David Westerfield was not and is not a murderer, kidnapper, pedophile or child molester. He had no criminal record, no history of violence or pedophilia. He was once an ordinary citizen just like you and me. He was mercilessly railroaded by the system which now wants to have him killed.
He was lied about and defamed in every way possible; his life and reputation were destroyed, and not by any actions of his own. If he were a child molester and murderer, I assure you I would not be writing this web site or supporting him in any way.
The police picked the wrong guy and the DA prosecuted him on the flimsiest of evidence. There was little difference between the prosecutor's offerings during the preliminary hearing on March 15 and their case in chief in May. There was enough there for "probable cause," the lowest standard of credibility in the courtroom.
At trial the DA's pound of feathers never reached the level of proof against the pound of gold that comprised Westerfield's innocence. But few people by that time could even consider his possible innocence. And no, the DNA was not "proof" of anything in this case. It was underwhelming.
Meanwhile, both the public and the jury were bamboozled by every trick in the P.R. playbook, emanating exclusively from the DA and the prosecution. As we recall, Mr. Feldman consistently refused to argue his case in the streets or in the press; therefore we know where all the information and leaks were coming from in those pre-trial days. Example: the alleged "plea deal" report 2002 versus Pfingst on KUSI, 2012
The DA's favorite tactic seemed to be: "Tell the lie long enough, and people will start to believe it."
Mr. Pfingst used it then and is still using it today, that morbid Myth that goes, "He snatched her from her bed, sexually molested and murdered her, and dumped her body by the side of the road." There was never an ounce of evidence to support any of those statements. Mr. Dusek dutifully sang the same song verbatim in the courtroom, in his fantasy-laden closing argument.
Call it the Pfingst Pfable, Dusek's Dream - it is a fantasy story that everyone wanted to believe. After all, someone had to pay for the death of this child, didn't they? The police nominated Westerfield and the DA bought it. The jurors should have had the brains to see through it and the courage to reject it. A well-spun, oft-repeated fantasy is far from the rigors of proof needed in the courtroom to send a man to his death, stripped of all his God-given rights and liberties.
What I'm doing here is (oh so disrespectfully!) disagreeing with the jurors' verdict. You may have noticed that lawyers cannot and do not do this. But I am a private citizen, outside the courtroom, with full freedom of speech. Westerfield did not get the fair trial guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution to all citizens accused of a capital crime. Yes, it may have looked like one on TV. But the damage was already done inside the minds of the jurors. What were they thinking?
I wrote in 2002, "I'll be the last to say [the jury] were 'stupid' or biased at the outset." Well, here I am, the last one, and I'm saying it. Most were apparently biased at the outset, yet imagined or claimed they could be "fair and impartial." They had no firm grip on what the "presumption of innocence" means. And they didn't handle the rules of evidence or the jury instructions very well either, as far as I can see. Unless they were all prejudiced going into the deliberations, it is clear that some of the jurors were browbeaten by others into their final decision.
The jury were the ones who could have, and should have, put a stop to this mockery of justice. They could have stood between the power of the State to kill a man, and protected the rights of an innocent citizen, one of their own. But they did not. I'm a little miffed at them for that. Why did no one stand up for this innocent man who was being defamed and scapegoated by the system?