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Penalty phase of Westerfield trial begins Wednesday

David Westerfield listens to the jury's verdicts Wednesday.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Jurors in the trial of David Westerfield return to a San Diego, California, courtroom Wednesday to begin hearing testimony that will lead them to a simple decision.

Life, or death, for the 50-year-old engineer.

Jurors will sift through the expected two to three weeks of testimony to decide whether to sentence Westerfield to life in prison without parole, or to execution.

Westerfield was found guilty last week of kidnapping and killing 7-year-old Danielle van Dam. Danielle was abducted from her suburban San Diego home in February. Her nude body was dumped near a desert road.

Superior Court Judge William D. Mudd said a gag order will remain in place until the penalty phase is complete.

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Jury consultant Toni Blake told CNN that the rules in the penalty phase allow both sides to delve deeper into Westerfield's character than during the trial phase. Westerfield's character will be the central issue of the penalty phase, Blake said.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the defense will try to show the jury that "this act was an aberration, that their client is an honorable family man."

Prosecutors will counter, Toobin said, by "focusing on the monstrousness of this act, and that there were signs that Westerfield was a sexual predator." Such allegations that there were previous signs that Westerfield was a sexual predator may be the most compelling part of the penalty phase, Toobin said.

Westerfield attorney Steven Feldman will appeal to jurors who sounded or appeared hesitant in their guilty verdicts on the murder and kidnapping charges, Blake said. At the same time, prosecutors will tailor their arguments to jurors who sounded most emphatic in their guilty verdicts.

But if even one juror is opposed to the death penalty "it's over, that won't be an option," Toobin said.

Under California law, a judge can overrule a jury's decision on a penalty. It is unlikely that will happen if the jury chooses life in prison, Toobin said, given a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that ruled that only juries, not judges, may sentence a person to death.

Regardless of the jury's decision, Westerfield likely will die of natural causes in prison, Toobin said. At age 50, with California's backlog of hundreds of prisoners on death row and with that state's slow pace of executions – about one a year – Westerfield seems destined to die in jail, Toobin said.