I have read comments from readers abroad that are disappointed because they are unable to access my station’s website. I have brought this situation to the attention of higher-ups at work, but I don’t know if anything is being done about it. Since it was an especially big week for Duggar news, below are three stories I wrote. If you’re outside the US, you can probably avoid the embedded links because those all lead to the station’s website that you can’t access. Sorry about that.
Prosecution responds to Josh Duggar defense team’s request for new trial
On February 11, the prosecution in Joshua Duggar’s child pornography trial officially filed their response to his defense team’s request for an acquittal or a new trial.
Josh Duggar defense team files motion for acquittal or new trial
In a 30 page response filed in the Western District of Arkansas Federal Court in Fayetteville, the government made a motion for all of the defense’s requests to be denied. On January 19, the deadline for post-trial motions after Duggar’s December 2021 conviction on two child pornography charges, his defense team filed a motion with the court requesting a judgment of acquittal or a new trial.
CLICK HERE to read the entire filing from the prosecution
That defense motion began by requesting an outright acquittal based on “a Rule 29 motion,” which is a reference to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c), which states that the Court can set aside a verdict of guilt if “a reasonably minded jury must have a reasonable doubt as to the existence of any of the essential elements of the crime charged.”
After an introduction, the government filing stated that “[Duggar’s] barebones argument ignores the ample proof beyond any reasonable doubt that he repeatedly downloaded and viewed this material.”
The prosecution went on to directly address the Rule 29 claim, referencing evidence and trial testimony from forensic experts on both sides.
Northwest Arkansas’ Trial of the Century – a look back at Josh Duggar’s case and conviction
In the secondary portion of the defense filing, Duggar’s team requested a new trial if an acquittal was not granted, on the basis of “a miscarriage of justice” if the evidence weighed heavily enough against the verdict.
The government filing addressed this notion with a bullet-pointed, all caps heading reading “THE DEFENDANT IS NOT ENTITLED TO A NEW TRIAL.” Their support of this position went on for over 20 pages, addressing a multitude of specific points.
One such matter at the heart of the defense’s filing was the subject of potential witness Caleb Williams, a former employee of Duggar’s at Wholesale Motorcars that was not called as a witness at trial.
The notion that Caleb Williams committed these offenses is pure fiction—a story
advanced by the defense for the sole purpose of casting blame, regardless of evidence to the contrary, on a sex offender. Yet the defendant now claims he is entitled to a new trial because the Court precluded him from calling Mr. Williams as an alternative-perpetrator witness. A review of the record reveals the opposite: the Court allowed the defendant to call Mr. Williams to develop this theory but simply limited his ability to introduce evidence of Mr. Williams’s prior sex offense pursuant to the Federal Rules of Evidence.Dustin S. Roberts, Asst. US Attorney, in a court filing on February 11
The prosecution cited case law that addressed this type of situation occurring in multiple prior cases.
Another portion of the defense filing requested a new trial based on Rule 16 and the Jencks act. The prosecution filing stated that they did not violate either of these, citing specific lines of the case law and relevant evidence pertaining to it.
The document concluded by stating that “the Government respectfully requests that the Court deny the defendant’s motion for a judgment of acquittal or for a new trial.”
Josh Duggar trial ends: The conclusion and the guilty verdict
The filing was submitted by the entire prosecution team from the trial: attorneys Dustin Roberts, Carly Marshall, and William Clayman.
Judge dismisses Duggar sisters lawsuit
Just two days before a scheduled settlement conference ordered by the court, Judge Timothy L. Brooks has dismissed the invasion of privacy lawsuit filed by four Duggar sisters.
In a ruling from the Western District of Arkansas Federal Court, the judge ordered the case “dismissed with prejudice.”
In an attached memo, the judge explained that the defendants had filed two motions for summary judgment on October 6, 2021, and both of those motions were granted.
Judge Brooks cited Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, noting that “the court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
Duggar sisters lawsuit settlement conference canceled
He continued by stating the legal standard that must be met in such a case, and said that “the Court finds that Plaintiffs have not presented any direct proof or reasonable interference…and for this reason, the entire claim must be dismissed.”
Although profoundly wrong about the law, Defendants were motivated by a belief that they were legally obligated to release these reports, and to do so quickly. By the time Chief O’Kelley from Springdale and Major Hoyt from Washington County discovered the existence of the FOIA requests, the three-day response deadline had already passed. Chief O’Kelley testified she was ’embarrassed’ that her department had missed the request and deadline, and Major Hoyt testified that his first glimpse at the request revealed ‘we were over our limit of time.’ It is undisputed that Defendants’ actions were motivated by fear of possible legal consequences for a missed deadline. In other words, they worried exclusively about compliance with one part of the FOIA and failed to investigate the other parts (and other relevant state law).
