The Los Angeles City Attorney's office pressed its Internet obscenity and child pornography case against Stephen Shoemaker and Stefan McDonald all day Wednesday and until noon today, with the completion of the testimony of Det. Thomas Eskridge, and the examination of Pixar Entertainment founder Dr. Alvy Ray Smith, but defense attorneys Jeffrey Douglas and Kevin Donahue remained optimistic about the outcome of the trial.
"The function of [Det. Eskridge's] testimony was to place responsibility for the photographs on the two defendants by saying that they were in control of the Website, to get out some incriminating statements and place the photographs and identify the images that reportedly obscene," Douglas summarized. "In cross-examination, he fought me on everything, and it didn't matter what I asked him. If I had asked him, 'Is your name Thomas Eskridge?', he would have said, 'Well, I guess under some circumstances it might be.' My co-defendant's attorney, who'd examined him in the past, said he was tempted to ask him, 'Does your wife work in a dentist's office? Because examining you is like pulling teeth.' I hope it was an embarrassment."
Douglas noted, however, that he'd caught the detective in a misstatement of fact to the jury.
"In the search warrant, he said that he'd investigated dozens of obscenity and pornography cases," Douglas explained. "I asked him if he'd said that, and he said, 'No.' So I directed him to the warrant, and he took three minutes to find it, on page 1, paragraph 3, second sentence. We went over that three times before he managed to find page 1, paragraph 3, second sentence, where it says, 'I've investigated dozens of obscenity and pornography cases.' It turns out he's done only a fraction of those."
Also puzzling was the fact that Eskridge testified that he doesn't investigate cases unless he knows what the elements of an obscenity charge are — prurient interest; lack of political, scientific, artistic or literary value; offensive to community standards — but that he had no idea of what the definition of obscenity is.
"He could not answer the question, 'How does the criminal code definition of obscenity provide you guidance in selecting 15 urination, defecation and bestiality photos for prosecution?'" Douglas said.
Dr. Smith's testimony began Thursday morning, with Assistant City Attorney Alan Honecutt presenting the 14 alleged child porn photographs to the witness and asking him to analyze which, if any, had been altered using computer graphics technology.
However, Dr. Smith saw evidence of alteration in only one photo — an image of a nude young boy leaning back against a concrete wall, with an older-looking nude female apparently conversing with him — but while it seemed obvious that the boy's erection was added after the photo had been taken, Dr. Smith testified that half of the boy's torso had been altered; an opinion not borne out by casual observation.
On cross examination, however, Douglas got Dr. Smith to admit that some of the material was of such low resolution, that it would be impossible for him to tell whether it had been altered or not.
"He said that if the artist is good and the resolution is bad, there isn't anything he could tell about it," Douglas synopsized.
The trial will continue Friday morning with the testimony of another detective involved in the case, Det. Scott McCallon, followed by another expert witness, Dr. Park Dietz, who is perhaps best know as a witness in front of the Meese Commission, though some may also recognize the name as a consultant for the TV show Law & Order. After Dr. Dietz's testimony, the prosecution is expected to rest, and the defense will begin its case Monday morning.
