Assuming for the moment that he’s both guilty and as “seriously deluded” as you think, then he’ll never see the inside of a prison (and probably shouldn’t). If he’s found guilty, let him rot in a mental hospital (preferably one of the state run facilities - they’re so seriously understaffed that it would probably be worse than being in prison. In prison, the other inmates are just mean. In a criminal ward at a mental hospital the patients are both mean AND insane.)
Who cares? I don’t. We’ve all known for years that Jackson was a taco short of a combo plate, so why did all these parents allow their children to go to his home? If Jackson’s guilty, put him away. But I’d put a little blame on the parents, too.
A lot of stuff not mentioned above has been leaked out here in the UK - and it all has the “ring of truth” to it, and it’s not good.
I’m sure if you apply yourselves you can find it, but I’m wary of linking here as I have no idea off the legal status of this stuff in the US.
In short - he’s as guilty as a puppy sat next to a pile of poo.
In common with most paedophiles he probably doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. But you have Michael, you have.
Mind you - after OJ I am quite happy to admit that I wouldn’t be that suprised to see him get off.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson who?
You’re on the jury!
The LA prosecutor’s office knows. They were found in his home, hidden in a special hiding place where the kid said they would be. Did somebody break into Neverland and write fake love letters in MJ’s handwriting, plant his fingerprints on them and hide them? How did Jackson’s and the kid’s fingerprints get onto the same pages of those porn magazines?
Typical demonization of the victim. I dismiss it out of hand. It doesn’t explain the other evidence (like why the kid’s underwear was found in Jackson’s bedroom).
Read the Smoking Gun stuff. How anybody can deny that Jackson is a pedophile requires a level of denial that I’m not capable of.
It’s not too hard to imagine Jackson’s associates “encouraging” ($$$) the father to make such a statement.
We take Freedom of Screech very seriously over here. To ensure a jury has not been influenced by media exposure, we put the potential jurors through a much more detailed screening than we would otherwise have to do. We accept this as a price we have to pay.
If your standard is to find someone who has never heard of the OJ case, or the Scott Peterson case, or the Lori Hacking case, or the Michael Jackson case, you have to find jurors who spend their days under a rock. I’m not sure this is conducive to justice.
But, it is possible to find people who have heard of the Michael Jackson case, but have not paid it enough attention to prejudice the case… not everyone hangs on to every tidbit of celebrity gossip.
You have to remember how small the UK is. We have a handful of national newspapers and a case like this would be frontpage news no-one could miss. Freedom of speech doesn’t enter into it IMHO - I don’t see how justice is served by all the grand-standing, kite-flying and bullshitting that accompanies these sort of trials in the USA.
After watching the show The Secret Childhood of Michael Jackson and other recent biographies I’ve come to the opinion that a lot of others have-
Michael Jackson has no grounding in reality and is mentaly unstable. The fact that his family is so wacked (Joe Jackson and his other sons having sex with groupies in the hotel room with 12-year old Michael in the same room, then telling Michael that he’ll go to hell if he tells anyone) tells me that this guy got really, really messed up as a kid.
The tragedy is that no one ever stepped in to help the guy or to tell him wrong from right. Having self-serving money-grubbing nuts around you 24-7 who never bothered to get him help but instead were enablers to his odd behavior didn’t help matters. And the moronic parents that “gave in” to the gifts and money in exchange for their childrens safety are to blame.
This guy needed intervention a looooooooong time ago, and since none of his closest aquaintances ever gave a crap enough about him to do something about it he ended up where he is.
It’s sad that he may end up sitting in jail while the people who brought him the kids, organized the sleep overs, kept secrets for him, will all walk away and wipe their hands clean of the situation.
I have nothing to say, except that I hope you will all feel appropriately sorry for my best friend and her fellow citizens. She lives in Santa Maria, and whenever trial stuff is going on, the Channel 4 helicopter spends the day hovering over her house (each news helicopter has claimed its own territory). Her daughter’s school spends the day in lockdown mode. And no one can get into the library, which shares the building with City Hall and the court. (Thank goodness I moved away!)
