Westerfield Jury Reaches Verdict DEATH

o | Joe Hadenuf

[Joe Hadenuf]

Death

[FreeTheHostages]

Since you are a former prosecutor, I have a few questions for you

That's where I stopped reading. Because I honor jury verdicts. I'm a former prosecutor and one thing I know, which probably nearly everyone on this website might disagree with me on!, is that jury's almost always get it right.

So no, I'm not going to read or answer your questions re-debating whether he's innocent or guilty. Because guilt is determined by the jury verdict, and I respect and honor it. It's seditious, in my opinion, to have parallel fake trials by public debate by people, none of us who heard the actual witnesses actually testify and looked 'em all in the eye.

Yup, I'm a real one, and I'll prove it by honoring the jury and the constitutional system which gives the jury, not you or me, the say. It's a great system, as in better than any other you might want to have in place. So I respect this jury and I think you should join the democracy and not litigate against the jury. I respect their verdict and its finality is subject only to appellate challenge. No other challenges are relevant.

In short, nope, not gonna do it, wouldn't be prudent to speak as an expert at a trial I wasn't present at. Neither were you. The jury was. It's hard work, being on a jury. Honor their work and respect their verdict.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Agree. And I am very proud of this jury, as this was very much needed.....

[Amore]

Thanks for your civil response. You're a good example of why I get along with most people here. I have a lousy memory and, while a name may look familiar, I don't retain past disagreements -- usually. Unfortunately, certain Freeper names from the DW threads are now burned into my brain (& I'm sure the converse is true). Recently, I've read a couple of posts from one Freeper on other threads and admired them, got down to the Freeper name and just cringed! And emitted a sigh like you did. There's not enough conservatives out there that we can afford to alienate ourselves from them.

[carenot]

Justice Served.

How? By convicting an innocent man and not looking for who killed that little girl?

[Freedom2specul8]

Isn't that awful.... I had to quit following the smart threads a while back so I don't know what the tone of the threads is like anymore.

[jdontom]

This must be a mistake.....Just seen on Court tv upper left hand corner of screen.....van Dam jury deadlocked more at 4:30...am I seeing things. This has been very confusing..

[MHT]

Not only will he be given a lifetime of appeals, his food (three-squares), lodging (relatively clean and temperature-controlled, transportation (chauffered), exercise (with state-purchased equipment), and health care (including chemotherapy and transplants, if needed) will be taken care of, which will probably give him a greater chance of surviving into senior citizenship than normal day-to-day life in the burbs.

[carenot]

Death penalty...W OW!

Why that means in 20 years he will be on his last appeals.

Yes, and he has plenty of reasons to appeal.

He needs a new trial. They didn't prove anything.

[Freedom2specul8]

Yes, I do remember... I have a friend who is pretty religious: a real bible scholar, and he has told me a few times that to be cautious as to where my heart is when I call for justice and to know the difference between justice and revenge.

It's not easy as you know. It's not easy at all.

[Richard Kimball]

Um, sorry, that's when I stopped reading.

Accomplice's story was backed up with physical evidence. They know this is what happened through method of murder, location of victim's bodies, etc. You really should read it. It's a tough read, but important to get through to understand the way sexual murderers work. BTW, I do understand your reluctance to believe an accomplice, but McDuff, in order to get a lighter sentence for a relative of his, shortly before his execution, revealed the location of several of his victim's bodies, and the descriptions by the two men in my original post have been confirmed by the forensic evidence. One of the girls worked about a mile and a half from where I grew up, and I know people that have sat in a classroom with McDuff at Texas State Technical College.

[EllaMinnow]

"Why didn't you call Barb Easton?"

"No reason to."
_____________________________
"Was she uncooperative/"

"No, not at all."

