Super Lawyers - Florida 2012

Against the Odds
J. CHENEY MASON WASN’T LOOKING TO
REPRESENT ARGUABLY THE MOST REVILED
WOMAN IN THE U.S., BUT ONCE ON CASEY
ANTHONY’S CASE, HE WOULDN’T BACK DOWN

BY G.K. SHARMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SCOTT COOK

THE CROWDS WOULD GATHER EVERY DAY, OFTEN BEFORE dawn, cups of coffee or bottles of energy drinks in their hands. The mood was quiet, for the most part—at least early on. The media were there too: a virtual village of satellite vans and microphones and personalities with perfectly coiffed hair.

As sunrise chased the shadows from the Orange County Courthouse, the volume rose. Reporters checked their notes; photographers got into position. Then a door would open in the Bank of America tower across the street and all hell would break loose.

“It was like running a gauntlet every day,” says attorney J.
Cheney Mason. “We practically needed a SWAT team to get to
work. The only things they didn’t have were torches and pitchforks.”
The target of the animosity was his client, Casey Anthony,
possibly the most reviled woman on the planet.

A vocal contingent of trial followers considered Anthony evil personified—a mother who seemed not to grieve for her missing child. They labeled her a hard-drinking, tattooed party girl who didn’t report 2-year-old Caylee missing for a month; who allegedly used chloroform and duct tape to kill her baby and dumped her body in the woods, then smirked her way through the trial.