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Jury's time
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| DAY TWO: FRIDAY, AUG. 9, 2002 | |
| 12 noon ET | Jury enters jury room. |
| 2:30 p.m. ET | Jury goes home for the weekend. |
Posted on 08/12/2002 6:39:08 AM PDT by FresnoDA
Jury's time
Jurors will resume deliberations Monday in the capital case of David Westerfield, who is accused of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam
DAY TWO: FRIDAY, AUG. 9, 2002
12 noon ET
Jury enters jury room.
2:30 p.m. ET
Jury goes home for the weekend.
| DAY ONE: THURSDAY, AUG. 8, 2002 | |
| 1:10 p.m. ET | Jury begins deliberating. After two months of testimony, the capital murder trial of David Westerfield is in the hands of the jurors, who began their deliberations following more than two days of closing arguments. |
| 2:50 p.m. | Jury sends a note to the judge. |
| 3:00 p.m. | Jury at lunch. |
| 4:30 p.m. | Judge calls the lawyers but not the public or the press into the courtroom. |
| 5:15 p.m. | Judge says jurors sent note asking to deliberate five days a week instead of having Friday off and he approved their request. |
| 7:00 p.m. | Jury goes home for the day. Will return Friday morning. |
Even when there is no audience, being under oath in the witness box can be an intimidating experience. And when this particular jury box, with the international attention it got, must have been even more intimidating. In such situations it's not unknown for people to have mental drop-outs like this.
I didn't state clearly what I meant, apparently. Of course, each juror could pick their own reason for REASONABLE DOUBT.
I was centering on her idea of the print/hair/dna in the MH as being the core of the evidence. Guess what she said didn't support my proposal as much as I first thought.
August 12, 2002
As the David Westerfield jury returns to the San Diego County Courthouse for a third day of deliberations observers say it comes down to DNA versus bugs.
The six-man, six-woman jury was handed the case against the former Sabre Springs self-employed design engineer and last Thursday.
Westerfield, 50, could face the death penalty if convicted of kidnapping and killing his neighbor, 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.
The divorced father of two also is charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography, which prosecutors say provided a motive for the crimes.
The trial included 23 days of testimony, 98 witnesses and 199 court exhibits.
Trial observers say the deliberations could come down to DNA versus bugs -- DNA evidence that the victim was in the suspect's motorhome versus testimony from defense forensic experts who said bugs on the girl's body indicated it had been dumped while the suspect was under police surveillance.
The alleged swinging lifestyle of the victim's parents, Brenda and Damon van Dam, could also factor in the jury's verdict.
Jurors deliberated for less than three hours on Friday before going home for the weekend. Superior Court Judge William Mudd -- citing security concerns -- refused to reveal the jury's exact hours of deliberations.
During closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dusek told the panel that Danielle was essentially speaking to them from the grave via blood and other evidence pointing to Westerfield as her kidnapper and killer.
Dusek also took on a defense contention that there was no smoking gun. "This jacket -- this is the smoking gun," Dusek told jurors, referring to a photograph of Westerfield's jacket displayed on a screen.
"Danielle's blood was on that jacket," he said. "Give me another explanation for how it got there -- please. You got none. There's no dispute - - no defense evidence it was not Danielle's blood. This is a smoking gun. This is hard evidence."
Dusek displayed graphics listing all the evidence the prosecution has entered in the trial, which started June 4.
"Look at all of that and ask yourself if there's two reasonable interpretations," Dusek said.
"Fingerprints, hair, blue fibers, dog hair -- and the blood -- all found in the back of the motorhome" that Westerfield drove around the weekend following Danielle's disappearance, Dusek said. "There's no reasonable explanation but guilt. None."
Earlier in his argument, Dusek said Danielle was dumped "naked in the dirt like trash for animals to devour."
Defense attorney Steven Feldman told jurors forensic evidence involving bugs on the victim's body proved it was "impossible" for his client to have dumped the body beside an East County road, where it was discovered Feb. 27.
The defense claimed throughout the trial that Westerfield was under tight surveillance by police and the media beginning Feb. 5, three days after the Sabre Springs girl was discovered missing from her bed.
Westerfield was arrested Feb. 22.
Feldman told the jury that every expert who testified said the girl's body could not have been placed beside the road until well after Feb. 5.
Prosecutors contend the defense did not accurately represent the information provided by experts who study insect infestation of corpses.
Feldman said the prosecution had presented no evidence that Westerfield had ever been in Danielle's home. He noted that her parents testified to holding sex parties in the home, and said one of their house guests might have committed the crime.
Feldman also suggested that Westerfield could not have maneuvered his way through the darkened van Dam home the night of Feb. 1 without anyone hearing him seizing the 58-pound child.
By John Marelius
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 10, 2002
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon beat a hasty rhetorical retreat yesterday after a supporter accused Gov. Gray Davis of "negligence" for not having the child abduction alert system in place when Danielle van Dam was kidnapped in February.
"She never had a chance because of the governor's negligence in doing his duty to help missing children," declared Monty Holden, executive director of the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, who was invited by Simon to speak at a campaign news conference in San Diego.
Simon visited a Habitat for Humanity construction site in the Stockton neighborhood to promote his housing program in hopes of shifting attention away from last week's $78 million fraud judgment against his family investment company.
