Josh Duggar's appeal to be freed or retried in child porn conviction appears to hinge on legal technicality

Josh Duggar's attempt to be retried or freed in his 2021 child pornography conviction might be upended by a time-related technicality.

On Wednesday, the reality star, 38, presented his appeal case in a federal court, looking to have his conviction vacated or a retrial based on eight issues his legal team flagged in their filing. 

Duggar, who is currently in custody in Texas at the FCI Seagoville facility (which is about 10 miles south of the Dallas-Fort Worth area) appeared virtually in the two-hour hearing.

He is currently serving a prison sentence of about 12 1/2 years in his 2021 conviction for receiving and possessing material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. 

Federal authorities said Duggar - who is father to seven children with wife Anna, 37 - had amassed 'images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children, including images of prepubescent children and depictions of sadistic abuse.'

The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for the Duggar family for comment on the story. 

Prior to that, Duggar's past molestation of five young girls in the early 2000s - four of his female siblings and a babysitter - led to the swift cancellation of the family's TLC series in 2015.

Josh Duggar said Wednesday that his past legal team demonstrated a lack of competence in not questioning a person who was able to access the computer on which authorities found images of child sexual abuse, People reported after reviewing legal documents in the case.

He also claimed in his filing that an expert with the Department of Justice made false claims while under oath, and misled the court with 'prejudicial information.'

Duggar said it was unfair that a police report detailing his past history of molestation had been released, making it harder on him to get a fair trial.

Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office's branch in the Western District of Arkansas said in a motion filed in August of 2025 that Duggar had not sent his appeals materials in before the required deadline.

Duggar claims he sent the appeal in via the mail on June 24, 2025, which was a cutoff date, as the Supreme Court had denied his third appeal a year earlier.

Mail logs reviewed by People indicated Duggar was not one of the people who sent out letters - only two in all had been sent - from the facility on the day in question.

The judge in the case said the deadline-related issue remains up for review, prior to getting into details of the appeal, the magazine reported.

The Duggar family reality show, which began airing in 2008 as 17 Kids and Counting, was centered on Michelle and Jim Bob, the devout Arkansas couple who named all  of their children with the first letter J. 

Jim Bob and wife Michelle posted a statement on Facebook at the time the story surfaced, explaining how they dealt with the initial incident.

'Back 12 years ago our family went through one of the most difficult times of our lives,' they said in a May 21, 2015 Facebook post. 'When Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes and we were shocked.

'We had tried to teach him right from wrong. That dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before.'

Jim Bob and Michelle continued, 'We pray that as people watch our lives they see that we are not a perfect family. We have challenges and struggles everyday. ' 

The latest events surrounding Josh Duggar come on the heels of major legal issues for his younger brother Joseph, 31, who is out on $600,000 bond as he faces child molestation charges. 

The incident involving Joe occurred in 2020 in Panama City Beach, Florida during a vacation, according to the Bay County Sheriff's Office.

'As the vacation continued, he also asked [the victim] to sit next to him on a couch and covered them with a blanket,' officials said. 'During this time, Duggar manipulated the victim's underwear and grazed her genitals.

'Duggar would also continue to rub his hands on her thighs. The victim stated Duggar eventually apologized for his actions and the incidents stopped after the apology.'

For those who have been impacted by sexual abuse, text 'STRENGTH' to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.