The judge in the David Westerfield trial rejected another defense request to sequester the jury but said he still considers it "a possible option." Posted on 07/30/2002 7:13:26 AM PDT by FresnoDA
By Alex Roth
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 30, 2002
The judge in the David Westerfield trial rejected another defense request to sequester the jury but said he still considers it "a possible option."
Superior Court Judge William Mudd said he didn't think it was necessary at the moment but has asked the county to prepare "a back-up contingency plan" just in case.
Westerfield's lawyers have asked several times for jury sequestration, and they renewed their request yesterday. Lead defense lawyer Steven Feldman said he worried that the jury might be affected by the publicity in the Samantha Runnion kidnap-murder case in Orange County.
Feldman cited comments made by Samantha's mother about Alejandro Avila, the man charged with kidnapping and killing the 5-year-old girl. In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Erin Runnion blamed her daughter's death on a jury that acquitted Avila of child molestation charges two years ago.
Feldman said he worried that jurors in the Westerfield case might hear about the interview and feel pressured to convict his client, who is charged with kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam of Sabre Springs.
The judge said he would remind jurors about news coverage they should avoid. He also said he talked to them about sequestration last week after receiving reports that someone in the media followed some of the jurors to their cars and wrote down their license plates.
"They're a hearty group and they didn't appear to be intimidated by what occurred, and I continue to believe in their integrity," the judge said yesterday.
With the trial in recess for a day, lawyers spent yesterday discussing legal instructions to give to the jury before they begin deliberations. It seems likely that testimony will continue into next week.
Prosecutors are expected to finish their rebuttal evidence today, at which point the defense will put on evidence to rebut the prosecution's rebuttal. One possible defense witness probably won't be called until Monday, Feldman told the judge yesterday.
Looks fine to me. We have two professionals working in a complex field with variables that cannot all be controlled estimating different dates.
The jury doesn't need to choose, they can now go back and see what the rest of the evidence says.
Unfortunately for Westerfield this who bug stuff is his only hope and the waters have been more than adequately muddied.
CTV has many, many different lawyers on as talk hosts as well as guests.
Have all of them said something you don't believe?
I don't know how long the mummiologist said it would have talken the entire body to mummify. If an animal created a new opening, mummification became interrupted at least in that area because of the bugs.
Pass the Dramamine please...
Cheat codes on, couldn't resist.
We then make the inference that Westerfield could not have been involved in dumping the body, and since there is no evidence of a conspirator, we therefore conclude that he also didn't commit the murder.
Drew Garrett
On the chart behind him, the life cycle of the blowfly..is discussing the lifecycle of the blowflye. He had corrected feldie who called it the evolution of the blowflie.
I do the same thing all the time. I take another accountants tax return, assume the prior accountant gathered the data correctly and the conclude the other accountant had client overpay/underpay taxes. Perfectly normal.
Big streeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch there, Minnie-haha.
doesn't know off the top of his head.
Was goign to look at haskells report....
feldie called it haskells work,
witness correct him..saying this was just "known" info..
Poof, point disappears..
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