Judge Timothy L. Brooks in his dismissal of the Duggar sisters’ lawsuit
He continued, adding that “because there is no evidence on which a jury could rely to show that Defendants believed that disclosing the reports would be illegal, this claim is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.”
He also noted that “despite the fact that Plaintiffs have met their evidentiary burden to survive summary judgment, this claim is, nonetheless, subject to dismissal due to Defendants’ statutory immunity,” adding that “the Court is skeptical that a state actor could intend to inflict emotional distress and at the same time believe he was complying with the law—regardless of how his resulting professional negligence might affect others.”
The February 9 ruling came down just hours after it was announced that the settlement conference set for February 10 had been canceled. No reason for the cancelation was provided at the time, and there was no mention of the conference in the filing dismissing the lawsuit. There was also no explanation of the duration of time between the filings for summary judgment and today’s ruling.
The parties had been ordered to attend a Settlement Conference with Judge Comstock by no later than February 18, 2022. She was set to preside over the February 10 conference.
The original lawsuit was filed on May 18, 2017, alleging a number of legal causes of action against a host of defendants. The legal claims had been narrowed down, as had the pool of defendants.
The claims, made against remaining defendants Maj. Rick Hoyt of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Ernest Cate, Springdale city attorney and former Police Chief Kathy O’Kelley were made under Arkansas law for outrage, invasion of privacy by intrusion upon seclusion and invasion of privacy by public disclosure of private facts, according to a court filing.
Judge Brooks specifically addressed each of those allegations in the court document.
The plaintiffs, as named in the lawsuit, were Jill Dillard, Jessa Seewald, Jinger Vuolo and Joy Duggar.
Northwest Arkansas’ Trial of the Century – a look back at Josh Duggar’s case and conviction
The first trial date in December, 2021, was postponed because it conflicted with the child pornography trial of the sisters’ brother, Joshua Duggar. He was found guilty on two counts and is facing up to 20 years in prison and $250K in fines for each count.
A closer look: Duggar sisters lawsuit dismissal details
The abrupt dismissal of the Duggar sisters’ invasion of privacy lawsuit just two days before a scheduled settlement conference brought up several questions, but the court’s 20 page ruling shed some light on many specifics of the decision and provided insight into background details related to the case.
Judge Timothy L. Brooks of the Western District of Arkansas Federal Court in Fayetteville issued the ruling, as he has presided over this case. He was also the judge for the trial of the plaintiffs’ brother, Joshua Duggar, who was convicted on a pair of child pornography charges in December 2021.
Northwest Arkansas’ Trial of the Century – a look back at Josh Duggar’s case and conviction
The February 9 Court Memorandum Opinion and Order began with the judge noting that the defendants filed two separate motions seeking Summary Judgment, which a law dictionary defines as “a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party without a full trial.”
The two motions covered all of the defendants remaining in the lawsuit: Washington County and Rick Hoyt in the first, and the City of Springdale, Kathy O’Kelley and Ernest Cate in the second.
On the first page of the document, the judge noted that both motions were granted. The court would go on to explain the reasoning behind granting the motions, but first, it provided nearly ten pages of background information about the case.
That background began with an explanation of the “material facts relevant to the issues” regarding the summary judgment. The Court noted that most of these facts were “undisputed by the parties,” but a footnote clarifies this statement by explaining that back-and-forth statements about the nuances of the facts were made by both parties, an endeavor that the judge deemed “exceedingly tiresome and of little assistance to the Court.”
Judge dismisses Duggar sisters lawsuit
The background information in the ruling went all the way back to when the plaintiffs were children and noted that now “they are adult sisters who hail from a very large, religious family.”
It also detailed the sexual abuse the plaintiffs were subjected to by their brother, Joshua. The filing stated that their parents “discovered the abuse but did not report it to the police or any state agency,” and that “instead, they decided to keep it a secret.”
The ruling goes on, explaining that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the parents of Joshua and the plaintiffs, went on to consult with “their closest friends,” Jim and Bobye Holt, regarding the sexual assaults. It goes on to explain that, in 2003, the Holt’s daughter, Kaeleigh “wrote a summary of what she had heard from her parents about the abuse in a letter.” The letter was never mailed, but was placed in a book and left on a bookshelf.
The filing states that “there the secret remained until 2006 when Kaeleigh loaned the book to a friend and fellow church member.” This friend found the letter and shared it with her parents. The court ruling then states “from that point on, the Duggars’ family secret spread by word of mouth to the other members of their close-knit church community.”
