN SMITH, HOST, "IN SESSION": Well, what happened was the judge in this case really wanted to give her consecutive sentences for the lying to police charges. That ended up giving her four years but she`s already served close to three years in prison. That means she gets time served, so she gets credit for the time and she also gets credit for good behavior while she was in prison. He also seemed to let these sentences run concurrently, which means at the same time with her previous check fraud case. And so all of that combined to make it so that she gets out next Wednesday. So in a sense Joy, it`s because she`s already spent so much time in prison and because she got credit for good behavior --</s>BEHAR: Right.</s>SMITH: -- she gets out so quickly.</s>BEHAR: So is this sentence the most the judge could have done?</s>STACEY HONOWITZ, FLORIDA PROSECUTOR: Absolutely.</s>JAYNE WEINTRAUB, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It absolutely. He couldn`t have given her one more day.</s>BEHAR: Ok. Now Stacey, her daughter is dead, she didn`t report her missing for 31 days, she lied to the police and now she walks free next week. Is that it? Is that it? Can she be charged with anything?</s>HONOWITZ: No. She is done. And I know everybody is thinking, what more can we do? Let`s find another charge because everyone is kind of outraged with this decision. But there`s nothing more. She`s been tried on the charges and really that`s the end of it. She`s going to walk out of jail next Wednesday unless somebody brings some kind of civil suit for some kind of investigative cost which she`ll get from the state anyway. She`ll have to pay back investigative costs but other than that, she`s done.</s>BEHAR: You know, her appearance and her mood in court surprised many. Her hair was down. She was giggling and winking and everything. Ryan, what do you make of that?</s>SMITH: You know, a lot of people out there are saying she doesn`t have to impress a jury at this point. She`s in front of a judge. She can dress how she wants. I think in front of a jury a lot of defense attorneys would say, you want to have that hair pulled back. You want to have more of a more conservative appearance. In this appearance she walked in, she was all smiles. She chatted with her lawyers. When Jose Baez walked in she was very friendly to him. And in reality, when you step back for a second, she can do this. This isn`t the first time I`ve seen a defendant come to their sentencing and realize they are not in front of a jury anymore so they can be more of themselves. I think you saw the real Casey there being relieved. I mean she`s very happy that she was found not guilty of those murder charges.</s>BEHAR: Ok. So Stacey that means that the one we were watching was not the real Casey. This one with the hair down is the real Casey? Stacey.</s>WEINTRAUB: Yes.</s>HONOWITZ: Well, I mean of course, that would be my opinion. Certainly her attorneys wanted her to look young and no makeup and kind of conservative. And certainly today I think she was dressed all prepared to walk out the door. Maybe her lawyer said to her, we`re going to argue hard enough and you might be released today. But, you know, absolutely people think that they saw a different Casey -- they see a different Casey now. Even when the jury was in and out of the courtroom people were saying that it was a different Casey. So I have to agree with you.</s>BEHAR: Jayne, you seem like you`re going to jump out of your blouse.</s>WEINTRAUB: Can she be charged again? No. This is double jeopardy, you know. This is it. We need to learn to respect and preserve the integrity of the system, otherwise we don`t have a system.</s>BEHAR: Yes. Well, we all know all that but we`re still quarterbacking -- Monday-morning quarterbacking here.</s>WEINTRAUB: Well, exactly. But even the lawyers have taken the high road. I mean Jose Baez in his statement said there are no winners here. And he`s right. Because think about it. I mean this young woman is going to go out of jail any day and she has to start all over again, with the notoriety, with everything else. She`s been presumed not guilty. She`s been found not guilty. And those 12 people, we just can`t go behind that verdict.</s>BEHAR: I understand that.</s>WEINTRAUB: Because those 12 people were sequestered, thankfully and kept away from the lynch mob mentality and really evaluated this on the evidence.</s>BEHAR: Of course. That`s the way the system works and I accept that. I still don`t feel great about her. I don`t feel great about this girl because the child goes missing and she doesn`t report it for 31 days. Come on.</s>WEINTRAUB: There`s nothing to feel good about.</s>HONOWITZ: Nobody is going to feel bad about that she has to start over. Nobody could really care less and I think Jeff Ashton said it best this morning. He said the smartest thing to do is just to totally ignore her. Don`t show up at the jail. Don`t start protesting. That might even be something that she welcomes. Just ignore it. I mean, you know what, Joy? People are outraged by this verdict. Nobody wants to second-guess the jury but it`s human nature to do that. Because you want to say to yourselves, were they looking at the same things as we were looking at? But it`s the jury system and it`s the best system in the world and we have to abide by it and that`s the bottom line.</s>BEHAR: Yes.</s>WEINTRAUB: And the bottom line is that the state didn`t have evidence that was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed the crime. And we keep acting and talking about it as if this is a girl who got away with murder. No.</s>HONOWITZ: That`s not true.</s>BEHAR: That`s a matter of opinion.</s>HONOWITZ: That`s not true. That`s a matter of opinion. You as a defense attorney will say that, Jayne and we have gone round and round on this many nights, you know that. I, as a prosecutor, will tell you I thought the indictment was proper and I thought it was proven beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt and I absolutely do.