Tomorrow-Land

smooth, but not a criminal...

i haven't blogged at all about my boy jacko getting acquitted earlier this month. i've actually followed the trial somewhat closely and did actually predict that he would get off. if you followed the trail at all, you'd see that the prosecution's case was pathetic: the kid had two sleazy, money-grubbing parents and a bad memory of what happened, and jacko's surrogate mother debbie rowe (supposed to be the star prosecution witness) came out and said jacko is a great father. plus the fact that tom mesereau had his strategic plan in place and the money to get enough expert witnesses to shoot holes in the prosecution all combined to creat quite a bit of doubt. plus, as dave chappelle said, "he made thriller."



but if you watched fox news, cnn or court tv on verdict day, you got a much different picture....the jury screwed up. that was the storyline.



but does this pro-prosecution attitude come at the price of undermining juries? probably. here's an excerpt of former prosecutor/turned law'n'order shill Nancy Grace... from a story about how juries are being undermined:

Grace reserved her particular scorn for Paul Rodriguez, the retired school counselor who was elected the jury's foreman. As he patiently attempted to explain how he and his fellow jurors had been unable to overcome their reasonable doubts about the charges against Jackson, this exchange ensued:



GRACE: Yes. Mr. Rodriguez, I understand the theory of reasonable doubt. I was a prosecutor many years. But before I let you go, I got a question for you. What do you think Jackson, Michael Jackson, a 40-year-old man, was doing with these little boys all those nights in bed alone?



RODRIGUEZ: Well, that's a personal view that I don't want to talk about right now.



GRACE: No, sir!



RODRIGUEZ: We all have our thoughts …



GRACE: You tried him — you tried him for that. He was tried. You were on his jury. That's what he was accused of. What do you think he was doing?



RODRIGUEZ: I know. And that's why I say we — we had to just rely on the…. I'm not going to stick my neck out there on this…. I'm going to base it again on the testimony that was presented to us …



GRACE: Well, what do you mean, stick your neck out?



RODRIGUEZ: There was too much reasonable doubt.



GRACE: What do you mean, stick your neck out?



RODRIGUEZ: Well …



GRACE: You don't want to say what you thought Jackson was doing with those little boys every night?



RODRIGUEZ: Because it's our … personal beliefs and our own thoughts, and that's not what we have to work with. We had to work with the testimony of the witnesses and the credibility of the witnesses, and that's all we can base it on.



GRACE: So what you believe — you're telling me what you believe doesn't matter.



RODRIGUEZ: Yes. It does matter, but I'm not going to go any further with that.



GRACE: Yes, sir. I think you've gone far enough. With me … "