Criminal
Aug. 17, 2002
Judge Won't Sequester Westerfield Jury
SAN DIEGO - The judge in the trial of a man accused of kidnapping and murdering his 7-year-old neighbor said Thursday that the jury is shielded adequately from contact with the news media, rejecting defense pleas for stronger measures.
The decision came as jurors deliberated for their sixth day.
Sequestration would not deflect whatever "animus" the community might feel toward jurors, should they acquit David A. Westerfield, Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd said in denying a defense motion to put the panel in a hotel.
Mudd also refused to end live broadcast coverage of the trial, although he said he was "ruing the day" he agreed to live coverage.
"I'd say the chances are not good it'll ever occur again in this courtroom," the judge said.
Westerfield, a 50-year-old engineer, is charged with kidnapping and murdering Danielle van Dam. He faces a separate, misdemeanor count of having child pornography. If convicted of the capital charge, he could be sentenced to death.
His trial began June 4.
Steven E. Feldman and Robert E. Boyce, two of Westerfield's lawyers, wanted the jurors to stay in a hotel, with limited outside contact, because of the intense media coverage of the trial and other high-profile kidnapping cases in Southern California.
The lawyers said that the media presence had become overwhelming and that they feared "the jurors will feel unduly pressured to return a guilty verdict because of the lynch mob mentality of the media."
Feldman told Mudd that the jurors were being "hounded" by the news media in what amounted to a "siege." The media, Feldman said, were whipping up feelings against anyone who might vote against finding Westerfield guilty.
"We have no assurance that they're not being intimidated on breaks," Feldman said. "I think the court knows what it's like walking down the street with people saying things."
Deputy District Attorney Jeff B. Dusek replied that it was an exaggeration to say the jurors were under siege. But, Dusek said, a private place for the six women and six men to take breaks would be appropriate.
"I would think any decision made in this case will be based on the evidence, and I'm confident it will be," Dusek said.
Mudd said that, other than an alternate juror reporting earlier that she was followed, no other jurors had indicated they were being intimidated. But the judge agreed to provide a private place for the jurors to take breaks and eat lunch, as he had earlier in the trial.
While the lawyers debated the motion, the jury was reviewing testimony by police criminalist Jennifer Shen. On Aug. 9, Shen testified that orange fibers from Danielle's plastic necklace also were in Westerfield's Sabre Springs home, his motor home and his sport utility vehicle.
That discovery, Dusek said in his closing statement, raised the possibility that Westerfield had Danielle in the SUV when he left his home early Feb. 2, the day Danielle's parents discovered she was missing. Westerfield dropped off the vehicle at the site where he stored a 35-foot motor home, which he took on a wandering 550-mile trip. He returned to Sabre Springs two days later and encountered police anxious to question him.
Claude Walbert
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