I beleive as I think a fair majority on FR do, that DW did not kill DVD.
So, my question is...
What would you do about the child porn charges? (I understand that we have not been privy to the questionable images, but going on assumption that they really are child porn)
1.) Return a not guilty verdict maybe because they were gotten on bogus assumtions made by LE and DA.
2.)Return a guilty verdict because they were found in his possesion.
I understand the arguements that they might not be his or were planted but if you would be so kind and just assume they are his and are child porn.
I would question this assertion.
But, still, if forced, I will say that unless someone could show me where Mr Westerfield intentionally paid somebody something to obtain these images, not just accidentally strayed into them...
if they could show me that he actually had viewed these images, not just by accident they were included in a huge pack of porn for which he paid $3.50...
Show me that he knew he had it, knew the people in it were underage, and knew it was illegal to have it.
Show me that porn was a part of his life, that he made profits from porn which I assume DAMON DID DO...(!)
Also one would need to assume that the law which would make just a passive viewer of porn, not a creator or seller of it, is constitutional.
You would also have to prove that the search warrants allowed such a fishing expedition, and that they were not obtained by fraud and lies which in fact they were.
If Westerfield is convicted, the Bill of Rights is on the trash heap. Wonder if Zimbabwe might want to buy a good used Constitution, doesn't look like we'll be needing it here any more.
If I were on the jury, and I concluded DW didn't do it, I would let him off on the porn charge, if nothing else, out of sheer contempt for the state.
If they are "his" and depict actual child porn --than he would be guilty. But I have doubts about your assumptions.
I would question that assumption. All we have is a reportette's overemotional description, which reporterette has consistently been biased against the defendant. (See 'orange fibers that covered Danielle', et al.)
Mot having seen the images in question, I will assume that the media description is incompetent, biased, or an outright lie (always a good assumption IMO). Ergo, no child porn and not guilty on that count also. :-)
My thoughts are that the offending .mpg's were part of a mass download from a FTP site because of the way they are organized. (Remember that DW had a cable connection.) The got put on a CDR during a routine backup.
What is more telling to me is that the media player record did not show them being played recently. It may be that DW did not even know they were there.
It is also telling that the CD case that contained them was never fingerprinted so that one would know who used the CD. We are left to assume that DW viewed the porn when in fact it could be a plant. I could make the same CD on my computer over 100 miles away and plant it and to the unknowing it would appear to be DW's.
Well, knowing what we know here (which is different from what the jury has heard), I would probably return not guilty, but nowhere near as easily as I would on the kidnap/murder charge.
First off, I think the guy's been railroaded, and would be loathe to give the prosecution even the minor victory - which I grant is not supposed to figure into a juror's reasoning, but there you go... Secondly, some of the pictures shown were recovered deleted files, which argues, to me at least, that he'd downloaded them as part of a bundle, seen what they were, and got rid of them (that calculation would change immensely if they were deleted after 2 Feb.) Given that, I'd probably be inclined to suspect the others were downloaded similarly.
The guy has a porn habit, which I find distasteful, but doesn't appear to be a kiddie porn collector. That, combined with my disgust at the prosecution, would likely lead me to return not guilty.
Drew Garrett