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Judge Mudd Refuses Sequester Plea: Westerfield Jury Verdict In Sep? (Aug. 16th Verdict Watch)
Union Trib ^ | August 15, 2002 | Jeff Dillion/Steve Perez

Posted on 08/16/2002 6:39:20 AM PDT by FresnoDA

Judge denies defense motion to sequester jury

By Jeff Dillon and Steve Perez
SIGNONSANDIEGO

August 15, 2002

Judge William D. Mudd addressed counsel on a motion by defense attorney Steven Feldman regarding media access to jurors in the trial of defendant David Westerfield at San Diego courthouse, August 15, 2002. Westerfield is accused of the kidnapping and murder of seven-year old Danielle van Dam from her Sabre Springs home, last February.  REUTERS/POOL/Dan TrevanArguing that media coverage was creating a "lynch mob mentality" that could pressure jurors to return a guilty verdict, the defense attorney for David Westerfield today asked the judge yet again to sequester the jury.

While the jury completed its first week of deliberations without a verdict, Superior Court Judge William Mudd denied the request and a related motion to "pull the plug" on television and radio coverage of the courtroom proceedings, but agreed to set aside a private room for jurors to take breaks. Defense attorney Steven Feldman had argued that reports suggested jurors felt like they were under siege, unable to leave their deliberating room, go to lunch or walk home without being watched or followed.

"We have no assurance that they are not be intimidated ... by the presence of the media," Feldman told Mudd during a morning hearing. "We can think of only one fair resolution to that: Get the jury out of harm's way."

 

'Broccoli heads'

He cited an incident earlier in the week in which radio talk show hosts from KFI-AM 640 in Los Angeles broadcast from outside the courthouse, waving stalks of broccoli around and reportedly calling jurors "broccoli heads" for being unable to return a quick guilty verdict.

Westerfield, 50, could face the death penalty if convicted of kidnapping 7-year-old Danielle van Dam from her family's Sabre Springs home on Feb. 2 and killing her. Jurors are in their sixth day of deliberations.

Lead prosecutor Jeff Dusek disagreed with Feldman's interpretations of the jury's complaints.

"Whether or not any guilty verdict in this case would be based on a siege mentality or the meida I think is pure speculation and utterly false in this case," Dusek said.

What the jurors had complained about was being watched all the time, he said.

"That hardly equates to being under siege," he said.

 

Trust in the jury

Mudd dismissed most of Feldman's concerns, saying that the jurors had only asked a bailiff to keep reporters a little bit farther away, though an alternate juror reported that he or she had been followed to his car.

Media coverage has diminished since the jurors began deliberating, the judge said.

"The synopsis programs on the two local TV networks are not in place," he said. "The talking heads are doing nothing but speculating about what the jury may or may not be thinking."

Mudd said there were no signs that jurors were being harassed by the public, especially since their names and faces haven't been publicized.

"We've all sat here and picked this jury, know their makeup and know their dedication to this cause," Mudd said. "I would prefer to think that any verdict they make in this case would be based upon the evidence."

Sequestering the jury also wouldn't protect them from any public reaction to the verdict, Mudd said.

 

'The activities of a few'

"The tragedy is, the majority of the people in this courtroom are abiding by the court's orders and working very hard to insure they, meaning the media, do not cause something to occur that is going to cause a mistrial," Mudd said. "Not all of them feel that way as is very apparent with the activities of a few."

Mudd took aim at two radio program hosts from Los Angeles who he previously described as "idiots."

"I suppose it's entertainment out of LA. I hope it stays in LA," he said. "The shows those two gentlemen put on made the court incredulous as to what they were attempting to do."

Mudd also announced:

 



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To: JudyB1938
I used one of the THREE HTML thingys that I know..... Gosh! my son is laughing at me! :(
1,301 posted on 08/17/2002 8:00:36 PM PDT by CAPPSMADNESS
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To: fatima
Wow
1,302 posted on 08/17/2002 8:00:46 PM PDT by MizSterious
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
Right, no CONCLUSIVE TEST FOR HUMAN BLOOD WAS DONE.
1,303 posted on 08/17/2002 8:02:23 PM PDT by John Jamieson
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To: MizSterious
Wow

And I call your WOW and raise you one WOW!

WOW!

