Crazy pedophile innocent

[WayAbvPar]

Mike gets off.

Fuck. This is OJ all over again. Money turns guilt into reasonable doubt.

I was really looking forward to hearing horror stories from jail about the King of Pop being forced to toss salads for survival.

At least the fucker is broke. Maybe he can fight Mike Tyson on PPV so both of them can get out of debt.

[Signe]

They'll get him next time.  You know there will be a next time... there always is with him.

[Shockeye]

MJ is not broke. He owns a shitload of rights to Beatles music. Even after paying back loans that he's taken out against his interest, he'll still have millions to seduce little boys with over in Europe.

[Shockeye]

They'll get him next time.  You know there will be a next time... there always is with him.

Not in this country. He'll be leaving the US as soon as he can.

[shiznitz]

They'll get him next time.  You know there will be a next time... there always is with him.

Not in this country. He'll be leaving the US as soon as he can.

I will believe it when I see it. I will also welcome it.

[HaemishM]

Though disappointed, I'm not at all surprised by this. He had enough money and clout to turn witness heads and keep people from dropping dime in the convincing ways. The thing that really would have made the DA's case would have been to get his handlers and sycophants, the fuckers who KNOW what went on and help him cover shit up daily, to turn state's evidence. But without them, it was a he said/it said situation.

What I find truly unbelievable is how many people still find this fucker entertaining or in anyway trustworthy? How much more shit do you need to see before you believe? Does he actually need to sodomize boys in a new video before you will buy it?

[Fabricated]

I doubted he would get nailed on anything but the alcohol charges, but they didn't even get him on that.

I can't say I'm surprised, but if he stays in the US, we will see this again. Child abuse is a pattern, and if he is really an offender, he'll do it again.

[Mesozoic]

 Money turns guilt into reasonable doubt. 

I would say that celebrity turns guilt into reasonable doubt.  Most defendents are nameless sods that the jury knows in only one context: The Accused.  But celebrity mimics friendship, and even the weirdest well-known person is at least a person in the eyes of a jury.

[Merusk]

Agreed on the not surprising part.  Stories I'd heard on the radio illustrated problems on the prosecutorial side time and again.  i.e. The prosecutor said this witness will be here, or that witness will say such and such, yet neither ever materialized.  Not just one or two times, but several a week during their case presentation.  Maybe it was because Jackon's lawyers managed to wrangle some squelching, or maybe it was because the prosecutor was a dunce.  Either way it was written on the wall at the end of the state's case that Jacson was going to get away with it.

Yeah, he'll move to Europe, and then all you can hope is that one of the parents takes matters into their own hands.  Of course, since they're the chucklefucks putting their kids into this situation in the first place, I wouldn't bet on that either.

[Pococurante]

There were a lot of reasons to suspect the family of extortion/fraud.  I don't just mean some of the over the top lengths the defense went to - there were events that were in the public domain.

But that doesn't mean he's genuinely innocent either.

[jwinston2]

How did they not find him guilty? This is just sad.

[Llava]

I'm not saying he's not crazy, and I'm not saying he's innocent, but with what I know (which is probably about what you all know, which is, let's be honest, not all that much) I couldn't say that he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  Sure, I suspect, but we don't convict on suspicion.  So unless there's some serious evidence that hasn't been put out to the public that shows Jackson as irrevocably guilty, I can't blame them for returning the verdict they did.

Mostly, I was surprised that he had straight porn.

[Triforcer]

I'm not saying he's not crazy, and I'm not saying he's innocent, but with what I know (which is probably about what you all know, which is, let's be honest, not all that much) I couldn't say that he's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  Sure, I suspect, but we don't convict on suspicion.  So unless there's some serious evidence that hasn't been put out to the public that shows Jackson as irrevocably guilty, I can't blame them for returning the verdict they did.

Mostly, I was surprised that he had straight porn.

I'm not.  Mentally, he's a ten year old- so he fluctuates between extremely faint attraction to women and the kind of shit that would mortify a mental thirteen year old, but that you don't know is 100% wrong at 10. 

[Nazrat]

Mostly, I was surprised that he had straight porn.

You expected him to lure little boys with goatsex?  He has to use what appears to be normal to the boys not something that will shock them.  That shocking part occurs later on.

[Trippy]

The major problem with the prosecution's case is that they didn't have any "smoking gun" evidence a la a semen-stained piece of clothing or the like. Even in the OJ trial they had some good physical evidence (which the Defense managed to masterfully discredit). So the whole trial just seemed to be a "he said/he said" kind of thing.

