Jackson verdict to be read at 1:30pm PST

[Lizzard[MPE]]

Yeah and had to deal with the hype from the Media forcefeeding it down your throat.

I hope Micheal moves to Europe like whats been rumored...

does he even have any money left to leave the country?

[agallag]

Gurm hit the nail on the head there. Innocent until proven guilty. It doesn't matter how obvious it seems that he's guilty. If absolute proof (or at least some extremely damning circumstantial evidence) is not available, then you can't convict him.

I personally don't know which way I would've voted, because I didn't follow the case very closely. However, from the few things I did read, I didn't see any proof of any of the allegations. Just a bunch of hearsay. Sure, the guy has got some serious issues, but that doesn't make him a pedophile.

[Helevitia]

does he even have any money left to leave the country?

If he sells the rights to the beatles music he would.

[Umfriend]

I've said this all along. If being a weirdo was a crime, he'd be jailed, but it ain't. This case simply was not convincing, star or no.

[Brian Ellis]

If he sells the rights to the beatles music he would.

He has no rights to the Beatle's music, they are mortgaged, like Neverland, right up to the hilt. He is essentially bankrupt and must make a rapid comeback to be able to start paying accumulated interest on his debts, let alone the principal. I fear, though, he could not survive the gruelling task of getting back to work again. He has lost weight enormously (barely over 40 kg, half what a man of his stature should be).

As for Europe: keep him over there, we don't want him You produced him, you take the consequences and keep your own crap.

The verdict: two witnesses acquitted him, the boy's mother and MJ's ex-wife. They established between them "reasonable doubt". That does not mean that MJ did not do what he was accused of, it means that the proof was insufficient. He can't be sent to jail because he is nicknamed Wacko.

I was annoyed. I switched the TV on at 2255 (our time) to BBC World to get the news at 2300. Guess what? It was like election night, MJ, MJ, MJ. I thought that once he left his ranch, with 40 minutes to wait until he appeared in court, they would broadcast the real news. No! They followed his motorcade cm by cm, repeating the same things over and over again. OK, I waited for the verdict, thinking that the real news would follow at midnight. Not a hope! No wonder the guy has folies de grandeur when the UK media consider he is more important for hours on end, upsetting schedules, than TB in Moscow, the usual killings in Iraq, the up-coming G8 summit, the exhibition of the Airbus A380 at Paris and so on. Sickening

[Gurm]

I'm not saying the cult of personality is alive and well, but the claim that his "celebrity status" exonerated him is just untrue. The facts were insufficient to convict him. That's a big difference... and a sad byproduct of our legal system. But you know what? I'll take the legal system that exonerates Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson over any other in the world.

[cjolley]

I read some of the jurors comments.
Quite reasonable, and they seemed to have taken a great deal of care.
Case closed.

Very different from the OJ trial.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

I'm not saying the cult of personality is alive and well, but the claim that his "celebrity status" exonerated him is just untrue. The facts were insufficient to convict him. That's a big difference... and a sad byproduct of our legal system. But you know what? I'll take the legal system that exonerates Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson over any other in the world.

That's true. A legal system that assums innocent until proven gulity is much more fair than the other way around...

[Brian Ellis]

I'll take the legal system that exonerates Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson over any other in the world.

Why? Because they were able to hire lawyers that the ordinary man-in-the-street couldn't? Do you think that for one moment that if identical cases were arraigned against you, me or any other ordinary, non-celeb, person who didn't have the clout to have anything but a court-appointed lawyer that "reasonable doubt" would be established? Not to mention all the men who are on death row (or in their graves) on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence (often even fabricated) because the police are keen to have any conviction, rather than none, to keep the statistics favourable. I'm not saying that this happens only in the USA; it happens everywhere. The proverb that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor dates from hundreds of years ago.

IMHO, no judicial system is perfect and certainly not in a country that can keep prisoners, kidnapped in another country over which it has no jurisidction, and illegally transported out of it, and kept for three years without charge, counsel, trial or communications to family or a third party. This is not justice; it is a gross violation of human rights..Where is your presumption of innocence there?