In that, he succeeded. But in so doing, he found himself at the side of a supporter who said the governor bore some responsibility in a murder case that has shocked the nation.
Asked repeatedly if he agreed with the accusation, Simon stammered through several rambling answers that Davis should have implemented the so-called Amber Alert system sooner.
"I said at the time when I encouraged the governor to issue an executive order implementing that Amber Alert plan that I think that what we need to do is make sure that we've got the Amber Alert plan in place to prevent the types of things that obviously could happen without it," he said.
But did Simon agree with Holden's assertion?
"Mr. Holden is entitled to his opinions. I gave you mine," he replied.
In fact, even if the Amber Alert system had been in place in February, it would not have been activated in the van Dam case, said San Diego Police Department spokesman Dave Cohen.
In that case, police initially handled the 7-year-old Sabre Springs girl's Feb. 2 disappearance as a "missing persons" case and did not conclude it was a kidnapping until two days later.
"It must be a documented stranger abduction, so we have information we can put out," said Cohen. "In this case, we wouldn't have had it."
Word that the alert system was not applicable to the van Dam case seemed to catch Simon off guard.
"You know, I hesitate to speculate 'What if?' " he said. "All I can say is this: The Amber Alert system is proven and the fact that Gov. Davis delayed the implementation of the Amber Alert plan is poor. At minimum it's poor."
The Davis campaign reacted harshly to the Simon campaign blast.
"This is about as desperate as a flailing campaign can get," said Roger Salazar, Davis campaign press secretary. "To use the memory of a poor little girl for political purposes is disgusting even by Bill Simon's standards."
In May 2001, the Legislature passed a resolution by Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster, calling on the governor to implement the emergency alert system named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old Texas girl who was kidnapped in 1996 and later found dead.
After much criticism from Simon and victims' rights groups, Davis asked law enforcement agencies to begin using the system last month after the kidnapping and murder of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in Orange County.
The system was declared an instant success as it helped law enforcement officials track down the abductor of two teen-age girls in Kern County last week.
But officials are seeking to fine-tune the system which has produced two false alarms in the five times it has been activated during the past two weeks.
As for Davis, if he was slow to implement the abduction warning system, he has made up for lost time with a succession of high-profile Amber Alert events.
Yesterday, at the second event in as many days, Davis met in Los Angeles with officials of the California Broadcasters Association and law enforcement agencies to discuss ways to improve the effectiveness of the system.
I guess then, conversely, each juror could pick their own reason, for GUILT? I mean this seriously.
Presuming that from one to twelve jurors DO vote guilty (murder), I believe they may be swayed to differing degrees, about certain items of evidence.
Say two vote guilty. One might say, he was convinced of guilt, because of the blood. The second might say she was convinced of guilt, because of the prints.
I agree, and I have noticed that the only voices that I hear seriously suggesting legalization in recent years have been conservatives, like Bill Buckley or Newt Gingrich, for example(and, of course, libertarians like yourself. I wish all libertarians were small-l libertarians, the party might get somewhere.). Mr. I-didn't-inhale was all for toughening up the drug laws, and he did.
Also, as a states' rights issue, there is no constitutional basis for federal drug laws unless they involve interstate commerce, the tying of federal highway funds to states' drug laws and drinking age laws is a fraudulent circumvention of the founding fathers' intent.
I have never seen it expounded, but I believe there is indeed justification for banning certain drugs, based on their predictably addictive nature, as poison.
Disclosure: If there is anyone who didn't get it in my post on another thread, I certainly smoked my share of it as a youngin'.
Dusek's theory used a lot of 'missing' evidence.
There was the blood all over the 'missing boots'.
There was the blood all over the 'missing comforter'
There was the 'missing blue blanket' that Danielle was wrapped in to keep the bugs from getting to her.
There was the 'missing orange UFO' that left orange fibers all over DW's house and Danielle's body.
There was the 'missing blue/grey UFO' that left blue/grey fibers on Danielle's body and in DW's MH.
There was a missing breifcase with that had a million dollars in it, that police still refuse to return to me.
There is the 'missing' NASA Spacesuit that DW used to enter the VD home.
Seriously, Prosecution/LE's theorized all kinds of things and then searched for the evidence to prove it. Apparently, when they couldn't find the evidence they needed, they either faked it, or declared it missing.
Even more suprising, is WHY they didn't go to the campground and search DW's Motor Home if they suspected him from the get-go. Which of course, they DID...since he was the only Male to have left the neighborhood that morning...:~)
I mean, let's assume DW had her in his Motor Home..they missed their chance to get her out Alive...yeah, right.
sw
This is true. I've thought about those possibilities myself.
The problem I have with this personally is: Over the years, I have bought GS cookies from just about evry kid who has come to the door. That would be several hundred times. Sometimes they had their mothers with them, sometimes they were in pairs or threes, and sometime they were by themselves.
The number of times that I've invited anyone inside?
None.
To me, the fact that DW invited them inside indicates that he was either: a) an unusally friendly or very lonely person; or b) had an interest in either Brenda or Danielle.
In my thinking, none of those explanations works well for DW. He should never have invited them inside the house. Brenda, maybe, but only if she was by herself and if he liked her.
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