1,304 posted on 08/17/2002 8:02:27 PM PDT by CAPPSMADNESS
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To: CAPPSMADNESS
Did I mention how many YEARS ago it was when I made that chigger report. I was going to try to find a pic of one, when I realized I combined facts about the chigoe with the chigger larvae.. (embarrassed grin) The baby chigger has a little funnel type of mouth and it goes into the skin after it's liquified.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2100.html
Chigger larvae do not burrow into the skin, nor suck blood. They pierce the skin and inject into the host a salivary secretion containing powerful, digestive enzymes that break down skin cells that are ingested

-----------

Sand Fleas, Jiggers, and Chigoes - Oh My! Last week a pathologist asked for our assistance in identifying "apparent worm parts" removed from one of three skin lesions on the underside of the foot of a 19 year-old male college student returning from Argentina. The referring pathologist wondered if the "long, thin, apparent worm-like structure" extracted from the lesion represented Dracunculus medinensis (Guinea worm) or a related parasite. Upon examination, we determined the "worm" to be uncoiled uterus with eggs from the sand flea (also called jigger or chigoe), Tunga penetrans. This species is distributed throughout tropical America and Africa. The adult female burrows into the skin of humans and other mammals; at this time the flea is about 1 mm long. After mating, the female expands (with eggs) to the size of a pea. After eggs are laid and hatch, the larvae escape through a small skin aperture and develop on the ground. The presence of the sand flea in the skin often causes extreme itching, pain and often secondary infection. Tetanus and gangrene are occasional complications. http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/dpc/ades/bugbytes/0104bb.htm

1,305 posted on 08/17/2002 8:03:36 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: wonders
I guess the best "short" explanation I can offer is -- what are the odds of picking 12 of 13 winning numbers in the lottery? And then saying the odds of this in the DNA thang are even greater, unless there is an identical twin or some SERIOUS inbreeding over several generations in the individuals in question.

I thought that I had a pretty good understanding of DNA and genetics, but the things you have said on this subject have contradicted some basic ideas I have held.

First, you have said that 12 out of 13 is enough for you. While it might be an extremely unlikely thing to happen(depends on which alleles are chosen), to use your lottery example, 12 out of 13 still doesn't win the lottery. If there is a marker in the DNA that doesn't match the control sample, or a marker in the control that is not in the other sample, doesn't that prove that the two samples of DNA are not from the same person? If not, I wish you would be as lengthy and detailed as is necessary to convince a reasonable person.

Now, I understand that you needn't test every single marker to be fairly confident that you have a match, but when people say that they matched 12 markers or 25 markers to obtain a match, I always understoood that to mean that the markers were selected for rarity and unrelatedness in the first place, and that none of the markers failed to match. Specifically, 12 markers is a match, but only if it is 12 out of 12 rare and fairly orthogonal(for lack of field-specific term) markers.

Please tell me how a person's DNA can not match any individual marker from his or her own DNA. Irrespective of how many matches are found, how can you have a marker on some of your DNA that is not on some of your other DNA?

I know that if you undertake to match any random bits of DNA, you will get lots of matches -- humans share 98% of their genetic information with chimpanzees, and even more with eachother.

1,306 posted on 08/17/2002 8:05:36 PM PDT by Yeti
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To: John Jamieson
DNA from fbi? Off the top of my head, I remember them working on hair....
1,307 posted on 08/17/2002 8:06:34 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: hoosiermama
Found an intersting tidpit. The reason getting up on the wrong side of the bed is used means the person started the day out using his "left foot" It went on to explain the left foot is the devil's foot. From Early church times.

Sock covering the devil's foot or removal of the devil's foot opens alot of new areas?

OMG !! This is getting spookier and spookier.

A "normal" child rapist/murderer would leave the child's body relatively intact. But those satanist pedophiles would be well organized in using ancient ritualistic cult practices.

Lord have Mercy. I'm beginning to wonder if that off-the-wall stuff about high-placed power brokers and politicians (Daddy Bush, etc) is actually true. Do you know what I'm talking about? I used to have a link for it, but don't have it any more.

Those other two girls in WASH DC. Were they missing left feet like Chandra and Danielle were?

(I still think you are on to something!)

