(CW: CSA) Josh & Anna 51: An Unappealing Appeal

[Alisamer]

14 hours ago, AussieKrissy said:

I am a scathing pessimist

My mind immediately to child porn when the lot got raided, I was sure of it.

Most prob the profession I am in, influencing it as well (prison system).  

I tend to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. 

I didn't immediately think CSAM, because they were raiding a used car lot run by lazyJosh. I figured there were probably all sorts of corners cut legally and financially there, just because Josh, plus SOTDRT. He doesn't seem like one to keep up well with paperwork or do proper due diligence on things, IMO.

I wasn't surprised it was CSAM, but I'd hoped it was financial or tax or some other shenanigans. (Partly, I admit, because I think Jim Bob is shady AF and that might shine a spotlight on him, too.)

[Anne Of Gray Gables]

14 hours ago, AussieKrissy said:

I am a scathing pessimist

My mind immediately to child porn when the lot got raided, I was sure of it.

Most prob the profession I am in, influencing it as well (prison system).  

I thought of financial crimes only. That shack looked like a front for something other than the sale of shitty used cars. Money laundering or something like that. It was a front for criminal activity, of course, just not in a way I'd imagined. 

I listened to Josh's taped interview twice. One has to wonder if some part of him wanted to get caught.  In addition to the unrecorded question about the nature of the investigation, Josh later says:

"I'm not going to say anything that's going to incriminate me. I'm not denying guilt. I'm not saying if I am guilty or not."
If Homeland Security showed up at my work place to collect my devices as part of a CSAM investigation, as an innocent person, "I'm not denying guilt" would not be something that would enter my head, never mind exit my mouth. We can't know what the jury discussed, but I know if I'd been on it, I'd have kept coming back to these lines.

[Knight of Ni]

Here's what Josh should have said during the raid:  

Nothing

But he's a stupid, arrogant that so that probably never entered his mind.

[Meggo]

On 5/5/2022 at 9:22 PM, quiversR4hunting said:

All 3 of my daughters went through this phase but they wanted to be in bed with their dad and I and I would be kicked all night or nearly pushed out of bed. So I let them know they could come in anytime but they could sleep beside one of us on the floor and I would have blankets and a pullow sitting there for whenever they needed it. My youngest did this the longest that I actually made her a little foam pad that pushed under the bed. Since I've been single, she has done it less but now I sometimes just let her crawl in bed with me sometimes I can tuck her back in her own bed. (we all have vivid dreams, so nightmares are especially bad.) I think my youngest reverted back because she was 7 1/2  when we separated. 

There is hope for you, my teens no longer come in 😁

My son is 9 and 9 times out of 10 - he crawls into bed with me at some point. (Dad sleeps downstairs because he "neeeeeeds" the tv that I banished from the bedroom because I can't sleep with one on). Anywho - King sized bed, normal sized kid - tell me how I have LESS than half a pillow width in which to curl myself up to go to sleep. MOVE OVER fer cryin' out loud - you are CROWDING me. Most of the time - I don't know he is even there until I'm being shoved over or there is foot to my back...

(it's nice at the cottage because he sleeps upstairs while we're downstairs and he won't come all the day in the middle of the night - down the hall at home is as far as he needs to go) 

[Mama Mia]

On 5/9/2022 at 10:12 AM, Alisamer said:

Jurors base their decisions on all sorts of things, it seems. But I can definitely see that statement heavily influencing the jury, because it says so much about Josh.

Here's Josh DUGGAR. Dad running for office, family was on TV, famous entirely for being super-strict religious bible thumpers while popping out kids like Pez. The family's claim to fame is the number of children, which is entirely based on their religious convictions which are what they are leaning on to keep themselves known and the $$ rolling in. Everyone who has ever seen an episode of their show or an interview with them knows they are Christian. Super-Christian. The Christianest. Better than all those other Christians and more Godly as well. They'll be happy to tell you how super Christian they are, and how their Godly children weren't allowed to even front hug their future spouses, much less talk privately with them, before the actual wedding. The Duggars are the purest, best, perfectest Christians in the world. They'll tell you all about how you're doing it wrong, while being sickly sweet about it and acting concerned about your soul.

