The hearing started a little late, like at 1:35. Judge Brown said there some motions that needed to be heard and he asked who wanted to go first. Hogue offered to but deferred to Nancy Scott Malcor, assistant district attorney .She said they have a motion to quash and a motion to continue . The motion to quash was over the request for evidence in the possession of Gary Wood, another assistant prosecutor in Winters office. Malcor argued such evidence would fall under the work product privilege and therefore not have to be produced. She offered precedents. Hogue countered with some precedents of his own. Judge Brown made the point it did not seem that way to him, that Wood was not actually producing anything, he was just turning over stuff the FBI had given them . The motion to continue was so that evidence they were expecting to get from the FBI related to the authenticity and validity of what I refer to as the barbecue v-card post could be obtained.
They wanted to wait until they got it to have the bond reduction hearing.
The original hearing where Winters mentioned the V-card BBQ post was April 3. On April 16th the DAs office got a note from the FBI, apparently telling them that McD could not have posted it , since he was ion jail. They immediately (April17) turned this over to Hogue . Why all this stuff still takes so long to figure out is beyond me, but apparently the FBI will be able to say definitively , tomorrow, whether Stephen sent it or not. Winters office learned that this weekend. Hogue asked Greg Winters to take the stand. At that point, Judge Brown intervened and said that he did not consider the post when making his $850,000 bond . Malcor said that she was willing to stipulate that the post should be discarded and ignored (Easier said than done, Nancy the toothpaste is already out of the tube!!) They move on to the next issue, McDs resources. At most his parents could only scrounge together $150,000, and to set a bond of $850,000 is in violation of a reasonable bond under the 8th amendment to the Constitution . Now I am no constitution al scholar, but it just seems to me that the crime committed ought to have more to do with the amount of bond than the financial resources available to the defendant Malcor cited more precedents, which I found not to be on point. She cited cases of two different drug dealers that had bonds of over $300,000 , although it was only a drug trafficking violation, and those bonds were upheld as reasonable . To me , drug dealers by their nature deal in a lot of cash and that may have been the reasons the bonds were set where they were . She finally did score points by telling every one that this is a death penalty case where the victim was dismembered, and that there ware also child exploitation charges to consider .She also mentioned McDs maternal grandfather recently passed, insinuating he left a fortune . Hogue said he doesnt know what if any assets will become available to the McDaniels when they settle Grandpas estate. Hogue tells the tale of the two bonding companies in town , AllState Bonding and Anytime Bonding . He spoke to Terry Genone, owner of Allstate, who told him he would need at least $1.5 million in assets in order to obtain the $850,000 bond. Buford read an affidavit from Glenda McDaniel promising that if Stephen were released on bond she would make sure he would be a good little boy ( a little late for that , Mrs. McD, but nice try) Hogue told of how he has the ankle bracelet monitoring all set to go with 24/7Anklemonitoring.LLC in Gwinnett County .
http://www.anklemonitoring.com/ The Bibb County sheriff has expressed concerns about how to handle a situation if McD should actually wander from his lair. Hogue has discussed this with Gwinnett County sheriff and thinks he has a solution worked out. Judge Brown said the main reason to let McD out on bond is so that he can prepare for his own defense , do an effective investigation. He cited the Pamela Frye case (link provided earlier) where Hogue picked the lady up on Friday, they worked on her case, and then he brought her back Monday morning (should have kept her locked up, she recently killed again!) Judge Brown said he was being asked to accept an awful lot of Ms. McDaniel in her affidavit, that there is no possible way he could trust her to tend to the welfare of the 11, 9, 7 & 6 year old children of McDs drugged out sister, nor could she keep him off of playing World of Warcraft or Magic-The Gathering on his computer . He is entitled to prepare a vigorous defense, especially given how tentative the evidence is thus far I may be paraphrasing here but I know Judge Brown used the words tentative evidence .
His cell phone then went off and he told the prosecution and the defense to work it out amongst themselves. He retired to his chambers to catch his call. Buford , Winters, and Malcor left to go to a conference room outside the courtroom , Stephen went another way escorted by the bailiff. . Hogue hung around a little. Upon Judge Browns return, he says he is inclined to leave things the way they are.
My little humble opinion of todays proceedings: Huge victory for the defense. Although the bond stayed where it was, they discredited Greg Winters as an overzealous district attorney , fabricating that an internet post that could not possibly have been made by McD was made by him. They wanted to continue (stall) the hearing, ( in other words, we are not quite ready to admit it is not Stephens post ,even though we have already thrown this falsehood out there as the truth even though we have now been told told by the FBI that it is bogus ) when they knew with a lot of certainty that it could not have been posted by McDaniel, as he was incarcerated at the time without access to any computer. Or they should have known, or if they weren't sure, do not bring it up at all Maybe I am making too much out of it, but it raises reasonable doubt to me about how overzealous they are to get this guy, ignoring all other suspects shortly after they locked in on McD.. Nancy Malcor had a bad cold, Judge Brown kept asking her if she was okay. She coughed and hacked her way through the hearing, while Winters never said a word adn let her get ripped to shreds by Hogue and Brown. Judge Brown seemed quite lucid and on top of his game , unlike other reports I have read about him . Sorry to be so long winded . Thoughts and opinions, differing POVs always welcome .