1,308 posted on 08/17/2002 8:08:44 PM PDT by JudyB1938
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To: ~Kim4VRWC's~
KIM.....DNA CAN COME FROM SOURCES BESIDES BLOOD, since it is in EVERY SINGLE CELL IN YOUR BODY and not EVERY SINGLE CELL IS BLOOD. So just because they found DNA does not mean they found BLOOD. They also never conclusively showed the DNA came from Danielle.
1,309 posted on 08/17/2002 8:10:05 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit
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To: JudyB1938
Two girls in DC? or Texas? I know about the Texas girls with socks on their left feet, but what two girls in DC Please enlight.
1,310 posted on 08/17/2002 8:11:44 PM PDT by hoosiermama
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To: CAPPSMADNESS
LOL I can just see your kid laughing at you, too.

From now on, don't use any HTML. Just hit your return key for paragraphs.

I'll bet your son can explain it a whole lot better than I can here. When he stops laughing, ask him to show you.

But I won't guarantee I will stop laughing. That was funny. Considering how much of an EXPERT I consider you. :0)
1,311 posted on 08/17/2002 8:12:51 PM PDT by JudyB1938
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To: All
I'll do a quick catch-up post for today:

DW and the "mystery drink" - Let's see. We have a bunch of hot-to-trot people out, one of whom has said he has taken Viagra (later denied). Rohypnol can be used to "get what a man wants", though it can be used "male to male" as well.

Here's a link:

Rohypnol

Similar to Valium, it's used (legally) as a sedative for insomniacs, or for pre-surgery.

It is possible that someone dropped one of these in a drink meant for one of the "ladies", and DW ended up drinking it. If this is what happened, he's lucky to have made it home. And it would also blow the idea of him sneaking "stealthily" in the VDs house right out of the water. Makes you lose control of your arms and legs, don't you know. Pretty hard to be a Stealth Ninja, when you're passed out and numb.

Also - reading the unsealed documents last night, I was amazed...(NOT!) to find that the person who quoted DW as saying "That would be a good place to dump a body", etc., was our good friend, the suspect-beating, detail-faking Detective Ott. Who would have thought it? He's just a real go-getter. Maybe he should be promoted! < /sarcasm>
1,312 posted on 08/17/2002 8:14:24 PM PDT by NatureGirl
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To: hoosiermama
Those two other interns whose bodies they finally found.
1,313 posted on 08/17/2002 8:14:26 PM PDT by JudyB1938
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To: hoosiermama; JudyB1938
Can you guys post a post with girls names, locations/states/cities and common left foot missing (the ones w/socks too) ? It'd be nice to see them all together..spooky as it is..

1,314 posted on 08/17/2002 8:14:36 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: Rheo
I'm not sure where I got the name Phil...Brooke Rowland is who I meant tho.

Because Phil is the OTHER perp from Poway! I just disremember what his last name is right now.
I DO remember that he was facing MORE charges than Rowland though.
Wait a minute! Last name was Whitmore, Geesh! you'd have thought I could keepit all together by now.

1,315 posted on 08/17/2002 8:15:04 PM PDT by alexandria
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To: MizSterious
Is the back room empty,you posted a deleted post by admin and JR gave you a room to fly free,except for some things I have never seen, posted by fresno,thanks for the stupid visual mayor,you have a room to say as You wish
thanks JR for making everyone happy.


1,316 posted on 08/17/2002 8:17:41 PM PDT by fatima
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To: JudyB1938
That is the reason I lurked here for two years prior to posting or joining! the HTML thing intimidated me - still does! I can use any type of software after a few tries, but I am brain dead when it comes to HTML - so much so that my husband bought me "Web Pages for Dummies" in the vain hope that it would help.....

That's my story, I am a freak! will I ever be able to face you all again??!?

1,317 posted on 08/17/2002 8:18:10 PM PDT by CAPPSMADNESS
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To: CAPPSMADNESS
HTML

1,318 posted on 08/17/2002 8:20:08 PM PDT by Freedom2specul8
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To: dread78645
Thanks Dread,

so if there was evidence planted, it had to have been after DW got back from his trip, not that friday night that Danielle disappeared.?
1,319 posted on 08/17/2002 8:21:21 PM PDT by domestice
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To: fatima; MizSterious
Fat..wow!

sw

1,320 posted on 08/17/2002 8:21:26 PM PDT by spectre
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