Sneddon's Folly

I might be out the next few days, so I trust ColumbusGuy and--who knows--maybe Pajama Guy himself, will pick up the slack.

Well, I finally get to write my piece on Michael Jackson. (Here's a link, but really, is it necessary?) I've been steaming about this farce for quite a while, but since the jury got it right, I'm a lot calmer.

D.A. Tom Sneddon should feel ashamed for bringing this to court. I can't read minds, but his case was so weak it's hard to understand how it happened short of personal vendetta. Maybe he just got tired of going to cocktail parties and having friends ask "when you gonna put that creep in jail?"

Even with new anti-Michael Jackson laws that allow prosecutors to bring in inflammatory, unfounded evidence of previous molestation, he still had nothing. Every little bit of evidence that he found on his fishing expeditions at Neverland, all the characters he brought in to build his case, all the testimony, everything he presented, was compromised and questionable. The jury had to acquit even if the defense presented nothing.

It's scary when a prosecutor can bring the entire apparatus of the state to bear down on one man just because he's become an embarrassment. Did this happen? I can't be sure. But seeing a number of prosecutors gnashing their teeth because they think Jackson got away with it does not fill me with confidence.

As to Jackson himself, beyond being weird, and liking kids around, I don't know exactly what he did. There's no question in my mind, though, there was reasonable doubt as to his guilt. (Perhaps Sneddon was counting on the revulsion we feel against child molesters to create a jury that would toss Jackson in jail just to be safe.) But beyond that, think about it. Jackson, if he was a true pedophile who actively sought out children to have sex with, had the perfect set-up for years, really decades. He had a lovely place, lots of money, celebrity, privacy and tons of kids. A real active pedophile would have had sex countless times with hundreds of kids, or at least attempted sex. A prosecutor would have no trouble getting great evidence and testimony from numerous sources, not the threadbare case Sneddon presented.

PS It shouldn't matter, but the jury was all-white. I say it shouldn't matter, except that the Supreme Court keeps saying it does. They just continue their foolish racializing of the justice system. Both sides are allowed to pick the jury--let's leave it at that.