Replies

SIGNONSANDIEGO NEWS SERVICES
December 30, 2002

SAN DIEGO – Prosecutors want the judge in the David Westerfield case to get the automatic appeal process going quickly if the "evil, selfish, cold-hearted child killer" is sentenced to death on Friday as expected.

"In 1996, the Legislature declared that capital punishment should be imposed expeditiously and created strict time limits for capital appeals," prosecutor Jeff Dusek wrote to Judge William Mudd.

"The first step requires this court to certify the record for completeness within 90 days of imposing a death sentence, unless there is good cause."

The same jury that found Westerfield guilty of kidnapping and murder recommended that he be put to death by lethal injection.

Mudd is expected to pronounce judgment on Friday. He conceivably could reduce the sentence to life in prison without parole, though that is unlikely.

In documents filed last week, prosecutors said no detective had it in for Westerfield – as his attorneys claimed – and that the finding of a special circumstance of murder during a kidnapping was warranted.

"Frankly, any other decision would have been unexplainable," Dusek wrote. "The jury's decision was right and appropriate. It must not be reduced."

The evidence that the 50-year-old Sabre Springs resident took the 7-year- old from her bed, killed her, then dumped her naked body off an East County road was overwhelming, the prosecutor wrote.

"The defendant has shown himself to be an evil, selfish, cold-hearted child killer," Dusek wrote. "Civilized society cannot contemplate the enormous cruelty shown by the evidence in this case."

Westerfield's attorneys argued that officers investigating the second- grader's slaying violated the defendant's "due process" rights under the Fifth, Eighth and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

Attorneys Steven Feldman and Robert Boyce questioned the San Diego Police Department's search of the defendant's home and car, and the way he was interrogated.

Red, what does Dusek mean when he says "The defendant has shown himself to be an evil, selfish, cold-hearted child killer"? Notice he doesn't even name Westerfield -- just "the defendant" -- as if ANY defedant chosen would be equally shown to have been "evil selfish cold-hearted".

Ignoring the murder itself, what things showed Westerfield to be evil? To be selfish? To be cold-hearted?