Even people who have never seen anything about them will usually say "Duggar? Isn't that the super Christian family with the zillion kids?' if asked about them. They often haven't heard of the molestations, or the Ashley Madison thing, or anything else - that requires a little reading or paying attention. But they know the family is famous for being Christian and having tons of kids because they are Christian.

And here Josh is, talking to federal agents, and he unprompted brings up "child porn". 

How would a pure precious Duggar child even know such a thing existed? Even many of us here, who knew about the molestation, knew Josh was a dirtbag, knew he was not pure in any sense of the word, still didn't automatically jump to "child porn" when the car lot was raided. The molestations we knew about were when he was a teen. The Ashley Madison stuff was all with adult women. Many of us hoped, at least, that it was financial shenanigans. 

We weren't suprised when it was CSAM. But a person with just a casual passing knowledge of the Duggars probably would be surprised that "child porn" was the first thing that came out of Josh's mouth. 

I was surprised he said that. Because I thought he wasn't quite THAT stupid. Stupid, but not self-incriminatingly stupid.

I'm sure the jury didn't base their decision JUST on that statement, but I am sure they took it into account, because that's not something any innocent person would come up with. 

Hell, I didn’t even think the raid necessarily even implicated  the Duggars, let alone CSAM. My first thought was that at a used car lot they might have bought or sold a car that had been used in a murder / drug or human trafficking / a bank robbery / planned terrorist attack / kidnapping - that sort of thing. And the feds were looking for info and evidence. 

[AussieKrissy]

8 hours ago, Anne Of Gray Gables said:

 

I listened to Josh's taped interview twice. One has to wonder if some part of him wanted to get caught.  In addition to the unrecorded question about the nature of the investigation, Josh later says:

Do you have the link please?

[noseybutt]

5 hours ago, Mama Mia said:

Hell, I didn’t even think the raid necessarily even implicated  the Duggars, let alone CSAM. My first thought was that at a used car lot they might have bought or sold a car that had been used in a murder / drug or human trafficking / a bank robbery / planned terrorist attack / kidnapping - that sort of thing. And the feds were looking for info and evidence. 

Because the raid was by homeland security, my first thought was labor trafficking. JimBob has a history there...

[samurai_sarah]

3 hours ago, AussieKrissy said:

Do you have the link please?

Starts at around the 6:20 mark : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-2597905/Video-3-Josh-Duggar-interviewed-cops-having-child-porn.html

[zee_four]

On 5/9/2022 at 3:10 AM, Antimony said:

Juries *cannot* make a wrong decision in the eyes of the law. The poster who mentioned jury nullification is absolutely right. They can only disregard jury instructions, which may be grounds for appeal, if they, for example, admitted to reading the news during the trial.

The reason any juror votes how they do is a unknowable and its absurd to think individual jurors haven't voted for more frivolous reasons -- racism, because they just didnt like the defendant despite exculpatory evidence, they have a personal bias, or because they wanted to get the hell out of the room. In this case, that Josh's utterance is admitted as evidence via testimony so it is a perfectly reasonable factor for a juror's decision. Juries have total discretion about how they weight each individual piece of evidence. 

 

There's a reason jury selection can be a long, arduous process in high stakes/well publicized cases. I think for the theater shooting, jury selection took weeks. It was difficult to find people who weren't some how impacted by the shootings, whether it was having a friend there that night, working with a victim or victim's family, having connections to the first responders or hospital staff who were there that night, etc. Even after a lengthy and deliberated process they still picked a juror who had been a Columbine student who was on campus during the shooting back in 1999- worse his prom date had been killed. Aurora is a massive inner ring suburb that is sandwiched next to Denver and the othrler burbs and is growing massively with new developments spreading East across open prairie and it was still hard.

