Was Casey Anthony Read Her Miranda Rights Early Enough in Caylee Case? Is That a Problem?

March 4, 2011 — -- There's something about Miranda. She's not just a pretty clause.

Miranda rights, and the proper administration of them, can mean the difference between a win or a loss in a criminal case -- even before someone is put under arrest.

One need look no further than Casey Anthony's capital murder case in Florida, which is set to go to trial in two months.

The stakes don't get any higher than a death-penalty case, where judges often give the benefit of tough arguments to a defendant during litigation. After all, they don't want to get this wrong. A person's life is at stake.

In Anthony's case, her attorneys seemed to be tipping their hand this week regarding her defense strategy.

In pretrial hearings, they have been grilling everyone from the first officers who responded to the family's 911 call reporting that Anthony's daughter, 2-year-old Caylee, was missing, to the family members themselves.

The lawyers want to know exactly how Anthony was treated by police from the get-go. And they may be on to something.

It turns out Anthony briefly was handcuffed and put in the back of a cruiser within about two hours of police arriving to investigate her daughter's disappearance. The handcuffs weren't on for long -- Anthony was free to re-enter her home to continue answering police questions -- but the damage may have been done: Everything she said from the moment the cuffs were slapped on could be tossed out court and suppressed at trial.