LOL about CTV. They were predisposed convicting DW before the trial began. From the information available to the general public, ASK the man on the street what he thinks, someone who doesn't KNOW the facts as we do..they will say "guilty".
The Jury is under a tremendous amount of public pressure and that is troubling to me.
I am keenly aware of the good arguments presented on DW's behalf on this forum, but the Jury isn't hearing them, another troubling aspect of the eventual verdict consideration.
The Jury has no sanctuary that offers them support if they come in with a Not Guilty verdict.
The best I can see for DW is a "hung Jury". I'm preparing myself.
sw
All it would have taken me on that one would have been long enough to cure the notorious "pee-pee dance".
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 talked to my daughter from Texas the other night and that very thing happened. The one good thing about the conversation was, since she didn't really follow it she was willing to listen. Of course, she's a long way from SD. sigh.
I am keenly aware of the good arguments presented on DW's behalf on this forum, but the Jury isn't hearing them, another troubling aspect of the eventual verdict consideration.
It wouldn't matter if they had jurors who only saw blood & porn. Good argument is wasted on people of that mindset. The only hope at all is for some to see reasonable doubt.
After all, a brick is a brick.