The Casey Anthony trial took place at the Orange County Courthouse in downtown Orlando, Florida, specifically in Courtroom 23 on the building’s 23rd floor. Opening statements began on May 24, 2011, and the jury returned its verdict on July 5, 2011. The trial itself never left Orlando, but the jury was selected more than 100 miles away in Pinellas County because saturation media coverage made seating an impartial local jury nearly impossible.
The Orange County Courthouse in Downtown Orlando
The courthouse sits at 425 North Orange Avenue. Opened in 1997, the complex includes a 23-level tower that rises 416 feet and contains more than 965,000 square feet of interior space.1Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. Orange County Courthouse It houses criminal, civil, and family law divisions. During the Anthony trial, the building became the center of an international media presence, with camera crews, satellite trucks, and spectators lining up before dawn.
Courtroom 23
The trial was held in Courtroom 23, on the courthouse’s 23rd floor. The room has a modern layout with audiovisual equipment that was used to present forensic evidence and digital exhibits to the jury. Public seating was extremely limited, with reports from the trial putting available spectator seats at roughly 50 to 60. Overflow rooms elsewhere in the building carried video feeds for the hundreds of additional visitors who arrived each day but could not get inside the courtroom.
Why the Case Was Tried in Orange County
Casey Anthony lived in Orlando with her daughter Caylee and her parents, and the events that led to the criminal charges all occurred within Orange County. That placed the case within the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, which serves Orange and Osceola counties and covers more than 2,500 square miles with over two million residents.2Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. Orange and Osceola Counties Under Florida’s rules of criminal procedure, a trial normally stays in the county where the case is pending unless a party shows that a fair and impartial trial cannot be had there.3Florida Courts. Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure – Rule 3.240 Judge Belvin Perry Jr. kept the trial in Orlando.
Why the Jury Came From Pinellas County
By early 2011, the Anthony case had dominated local and national news for nearly three years. Judge Perry concluded that Orange County residents had been so saturated with coverage that seating an impartial local jury was not realistic. Rather than move the entire trial to another city, he ordered a change of venire: jurors would be drawn from a different county, but the trial would stay in Orlando.3Florida Courts. Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure – Rule 3.240
Jury selection began on May 9, 2011, at the Pinellas County Criminal Justice Center in Clearwater, on Florida’s west coast. Prosecutors had filed notice seeking the death penalty, so every prospective juror also had to be “death qualified,” meaning willing to impose a death sentence if the evidence warranted it.4The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 782.04 – Murder That requirement alone eliminated many candidates. Once 12 jurors and 5 alternates were selected, they were transported roughly 100 miles east to Orlando.
Where the Jurors Lived During the Trial
The 17 jurors were sequestered at the Rosen Shingle Creek hotel in Orlando from late May through early July 2011, cut off from normal life. Orange County Sheriff’s deputies handled all security and were the only regular outside contact the jurors had. Each juror had a private room and access to a shared common area they nicknamed the “parlor room.” Family members could visit briefly on Sunday afternoons, and those visits were supervised.
The restrictions ran deep. Deputies held the jurors’ cell phones and monitored calls along with limited internet access. Hotel-room televisions started with 25 to 30 pre-approved channels, including ESPN and Cartoon Network, chosen because they were unlikely to reference the trial. Eventually all but three channels were blocked, two of them shopping networks. Sequestration at this scale is rare and expensive, but Judge Perry treated it as essential given how far the jurors had been pulled from home and the death-penalty stakes of the case.