“If anything could go wrong, it went wrong here.” That is what Judge Belvin Perry said after hearing over an hour of arguments from both prosecution and defense attorneys. Judge Perry ended the hearing without a ruling. The Judge said he needed more time to decide whether or not Casey Anthony must return to serve 1 year of probation on her check fraud case. He did not say when he expected to have a ruling.
At the hearing, defense attorneys argued that Anthony had already served her term of probation while she was incarcerated. Therefore, if she were required to serve probation now, it would constitute double jeopardy. The defense further argued that any amendment to Anthony’s sentence must have been done within 60 days of her original sentence back in January of 2010 and that the court now lacked jurisdiction to go back and change or modify the order.
Department of Corrections officials explained that they believed the sentence required Anthony to serve the probation while she was in jail awaiting her murder trial and that she had, in fact, completed her probation.
The prosecution argued that the failure by the Trial Judge to put the words, “upon release” was a scrivener‘s error and therefore could be amended by the Judge without causing double jeopardy.
Judge Perry called the case, “a legal morass” and “a mess.” To be continued…
