Jeeze, the American media sure loves a good capital murder trial; especially one with the whiff of religion mixed with the spectre of the death penalty.  Plenty of grist for their insatiable mills.

Not since Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer's fascinating account of the 1984 murders of a Mormon housewife and her 15-month daughter in Utah at the hands of her brothers-in-law, has the Mormon faith been enmeshed with a lurid murder like the trial grinding-onward in Phoenix, Arizona.

Yes, that would be the capital murder trial of the Casey-Anthonyesque "former model", Jodi Arias; accused of shooting, then slicing the throat of her Mormon boyfriend, Travis Alexander.  As a criminal defense lawyer traveling to circuit and district courts across Michigan, I've had plenty of time to listen-in on this sensational trial over the past two-months.

While quite rare to have any defendant take the witness stand in her own defense, it is exceedingly rare for a defendant accused of murder to take the witness stand in a jury trial.  Rarer still is to have the ongoing cross-examination of that defendant available in real-time for more than two weeks.

Cross-examination is the art of controlling a witness in order to convey a story, or a message, to a captive audience of 12 jurors; each of whom have somewhere else to be.  It is a skill that few lawyers can pull-off very well.  Like golf, you cannot just pick it up on the occasional weekend.  While there are boatloads of lawyers out there, only a handful have viable cross-examination skills.

The Jodi Arias trial is so lurid, with such high shock-value, it is a cross-examiner's dream.  A county prosecutor good enough to be assigned to a high-profile case is going to be a proficient cross-examiner.  Just listening to Juan Martinez cross-examining Ms. Arias, as a criminal defense lawyer, is like being in a trial clinic.

But 18-days on the witness stand?  Most judges have local court rules allowing them to control the decorum and procedure in their courtrooms, especially during a jury trial.  This power includes limiting time on the witness stand.  Most court watchers agree that this trial has turned into spectacle and has sailed over-the-top.

On the other hand, once you allow a genie like this out of the bottle, how then can you limit its scope when it takes on a life of its own.  If the Arias defense team tosses her a hundred softballs on a myriad of subjects in her direct examination [i.e. dates, times, family history, abuse history, sexual habits; each in excruciating detail], then what is a prosecutor to do but dutifully explore each and every door that has been thrown open.

Add to this the national media attention to the case, and viola; the politician within the judge in charge of such a circus is not going to prematurely turn the nation's eyes away, especially when that judge is center stage for the ever-ready lens of the voracious national media.

Nor can we forget to account for the potential value to the defendant, win or lose, of grabbing America by the shorties for as long as she can hold-on, in order to maximize her capital in the notoriety bank; the added-value could come in handy further down her tough road ahead.  From a long-term strategy perspective, this makes sense if you are Ms. Arias; and from what I've heard, she's got her head in the game.

We here at the Law Blogger defend the accused in jury trials all the time; admittedly, not high-profile murder cases.  We know some good judges here in Oakland County that could fit five or six murder trials into the yawning span of the Arias trial.  In the end, this spectacle amounts to a huge waste of legal talent and judicial resources.

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San Diego Attorney
Todd Macaluso

I recall putting on my shirt and tie for court while watching GMA two years ago and seeing one of my law school acquaintances, Todd Macaluso, being interviewed as the newest member of Casey Anthony's so-called "dream team" of defense lawyers.  The interview in Florida was surprising to me, as I thought Todd was a product liability lawyer in California.  Hey, headlines are headlines, right.

Todd comes from a wealthy family out east and he married well; very well.  Not interested in Harvard, NYU, or any of the tony east coast law schools, Todd collected his sheepskin right here in the "D" from the University of Detroit School of Law; class of 1987.

Before his graduation ceremony was even concluded, Macaluso was probably on a private jet to San Diego, where he hung his shingle and hasn't looked back.  And apparently he has not stopped playing around with private aircraft either, from the way the headlines read this week.

Although forced to quit the Casey Anthony case due to a serious attorney discipline conviction and imminent disbarment in California, Todd is right back in the cockpit, just in time to seize the spotlight, allegedly ferrying Ms. Anthony about the country on his private Pilatus PC-12 turbo-prop aircraft.

The national media, led by Nancy Grace, is in an absolute frenzy over Anthony's location.  Knowing Todd, he is loving every minute that he is able to steal the show by flying the infamous "Tot Mom" hither and yon.  Hopefully, his 15-minutes will expire by month's end.

Macaluso is a poster child for the adage: "image is everything".  He is acknowledged, among dozens of others, in United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's book, Making Your Case.  A mutual friend who's been to Macaluso's home says there is a photo of Todd on his yacht with Justice Scalia, apparently a friend of the extended Macaluso family.

In 2007, Macaluso received the President's Award from the UDM School of Law.  In presenting this award, UDM acknowledged Todd's lobby efforts in Congress to regulate pharmaceutical sales over the Internet. Nothing was mentioned, however, about the opportunistic nature of his burgeoning criminal defense practice.

With the benefit of hindsight, I just have to wonder if my alma mater would have bestowed its President's Award on a graduate who soon would be disbarred for misspending client trust funds; or whether Justice Scalia would acknowledge an attorney that has not only joined forces with a most infamous client, but has positively delighted in concealing her location, while she prepares with her lawyers to fleece all of us.

Only in America folks; only in America.

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Photo: Reuters

Many comparisons have been drawn between the O.J. Simpson murder trial in the early 1990s and Casey Anthony's infanticide trial from this summer. 

Like the Simpson trial, the Anthony jury's verdict left most Americans scratching their heads, wondering about the state of the criminal justice system in America, and in their local community.  Unlike the Simpson case, however, the Orlando, FL trial was placed on the fast-track and, fortunately for everyone, the judge delivered.

In the Anthony case, the accused mother was acquitted of all murder charges, but convicted on four counts of lying to the police.  She has been incarcerated for about two years; she could get maxed-out on Thursday to 4-years (a year for each count), with credit for time served.  Her out date could be weeks, or even days away.

Tuning-in to the trial while grinding around town tending to my own clients, I was first struck by the possibility of an acquittal when the prosecutor's case in chief was taking two days to clear a so-called "expert" on foul odors; apparently captured in special containers for later sampling.  They had experts on top of experts.

The jury, filled with non-Orlando out-of-towners, made the prosecution pay.  When she earns a 7-figure income next year, Ms. Anthony will be sticking it in all our faces.

Meanwhile, in September, Michigan begins a probationary period for a series of innovative new court rules.  These rules, designed to encourage more detailed juror involvement and participation in a case, may have changed the Anthony verdict.  Click here for a detailed discussion of the specific changes.

One of the primary innovations is the ability of jurors to discuss the case among themselves and to ask their own questions of the witnesses, as the proofs are going in.  In a huge case like Casey Anthony, you have to wonder if the new rules would make a difference in the outcome if the case was to be tried here in Michigan.

If I had to guess, I would think most Casey Anthony jurors would attest to their frustration spending half the summer listening to a parade of junk scientists. Jurors have fine antennae for junk science.

In the end, all the junk scientists in the world could not overcome the fatal flaws in this case: lack of a cause of death; and the all-in gamble of a first degree murder theory.

Here is a great take on this trial by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.

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