Week 4: Emotions High as Defense Takes Wheel in Anthony Trial

As the prosecution rested in the Casey Anthony murder trial and the defense took the helm this week, emotions ran high, both inside and outside the courtroom.

People eager to snag one of the 50 tickets allotted each day to spectators grabbed headlines on Friday with a pre-dawn scuffle. Police were called when a violent brawl erupted after some hopeful spectators cut in line.

And on Thursday, three years to the day that, according to testimony, Caylee Anthony was last seen alive, a group of trial followers released balloons in Caylee’s honor. When interviewed by the media, one of the participants, David Wood, cried as he lamented over how — as he put it — anyone could hurt a child.

Inside the courtroom, the famously calm Jeff Ashton, assistant state attorney, became less so as the focus shifted to the defense.

On Thursday, the day the defense began to present its case, Ashton objected when defense attorney Jose Baez asked Heather Seubert, a DNA analyst and serologist for the FBI, whether she conducted a DNA paternity test on Casey’s brother to determine if he was Caylee’s father.

Ashton said Baez’s question falsely implied police had requested the test. While Judge Belvin Perry Jr. allowed the question after instructing Baez to ask it in a different manner — and Seubert answered that DNA samples excluded Lee Anthony as a possible father — Perry admonished both attorneys for raising their voices.

“I don’t have a hearing problem,” Perry told the attorneys. “And the amplification of questions, objections, I don’t need them.”

Prosecutors allege that Casey Anthony, 25, killed Caylee in 2008 by rendering her unconscious with chloroform , putting duct tape over her nose and mouth so she would suffocate, or a combination of the two acts. . They allege that Anthony wrapped the girl’s body in a blanket and put it in two garbage bags and a laundry bag, stored it in the trunk of her car for a few days, and eventually dumped it in some woods.

Anthony faces seven counts, including first-degree murder, in the death of Caylee, whose remains were discovered in a wooded field in December 2008. If convicted, she could face the death penalty.

Anthony has pleaded not guilty, and her defense team asserts Caylee accidentally drowned in a pool -in June 2008 at the Orange County home that Anthony shared with her parents. The defense team has argued that Anthony and her father, George Anthony, panicked on discovering the body and covered up her death, though George Anthony has denied that scenario.