[Riggswolfe]

Well, I am like many. I suspect Jackson may have done it. I would never let my child sleep at his house.

But,

This isn't OJ. OJ was clearly guilty by all reckoning and the Prosecution dropped the ball. That and I think people were scared of more riots.

However, the accuser and his mother were about as believable as some oily snakeoil salesman.
1) There were timeline issues. Some of them very serious. Like they said he started molesting the boy after he made that documentary and had so many eyes on him. MJ would have to be totally stupid to do it then.
2) The mother has zero credibility. None.
3) Many witness issues, like disgruntled former employees saying he did it. Well, duh, sure. They're mad at him.
4) Other boys saying he never touched them, including Macauley Culkin.

I'd have voted the same as the jury I think. Michael may have done it, but this trial sure didn't prove it.

[Evil Elvis]

I'm really not 100% convinced he did it, but there's so many people who were around him saying it's true, it's hard to believe it's not.  I don't buy that so many people are willing to lie under oath - especially with all the public scrutiny they've been under - just to enact some vendetta against him.

That said, it's fucking disgusting how naive and shallow people can be.  Anyone who has or would let their child get into bed with this freak, and all the people outside the courthouse (and elsewhere) cheering on this possible child molester should be violently raped with an electric egg beater, and forced to lick the metal whips clean.

[Abagadro]

If the prosecutor and civil attorney that represented the prior paid-off kid and this one hadn't made a cottage industry of going after Jackson, I would give it a bit more credence. (There was a good article a long time ago in Vanity Fair or something about how shakey and weird the first accusation was, like that the kid only made it after being put in deep hynosis by a dentist or some weird shit). Throw in that the victims family could be played in the movie version by John Cusack and Anjelica Houston and the case is starting off in a very deep hole.  Always seemed like bizzare behavior, but reasonable doubt from what I read about.

[schild]

That's the real issue here. Reasonable doubt. It was there. OJ was not that way. That's really the only conversation that needs to be had on the subject.

Furthermore, I listened to HIStory earlier this week. It still kicks ass. Neh.

[Kenrick]

Gay.


(there, I posted.  happy schild?)

[schild]

Well played.

[voodoolily]

In the words of my boy Chapelle, he made Thriller. 'Nuff said.

[Tebonas]

I thought he would get off easy, like being sent to a mental institution for being as screwed up in the head as he is. That they play the "He was a victim himself, blablabla, understandingcakes".

The reasonable doubt disgusts me, but doesn't really surprise. Child molester cases are always a wee bit shakey in the presentation, with children repressing such experiences, feeling guilty because they think they are to blame instead of the molester, aren't sure that the "misunderstood" the intentions of the molester and it was all harmless. All the coping mechanisms of rape victims, but worse. A woman may rationalize it away, but at least she knows there was something wrong happening instead of getting told by other people that what they experienced wasn't ok. There just isn't the same belief in your accusation if you aren't sure yourself. You tend to sound phoney and staged.

[Llava]

I heard some guy on CNN saying that he was surprised the jury wasn't more influenced by the fact that this had been brought up before, that they focused so much on this particular case which was, admittedly, weak.

Uh, duh?

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I might be, but I thought that was the idea.  If he wasn't convicted on previous charges, it seems like it would be a bad idea to focus on that and assume guilt.

[Paelos]

From Day 1, any sane person knew they shouldn't have brough this case to the front. This DA went with weak material from the first day and continued to screw the pooch until the final verdict. There was just nothing concrete that would satisfy the burden of proof.

[AOFanboi]

MJ is not broke. He owns a shitload of rights to Beatles music.

I heard on the news that he doesn't: All of those rights apparently have been used as collateral for money he loaned from Sony to finance his excessive lifestyle. So if he goes broke, Sony can do what they want with that material, e.g. have Shakira sing Eleanor Rigby while dancing salsa.

[HaemishM]

The major problem with the prosecution's case is that they didn't have any "smoking gun" evidence a la a semen-stained piece of clothing or the like. Even in the OJ trial they had some good physical evidence (which the Defense managed to masterfully discredit). So the whole trial just seemed to be a "he said/he said" kind of thing.

