Posted on 12/12/2002 8:19:20 AM PST by Jaded
When a person goes in search of enlightenment, it's usually good advice to avoid an Internet chat room. And yet it was a random posting on the Internet that led to a key piece of evidence in the David Westerfield case.
At a luncheon in Mission Valley yesterday, prosecutors Jeff Dusek and George "Woody" Clarke told a number of anecdotes – some of them funny, others poignant and revealing – about what happened behind the scenes in the most publicized criminal trial in San Diego County history.
The luncheon was organized by the San Diego Crime Commission and about 100 people attended.
The lawyers talked about their late-night strategy sessions, about the emotional toll of the case on their spouses, about moments of inspiration that came from the strangest of places.
They also took some shots at the media coverage – especially the media's treatment of the parents of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam – and revealed some previously undisclosed statements they said were made by Westerfield. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 3 for kidnapping and killing the Sabre Springs second-grader. A jury has recommended the death penalty.
It was Dusek who told the story about the Internet.
During the trial, he said, the lawyers were surfing a Web site where most of the postings were from people convinced of Westerfield's innocence. Several of the postings dealt with the subject of the blond hairs found in Westerfield's motor home.
Prosecutors said the hair proved that Westerfield kidnapped the girl. Westerfield's lawyers said their client often kept the motor home unlocked in the neighborhood and that the girl might have snuck inside at some point to play.
On the chat room, the discussion turned to speculation about whether the prosecution had bothered to find out the date of Danielle's last haircut. The consensus in the chat room was that of course they had.
Actually, they hadn't. They'd never thought to do so.
It turned out that Danielle's last haircut had been five days before her disappearance. After the haircut, her hair was eight inches long – the exact length of the hairs found in the motor home, which hadn't been parked in the neighborhood for several months.
Dusek also revealed the story behind the alleged scratch marks on Westerfield's arm. Pictures of the scratch marks were used as evidence at the preliminary hearing in March – but the jury at Westerfield's trial never heard about them.
The reason: An expert analyzed the marks after the preliminary hearing and couldn't conclusively match them to Danielle's fingers.
"Woody and I are still convinced it's scratch marks," Dusek told the audience. "What else could it be? But we didn't have proof."
Dusek said parts of the trial were particularly draining on his wife, who broke into tears after listening to a media commentator who suggested that the defense's opening statements were more effective that the prosecution's.
He also criticized the media for overhyping the testimony about the van Dams' spouse-swapping and the couple's use of marijuana on the night their daughter vanished.
Discussing what he called the media's vilification of the van Dams, Dusek cited an incident where the couple was lambasted on talk radio for wearing Danielle buttons on their lapels during their testimony at the preliminary hearing.
Noting that the couple immediately removed the buttons from their lapels after leaving the witness stand, one radio reporter suggested that the couple had been making a phony display of their grief to influence the judge.
In reality, the only reason they removed the buttons was because both prosecutors wanted to have them as mementos, Dusek said.
"They walk out of that courtroom without their badges and they get blistered on the radio that night," he said.
Dusek also revealed some statements he said Westerfield made at various points during the trial.
At the start of the trial, just after the prosecution had finished its opening statements, Westerfield was being led down a hallway when he turned to a bailiff and said, "They may as well send me to (San) Quentin right now."
During the penalty phase of the case, when Westerfield's lawyers called friends and family members to the witness stand in an effort to save their client's life, Westerfield looked at his lawyers with a confused expression on his face when one woman approached the stand.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"It's your aunt," his lawyers informed him.
Yesterday, neither Steven Feldman nor Robert Boyce, Westerfield's two main lawyers, returned phone calls seeking comment.
At one point during the presentation, a questioner asked Dusek what he thought about Feldman, whose hyperactive theatrics became well-known to everyone who followed the case.
He called Feldman "a very good attorney." Citing ethics guidelines, Dusek wouldn't comment on a report in the Union-Tribune that Westerfield's lawyers had been trying in February to broker a plea whereby their client would reveal the location of the girl's body in exchange for a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
"He promised a vigorous defense," Dusek said of Feldman. "He did not say his guy was innocent."
sw
We do need to some house-keeping in that department, wouldn't you agree?
sw
I do not think what has gone on should have been tolerated one bit and am glad to see standards finally being applied and perpetrators and their enablers called to account and face the consequences from the Church AND the law.
I did not care for the comments made by g-f.
Oh, please Saint Kimmie....coming from you, it's sort of like the pot calling the kettle black, LOL...Maybe you've had an awakening and are ringing the bell for the Salvation Army these days?
But to answer your question, well, I don't call them arguments. Maybe a heated discussion or a debate. This IS the Smokey Backroom, what do you expect?
sw
"Whoa kitty, pull your fangs back. I wish all this hatefullness would stop. If we all could remember attack the issue, not the person discussing it with you."--UCANSEE2Can you see it :^D
Trust me, Kim, those of us on both sides of the isle on these threads, are thick skinned by now. YOU should know that.
Aren't you carrying the sweet, innocent, act just a bit too far? It's sooo out of character for you, Kim. Why are you trying to play Admin Mod and tone down the discussion? What's in it for you?
PS..I have never been so naive to assume that when I insult someone, they don't have the privilege of reciprocating.
sw
Or put another way, by pleading guilty one accepts responsibility for the crime they committed and the lighter sentence is acknowledgement of this mitigating factor.
If the accused chooses a trial by jury and is subsequently found guilty then the sentence does take remorse and other factors into account.
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