Josh Duggar is growing more and more desperate by the day.
Just over a month before he’s sentenced to many years in federal prison, the convicted child sex offender has filed a new appeal in court, arguing that his constitutional rights were violated last year after he was arrrested on two counts of p0rnography possession.
As you very likely know by now, Duggar was found guilty on both these counts on December 9.
He has since been holed up in solitary confinement, working with his lawyers to either reverse this decision or arrange a second, follow-up trial.
Now, in legal papers filed on February 28, Josh’s legal team wrote the following:
“This is the rare case where a criminal defendant was deprived of significant constitutional rights and the law requires a new trial.
“Instead of actually grappling with the core of Duggar’s arguments, the Government sidesteps the issues and mischaracterizes Duggar’s arguments in an attempt to more readily refute them.
“But the Government’s silence on the real issues speaks volumes.”
Back in 2019, the father of seven downloaded explicit photos and videos of children under 12 years old on his workplace computer.
In their filing, his attorneys are not even trying to state otherwise; they are acknowleging that this material was discovered on Duggar’s desktop during a raid about two years ago.
However, they believe there was no evidence presented at the trial that Josh “personally viewed child sexual abuse material.”
As a result, the legal team is pushing for an all-out acquittal (LOL) or, at the very least, another trial.
The filing asserts that the prosecution “deliberately played games” in how it disclosed certain emails to the defense during last year’s trial.
The motion digs deep into the timeline of those particular emails, explaining their belief that the government deliberately delayed relaying material regarding someone “who should have been meaningfully investigated.”
This someone would be a former employee of the car dealership at which Josh worked, Caleb Williams.
Duggar’s lawyers cite Williams as “a necessary witness” they were prevented from calling to the stand. They’re hoping to make him a scapegoat.
Reads the filing:
Duggar sought to call Williams as a witness because he had the opportunity, the know-how, and the motive to commit the charged offenses—and, depending on his responses to questions posed at trial, Williams’ credibility was readily impeachable.
In short, Duggar sought to introduce evidence that Williams may have lied—or been mistaken—about his whereabouts at certain time.
Authorities have said they interviewed Williams and that they found no reason to believe he played any role in the aforementioned illegal downloading; he wasn’t even in Arkansas at the time the crimes were committed.
The appeal continued by citing a clause within the Sixth Amendment regarding the right to present criminal defense evidence to a jury.
It states that this clause was violated.
It also addressed specific testimony given by computer forensic experts called as witnesses by both sides.
The defense is taking issue with the prosecution’s witness testifying as an expert regarding computer geolocation data, stating that the government did not provide notice that he would do so.
The details are confusing and broad in scope on purpose.
This is how highly-paid attorneys earn their paychecks, by throwing as many arguments against the wall as possible in the hope that one of them sticks and their client can get off on some sort of technicality.
Prosecutors, though, are permitted to file their own motions in response.
On February 11, they wrote the following in regard to the notion that they never proved Josh watched the disgusting material in question:
The government did not need to provide evidence that he personally viewed the material to convict him of receiving and possessing child pornography, it only had to prove that he knew the material was of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
Duggar and his team then fired back:
To be clear, Duggar is not arguing that certain images introduced by the Government at trial do not meet the legal definition of child pornography.
The threshold question raised in this post-trial motion for judgement of acquittal is whether, even in the light most favorable to the Government, the evidence was sufficient to establish Duggar’s knowledge that the visual depictions were on the computer during the three days alleged in the indictment.
Like we previously noted, this is all a lot of legal mumbo jumbo.
But it will all be over soon.
Duggar is being held in Washington County Detention Center as he awaits sentencing on April 5.
On that date, we’ll find out how much time Duggar will spend behind bars — and his lawyers will no longer have the chance to make any any further ridiculous arguments.