</s>WEINTRAUB: Stacey, wait. When was the last -- you and I have tried a lot of murder cases in the same place. When was the last time you saw a prosecutor -- even you wouldn`t do this -- indict her for lying to a police officer in the same indictment as a murder. Stacey in 27 years I`ve never seen it. Have you?</s>HONOWITZ: I`m not even talking about the lying portion of it.</s>WEINTRAUB: A little vindictive?</s>HONOWITZ: We`re talking about the fact that -- I`m going to rehash the evidence. It`s my belief that jurors tend to think that you have to prove it beyond all doubt, 100 percent. We always are going to have a doubt.</s>HONOWITZ: We were not there. We weren`t there and that`s the issue.</s>BEHAR: Give me a second here. Let`s talk about the jurors because they`re slowly starting to speak to the media. Juror Number Three, Jennifer Ford, spoke to GMA defending the jury`s decision. Watch it.</s>JENNIFER FORD, CASEY ANTHONY JUROR: I`m not convinced she didn`t. But I also couldn`t exclude the possibility of it being an accident. So I can`t find her guilty of a crime if I`m not sure a crime was committed. So it was just that not knowing exactly what happened and not knowing if we made the right choice. We don`t want to set someone free if they killed their beautiful daughter.</s>BEHAR: Ok. So she`s talking about the possibility, Jayne, that it was an accident. Is that the reasonable doubt that was created?</s>WEINTRAUB: Absolutely.</s>BEHAR: There it is.</s>WEINTRAAUB: Absolutely. Not only did he create the reasonable doubt he gave you the imagery. He showed the pictures in the pooling. He showed you Caylee with the door, getting ready to open that sliding glass door. In Florida the biggest cause of death, sad to say, still is drowning of kids.</s>BEHAR: Really. Well, because there`s a lot of pools there.</s>HONOWITZ: Well, she believes --</s>BEHAR: Go ahead, Stacey.</s>HONOWITZ: Jayne, of course, I understand that, believes that it was an accidental death. And the fact of the matter is, that`s what Jose Baez said in his opening statement and I think it`s very important for people to realize that what the lawyers say is not evidence. I know we continue to say that. But there was no evidence of an accident. I think the fact of the matter is, they went back there and they discounted any -- she`s right about this -- they discounted any involvement she had with this child or else they would have come back with a lesser. They sincerely believe for some reason without any evidence that it was an accident. So that where we disagree on.</s>SMITH: Yes. But here`s the thing.</s>BEHAR: Let Ryan get in there. Go ahead Ryan.</s>SMITH: Here`s the thing. Here`s the thing. When you talk about reasonable doubt, the burden is high. That`s not a low burden. That`s a very high burden for people to meet. So what Jose Baez kept pointing out which I thought was very good of him was to say folks, if you see another alternative other than what the state has presented to you. If you think it could have been anything else, if you think it could have been an accident, if you think that somebody else could have done it, anything else that you see here that`s reasonable doubt. And that`s what this jury did. They went back into that jury room and they said, you know what, I get this evidence. Yes, maybe this could work out, but maybe it could be something else. And when you feel that way that`s when jurors start going with reasonable doubt.</s>BEHAR: Ok. Ryan -- let`s go to something else. There was a petition today to have the jurors` names released. What happened with that -- Ryan?</s>SMITH: Well, the judge decided that in this case he would give what`s called a cooling off period. Sounds like he`s going to wait about seven or eight days and possibly release those names. I`m not sure he`s ready to release them. It looks as if he was saying that he was going to. But he`s definitely going to give it a cooling-off period of seven or eight days. Now, this was tough for him because in high-profile cases it`s not rare to avoid releasing jurors` names. Why? These jurors are getting threats. He read some of these threats in court and, you know, we`re worried about their safety. I think what he`s trying to do right now is give that cooling off period. I don`t know if he`ll change his mind but it will be at least another seven days before we hear their names.</s>BEHAR: Ok. Now yesterday we found out that George and Cindy Anthony were getting death threats. Casey is obviously going to be getting death threats. Does the state -- one of you can answer this -- does the state have an obligation to protect these people at all?</s>WEINTRAUB: No.</s>BEHAR: Nothing.</s>WEINTRAUB: To protect Casey? No. They`re not going to protect her, unless there`s an imminent threat like any other citizen and she calls the police and she seeks police protection. I can`t imagine any other protection that she would get from the state.</s>BEHAR: Wow.</s>STACEY HONOWITZ, FLORIDA PROSECUTOR: And I have to say that I have to agree with the judge in one respect. You know, we are 00 I`m upset. I don`t know how Jayne feels. But I know most people are upset at this verdict but the bottom line is, if you allow these jurors to be mobbed, the jury system is not going to work because nobody is ever going to want to sit for jury duty.</s>SMITH: Agree.</s>HONOWITZ: Nobody is going to feel like if they make the wrong decision or if they feel they make a wrong decision.</s>SMITH: Agree.</s>BEHAR: Right.</s>HONOWITZ: -- we don`t want to be responsible. So I think there needs to be a cooling off period before anybody talks to these individuals.</s>BEHAR: Ok thank you very much, everybody. I`ll talk to Casey Anthony prosecutor, Jeff Ashton next. So don`t go anywhere.