After months of delays, the Josh Duggar child pornography trial gets underway in Springdale, Arkansas today.
While we have yet to receive any reports from the first day of jury selection, a pretrial hearing held on Monday made it clear that prosecutors intend to delve into Josh's salacious past in order to establish a pattern of predatory behavior.
Josh's father, Jim Bob Duggar, took the stand yesterday and claimed under oath that he remembered few details of the scandal that took place in 2015 when the world learned that Josh had molested five young girls.
(Four of the victims were Josh's sisters; the fifth was a babysitter who was hired by his parents.)
It's unclear if Jim Bob will be asked to take the stand again during the trial, or if the defense was successful in its efforts to convince the judge that Josh's past sex crimes have no bearing on the current allegations against him.
Already, Judge Timothy L. Brooks has ruled that any discussion of Josh's past admissions of pornography addiction will not be allowed in court.
It's possible that Judge Brooks will take a similarly dim view of other evidence from Josh's past that might help to shed light on his psyche but which is not directly related to the most recent charges.
If, however, the judge decides that Josh's history of depravity is relevant to the prosecution's case, then the jury might be confronted with an abundance of incriminating information.
And it's possible that some of the evidence might originate from the infamous Duggar compound.
Yes, if you know anything about Jim Bob, then you're probably aware that he keeps his children in a constant state of surveillance in order to ensure that they're not engaging in any "sinful" behavior.
(This is just one of many reasons that observers believe the former television mogul was lying when he pled ignorance to Josh's past predatory behavior.)
The Duggars have filmed hundreds of hours of footage for their two TLC reality shows, and while it's possible that scenes from 19 Kids and Counting or Counting On could be used against Josh, the clips that made it to air were generally flattering to thr family.
Still, there's a chance that TLC could be subpoenaed and forced to provide outtakes from the shows.
Additionally, eagle-eyed Duggar critics recently observed that at the height of his family's fame, Jim Bob shot quite a bit of his own footage.
While examining recently-resurfaced screenshots from a Duggar Christmas special that first aired in 2014, Reddit users noticed that several security cameras can be seen in the background during Josh's "holiday tour" of the family home.
"Peep at what’s on the wall in the background," one redditor wrote, according to The Sun.
"A security camera inside the house. Hmmm why would they need that?" another user asked.
"I think it’s a mix of watching who comes into the house for security reasons and spying on the kids to keep them in line," a third chimed in.
A fourth user observed that the cameras might have been installed by TLC in order to capture a bird's-eye view of life within the Duggar home.
"It's possible they were installed for the show and then just left them there," this person suggested.
Other commenters noted, however, that aerial views were never featured on the show, and Jim Bob probably wouldn't have consented to round-the-clock observation from an outside party.
So in all likelihood, the cameras were installed by Jim Bob, and it's possible that they're still in place.
The placement of the equipment is odd, as security cameras are usually situated near exits or outside of homes in order to capture footage of comings and goings.
We may never know for sure why Jim Bob felt that he needed cameras in his living room.
And we'll probably never know what sort of footage he captured, either.
Jim Bob's paranoia is the stuff of legend, and it seems unlikely that he would have stored any footage that could possibly be used against him or his family.
But hopefully, the DA's office will have no difficulty building a case against Josh, even if they're prohibited from mentioning previous instances of predatory behavior.
We'll have further updates on this developing situation as more information becomes available.
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