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So…Sentencing Day. If you’re here, you probably know that I have written pretty comprehensively about how that went down. You’re probably thinking…does he possibly have anything left to say about it?
A little bit. If my KNWA articles are “the movie,” then consider this post the director’s commentary track. I could not keep track of every single moment, but I still think it makes sense to break it down running-diary style.
Before 8:00 AM: I had my kids this week. They know about the trial, and I had informed them that this was a very big day. It coincided with their last day of school for the year. I told them that we really had to get out the door by eight, and….praise Lord Daniel, it actually happened. We walked out of the house a few minutes before eight. I dropped them off with no issues and headed right downtown.
I cruised by court about ten minutes later and saw that most of the metered spots directly across the street were already occupied, so I looped around, grabbed one about one block west, parked, and texted the station to let them know I was heading in.
(I took this weird-angled shot from a Google street view photo of the courthouse for a little perspective. Judge Brooks’ courtroom is on the fifth floor. I’m not 100% certain, but I think that’s the top floor of the building. So by my estimate, the top of that tree in the center of the photo is roughly parallel to the entrance at the back of the courtroom, which extends from left to right from this view. I told you guys I’d do my best to really give you the details!)
I’m familiar with the drill necessary to enter the courthouse, so I was quite surprised when, as I was picking my stuff up out of the box after it passed through the metal detector, I saw one of the guards eyeballing me accusingly.
“You can’t bring that in here!” he said, pointing down at a laptop in the receptacle in front of mine. I grabbed my notebook, tugged my media pass around my neck, and tucked a pair of pens into my shirt pocket.
“That’s not mine,” I replied. It belonged to the woman passing through directly in front of me. I didn’t catch what her title or duties were, but there didn’t seem to be a big fuss made as I turned around to summon the elevator. She wasn’t media, or at least not anyone I recognized. Crisis averted.
Before 8:30 AM: The defense team was all in place. Seeing Justin Gelfand again sent a tsunami of trial memories crashing back into my brain. It was satisfying knowing that this might be the last time that I would listen to him speak in court. Although…who am I kidding? If I’m going to be on a beat that includes crimes and court cases, there’s a really strong chance that he’ll end up in my coverage again.
Side note: Since I was here last, they have acquired fancy little seat cushions for each spot in the gallery. Okay…they’re not actually fancy. But they look quite official, adorned with a government logo and everything. And they definitely helped a little in the comfort department. Nice touch.
Back to the defense team. I don’t know if he got promoted, but I have to send my congratulations out to associate attorney Ian Murphy. During the trial I watched him do literally nothing but carry stuff for the defense—boxes of documents, crates of files, and the like. Today he got to use a laptop! Seems like quite a step-up.
I noticed Anna in the gallery, along with some other relatives and a young, blonde woman that seemed to be part of the defense team. She went back and forth from the gallery to the defense table.
8:45 AM: Dustin Roberts and Carly Marshall of the prosecution arrive. William Clayman came a little bit later.
Now seems to be a perfect time for this anecdote that I don’t think I told back during the trial. If I did, it bears repeating because he was present again today. But on the day of opening arguments, I sat next to an older gentleman in the gallery. I’d guess he was in his 70s. I assumed he wasn’t a Duggar family member, but he also didn’t seem like the type of person who would just randomly pop into this trial to watch. I felt that he was there with a purpose.
We got to chatting before things began and he was lovely to talk to. We discussed his service as a veteran, and how I was new to the area and had just started reporting. He couldn’t have been nicer.
After Dustin Roberts made his opening statement to the jury, he made eye contact with the man next to me. I don’t want to say that he smiled, but at the very least there was a glint in his eye. A clear emotional connection was made without any words necessary.
The man turned to me and he was definitely smiling.
“That’s my son,” he told me.
8:55 AM: All of the attorneys present popped back into chambers for a meeting of less than five minutes.
9:05 AM: Jim Bob Duggar arrives alone.
9:11 AM: The convict is ushered into the courtroom, accompanied by a pair of federal marshals.