It's not quite like the TV shows make it out to be, but the prosecution and defense are allowed so many "vetoes" so to speak, depending on the jurisdiction.

But unless there's been clear jury tampering or something, a judge can't overule a jury, the right to trial by jury is a cornerstone of the common law system. In most jurisdictions for a criminal trial, the defendant can choose a trial by jury or a bench trial (trial by judge). Judges have a role in sentencing with a trial by jury but they can't overule a jury verdict. In the rather limited instances of jury tampering in reality compared to what Hollywood shows, the defendant doesn't get off or have a judge decide instead, there's  a mistrial meaning there will be a whole new trial.

His lawyers like most private attorneys who are being paid by people who still insist on innocence or are paying because they have enough money to be willing to try every single possible trick no matter how unlikely, of course file appeals on every tiny thing no matter how minisculely related or likely. Appeals are incredibly common. What people don't understand is that it is incredibly rare for an appeal to be successful. Appeals go to the closest appellate court made up of? More judges. The same people defense attorneys are often appealing against,  other judges in the same area who have been trial judges and likely know the judge in question. In my area, with my experience, its a continuation of the old boys club. My dad was a federal trial attorney after being part of JAG for decades and in his experience judges support judges. In some jurisdictions there might be less incestuousness so to speak, but again real life trials aren't like TV. A very serious and blatant legal error has to be made for an appeal to be granted and again if that happens, it takes years and often resorts in voiding the original trial so a mistrial. You dont just get off innocent. 

I'd imagine that the appeals wil ll mostly focus on the ruling to allow previous allegations of behavior to be allowed in, but the Duggar own behaviors, admitting it on national television along other things, really undercut any attempt to claim of supposed assumption of innocence since there were never criminal charges. 

Oh and the feds are significantly less likely for appellate divisions to even consider on appeals. They dot their Is and cross their Ts legally. Remember it doesn't matter what people think or feel is "right" or "wrong" or "legal" its the individual statutes and case law that matters. And the Feds don't fuck around with that. 

EDIT Just wanted to say most of this was replying to parts of other comments not directly to @Antimony who knows their legal shit way more than myself. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by zee_four

[Cheetah]

Someone on reddit with a PACER account (I'm not really clear on that but it appears to be a subscription to legal documents) put some of the material from the Duggar girls' lawsuit that just got unsealed onto dropbox here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yfb585ufz25p4lo/AAAhoOR3eA3QYirGXnZwjpc7a/Defendants' Statement of Indisputable Material Facts.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2DiCJ1DPZlIiVHOI9CFZF-PS3EAegx-JLU6iBdNxSM2VHHpq8wM9pEb3Q

Of interest if you scroll down far enough is Kayleigh Holt's deposition, in which she names the writer of the letter (herself), the person who found the letter in a book, and the person who then called the Oprah show.  (Neither of the other 2 were people I'd heard of before). 

 

[Antimony]

38 minutes ago, zee_four said:

[snip, length]

EDIT Just wanted to say most of this was replying to parts of other comments not directly to @Antimony who knows their legal shit way more than myself. 

Haha oh my gosh, until I scrolled down I was like, "Oh no am I being called out?" 

The (snipped) above is how I know that I'll never be sat on any criminal jury, and it would be unlikely for me to be sat on a civilian one. Level of education isn't always a veto, but it can be. The minute they hear I'm a chemist...nobody wants me on that jury because I will want to *actually* look at any forensic evidence and I have...feelings...about forensic science as a whole. (Looking at you, touch-DNA evidence...) Being a prison abolitionist? Absolute no go for any criminal case. Prosecuting attorney is going to use that veto. Then, the bonus factors that could exclude me -- child of divorce, used to work at a domestic violence shelter, will answer "yes" to any queries of feminism*, knows about jury nullification -- veto, veto, veto, veto. 