[Gurm]

Why? Because they were able to hire lawyers that the ordinary man-in-the-street couldn't? Do you think that for one moment that if identical cases were arraigned against you, me or any other ordinary, non-celeb, person who didn't have the clout to have anything but a court-appointed lawyer that "reasonable doubt" would be established? Not to mention all the men who are on death row (or in their graves) on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence (often even fabricated) because the police are keen to have any conviction, rather than none, to keep the statistics favourable. I'm not saying that this happens only in the USA; it happens everywhere. The proverb that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor dates from hundreds of years ago.

Bullcrap. OJ was acquitted not because of his "expert legal team", but because the DNA evidence was faulty. His so-called "dream team" pursued a bunch of useless, ridiculous tactics (the gloves, for example). But what lost the case was lousy testimony (Kato Kaelin, anyone?) and lousy evidence. And that same lousy testimony and lousy evidence would have exonerated me, you, or anyone else.

IMHO, no judicial system is perfect and certainly not in a country that can keep prisoners, kidnapped in another country over which it has no jurisidction, and illegally transported out of it, and kept for three years without charge, counsel, trial or communications to family or a third party. This is not justice; it is a gross violation of human rights..Where is your presumption of innocence there?

Oh hush with the political claptrap. Poor treatment of prisoners of war aside...

[VJ]

Gurm: Not all those who Brian is referring to were prisoners of war. And there are threaties for POW.

There is a quote (I forgot who from): "I'd rather have 10 guilty men on the streets, than 1 innocent man convicted."


Jörg

[KvHagedorn]

OJ was set free because he was black and his racist black attorney got a 3/4 black jury and pumped them up with rhyming rhetoric like "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit" Then he brought up a bunch of shit about one of the cops on the case being a racist, so he MUST have planted that glove there, right?

Suffice it to say the judge was shocked by the verdict. I wasn't. I knew if he had a black jury they would acquit him because he was a black hero, and more power to him if he could kill two white people and get away with it.

The Denny trial was more proof of this. Poor white guy driving a truck is targeted for a hate crime BECAUSE HE IS WHITE. Black man pulls him out of the truck and SMASHES HIS SKULL WITH A CINDER BLOCK. This is caught ON VIDEOTAPE and played at the trial. Public prosecutor is a poor lawyer, and the foreman of the jury is a hateful black racist bitch from hell who other jury members admit bullied them into acquiting the black thug who threw a cinder block down on Denny's head as he lay helpless on the ground.

The reason some blacks feel justified to be this way is that clueless white social liberals give them license to be, and then sit back in helpless dismay when something like the riots or the OJ verdict happens.

[Gurm]

OJ was set free because he was black and his racist black attorney got a 3/4 black jury and pumped them up with rhyming rhetoric like "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit" Then he brought up a bunch of shit about one of the cops on the case being a racist, so he MUST have planted that glove there, right?

Suffice it to say the judge was shocked by the verdict. I wasn't. I knew if he had a black jury they would acquit him because he was a black hero, and more power to him if he could kill two white people and get away with it.

The Denny trial was more proof of this. Poor white guy driving a truck is targeted for a hate crime BECAUSE HE IS WHITE. Black man pulls him out of the truck and SMASHES HIS SKULL WITH A CINDER BLOCK. This is caught ON VIDEOTAPE and played at the trial. Public prosecutor is a poor lawyer, and the foreman of the jury is a hateful black racist bitch from hell who other jury members admit bullied them into acquiting the black thug who threw a cinder block down on Denny's head as he lay helpless on the ground.

The reason some blacks feel justified to be this way is that clueless white social liberals give them license to be, and then sit back in helpless dismay when something like the riots or the OJ verdict happens.

Your opinions are meaningless because you hate black people, KvH. We can't have a rational discussion with someone who declares that interracial marriage is "an abomination". Go back under your pentecostal rock.

[ZokesPro]

Your opinions are meaningless because you hate black people, KvH. We can't have a rational discussion with someone who declares that interracial marriage is "an abomination". Go back under your pentecostal rock.

It begins...

I predict another closed thread by the end of today.

[Gurm]

It begins...

I predict another closed thread by the end of today.

Well y'know you'd think he'd eventually figure it out.

Here we are, having a reasonable discussion, and it's:

"BLACK PEOPLE CAUSE ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD!"

Jeebus, you'd think all them "uppity niggers" were just chafing at the bit, waiting to get back at us respectable white folk.