At first seemed as if Josh Duggar's appeal had no hope of being successful, but now that the hearings are underway, could things change? At Thursday's court session, a judge said he was "concerned" by a mistake federal agents made during the investigation into Josh's crimes, which could be a very good sign for his legal team.
One of the major appeal arguments has to do with Josh's right to contact his lawyer.
We already knew that Josh's legal team has claimed that Josh's phone was seized when federal agents raided his used car lot before he was arrested, which kept him from contacting his lawyer.
"[Duggar] takes out his phone, physically puts it to his ear … for the purpose of contacting his legal counsel," Josh's lawyer, Justin Gelfand, said in court, according to The Sun. "Federal agents physically took the phone out of his hand and deprived him of the ability to communicate with his legal counsel. He was told he was free to go. No reasonable person in his shoes at that time would believe that."
The prosecution argued that Josh could (and did) leave the site at his own will.
The attorney for the prosecution, Joshua Handell, responded by saying that Josh told the feds that his wife, Anna, was pregnant at the time, and that he needed to be able to contact her, which the agent said was "perfectly fine" for him to do.
"Mr. Duggar did leave the scene at a time of his choosing and without being arrested," Handell said. "Mr. Duggar voluntarily ended the interview. He was not arrested until a year and a half later."
The judge said he was a 'little concerned' by this.
"The agent knew he was trying to call his counsel. It appears that might have been the only way he could've done so," the judge said. "It does concern me when someone makes an attempt to contact counsel … and is unable to call counsel because there is no alternative way to do it. I’ve never seen that before."
Josh's lawyer said the agents could have offered their own phones to Josh but didn't.
The case is currently 'under advisement.'
That means the judge isn't willing to make a ruling based on what he heard in that hearing alone, so Josh's chance at being successful in his appeal isn't dead in the water yet.
It could be interesting to see how this continues to unfold.
Josh is in solitary confinement at the moment.
Last week, we learned that Josh has been placed in the Special Housing Unit at FCI Seagoville, where he's serving out his prison sentence — allegedly because he was caught using a contraband cellphone.
So far, there doesn't seem to be any real chance of Josh being released from prison based on this appeal, but things could be turning around if the judge truly believes that something was amiss with the investigation.