That's the problem with a case like this. There isn't going to be. Years ago, I did my first and only turn at jury duty on a fondling case. Fondling as in, supposedly this 9-year old girl's 20-something cousin touched her inappropriately without ever actually molesting the child. There was NO physical evidence. None whatsoever. There were no eyewitness accounts. The ADA prosecuting the case was a bubba-fied young redneck who looked like he should be a mall security guard, and really bungled the case. The little girl's testimony was shaky, and lacked any details whatsoever to hang something on. The defense attorney was slick and sleazy. The case only took about 3 days of trial and deliberation before we returned a mistrial on a hung jury. About half the jury was willing to go with guilty, the other half, including me, was not. The case was totally unconvincing but in the instructions to the jury and the closing arguments, the judge and the ADA both cautioned that there would be no smoking gun in this case, no hard physical evidence you could rely on.

Later, after the case was dismissed on the mistrial, I told my mom about it. Apparently, the defendent worked at her school on the janitorial staff, and she was sure he was guilty, "Because he's creepy and I could see him doing that." So maybe he was. But without an excellent DA prosecuting that kind of thing, he wasn't going to convince 12 people of it. And in the case of MJ, with tons of money, and all the weirdo association that celebrity brings, not a chance in hell he'd have been convicted without that smoking gun, like signs of rape.

[Paelos]

Money may not buy happiness, but it can sure as hell buy freedom.

[ClydeJr]

Jackson 'to change his lifestyle'

Michael Jackson's lawyer said the singer will no longer share his bed with young boys, after the star was cleared of 10 child abuse charges.
"He's not going to do that any more," lawyer Thomas Mesereau told US network NBC. "He's not going to make himself vulnerable to this any more."

So he decides to stop sleeping with little boys after he is found not guilty of child molestation instead of when he was first accused years ago...

Civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson said the singer had been "tried and convicted in the newsroom".
But Rev Jackson added: "Michael must assess the implications of the conduct that got him into trouble."

Translation: "Michael, you might think about cancelling that NAMBLA membership..."

[Murgos]

Civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson said the singer had been "tried and convicted in the newsroom".
But Rev Jackson added: "Michael must assess the implications of the conduct that got him into trouble."

Translation: "Michael, you might think about cancelling that NAMBLA membership..."

Actually I think he was tried and convicted in the court of public perception.  If he had lived a clean and somewhat normal life (for the king of pop anyway) for the last 20 years everyone would probably assume it was a setup to squeeze some cash out of MJ.  But since hes a weirdo freak of the first order of his own making, well, he loses that 'benefit of the doubt' thing.

[kaid]

Its so hard to say with MJ if he did this or if he is just that damn weird. His biggest issue is almost everything he does and the way he does it appears inapropriate. Eventually if he keeps behaving like this he will be put away even if he really isn't doing anything. His behavior is creepy and way outside the norm and eventually the mob with pitchforks and torchs are going to chase him out of town.


kaid

[voodoolily]

I'd still like to address the fucking parents in ALL 10 CASES. Who lets their little boy spend the night with a man who has a reputation for nutso and a history of molestation accusation? Someone wearing a moneyhat, that's who. Those sick fucks were basically pimping their kids, and no one wants to talk about that.

Also, Haem, while I agree with the decision you made as a juror (no evidence is no evidence), if your little girl was the one who had been "inappropriately touched", I bet you'd think it was molestation. A kid doesn't have to be penetrated to be a victim.

[Paelos]

I'd still like to address the fucking parents in ALL 10 CASES. Who lets their little boy spend the night with a man who has a reputation for nutso and a history of molestation accusation? Someone wearing a moneyhat, that's who. Those sick fucks were basically pimping their kids, and no one wants to talk about that.

Also, Haem, while I agree with the decision you made as a juror (no evidence is no evidence), if your little girl was the one who had been "inappropriately touched", I bet you'd think it was molestation. A kid doesn't have to be penetrated to be a victim.

The parents are dumb and greedy. As for, if this was your kid, agrument...I think we just assertained that normal people wouldn't put their kids in this scenario. Haemish is far from normal, but he's semi-sane.

[voodoolily]

Edit: I was referring to the 9 year old girl who got touched by her 20-year old cousin. Most people wouldn't question that until something bad happens.

I bet even some people who thought MJ was innocent wouldn't put their children in that situation!

Hey, Paelos, haven't posted near you in awhile. How you doin'?

[Paelos]

I quit my job, started contributing here, and boycotted the Politics forum.

How you doin'?