How big a day was it in the Casey Anthony case? Huge.

WFTV-Channel 9 legal analyst Bill Sheaffer highlighted the addition of high-profile Orlando attorney Cheney Mason to the defense team.

“This is the most significant event to the defense and the prosecution since the discovery of  Caylee’s body,” Sheaffer told WFTV anchor Vanessa Echols.

“Cheney Mason does not believe in the death penalty,” Sheaffer said. “And because the state is seeking death in this case it is his commitment to 1) win this case on the facts and have a verdict of not guilty entered.  But failing that, he wants to make sure she does not face the death penalty.”

WESH-Channel 2’s Jeff Lennox said the “big announcement” was Mason was “taking on this case and going through all the financial struggles that Casey Anthony has had up until now in hopes that Judge Stan Strickland will sign off on paper work” that Anthony is indigent.

Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee.

The Anthony case was the top story on noon newscasts of WFTV, WKMG-Channel 6 and WESH-Channel 2. Central Florida News 13 continued to offer wall-to-wall coverage.

In other developments:

*** Evidence was unsealed in the case. WKMG-Channel 6 anchor Erick Weber put that development this way: “The evidence the state did not want Casey Anthony’s defense to see right away has now been unsealed.”

The evidence? Anthony made statements “relevant to the case” to another inmate, and that inmate pointed to another inmate who had hand-written notes from Anthony, Weber said.

The state says these statements are not a confession, Weber added.

WFTV’s Emily Turner reported that documents reveal a corrections officer “faciliated an inappropriate relationship” between Anthony and another inmate in the Orange County Jail.

Another inmate came forward and told authorities that Anthony had been writing notes to the inmate, who is now in federal prison, Turner reported. The inmate in question said that, yes, she had received the 50 or so notes, and authorities retrieved them from a third party, Turner added.  

 ***The defense team revealed more about its money. Defense attorney Jose Baez revealed that he had received $205,000 for the case — $5,000 from an unidentified donor and $200,000 from “a deal that was done by my client” with ABC News. WFTV’s Kathi Belich highlighted those details in her noon report.

Baez said there was no deal for future money coming from ABC News.

Baez also dimissed a rumor that he will receive $700,000 in the future.

And Baez revealed that former defense attorney Todd Macaluso had contributed $70,000 to help with costs.

Defense attorney Andrea Lyon estimated that she had spent $70,000 on the case from money she raised through her clinic, which supports the poor. 

***Anthony’s mood. “This news of a new lawyer seemed to put Casey Anthony in a good mood. She was even smiling,” WFTV anchor Echols said. “Casey Anthony looked at ease … in a way she has not looked before,” WFTV’s Belich agreed.

Read more here:
Casey Anthony: The most dramatic day in the case since Caylee’s remains were found.