Let’s talk about these guys. They clearly both shop at the “federal badass” warehouse, judging from their matching attire—black suits, gleaming black shoes, crisp shirts, dark ties, and lapel pins. I deemed agent #1 Gray and Grizzled, because he was a little older and bore a perpetual sneer that clearly communicated the sentiment, “I have seen it all; don’t fuck with me.”
I mentally categorized agent #2 as UFC. He didn’t have a mohawk per se, but the sides of his hair were buzzed really short, the top was a little longer, and his hairline or widow’s peak or whatever you want to call it left him with what I can only describe as a peninsula of hair and the closest one could have to a mohawk without, you know…actually having a mohawk. Between the cut and his beard, he looked like he could tear that suit off and jump right into an octagon with no worries.
Josh Duggar was in a gray suit and a dark, cloth face mask. His thinning hair had been cropped shorter since the last time I saw him, while his patchy beard was longer. I assumed this was an attempt to give off a subliminal “new look, new me” vibe. In my case, it was not successful. He approached the gallery with the same inexplicable jovial demeanor that he possessed at trial. Sure…yuk it up, pal. What a fun time.
By 9:20 AM, the gallery was practically full of family and friends, media people, and other onlookers.
Judge Timothy L. Brooks entered and court was called to order at 9:33 AM.
Duggar had to confirm that he had not consumed any “intoxicants” in the past 24 hours. I thought that was kind of funny, as if he was going to say, “Welp, sorry, your honor, we whipped up some nice toilet moonshine last night in the county joint.”
I found it interesting that forensics expert James Fottrell and one of the agents present during the execution of the search warrant at Duggar’s car lot were present at the government’s table. The prosecution would explain that they were there for potential evidentiary purposes, but the government did not anticipate calling them. I took this to mean “they are here in case we need to refute any defense bullshit.”
Judge Brooks went through a summary of the case, the trial, the conviction, and the sentencing memorandums, as well as the “nice letters” submitted to the court on Duggar’s behalf. He also addressed the victim impact statement from a mother of one of the girl’s depicted in the CSAM, calling that “heartbreaking.”
“Unfortunately, the court reads these statements quite often,” he added.
The second, lesser charge was dismissed without prejudice. I’m still not entirely clear of the legal machinations on this one. It seems that everyone involved knew that this would be the case from the start, but if so…why even bring it as a charge? He was clearly just as guilty of that charge as the other one, as found by a jury. But that formality was addressed and handled.
Next came the matter of remaining objections to the presentence report submitted by the probation office. There were a total of 22. The one by the prosecution had been addressed beforehand, leaving 21 defense objections that needed to be ruled on today.
“This may take a little while,” said Judge Brooks without a hint of irony.
The first objection was overruled, with Brooks making what I thought was an important observation: “He no longer enjoys the perception of innocence.” Damn right he doesn't.
Objection #2 was particularly fucking audacious, as it attempted to split the hair that while the children depicted in the material are victims, they are not “his victims.” Come. On.
Overruled.
Objection #3 pertained to language in the PSR about “multiple convictions,” and that was sustained due to one of the charges being officially vacated.
We’re at about 10:05 AM now. #4 was about the defense’s ongoing stance that Duggar never “knowingly” transmitted CSAM. Gelfand took to the podium for his arguments on this one.
“If you don’t mind, I’m kind of a podium guy,” he whined.
Of course you are, Justin. Of course you are.
The judge ultimately sustained this, simply on the grounds that the peer-to-peer file sharing software used had sharing as a passive, default setting—the inability to turn that on or off seemed to be what led the judge to go that way.
“This may be a pretty close call,” he said, at 10:22 AM.
Objection #5 regarded the enhancement for the material being “sadistic and masochistic.” Gelfand was at his most Gelfandy on this one, specifying that there was “a delta” between the original material in question and what was actually downloaded, creating “an insufficient evidentiary basis” for the enhancement.
The judge asked the defense attorney point-blank if images submitted as evidence qualified as sadistic and masochistic.
“Generally, yes,” Gelfand sniveled.
