Defending Casey Anthony
Casey Anthony's 2011 murder trial drew crowds outside the Orlando courthouse and nonstop cable coverage, ending in an acquittal that much of the country still refused to accept. This film goes behind that verdict with the defense team who built it, including lead attorney Jose Baez, tracing how they countered a prosecution case built on decomposition evidence, chloroform searches, and a mother who waited a month to report her daughter Caylee missing. Interviews and courtroom footage lay out the defense's theory of an accidental drowning covered up by a dysfunctional family, the strategy decisions made under intense media pressure, and the toll the case took on the lawyers themselves. Rather than re-litigating guilt or innocence, the film stays close to the mechanics of a defense built in real time against a public that had already decided the outcome, showing what it looks like to represent someone the whole country has convicted before the jury does.