Yet another attorney on Casey Anthony’s defense team has quit, according to news reports.
Andrea Lyon, a professor of law at DePaul University in Chicago, will no longer be representing Casey Anthony. Lyon is stepping aside for financial reasons, as apparently it has become too costly for her to remain as part of the defense team.
Lyon, a death penalty attorney, had joined the Anthony defense team in May 2009 and was flying to Orlando from Chicago for hearings over the past year. Travel expenses are not covered by the state.
Taxpayers of Orange County are picking up the tab for the defense of Casey Anthony who was declared indigent earlier this year.
According to Local 6, Jose Baez, one of Anthony’s defense attorneys indicated Lyon’s departure was not a serious blow as local attorney, Cheney Mason is already a part of the team. Mason is a death penalty qualified attorney, while Baez is not.
In February earlier this year, another member of the Anthony defense team, Todd Macaluso, was forced to step aside owing to his own legal problems in California.
Within days of Macaluso’s departure, a media relations consultant, Marti Mackenzie quit, saying in a brief letter in February that, “Effective today, I will no longer be a media liaison for the Casey Anthony defense team.”
Casey Anthony is charged with first degree murder in the death of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. She has maintained her innocence, saying that Caylee was kidnapped by a baby sitter. The toddler’s body was found several months after the child went missing, in a wooded area near the Anthony family home.
Anthony sits in the Orange County Jail awaiting trial which is expected to commence in May 2011. If convicted she could face the death penalty.