“Generally and in this case,” Brooks countered. “I’ve said it three times, I think this is a frivolous argument.”
Clayman stepped up and cited multiple files in evidence showing as much.
“This application of enhancement is plainly appropriate here,” he added.
I wish you guys could hear Clayman speak. He’s wonderful. He’s not showy and dramatic like Roberts. He’s the perfect second or third chair guy. He is just *so over* all of Gelfand’s bullshit. If this trial was A Few Good Men(*), he is undoubtedly Lt. Weinberg.
(*)I almost never get to reference old movies in my articles for work, and if you know me, you’ll understand that it’s one of my favorite things to do. So if you’ve seen A Few Good Men…yeah. Lt. Weinberg. If you have not…GO WATCH IT! You will not be disappointed.
#5 was overruled, and by 10:37 AM we were into #6, the “pattern of activity” objection, which carries a five-level enhancement. The defense maintains that Duggar’s activity as a teen was never charged, there was never a trial, and he was never convicted. Gelfand also employed what I categorize as “crazy gorilla math(*)” to arrive at the statement that it has been “a matter of decades” since those occurred. By any calculation, it has been less than 20 years. Meaning less than two of those big, weighty “decades” he’s throwing around.
(*)A C.C.McC gold star award goes to anyone who knows which movie incorporates that “crazy gorilla math” phrase that I love. It’s so apt and perfect here.
Bobye Holt’s testimony is enough to “meet the preponderance burden.” Overruled.
(Note: My attempt to use the name “Bobye” above had my spellchecker completely perplexed. It tried to correct it like three times.)
#7 regards the number of images downloaded. I’m over this topic. It’s a lot. My biggest takeaway was, once again, Gelfand Being Gelfand, because in presentence filings the defense was absolutely adamant that the total was 127, and I was stunned at how freely and quickly he was willing to admit that okay, it was actually over 500. The rationale behind the calculations does not make sense to me. A video counts as 75 images. Random. One second of video would contain approximately 30 images, or 24 if shot on film. If we’re going to get technical, shouldn’t that be the number?
But I’m sure there is legal precedent somewhere. Brooks seemed over it too, and did not want to spend the rest of the day trying to decide if it was 525, or 590, or more, and settled on a “sustained in part” ruling to the objection and a four level enhancement, not five.
The judge then grouped four of the objections together as being impacted by the vacated charge. Great. Let’s knock some of these out so we can get out of here. Objection #10 was ruled moot because of the ruling on #6.
It’s 11:20 AM. #11 & #12 regarded the admissibility of the “Ashley Madison Scandal,” in which our defendant previously admitted his infidelity and his porn addiction. With a straight face, the defense’s lead attorney told the court that Duggar’s admission that he has a porn addiction “should not be considered a true addiction.”
Next came the closest I have ever come to contempt of court, probably. When Gelfand categorized his client as “a family man worthy of a downward variance” and referred to his “hard work” as one of his defining characteristics, I almost audibly snorted. I caught it and contained it. But that’s the closest I have come to an involuntary verbal reaction to any of this.
A couple more of the objections were withdrawn and some were left to be addressed later and court adjourned for a brief recess at 11:32 AM.
Reporter Anna Darling and I adjourned to my car for the lunchtime recess that was shorter than any during the trial. I sent a quick email to the station with an update on the proceedings and Anna fired off a few tweets summarizing the events of the morning. I also popped onto reddit for a quick post there. Then I received a text from my assignment manager asking if I was going to write an article.
I had not planned on it. The break was about half the duration of the ones during the trial, and even in those, it usually took my attacking my laptop keyboard at a frantic pace to get an entire article done in time and saved as a draft before heading back into court in time.
But sure. What the hell. Let’s do it. I flipped my notes open to the start of the day and tore through a summary as detailed and as descriptive as I could, considering the material and the time constraint. It very much felt like the first half of a whole piece, rather than its own article. But as you lovely readers have shown before…that can be fine. More than fine. I saved a draft, informed the station that it was done, and said that they should decide to post it or save it. They went with it, which I think was a smart decision.