[FreeTheHostages]

Actually, yes. But I know that's a tough one to swallow. But my viewpoint on that is born of experience. You have *no idea* how easy it is for an accomplice to go to jail, meet up with someone, and become persuaded (by carrot or stick) to take another path. Any convict will tell you: if you listen to the inmates, there are no guilty people in prison. And everyone has a chip on their shoulder about the "system." So Rule 33 motions for newly discovered evidence and recantations are a dime a dozen. Mean's nothing.

Would it help to hear my story? Here's a real world story that I witness. Guy snitches on a double-homicide. A brutal one. But he's in jail for stuff too. DC correction system screws up and puts him in the jail cell with a friend of the triggerman he testified against! Arghh!: despite an express court order not to do that. So what happens? Well, of course, he changes his mind. But not before a desperate message left to the prosecutor that help! he's in real trouble here!!

What about a defense counsel that goes to a jailcell, sees that the recanting witness is being roomed with a bandit that per court order should *not* be anywhere near this testifying witness, and decides -- rather than to tell the jailers of their error -- to take an affidavit from the witness before we can rescue him? Well, we took an affidavit ("second affidavit") to counter THAT first affidavit, in which he said he was scared becaue of housing. And guess what? No kidding: defense counsel approached the witness again, said that if the first affidavit was false then that was perjury and witness had better sign a *third* affidavit. So, scared again, he does so.

What a witness tells 12 of his peers in open court under oath is a lot more persuasive than what happens in the lonely jailhouse. My mind is filled with many stories. Not all defense counsel are in on it like these guys were, but often there's a paid lawyer somewhere not to far in the background. You might not be pleased to know that your tax dollars paid for the criminal defense attorney's work in the above fact pattern.

Recantations happen all the time. Cross-examination can bring out every motive a witness has to lie. But it can't bring out the motives to recant that don't exist until after the trial. Hence recantations are dubious. That's how the world, in my experience, works.

[Freedom2specul8]

It sounds like an error.. the jury agreed to the death penalty...around 1:35pm. Not sure!

[Valpal1]

Thanks for the link!

Barb wasn't called because she had nothing to testify to, that they didn't already have.

[FreeTheHostages]

Oh, and also: when you hear these second-hand stories about recantation, it's always from the outside. You're told about all the evidence supporting innocence, and none of the evidence supporting guilt. So hearing second-hand accounts of a supposed recantation are HIGHLY dubious: the teller may believe they have all the facts, but only if you were working on the inside, on the case, would you necessarily have all the facts.

I once had a recantation case where I kept saying "Um, HELLO, I don't care what witness #13 says, I have the bloody clothes in the trunk." And the response was always about some other weird, collateral physical evidence. And in my written response, I kept saying: "Um, HELLO. Blood. Clothes, DNA. His trunk. HELLOOOOO." And the judge agreed with me. Fact: news article didn't mention bloodly clothes at all. If you'd been reading the paper, you would have thought the bandit's continued confinement was a travesty of justice.

Ya see stuff like that all the time. So when someone tries to sincerely relate an urban war story, God Bless 'em, I just assume that they have only half the story.

[cyncooper]

Dusek restates that the blood on the jacket was THE key evidence.

Did you hear Beth Karas (I have audio only and didn't even recognize her voice at first until she asked her follow-up).

She asked if he had taken a lie detector and said "he did, didn't he" in this weird, bedroomy voice. Dusek would not say one way or the other.

[Freedom2specul8]

They probably did a good thing then....to not be too repetitive. feldman could have called her right?

Isn't the gag order lifted?

What about the sealed evidence?

Amore, what guidelines does Judge Mudd have to go buy when deciding what documents/information can be sealed or edited out?

[jdontom]

Your right it says 4:30 ET my mistake..

[FreeTheHostages]

Richard, also see posts directly above. Not trying to blow you off rudely, but am trying to breeze by for sure. I respect the juries, like I say.

Sorry I'm so longwinded. Hee hee: you can see I really am a lawyer! :)

[EllaMinnow]

Whatever Beth knows, we'll know soon enough.