Posted on 08/06/2002 6:40:14 AM PDT by FresnoDA
Westerfield closings set for Tuesday |
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SAN DIEGO After two months and 116 witnesses, jurors in the capital murder case of David Westerfield will hear closing arguments Tuesday. "We'll be ready to rock and roll tomorrow morning," Judge William Mudd told lawyers Monday. Defense attorneys for Westerfield, who is accused of kidnapping and killing his 7-year-old neighbor Danielle van Dam, had considered calling a forensic anthropologist as their final witness. After weekend discussions, however, they decided to rest their case, defense lawyer Steven Feldman told Mudd. The judge imposed no time limits on the arguments Feldman and prosecutor Jeff Dusek will make, and closings in the trial, which included 199 exhibits and weeks of complex forensic testimony, could stretch into a second day. At the hearing Monday, Feldman made yet another attempt to have the panel of six men and six women sequestered during deliberations. He cited front page articles about the case in the local paper as well as an article about swinging in San Diego magazine. "The land mines keep growing, Judge," he told Mudd. As he had before, the judge denied the request and said he trusted the jury to follow his instructions about avoiding media accounts of the case. Westerfield, 50, faces the death penalty if convicted of Danielle's slaying. The second-grader was abducted from her bedroom last February. Searchers found her naked body on the side of a road three and a half weeks later. Prosecutors claim Westerfield sexually assaulted and suffocated her, but the defense says forensic evidence indicates she was dumped after the defendant was under police surveillance. |
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If DW had raped Danielle on his bed, there would have been more evidence than a hair or a couple of fibers. There would have been blood evidence on the mattress even though the sheets and comforters had been cleaned. After all, wasn't Danielle a 7 year old intact virgin?
Not always true, it depends on the amount of petechiae hemmorage in the airway/lungs. Sometimes small amounts of blood is noticeable in suffocation victims and drowning victims.
More than the one or two drops in evidence, I would think.
From cases I have observed once the District Attorney has arrested someone for a crime they never change their position as to the guilt of the person. Even when a person has won an appeal. The media will interview the prosecuter and the prosecuter will always say, "I still believe he is the person who committed the crime."
Are you saying that Westerfield's family were under subpoena and gag? If so, under subpoena for what?
I hope Feldman addresses this tomorrow.
This is exactly the point that me and a few others have been trying to make all along. And unless she was raped after death, I am almost certain that she would have fought violently with her attacker, much like the Runnion child did. She would have had DNA all over her and the perp would not have been able to hide the marks - Dannielle was pretty tall for being 7 years old. If she didn't fight back, there are ONLY 2 reasons for it:
1. She was dead
2. She was accustomed to being molested (if in fact she was - as no evidence has come forth yet to prove that theory)
Then he gets up and inside of 3 minutes was hyperventalating, yelling, flailing his arms all over the place, was disjointed, accusitory, ......
If I were on that Jury, and saw that display, at that time of being spent with closing arguments, I would have been very agitated AT HIM...and it would be hard to consentrate on anything he said because of his antics. BEAM ME UP HAS NOTHING ON HIM !
I watched D. all day and he did paint a picture. He built on each point and you could follow it. He refreshed memory and blended it all together. Then Feldman came on...and in 10 minutes, I walked out of the room. But maybe that is just me. Whew!! That man is wired !!
And that is normal also, but as I posted above small amounts of blood are SOMETIMES noticeable in suffocation/drowning victims - I did not say ALL. And the amounts of blood in these cases would be very small. Sometimes mixed in with the aspirated lung congestion and sometimes the hemmorage is high enough in the airway to cause small amounts of blood to be found in the nares or sinuses.
Did you catch Forensic Files the other night? They were profiling a case in San Diago, a lady was picked up on El cajon road. Guess who was the prosecuter? (Dusek) Guess who was the bug expert? (Faulkner) Dusek had nothing but praise for the entomologist and how they can determine the TIME OF DEATH.
He did fine.
He had to pop several bubbles before the jurors left for the evening. His arguments will begin in earnest tomorrow. No sense starting things he can't finish as he pleases. He will go over everything more rigorously and build to a crescendo that will leave Dusek in such a context that anything he says will make him look more corrupt.
He almost played a trump today, but restrained himself. Expect him to scold Mudd on his response to a prosecution objection tomorrow. Mudd's red-faced moment of shame will break any spell of charm the judge has laid on the jury.
All of the objections and sunsatined/overruled has been very pro-forma and dispassionate. He has let Dusek condition Mudd to some pretty obvious bias.
Today, "THAT..IS FOR... with all respect, judge, that is for the JURY to decide." Expect an even more conspicuous reprimand. The jury will suddenly see Mudd for the first time.
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