Posted on 06/14/2005 7:32:32 AM PDT by Asphalt
Michael Jackson's fans were cheering and hugging each other Monday outside the courtroom where he was acquitted on all counts in his child molestation case. But it was impossible for us to get excited over the verdict. You could feel relief that this case was over and the 46-year-old "King of Pop" had gotten his day in court, but no number of "not guilty" pronouncements could erase the taint of the "lifestyle" choices that got him into trouble.
As Jackson was driven away in a funereal black vehicle, under the gaze of a now standard-issue helicopter camera, we wondered how he will respond to being freed of accusations some experts were sure he would be convicted of and even those who thought otherwise acknowledged came dangerously close to criminal behavior. Will the owner and aging lost boy of Neverland continue to insist he is pure of heart and spirit, did nothing wrong in sleeping with underage boys and faces no greater challenge than being misunderstood? Or will he respond to his brush with years in prison by facing up to his psychological problems and seeking help for them?
In saying "the healing process must begin," Jesse Jackson may have been talking about recovering from the grueling trial and its coverage. But Michael Jackson has deeper personal issues to deal with -- including, possibly, being in a state of denial. His strange appearance at the courtroom in his pajamas, his stomping on the roof of his SUV, his mystery trips to the E.R. certainly did nothing to establish his stability.
He will live with the knowledge that he owes his freedom to the prosecution's haphazard case as much as his pleas of innocence or any skillful turns by the defense to support them. This was a case, built and rebuilt over a decade by Santa Barbara County District Attorney Thomas Sneddon, undone by prosecution witnesses seemingly hired by the defense. They included a young accuser who kept changing his story; the accuser's mother, who came off as a gold digger and, in allowing him to sleep in Jackson's bed, a derelict parent, and an ex-wife of Jackson's, Debbie Rowe, who was brought in by prosecutors to testify against him but spoke of what a wonderful father he was. This despite being involved in a custody battle with him.
In the end, even as this verdict is applauded for showing you're not guilty until proven so in this country, it will, for some, confirm the notion that celebrities get their way in the justice system. Will Jackson's biggest media moment since "Thriller" recharge his career, which was on an artistic and commercial decline before the molestation charges were raised? Perhaps if he stops blaming other people for his misfortunes and starts taking responsibility for them. But if he continues living in his fantasy world, any buzz from this trial will wear off as fast as cable news can find another scandal to obsess over.
Nancy Grace never met a defendant that wasn't guilty, to her thinking. Just watching her little nostrils flair makes me want to vomit.
I didn't see any of the trial, so can't comment on the evidence, but I think that the prosecution had a really crappy case, and my gut feel from the get-go was that this was a shakedown by the accuser's mom because she figured her Jackson-provided gravy train (complete with body wax!) was about to end.
Bring forth a victim who doesn't change his story on under cross examination. That would be a start.
Six of the jurors admitted they're Jackson fans, according to their interviews before jury selection.
Yes, some of these cases lately are proving, more than ever, that common sense is NOT common. Not at all. And becoming more rare every day.
How is that person going to "get" help without some kind of legal intervention, and how are children going to be protected from his bizarre behavior, including his own children, without legal intervention?
Yes, I suppose in your deranged world sleeping with boys would be merely a cry for "help."
Race-baiting troll. I'm sure that is going to work out really well for you around here.
Tom Sneddon is a Cold Man. Don't You Snap Your Fingers At Me, Lady!
Ugh, I wonder why they weren't stricken?
One basic problem was that this sequence of events was all fouled up. The "detention" of the family at the ranch to silence them occurred BEFORE the child was allegedly molested (and this is based on the time line that the prosecution constructed!). If I were a juror and this kind of idiotic chain of events were presented to me, then I'd have a hard time keeping a straight face in the courtroom. I mean, can a criminal prosecution get any more sloppy than this?
That might be difficult to do considering that child molesters pick their victims from dysfunctional families and their victims tend to be bleeped up and vulnerable to start with. I think that's why we have to look at the pattern of behavior with this guy and his own public admission that he sleeps with young boys. That, in and of itself, and that alone, should be enough to convict him. He is seriously disturbed and should be stopped from harming mroe children. Without legal intervention, how is that to happen? ANd how can the authorities intervene when the witnesses are bound to have serious problems as that is the kind of person that Jackson preys on?
He says nothing. Where's your evidence that he's molested any of those kids? McCauley Culkin testified that he slept with Jackson and nothing happened. No other kid testitied that anything happened, except this kid, who changed his story under cross examination.
Our judicial system requires at least an accuser, and there was only one accuser with a couple of different accounts of what happened.
That's what I've been thinking. I know that's not very popular! I don't know what to think of Michael. He's become so weird in the last several years! Part of what he says about his surgeries on his face could be true. He may have that skin condition; and to even out his skin tone, he may be using light colored make-up, I don't know.
But he may be innocent in this case, but maybe not. The evidence against him in this case may have been merely circumstantial. Or it just wasn't enough, as in the case of Coby Bryant.
He strikes me as someone who might have suffered some molestation in his formative years. Or maybe he was seduced. Then he turns around and does it to others. It might have started out innocently enough, then without anyone stopping him, he got bolder. Then he got sneakier. I never heard anything about his behavior toward boys until about 12-15 years ago.
He had been getting steadily stranger since even then. It was easy to see that his appearance was changing. His behavior got odder. He didn't seem to want to be black anymore. He didn't go out with/marry any black women or girls. His kids aren't black either. I wonder if we'll ever know what got into him over the years!
I don’t think it is normal for a man to sleep with boys as often as he does, but it is not criminal.
Jackson has a serious mental problem. He has the mentality of a 12 year old. I suspect that is due to the abuse and traumatic childhood he endured. Many abused children have that problem: They fail to mature. Jackson loves children as playmates, not sex toys. He seems to see himself as a 12 year old. He needs therapy and the help to mature.
And I suppose it's just a coincidence that his privates were accurately described and the same molestation acts were identical on each of the previous kids? The books of pornographic pictures of children were just all about Peter Pan wanting to be free and naked, huh?
You are pathetically naive and are just the type of target criminals prey on.
Regarding the "closet full of evidence, which piece of physical evidence demonstrated guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?
This case eventually boiled down to he said - she said, and that's not enough to convict.
Nothing new. These are Californians. They were star struck. It's like having Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz on a jury of a star.
I don't care how sloppy the prosecution was. The bottom line is that this is a man who admits to sleeping with little boys. That truly is enough for me. He needs to be stopped. If the jury had any common sense they would have convicted him on a lesser charge - of alcoholism - so that Jackson could get the help he needs, stop molesting little boys, and stop creating future victims. No justice has been served by this verdict. Nothing good or productive can come out of this verdict for either Jackson or his victims. He will simply go on to molest other children. The only way to have stopped him, even if they didn't believe the conspiracy charges, etc, was to convict him on a lesser charge. That would have been the responsible, ethical, and common sensical thing to do. Now the biggest child molester on the planet is free. What message does this send to other molesters?
"It's just that Surburban White America(SWA) really has little to fear from the justice system and law enforcement... Let me also assure you that it's not because SWA violtes the law less often, it's just that when they are caught violating the law, the charges are usually dropped or no jail time is served."
Yeah, as a white man, I can rob a bank, steal a car, drink and drive, and molest children, and I have pretty much a free pass.
You have got to be out of your mind to believe this.
You left out murder.
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