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.
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Goff estimates that 98 percent of his goal in forensic entomology is figuring out the time that has elapsed since a person's death. "
What say you minion?
I guess it sort of goes to show that they would rather be right than to see justice done.
It now appears that three, count them three, entomologists exculpate DW, inasmuch as he could not have put her body at Dehesa Rd. before February 5th.
Now since this same prosecutor has convicted people with less than this much bug evidence, what does that tell us?
Either the bug stuff tells an accurate story or it doesn't. If I represented a convicted person who had been nailed by Dusek and his bugs, I'd be talking to my client about now.
"No one knows," marvels M. Lee Goff, entomology professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "Flies will travel great distances within minutes of death. How do they sense it? It's a mystery. Some species of blowfly even seem to anticipate death, and will gather and wait."
Could be why Dad's was such a popular hangout.
Nancy Grace most likely bugged out her eyes, showed her fangs and shrieked to high heaven when she heard that. Gosh, I wish Goff's testimony occurred during her show. Would have been priceless to see her reaction.
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