Posts Tagged ‘Judge Belvin Perry’

Judge rules Casey Anthony must return to Orlando and serve 1 year of probation

A week after  hearing arguments from both the prosecution and the defense and with input from the Department of Corrections, Judge Belvin Perry has ruled that Casey Anthony must return to Orlando on or before August 26th to begin serving one year of probation for her check fraud case.  Her probation will begin as soon as she reports.  In support of his order, Judge Perry wrote, “It is clear the court stated the defendant’s probation was to start once she was released from jail.”  He continued, “To permit the Defendant, whose counsel was well aware that the probation was to begin upon the Defendant’s release from jail, to avoid serving probation now, would take a lawfully imposed sentence and make it a mockery of justice.  This would allow a defendant to take advantage of a scrivener’s error and be rewarded. This is not the message the courts want to send to the public or defendants.”

Judge Perry did make an exception to Anthony’s probation.  He authorized the Department of Corrections to keep her address private while she is on probation.  In support of this he wrote, “This Court is very mindful that it is a high probability that there are many that would like to see physical harm visited upon the Defendant.”

The complete order may be seen here: Order denying defense’s motion to quash, vacate and set aside court’s order of probation.

Will the defense appeal this ruling or will Casey Anthony report as directed?  Stay tuned…

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Judge Belvin Perry says issue of whether Casey Anthony must return to serve a year of probation on her check fraud case is “a mess”

“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…

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