Casey Anthony had half of the convictions against her thrown out in appeals court Friday.
Two of the four convictions Anthony was facing for lying to authorities were dismissed by a panel of judges because they constituted double jeopardy, according to RadarOnline . Anthony’s lawyers had appeared on her behalf in the Fifth District Court of Appeals on January 9 to request that all four convictions be thrown out.
The state of Florida, however, argued that double jeopardy — meaning Anthony can’t be convicted twice for the same crime — wasn’t a valid reason for dismissal. The state said each false statement Anthony gave to authorities was a separate offense.
“We cannot conclude that the Legislature intended to authorize separate punishment for each false statement made during a single interview,” the judges said . “Where there is a sufficient temporal break between two alleged criminal acts so as to have allowed a defendant time to pause, reflect and form a new criminal intent, a separate criminal episode will have occurred.”
With one legal battle down, Anthony still has a civil lawsuit to deal with. She is being sued for defamation by Zenaida Gonzalez, who said that Anthony told police that a nanny with a similar sounding name kidnapped her daughter, Caylee. Anthony planned to plead the fifth and claimed that she couldn’t get a fair trial in Orlando. Gonzalez wasn’t worried that Anthony’s lawyers asked for a change of venue and said she would respect the judge’s ruling.
Anthony was also being sued for $3 billion by a woman named Naomi Riches who claimed that Anthony was an “Illuminati actress.” A judge dismissed Riches’ allegations because they did not meet the “plausibility standard.”