*If you have a spousal disagreement that lands you in civil court, these are not unheard of jury questions.

Edit: If anybody wants to read about the absolute shitshow it is to get deserved appeals, highly recommend Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis. Book absolutely kicks ass. 

13 hours ago, Anne Of Gray Gables said:

I thought of financial crimes only. That shack looked like a front for something other than the sale of shitty used cars. Money laundering or something like that. It was a front for criminal activity, of course, just not in a way I'd imagined. 

I listened to Josh's taped interview twice. One has to wonder if some part of him wanted to get caught.  In addition to the unrecorded question about the nature of the investigation, Josh later says:

"I'm not going to say anything that's going to incriminate me. I'm not denying guilt. I'm not saying if I am guilty or not."
If Homeland Security showed up at my work place to collect my devices as part of a CSAM investigation, as an innocent person, "I'm not denying guilt" would not be something that would enter my head, never mind exit my mouth. We can't know what the jury discussed, but I know if I'd been on it, I'd have kept coming back to these lines.

I remain floored that he said this, but it's also interesting he said it this way. It's very Fifth Amendment (maybe Meech got that far in SODRT, who knows) and then a statement that suggests that he feels like he cannot lie. He can't confess because he knows he's guilty, but it's a bit bizarre he doesn't just lie. Does he think it's also illegal? I doubt it. The Duggars do illegal shit all the time. This is a situation where it makes sense to lie (because he will do it eventually with his plea) but also where there are no real consequences for lying, just consequences for what he has already been caught doing it. But I don't think Josh is afraid of lying, because I think Josh is a scumbag, so maybe he thought this sort of talk made him sound legally smarter than he was. Maybe it's just a rare sliver of honesty because he couldn't think on his feet fast enough. Why not just freakin' lie? Maybe I'm thinking too hard about nonsense things a nonce says. (Nonce-sense? Noncense?)

Also, buddy, "I'm not going to say anything that's going to incriminate me." Dude, ship has sailed. Shit is out of the horse. Genie is out of the bottle. TRAIN GO SORRY. You missed the boat. Spilled water doesn't go back in the bowl. Time is already late. 

30 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

Someone on reddit with a PACER account (I'm not really clear on that but it appears to be a subscription to legal documents) put some of the material from the Duggar girls' lawsuit that just got unsealed onto dropbox here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yfb585ufz25p4lo/AAAhoOR3eA3QYirGXnZwjpc7a/Defendants' Statement of Indisputable Material Facts.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2DiCJ1DPZlIiVHOI9CFZF-PS3EAegx-JLU6iBdNxSM2VHHpq8wM9pEb3Q

Of interest if you scroll down far enough is Kayleigh Holt's deposition, in which she names the writer of the letter (herself), the person who found the letter in a book, and the person who then called the Oprah show.  (Neither of the other 2 were people I'd heard of before). 

 

Public Access to Court Electronic Records. An account I always mean to make, and then decide it's better to wait for somebody who is better at their system to pull documents for me instead. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Antimony

[Travelfan]

Ok I’m going to speculate that due to their probably less than legal (or at least moral) dealings in used cars and rental properties the Duggar’s probably really emphasized their rights to not self incriminate during their school time at home. They probably had lots of lessons on the justice system and their “rights” to protect themselves against ungodly lawyers who would dare question them.  This all backfired as Josh got scared and threw out the I have a right not to say anything incriminating during the police search instead of the trial 😂

[Cam]

Zee four and antimony, thanks for your interesting and informative posts; very insightful.

Antimony, your comment: “…Josh is a scumbag, so maybe he thought this sort of talk made him sound legally smarter than he was.” I’m thinking that sounds about right. He was caught by surprise and was trying to think quickly on his feet. Outwardly, he was trying to appear calm and collected while inside I’m sure many alarm bells were going off so loudly he couldn’t really hear himself think, and he may have had no idea what he was actually saying, he just blathered. He was so used to bullshitting those of his inner circle and was trying to use similar tactics with the FBI.