On December 7, 2006, the Arkansas Department of Human Services Hotline “received two tips that Joshua had molested his sisters.” One was from an anonymous caller, and the other came from Oprah Winfrey’s studio, where the Duggars were set to appear on her TV show.
The deep dive into the background of the case went on to describe the police investigations and interviews that resulted from those tips, as well as specifics about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that led to In Touch Weekly magazine receiving information about the plaintiffs.
The document noted that both the city of Springdale and Washington County “lost track” of the FOIA requests. “Under the Arkansas FOIA, governmental agencies typically have three business days to respond to a request,” the court explained.
Defendant Ernest Cate, Springdale’s City Attorney, “agreed the police report should be released, provided that the names of the juvenile victims were redacted.” He also “proceeded that afternoon to obtain as much legal advice…as was possible on the FOIA Request.” That included consulting the juvenile prosecutor, whose opinion was that the report should be released.
Cate and Chief O’Kelley ultimately “reviewed and redacted the report to make sure the names and ages of all the minors and Joshua had been removed.” The court quoted the men as saying that they “discuss[ed] that we would prefer to over-redact, rather than under-redact” the police report.
The Court noted that “the Springdale Police Report was redacted more heavily and more carefully than the Washington County Incident Report.” The latter left one victim’s age unredacted, as well as disclosing Josh Duggar’s name once. The plaintiffs were also referred to as Joshua’s sisters and “the girls in the family.”
The Springdale Police report did not include those details, but the court’s ruling found that a reader could “have discerned the following information” about the victims:
they were sexually abused on multiple different occasions over the course of a year
the abuse took place in the Duggar home
the perpetrator of the abuse was Mr. and Mrs. Duggar’s child, who lived in the home; and
the victims of the abuse were Mr. and Mrs. Duggar’s children, who also lived in the home
After the explanation of the case’s background and the comparison of the two redacted reports that were released, the court’s ruling went on to explain the Legal Standard at play in granting a summary judgment. The judge cited a specific rule of Civil Procedure, noting that such a judgment happens when “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact,” which is something he previously noted was the case here.
The plaintiffs’ case rested on three specific aspects:
Invasion of Privacy (Intrusion upon Seclusion)
Invasion of Privacy (Public Disclosure of Private Fact)
Outrage
The remainder of the ruling addressed these points and explained exactly what the plaintiffs were required to prove and establish for each one.
The first Invasion of Privacy item had five requirements, and the ruling stated that “the record presents questions of fact for the jury as to four of the five elements.” Additionally, the document stated that “plaintiffs have not presented any direct proof or reasonable interference that would place the second element of the tort in dispute, and for this reason, the entire claim must be dismissed.”
That element requires proof that the defendants lacked the legal authority to commit “the intrusive act” at the heart of the lawsuit. The judge stated that he did not believe that the defendants engaged in conduct beyond the boundaries of their authority, and, in fact, that “all reasonable inferences point to the opposite conclusion.”
Although profoundly wrong about the law, Defendants were motivated by a belief that they were legally obligated to release these reports, and to do so quickly…In other words, they worried exclusively about compliance with one part of the FOIA and failed to investigate the other parts (and other relevant state law).
Judge Timothy L. Brooks, in his ruling dismissing the Duggar sisters’ lawsuit
The judge acknowledged that the plaintiffs had “met their evidentiary burden to survive summary judgment,” but that the case was still subject to dismissal because the defendants had statutory immunity.
He cited a State Supreme Court ruling that provides state actors “with immunity from civil liability for negligent acts, but not for intentional torts.” He noted that all relevant facts pointed toward “Defendants’ negligence—or perhaps recklessness,” but not intent.
It is unclear why this immunity was not addressed by the court sooner in relation to this part of the lawsuit.
For the final point of the lawsuit, Outrage, the court outlined four elements that needed to be met. In the first, the judge ruled that there was no evidence that the defendants “intended to inflict emotional distress.” He added that the defendants were attempting to conceal the plaintiffs’ identities, not reveal them, by redacting their names from the police reports.
The second element required proof that the defendants’ conduct was “extreme and outrageous,” and the court found that the plaintiffs failed to present evidence of this as well.
The final element required proof of emotional distress caused by the defendants that “was so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.” The judge agreed that emotional distress certainly occurred, but “not to the severe degree necessary to satisfy the tort.”
A Duggar sister speaks out after dismissal of lawsuit
Due to those decisions by the court on each specific aspect, the two motions for summary judgment in the case were granted and the lawsuit was “dismissed with prejudice.”
A case dismissed with prejudice is generally closed and cannot be brought back to court.
One of the plaintiffs issued a statement expressing her disappointment with the ruling.
Thank you from France!