I, for one, don’t deny that Jackson’s a pedophile. But you don’t go to jail for being a pedophile. You go to jail because the govenment can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed these acts with this child on this occassion. Love letters may or may not prove such a thing. They are certainly evidence against Jackson, but they would have to be pretty explicit to carry the case. Fingerprints on porno mags are more evidence, but they almost certainly don’t prove anything. The kid could (whether he was also being molested or not) have found Jackson’s stash and looked at the same pages Jackson did.
The evidence so far is all circumstantial and mostly unsubstantiated gossip. Even if it is all true and Jackson did it, it doesn’t mean the government can present the case in such a way that proves he did it. So far, they haven’t even tried to, and when they do, we won’t hear it directly.
FTR, I don’t deny that Jackson is a pedophile, but I also don’t know that he is. It seems very likely to me, and I certainly get a bad feeling from him, but my doubts, though slim, are still reasonable. And I’m very glad we don’t send people to jail for fitting a profile.
After watching the same show, I came to realize this too. It seems to me that he’s not just some guy who’s out to prey on children for fun. It’s more that he himself is really really messed up, stemming from lots of abuse as a child.
It is MY belief that perhaps Michael fails to see what is wrong with his actions, because he sees himself as a child. Perhaps he regressed to a child-like state once he was able to surround himself with things that took him back to his “childhood”. IANAD so I don’t know. But it just seems as though he is no longer in touch with reality and himself, so the things he does, he sees them as innocent. For instance, he thinks it’s ok to play with young boys, because he sees himself as Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. In his mind he too is a young boy. It’s all very very sad, and I think it’s really mean that so many people are just so willing to point at him and yell “freak” when the man actually has real problems.
Jenny*
I find it interesting that MJ repeated states that he “would never do anything to harm a child.” I’m quite sure his train og thought doesn’t consider what he has (allegedly) done “harmful”.
Do I think he did it? Yes, unfortunately, I think it’s quite likely that he did.
Pretty much. Look at the Lizzie Borden trial, or the Evelyn Nesbit/Harry K. Thaw/Stanford White mess.
plnnr, I pretty much agree-he should probably at least be in a facility for the criminally insane, if found guilty. However, legal insanity is not the same thing as mentally ill.
I think he’s beyond help-most likely, he’d go to prison and be in solitary. Of course, there is the chance that eventually his attourneys may convince him to plead insanity-I truly believe he doesn’t think he did anything wrong even if he is guilty.
Like everyone said-the man has the mind of a child, and he’s been coddled and protected his entire life.
It’s really sad-because he is a talented individual. But talent isn’t an excuse or license to behave however we want.
I saw the Bashir doc when it originally aired. He could’ve of come across creepier if he’d been wearing a raincoat and doing strange things with his trouser pockets. Based on that and the paedophile profile that fits MJ like his sparkly glove, I’m fairly certain he’s got a less than wholesome interest in children. The parents who continued to send their kids over unsupervised after the first allegations have some serious explaining to do too IMO.
couldn’t have
No it isn’t. Presumably, the child himself will testify. That is direct (not circumstantial) evidence. The love letters and the porno mags would lend credibility to his story.
Emphasis added.
I’m of a similar mind to Alan Smithee. Although I freely admit I haven’t looked at the smoking gun (other then what’s quoted here) and I haven’t seen all the programs on MJ.
It’s my opinion that he’s guilty, but I can’t say I know it. I’d like to watch the trial before I came to such a conclusion (or at least be well read enough about it to consider myself well-informed). I think that the kid who is going to testify is probably going to be the nail in the coffin, but as of right now, his testifying (in and of itself) isn’t enough for me to know he’s guilty (I’m not saying know 100% BTW, I’m saying know as in reasonably certain).
Again though, I haven’t been following the MJ trial so I could be very well uninformed. As I said, it’s my suspicion that he did do it.
I’m just glad that it’s not down here in South County, particularly because I got a jury summons last week.
An acquaintance of my wife was a part of the very first jury pool yesterday. He got off due to hardship. He put his jury summons on Ebay with all proceeds going to charity.
Haj