———-

This was the letter the Oprah show received about the Duggars, which I found revealing. It says Jim Bob was “in trouble” with the church. The reason has been redacted. I didn’t realize he could ever “be in trouble” with the church. I thiught he was revered there. It also exposes his reason for different tv appearances as a means to get free stuff.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Cam

[Alisamer]

6 hours ago, Travelfan said:

Ok I’m going to speculate that due to their probably less than legal (or at least moral) dealings in used cars and rental properties the Duggar’s probably really emphasized their rights to not self incriminate during their school time at home. They probably had lots of lessons on the justice system and their “rights” to protect themselves against ungodly lawyers who would dare question them.  This all backfired as Josh got scared and threw out the I have a right not to say anything incriminating during the police search instead of the trial 😂

I think it's not unlikely that they were taught this sort of what to say and what not to say, at some point. Remember the Westboro Church family had many of them trained as lawyers.

It plays into their persecution complex, gives them the opportunity to tell the kids how when the end times come Christians will be even MORE persecuted, and covers their asses a bit when they go protest abortion clinics and LGBTQ+ things.

[Father Son Holy Goat]

Sigh, can he just get sentenced already?! 

[Coconut Flan]

From WOCB:

Quote

withoutacrystalball

US Attorneys revealed today that the Probation office asked for a sentence of 360 months to life for Josh Duggar.

Josh’s scores in the report were the highest and most severe for offenders like him

Because they are capped at 20 years, the US Government seeks a full 20 year sentence for Josh Duggar.

They state that Josh is calculated and incapable of reform. They believe he will never take responsibility for his crimes & will never be able to be treated properly.

They believe that based upon his actions he has a perverse and sadistic attraction to minors. They believe that upon release he is likely to reoffend.

they found over 600 images and files on his computer. Most of these images contained torture of young girls.

Due to these factors, they seek the max. The full report is extremely graphic even more than what was at the trial.

Edited · 48m

 

[feministxtian]

6 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

From WOCB:

consider the source

[Giraffe]

12 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

From WOCB:

 

Sounds great! I just wish she were credible and not likely pulling this out of her ass. 

[Antimony]

17 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

From WOCB:

 

She's getting worse. No probation office would ask for a "to life" sentence when it's outside the cap for the crime. 

Also, not to be like the world's most pessimistic person on Earth, but I don't believe Josh's scores are the "highest and most severe" simply because I know of worse people who have done worse crimes. It's a race to the bottom for sure. (Also, like, okay, but on the assignment for these things, you eventually cap off sensitivity to measure it anyway...so two people could be very different extreme of vile and both max out a score. Who would report this way? WOCAB, that's who. )

But, on Reddit, the memos have been released.

Edit: I shall eat my own words. (See, I'm not always a bitch!!) Government paperwork claims, "At present, U.S. Probation’s 2calculationundertheUnited States SentencingGuidelines(Guidelines)set out in the final PSR reflects an advisory range of imprisonment of 360 months to life which will be capped by the offense maximum of240monthsset by statute for Count One in the Indictment." Technically, what she said is true but also not really what the government means. The government knows it's own limits and doesn't "request more" even when the scoring adds up that way. I just feel like "asked for" and "calculated a recommended" are meaningfully, legally, and sensationally different here and WOCAB knows that. 

Edit Edit: Also Re: Testing Batteries to Quantify...Evilness via Psychology, I also think it makes sense that past a certain point, any given inventory would stop being sensitive to quantification. I also feel like that is meaningfully different from how WOCAB editorializes. On the kind end of Psychological Assessment, two people could both have the most extreme scoring bin of anxiety but have vastly different experiences in what that means for their actual life, for example. The test can only quantify to a certain point. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Antimony

[Zebedee]

The whole document is up on courtlistener.com. It is pretty disgusting, but basically WOACB is right. Given the number of images, their content, the lengths gone to to cover his tracks, and his history of molestation, the govt is asking for the maximum. They are pretty scathing about his defence too - loke trying to argue that he didn’t have enough images to qualify for sentence enhancements because he tried to delete some. Guess we’ll find out in two weeks.

