When Josh Duggar was convicted of possessing and receiving child pornography last month, his lawyers vowed that they would soon be back in court to appeal the decision.
Sure enough, Josh’s attorneys now have filed a motion to overturn the conviction and acquit Josh of all charges.
The defense lawyers claim that the prosecution in Josh’s trial failed "to timely disclose material exculpatory evidence" with regard to a potential witness.
And if the judge denies that acquittal, the defense is requesting a new trial for their client.
The appeal was not unexpected, of course, but for people who breathed a sigh of relief when Josh was locked up, the news is still rather upsetting.
After all, the prosecution in his first trial effectively proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Duggar used a laptop loaded with encryption software to download child sexual abuse materials (CSA) at his place of business in 2019.
Now, there’s a chance, however small, that Josh might go free despite the mountain of evidence against him.
"The evidence elicited at trial does not support a conviction on either count," reads the filing from Josh’s lawyers, which was obtained by People magazine.
"The jury had no evidence that Duggar personally viewed any specific portion of any of the files allegedly found on the computer."
It’s a surprising claim that the defense attempts to back up by pointing the finger at a different culprit.
Yes, in attempting to clear Josh’s name, the defense essentially attempts to pin the crime on someone else — a former employee of Duggar’s named Caleb Williams.
Williams, Josh’s attorneys claim, "had access to the car lot and the HP desktop computer during certain relevant time periods and that law enforcement had failed to meaningfully investigate the possibility that anyone other than Duggar may have committed the crimes charged."
Josh’s lawyers argue that Williams might have assisted the government in its investigation so that he could divert attention away from himself by incriminating his boss.
They argue that Williams sent numerous "unsolicited" emails to investigators.
The attorneys also claim that while Williams initially claimed he was out of town at the time that Josh downloaded the CSA, he later admitted that he was "mistaken" and had gotten his dates mixed up.
The defense also claims that Williams contacted the prosecution during the trial, claiming that he had "found" old passwords to social media accounts run by some of Duggar’s siblings.
Duggar passwords wound up being significant to the prosecution’s case, which consisted largely of proving to the jury that the devices in question belonged to Josh.
Williams was originally listed as a witness, but the government obected to him testifying.
The judge ruled that if Josh’s employee denied being on premise or accessing the devices during the timeframe in question, then there was no reason to call him to the stand.
"Requiring Duggar and, by extension, the jury to simply take at face value Williams’ assertions that he was not the one who committed these crimes constitutes an unambiguous violation of Duggar’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights," Josh’s attorneys wrote in this week’s filing.
Will all of this be enough for the judge in Josh’s case to grant an acquittal?
Almost certainly not, but a second trial is a very real possibility.
However, despite the prosecution’s seemingly damning claims about Williams, a preponderance of evidence still points to the same conclusion that the jury arrived at the first time:
The CSA was downloaded by the man who owned the devices, owned the property where the devices were stored, and who had a long history of sex crimes and porn addiction — Josh Duggar.
We always knew that there would be an appeal, but Josh’s odds of beating the charges against him remain as slim — just as they have been from the moment he was arrested.