At 12:17 PM, Judge Brooks returned to the bench. He addressed Duggar directly to explain exactly how things were going to proceed in handing down his fate. I did a fairly comprehensive breakdown of that process in my final article of the day for KNWA, so I’m not going to rehash that all here. But I very much appreciated the judge’s explanation and an insight into how an exact sentence figure was ultimately arrived at.
I do think it warrants mentioning that, on the enhancements alone, which are attached due to severe and extenuating circumstances, the recommended sentence was between 262-327 months. That’s a LONG time. In their sentencing memo, the prosecution said that they felt he truly deserved 30 years to life. And these guidelines alone called for more than 20.
The judge noted that his options for the term of supervised release were from five years to life, so he clearly went on the heavy end there. The risk of re-offense seems very real to the government and the judge, and the fact that Duggar will be under a microscope for two decades after he gets out seems like the best way to address that.
At this point, I filled up my first Josh Duggar Trial Notebook. It was given to me on one of my first days at work. 80 pages. “Gregg rule,” whatever that is. I did not know at the time that it would become dedicated to a single trial, so some of the first pages are filled with me writing down completely unrelated story ideas, so if you were to flip through the beginning, you’d see entries like “Lung cancer awareness month” and “John Cena” and “Little Rock Zoo cheetahs,” with tiny checkmarks next to each one that I had written and posted. In my first days as a digital reporter, I found it helpful to go through my email first thing in the morning and jot down potential story ideas.
(Note: the notebook is smaller than it looks in the picture above. It’s not quite pocket-sized, but it’s not 8.5” by 11” either.)
That story-generating process is much more streamlined now. Delete the email if I know I won’t be writing about it, and keep it if I might or I will. No list-making required.
My first Duggar entry was a November 18 pretrial hearing. It’s kind of cute to see some of my notes from that day. I wrote down which floor the courtroom was on. I noted that I was the first one there. And I literally didn’t even know how to spell “Gelfand” yet. The notebook is almost solely Duggar from there on. I even wrote on both sides of pages a bit in the beginning, not realizing what a huge pain in the ass that made it to flip back and find things. It was much more cumbersome than it might seem.
(ABOVE: One of the last pages in the old notebook.)
Anyway…I started a new notebook and filled up several pages with the judge’s description of what the rest of the sentencing would entail. The defense and the prosecution were each given the chance to speak again, which they did. Roberts went into graphic and painful detail in describing some of the images. I understood why he did it. And as I reported, I did note that Duggar stared at him while this happened. It was a constant look (certainly not an adoring gaze) with some heavy-lidded slow blinking interspersed, almost like an animal that had been tranq’ed and was starting to feel the effects of the sedative.
There was a distinct pause and a change in Roberts’ tone as he reminded the judge that Duggar has a lot of children. I quoted this in my article, but it’s really difficult to communicate the gravitas of that moment without editorializing. The words say a lot. But the weight of them was clear in Roberts’ voice. He did not enjoy citing that fact, but he knew it was relevant and he had to do it.
Gelfand’s final speech on the matter rested on “Who is this person?” I think you can imagine what it was like listening to this spiel. The letters. The generosity. The history of hard work. The decades “giving himself to others.” The promise that his client will never appear in this or any other court again.
With the reality of the moment seeming to sink in, he concluded by suggesting three federal prisons in Texas as potential new residences for his client. The judge agreed with two of them and clearly preferred one for its sex offender treatment program. I have an article about it coming early next week that I think you will…I always hesitate to say “enjoy” considering these circumstances, but…let’s just say that I believe I conclude the article with some “factual snark” that will be appreciated by most people reading this.
At 1:37 PM, Judge Brooks began breaking it all down again for the final time. The two-step framework. The desire to tailor the sentence to the defendant. His plan to address the “totality of facts and circumstances.” Our man Mr. Brooks was nothing if not thorough on this last afternoon of the case before him.
I’m going to address the image that he said he couldn’t get out of his head. Trigger warning: if you don’t want to know, skip the next sentence, because…
It involved a pre-pubescent girl locked in a dog kennel.
