Even though the jury wasn’t returning until 9 on Wednesday morning, I got down to the courthouse before 8. There are a limited number of metered parking spots directly across from the courthouse, and I thought that today might be a day when a minute or two could make a world of difference.
Circumstances did not want to cooperate with my plans.
It started with the parking meter. It was flashing “FAIL,” which I wasn’t sure was an error message or just the default message overnight when you don’t have to pay.
I noticed a coin in the slot and decided it was probably the former. Using my smooth brained neanderthal logic, I thought that if I could jam another quarter in hard enough, it would fix the situation.
That did not happen.
Before heading into court, I sent an email to my team, mentioning the parking situation. I did so because literally the only other time I’ve used these meters, at a pretrial hearing, I got a parking ticket very quickly after my time ran out.
Well, one of my co-workers was kind enough to swing by and scope out the meter shortly before 10. It was still jammed. So she did this:
When I eventually returned to my car, the meter was working right and I hadn’t gotten a ticket.
Great.
And then I realized my wireless hotspot and phone connections were both terrible. This has never been an issue before. Today, I couldn’t even send a text message. I tried to post a Tweet that I think went through. I couldn’t access my work email account, and I couldn’t get into WordPress to write a quick story.
I was technologically useless.
I called my assignment manager and verbally partially wrote an article after closing arguments were finished. It was incredibly frustrating. The call kept cutting out. And there was nothing I could do about it, because I did not want to wander away from the courthouse. So we just did the best we could.
Since I didn’t get to write a full article today, I’ll provide some of that material here for your reading…well, “pleasure” seems a bit much considering the subject matter, but you get my drift.
Judge Brooks’ instructions to the jury were incredibly detailed. He had an approximately 12-point program of points he walked them through, step by step. He reminded them that all earlier instructions still counted, as did today’s new ones.
“What testimony you believe, as well as what testimony you don’t believe…it may be that you don’t believe anything a witness said,” he told them.
He went over the indictment and both charges in laborious amounts of detail. Understandably. He also reminded the jurors that they weren’t allowed to factor in Duggar’s not having testified, and reminded them that he wasn’t on trial for child molestation.
He did say that the testimony about those acts he committed could be used “to help decide any matter to which it is relevant.”
Carly Marshall took to the podium and, not for the last time, cherry-picked a nice defense phrase and turned it against them.
“Is this really a whodunnit?” she began. Then she listed everything involved that is Josh Duggar’s. His car lot. His office. His HP. His family on the desktop screen.
“The evidence points to Josh Duggar,” she said simply. “This is a case based off of facts, evidence, and common sense.”
She then revisited the testimony of all ten government witnesses, walking through the case from start to finish.
“Details matter,” she said, copying a Justin Gelfand catchphrase. One such detail was the “ubiquitous password” that Josh used that appeared over and over.
Her closing statement included a couple of choice soundbites from the recorded interview, such as the infamous statement “I don’t want to deny guilt.”
Since the jury later asked to hear that entire interview again, that means they heard Duggar himself say that exact phrase twice today. Maybe three times.
She wrapped up with a series of sometimes rhetorical questions. Others were just simple and clear.
“Who is at the car lot every time child pornography is received and viewed? The evidence shows that Josh Duggar is there every single time,” she said.
“Does the evidence show this is a hacking case?” she asked. “Does the evidence show this is a remote access case?”
“Details matter,” she said once more, twisting the knife. “Joshua Duggar was the person behind the HP computer. Hold Mr. Duggar accountable and find him guilty.”
Gelfand spoke for significantly longer than Marshall. He played all of his greatest hits: Router questions, Universal Plug & Play as a huge security issue, the possibility of remote access, and other minor topics he has harped on.
He just needs one juror to buy into his story of the facts, and that was clear when he told them “each one of you has the power to say ‘no.’”
As for the molestation, Gelfand handled that by saying what the prosecution did was “dig up allegations from 20 years ago, when Josh was literally a child going through puberty.”
Yeah.
Dustin Roberts quite reasonably noted to the jury that Gelfand was trying to “divorce [them] of reason.”
“Does this look like the target of a high-end cyber attack?” he asked, while showing an interior of the shoddy little office.
As for the installation of the Linux partition, he had a simple query about it.
“Have we stopped to ask why? Why it was installed? It benefits one person, and there he sits,” he said, with a dramatic point at the defendant.
The judge gave the jury their final instructions, including requiring them to select a foreperson. He let them know that they had as long as they needed to make their deliberations.
“Basically, you’re in charge at this point.”
They came back a couple hours later to listen to the interview. After that, it was radio silent until just before 5 PM.
I really thought it was over then.
But instead of continuing into the night, they opted to return at 8:30 AM on Thursday. I don’t blame them, if they think there is any substantial amount of work to be done.
I don’t feel like there is. But I’m not in that jury room.
I’ll leave you with one last little tidbit.
As I was entering the courthouse in the morning, another reporter was directly in front of me. I’m not going to say who, but after you read this, I bet you can guess which outlet the person is with in one guess.
One of the guards stopped the x-ray machine cold.
“You’ve got something with a battery in your bag,” he said.
“Oh, right, I totally forgot,” was the response.
It was a pocket audio recorder.
Said reporter was later seen being brought behind-the-scenes in the courtroom during a break. I have heard that Judge Brooks does not mess around when it comes to things like this. We’ll have to see if this same reporter is allowed back tomorrow.
EDIT: The x-ray machine, not the walk-through metal detector.
Such mystery. Much question.
JFC *that* reporter was so careless 😅
This was a great write up, thank you so much for this! Any noticeable movement or reactions by the extended family?