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Westerfield faces Friday sentencing
SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- A Southern California man will learn Friday whether he will receive the death penalty for the kidnapping and killing of a 7-year-old neighbor girl. Judge William Mudd is expected to uphold a jury recommendation to sentence David Westerfield to death for the slaying of Danielle van Dam. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. EST). Mudd conceivably could reduce the sentence to life in prison without parole, though that is unlikely. Even if Westerfield is sentenced to death, it is most likely he will die in prison: More than 600 inmates are currently on California's death row awaiting execution. Additionally, California law provides an automatic appeal to all death sentences. The arrest and trial of Westerfield was the first of what became a long list of high-profile cases of missing and slain children in the United States last year. Early last February, Danielle was taken from her family home in suburban San Diego. Her parents discovered her empty bed the following morning, and a massive search ensued by police and volunteers. Nearly a month later, Danielle's body was found 25 miles from the family's house. The 50-year-old engineer was a focus of the police investigation from the beginning and was arrested based on physical evidence, including the blood-stained jacket and Danielle's fingerprints and DNA found in his house and mobile home. Defense attorneys argued that Danielle's DNA was left in the house when the girl and her mother came to sell Girl Scout cookies, and they said neighborhood children sometimes played in the trailer when it was parked at a nearby park. They said investigators found no evidence Westerfield was ever inside the van Dam home. A six-man, six-woman jury convicted Westerfield on August 21 and in September recommended the death penalty.
Judge Mudd in November delayed sentencing after Westerfield's attorneys said they were not prepared to argue that the recommended death sentence should be reduced to life in prison. In pressing for the death penalty last fall, prosecutor Jeff Dusek argued that Westerfield showed "no compassion, no mercy, no pity" when he yanked the girl from her bed in the middle of the night, murdered her and then dumped her body. Danielle's body was found February 27 along a desert road, nude and badly decomposed. Last week, prosecutors filed papers seeking the judge to expedite California's automatic appeals process following the sentencing. Prosecutors said the finding of a special circumstance of murder during a kidnapping was warranted. Westerfield's attorneys argued that officers investigating the second- grader's slaying violated the defendant's "due process" rights under the Fifth, Eighth and 14th amendments to the Constitution.
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