Van Dam Jury Update, Monday August 12th: Westerfield's Fate Lies In Mudd Instructions?

Court TV ^ | August 12, 2002 | Court TV

[FresnoDA]

Jury's time Jurors will resume deliberations Monday in the capital case of David Westerfield, who is accused of killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam

DAY TWO: FRIDAY, AUG. 9, 2002
12 noon ET	Jury enters jury room.
2:30 p.m. ET	Jury goes home for the weekend.

DAY ONE: THURSDAY, AUG. 8, 2002
1:10 p.m. ET	Jury begins deliberating. After two months of testimony, the capital murder trial of David Westerfield is in the hands of the jurors, who began their deliberations following more than two days of closing arguments.
2:50 p.m.	Jury sends a note to the judge.
3:00 p.m.	Jury at lunch.
4:30 p.m.	Judge calls the lawyers but not the public or the press into the courtroom.
5:15 p.m.	Judge says jurors sent note asking to deliberate five days a week instead of having Friday off and he approved their request.
7:00 p.m.	Jury goes home for the day. Will return Friday morning.

[alisasny]

Well that was a big help. I wonder if someone on the jury will say similar to another juror.

[shezza]

Spent the weekend on a self-imposed posting hiatus (hey! There's life out there!). But not a lurking hiatus. Youse guys have dug up some veeeeerrrrrry interesting information about the Demon. I'm hoping he gets cocky and slips up(high and drunk would help, too, a la Barb). Most criminals who are caught do so because they just can't keep their mouths shut about how clever they are.

[MizSterious]

We can all hope the members of the jury were paying attention and didn't come in at the end of the trial asking what happened in the rest of the trial.

[bvw]

Re being convicted on the porn -- considering that the warrant made out to search Westerfield's house was based on lies, and going no further than that -- yes I do have a problem with the charge and any conviction.

Further, this murder trail was the wrong place to hear this case, if even it had been legit. The porn charges are prosecutorial mis-conduct and the decision by the Judge to allow them to be incorporated, I do hope, will not only be the thing that wins for Westerfield on appeal, but also that causes some form of rebuke to Mudd.

[shezza]

There ya go! Now, doesn't that feel better?

[sawsalimb]

Regarding the porn found on his comp,here's a hypothetical scenario:

Westerfield has a kid. Westerfield knows damn good and well that the kid surfed some porn,but wants to keep the kid out of this mess to the greatest extent possible. So he just might tell the kid to not admit to going anywhere near that computer-after all,Westerfield is middle aged,intelligent,and-at least to some extent-capable of looking out for himself. The kid is 18,with his life in front of him,and getting smeared in a high profile case like this will screw up the kid's life for a long time. Anyone else have a take on this?

[small_l_libertarian]

Much. :-)

Thanks for the prodding.

[shezza]

I'd hit the roof if my kids surfed porn (but they're 11, 9 and 7). I'd think a teenaged boy looking at porn would evidence natural curiosity, and I'd bet money MOST 18-year-old boys have seen porn. A dad like Westerfield might just think it was a "guy thing," distasteful to many of us, perhaps, but not worth sending someone to jail over.

I also think that the underage-looking girls (other detective who looked at same material said he didn't see ANY photos that looked illegal) could have been Neal's doings. An 18-year-old might prefer pix of teens rather than the mature, "large-breasted women" his dad liked. (Is it illegal for a teen to look at pix of other teens? The same as it is not illegal for a teen to have sex with another teen, but it IS illegal for an adult to have sex with a teen.)

[small_l_libertarian]

I was thinking along those lines myself, especially since Lawson was able to pretty much prove that at least some of the porn was Neal's, without Neal having to say so himself.

Here's how it worked for me - Lawson says some of the porn is Neal's, Neal says it's not his. I believe in my heart of hearts that Neal lied on the stand - at least the anime/hentai porn is his. He's the anime collector/fan/club member/video renter. So, I have to throw out what Neal said, and accept what Lawson proved.

I think that Feldman made his point clearly without damaging Westerfield's family any more than it already is. Does that make sense?

[gigi]

I'm not sure he is guilty of child porn, due to witness testimony,(too much to go into). I thought Feldman was pretty confident when he told the jury to look and make their own decisions. But if thats all they convict him on then so be it.

I'm hoping that the jury looks at the fact there is no evidence of DW being in the VD's home. I hope they look at the unidentified fingerprints and DNA found in the VD's home and wonder as we all do " Who do they belong to?" That and the "bug" evidence is plenty for reasonable doubt.

All 12 jurors would have to adopt the theory that DVD was in the MH sometime in the past and had left the fingerprints and dna. I'm not sure that will happen.

I don't think DW should have testified.. If Feldman had put him on the stand he would have been roundly critized for it. DW's statement is all he needed.

[Krodg]

I have have followed this trial on several forums and they each have people who see the blood evidence and exclude everything else. Each forum also has people who, after hearing the testimony and seeing the evidence, have reasonable doubt. I find it hard to believe a juror going into deliberations with reasonable doubt would now be swayed by another juror's opinion.

This is what I base my prediction of hung jury on. I may well be wrong.

[sawsalimb]

Yeah,that makes sense,especially that part about the anime. A fifty-something mechanical engineer with a secret bent for watching Japanimation late at night when no one can see him is a little bit over the top,as far as I'm concerned.

[MizSterious]

Informal verdict pool: What's your best guess for when the verdict will come in? (actual verdict prediction optional and not recorced)

The winner(s) get to be called "winners" and the right to say "I told you so;" we're still negotiating about "neener neener neeners."

So far, we have:

Small-l-libertarian - Monday (today)
MizSterious - Wednesday
Mrs. Liberty - Thursday noonish
Krodg - Friday morning

If this thread gets real long, you might want to send your choices via freepmail or post them on the Refugee site--often I quite reading them when they're very, very long.

[small_l_libertarian]

Good observations, Krodg. I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right. No one could convince me to vote guilty now, no matter how strongly they felt about it, because I have reasonable doubt. Period. I bet the jurors are very much like us - divided, but each side will probably stay put. You're pretty smart!

[gigi]

Yes, I thought Feldman did an excellent of getting to the jury through Lawson that the porn was Neils. Neil lied on the stand and Feldman proved it. The anime was looked at about every two weeks. Gee, I wonder who that could have been??/sarcasm

[nycgal]

Informal verdict pool: What's your best guess for when the verdict will come in? (actual verdict prediction optional and not recorced)

Friday afternoon 3PM Pacific...Not guilty

[small_l_libertarian]

It just made no sense to me for Neal to say, "Yes, I like anime and hentai. Yes, I belong to several anime web sites. What did I do the night of the murder? Well, I went over to my friend's house and we played some video games and watched an anime I rented. Was it pornographic? No. Well, there was sex in it. But, no, those sex animes on the computer definitely don't belong to me. Unh-unh. No way. They must be my dad's."

Riiiiiiight.

[Rheo]

Thursday afternoon 3pm PST...not guilty.

[gigi]

I can't decide what my guess is.

Oh, I'm going to say Tuesday, August 20th. In the Morning. Just because there was so much testimony and evidence, I think it will take this long if they are going through it carefully.

[small_l_libertarian]

Whoops, I didn't give my verdict prediction. Since I expect them to come back today (Sure I do!), I'm going with not guilty.

(I don't believe it for a second, but maybe wishing will make it so!)