 

[Giraffe]

Interesting. It would be nice if I have to eat my skepticism. 

[Coconut Flan]

Here's a link to the prosecution document.  Beware they describe the downloads.  

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiqwlg689cqxyed/Government Sentencing Memo.pdf?dl=0

Link is from Reddit.

Defense:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlt5p4pi96p4ah3/Defense Sentencing Memo.pdf?dl=0

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Coconut Flan

[Antimony]

Sometimes, I feel like the person writing these is having a little bit of fun in how easy it is to dunk on Josh here, because there's just so much, "Like, are you fucking kidding me dude?" energy in these legalese sentences;

Quote

Finally, Director Fottrell testified that Duggar not only had the Tor browser installed on his iPhone, but that he was using it the very day his car lot was searched to view pornography. (Govt.Ex. 83, Trial Tr.pp.665-666)

Also the antecedent isn't clear here but if Josh is using Tor to search legal, adult pornography, he's not only a goddamn pedo but a goddamn inefficient weirdo because Tor is notably slower than other browsers because of the nature of the layers. They might just mean " using his iPhone" and not "using Tor" but it's unclear. If it means Tor, he strikes me as the kind of guy who will use more expensive or obscure technology for no reason other than to show off even thought it achieves the exact same result. Not really relevant, but kind of a trait that lines up with his overall smug persona. 

[Zebedee]

Defence is asking for five years. Lots of blather that I skipped over about how his „alleged“ molestations weren’t so bad as he hasn’t repeated, how he is so charitable and he had hardly any pictures etc etc. I know it is their job, but I find it too enraging. Oh, and he has so much to give to the world. And if he had been sentenced thirty years ago, he would only get a year. And everyone uses computers for this stuff now.
 

Michelle, Pecan, LaCount and Anna all give character statements. Maybe Anna should not talk about how happy everyone is when he sounds so cheerful coming home from „work“, since we now know what he was up to.

[Antimony]

A writing critique here, not personal, but the Government's documents have repeated several times that Josh went to "great lengths" to procure these materials, which is maybe not how I would phrase it if I had also made the argument that the process was simply enough for him to do because he was a "power user of technology". The ideas are a bit opposed and I think they're trying to suggest awareness and purposefulness, not necessarily the amount of work it took him. I don't think it really matters post-verdict, but it's interesting. 

The most accurate read, I think, is "he did this purposefully and we know that [given his skillset] it would have been easy for him to do it" and that's probably what they mean, but the text implies, "he did this purposefully and put a lot of work and effort into it".  I actually don't think it matters, really, but I think a lot of people perceive that a crime you put a lot of effort into is somehow worse than one you are able to do easily.  (I'm sure there's a study like, "Perceptions of Criminal Severity as a Function of Effort Level of Perpetrator", or something. There must be.) 

Quote

At the very least, Duggar had to conduct research in order to determine that a Linux partition was required to defeat Covenant Eyes’ internet monitoring.

This is an interesting assertion because to our knowledge, the Government didn't present any evidence of such a search. It would have been very interesting (and probably helpful to their case!) if they had presented evidence of a search from his history or cloud record. I think it's more probable that Josh, as a CE customer and past Linux user, simply knew Linux was a sufficient work around. 

(I'm looking at the trees and missing the forest here, I know, but we've been discussing this damn forest for so long and I'm kind of detail-oriented.)

I am now done reading the Government's document and I believe that WOCAB was a little bit talking out her butt about the scores of his psychological eval because those are not footnoted or explicitly called out. I didn't read this with a highlighter and pen, though, so it's very possible I missed it but to my knowledge the psychological portions of the PSR are never unsealed. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Antimony