Free Republic

MICHAEL Jackson's family wants the judge in the pop legend's child molestation trial to bend the rules and let them gather en masse around him for the fateful moment when jurors deliver their verdict. Family aides said today they were hoping that Judge Rodney Melville will give Jackson more than his allotted six seats for family members in the courtroom. "The family wants to be with Michael when the verdict is read ... everybody wants to be there to give support," Jackson family lawyer Debra Opri told reporters. Opri said she hoped special dispensation could be made for Jackson to...

The child molestation case against Michael Jackson went to the jury Friday after the defense begged the panel to acquit the singer, portraying Jackson as a victim of grifters trying to pull "the biggest con of their careers." "They are trying to profit from Michael Jackson. They think they have pulled it off. They are just waiting for one thing — your verdict." Prosecutors painted a vastly different picture — one of Jackson as a serial child molester and his Neverland Ranch as a predator's lair. "Why would Mr. Jackson do it?" Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen said. "Because...

SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- A former security supervisor at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch testified Monday she never saw the pop star exhibit any illegal or improper behavior toward young boys. The supervisor, Violet Silva, also admitted she could not get into Jackson's bedroom suite unless it had been unlocked from the inside. Under cross-examination by the prosecution in Jackson's trial on child molestation charges, Silva conceded there were "some occasions" when boys stayed alone with the entertainer in the main residence. She said security staff generally went into the house only when summoned. Silva said that based on her...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's former wife wiped away tears on Wednesday as she testified that the pop icon called her for help after the broadcast of a damaging British documentary in 2003 and that she agreed in the hope of seeing their family reunited. But Debbie Rowe said that contrary to prosecution assertions she was not bullied into giving an interview about her famous ex-husband and refused to follow a script. Rowe, the mother of two of Jackson's three children, smiled at the singer as she took the witness stand and identified herself as "Deborah Rowe-Jackson." Prosecutors...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (Reuters) - The judge in the Michael Jackson molestation trial on Thursday barred prosecutors from calling an expert on domestic violence they hoped would explain the apparently erratic behavior of the accuser's mother for jurors. Judge Rodney Melville also said he would allow evidence showing that Jackson's then-13-year-old accuser and younger brother had masturbated while looking at the pop star's pornography, potentially bolstering defense claims that the boys had run wild at Neverland. Both rulings were setbacks for the prosecution, which is in the final stages of presenting its case to the jury of eight women and...

CAMP LEJEUNE -- They called him the "Thriller from Manila" because he was the shortest man in Weapons Company carrying the heaviest machine gun into battle at An Nasiriyah, Iraq. That was in March. Now he carries something else: the title of American citizen. When Lance Cpl. Oj John B. Santamaria, 21, a machine gunner from Manila, Philippines, was injured in Iraq and told he would not be going back to fight the war, he decided to become an American citizen. While he was in a partially medicated haze at Bethesda naval hospital in Maryland and fighting nightmares about his...

Columbus Day approaches and this year has a special meaning. Christopher Columbus is a carrier of Western Civilization and the very values attacked by terrorists on September 11. To the "politically correct," Columbus Day is an occasion to be mourned. They have mourned, they have attacked, and they have intimidated schools across the country into replacing Columbus Day celebrations with "ethnic diversity" days. The politically correct view is that Columbus did not discover America, because people had lived here for thousands of years. Worse yet, it's claimed, the main legacy of Columbus is death and destruction. Columbus is routinely vilified...