Yeah.
The judge began to wrap things up with the John Wooden quote about the true test of a man, as well as noting that Duggar would be “a relatively young person” when he got out.
“And that brings us to your sentence,” he said at 2:29 PM, before officially handing it down.
I go into the supervised release special conditions in great detail on KNWA because I think they are noteworthy, and judging by the engagement numbers on that article, I am not the only one.
At 2:54 PM, the convict was apprised of his right to appeal, which the defense announced their intention to do. They’ve got 14 days to do so. I believe if taken up, that would happen in a federal court in St. Louis. The matter of the computer forfeiture was addressed briefly, and then it was over.
I did not see the Duggar heart-shaped hand gesture that has been reported. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. Just that I didn’t catch it.
I don’t think an appeal is going to happen. If it does, we will deal with the “will I be there?” question then. I don’t think that paying for digital reporters to go cover cases out of state is a big priority for Nexstar, but I also think that all evidence indicates that this is hardly “just another case.” So we’ll see.
I really needed to use the restroom, because I hadn’t done so since back at my house that morning. And who was the only other person in there, you might ask?
Okay…nobody’s asking that. But it was Jim Bob Duggar.
I really had to go, and the urinals are tightly crowded against each other in that courthouse bathroom, so I stepped into the first stall instead. He may be whatever he is, but the man code still requires that you give another guy ample room to take a leak if the circumstances allow it in any public restroom. I also was not going to ask him to comment on his firstborn son’s incarceration with his dick in his hand. Literally.
I don’t know where the line is, but that felt over it to me. By the time I finished, he was gone. Judging by his actions outside the courthouse, I doubt I would have gotten a quote from him anyway. “How do you fucking think I feel?” would have been a perfectly valid response to any question I may have asked about his feelings on the sentencing.
I wandered outside in a daze, accidentally ended up in another station’s shot, and barely processed a word that the court representative said. I checked with Anna Darling, made sure that she was good to go, then headed back to the station to write my epic-length article that went up that night.
The executive producer of our nighttime news broadcasts saw me in the long hallway adjacent to the newsroom at work and serenaded me with a slow clap from all the way at the other end. We met halfway, shook hands, and I told him he was being ridiculous.
“I know,” he said. “But I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you.” I think this was based on how my first two articles of the day were already performing. Or perhaps it was just for…everything. He doesn't toss around praise or sentiment lightly, so it meant a lot.
I thanked him. Then I went to my desk, referenced my notes, and wrote for over three hours straight.
EPILOGUE
I don’t worry too much about the specific page views and engagement numbers that I get, because there is only so much I can do about it. All the Duggar stuff is lightning in a bottle, and I have full confidence that if somehow I got news that he had chicken nuggets and instant mashed potatoes for dinner back in county after he was sentenced, it would be the number one story on our site.
But people way above my pay grade do worry about it, and that, in turn, causes people that I work with and care about to have to be concerned about it, too. I won’t get too deep into what our monthly target goals are as a team, but they are irrationally high because that figure for 2022 was calculated in great part due to our engagement numbers from December, 2021.
You know. When a certain trial was going on.
I reached a million page views that month, which made me think “huh, that’s cool,” but apparently within the company it’s a much bigger deal than I understood at the time. There’s special recognition on the digital Teams board and I guess internally there is even some sort of “million-click club” that I have heard referenced in hushed, reverential tones. I don’t know more beyond that. But I do know that for people above me that really care, it would be super if I could do that again in May.
So I kept a little closer eye on things leading up to sentencing. My election day stuff didn’t do as well as I had hoped, and as of Tuesday I was fairly certain that it was going to be really close.
Thanks to you faithful readers, I crossed one million page views for May on Friday afternoon. I’m not going to check this weekend, but with two more Duggar articles going up, what the hell…let’s go for a million and a quarter.
Thanks to each and every one of you reading this, we might even get there.
Am I really the only one applying for the gold star? I think that’s from Rounders!
Your writing is superb! Even reading about a pedophile's sentencing is truly enjoyable. :)