And the Casey Anthony saga continues… TGO
Refer to story below. Source: CNN
(CNN) — Lawyers for Casey Anthony on Wednesday asked a Florida appeals court to overrule an order requiring her to return to Orlando to serve a year’s probation on a check-fraud conviction.
Anthony has been in seclusion since her July acquittal on murder charges in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, and her subsequent release from jail. Orange County Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. ruled last week that Anthony has to report for probation on the bad-check charge by August 26, but her attorneys say she served that sentence while awaiting trial in her daughter’s death.
Her attorneys filed an emergency petition with Florida’s 5th District Court of Appeal on Wednesday, asking that court to overturn Perry’s order before the required date. They also asked the appellate court to strip Perry of further jurisdiction in the case.
Anthony had been convicted of felony check fraud for stealing a checkbook from a friend and writing five checks for $644.25. Orange County Superior Court Judge Stan Strickland ordered her to serve the year of probation following her release in the charges involving her daughter, but a clerk misunderstood the judge and prepared an order that the judge later signed instructing that Anthony would serve the probation while in custody awaiting trial.
The order was updated August 1 to add the words “upon release.” But Anthony’s lawyers contend she can’t be made to serve probation if she served it while in custody under a signed order from Strickland, saying it would violate constitutional protections against having to serve a sentence twice for the same offense.
Perry ruled Friday that Strickland’s verbal order was binding, and that “to bar the court from correcting a clerical mistake and to permit the defendant to serve probation in jail while awaiting trial on a totally unrelated charge without any possibility of complying with the terms of the probation order would clearly thwart society’s interest in extracting a full, fair and just punishment for a crime.”
He said ordering Anthony to serve probation on the check-fraud case does not violate double jeopardy, since the check fraud crimes and the murder case involved different counts, and said Anthony couldn’t have complied with the probation terms while in jail.
Anthony’s probation order requires her to live in Orange County unless the probation office allows her to leave. She has received no such approval, a corrections department spokeswoman has said.
In Session’s Jessica Thill and Lena Jakobsson contributed to this report.
