|
Dan Abrams, MSNBC’s top lawyer, assured the
Jackson jurors that they had returned the right verdict. On the law, they
were beyond reproach. He then proceeded to ream them out: “what do you
think Michael Jackson was doing in bed with these kids? What would you
do if a man in your neighborhood did the same (which is?)? Wouldn’t you
call the cops? Confess to being star-struck!
The jurors had dared to apply the law to the facts of the case;
they refused to convict Jackson based on assumptions and
inferences. And that enraged the chattering class—from jurists to
journalists, from politicians to pundits. Even more preposterous—so
preposterous it elicited unflattering comparisons to OJ’s enablers—“the
jurors failed to ‘get past’ the testimony of the accuser’s mother and …
convict Jackson.” In other words, the jury had the temerity to toss the
testimony of a professional grifter and a liar. In so doing, they
admirably fulfilled what remains of the institution’s mandate: jurors
are not supposed to “get past” the testimony of a swindler—or
a family of them, for that matter.
In the majestic tradition of Anglo-Saxon law, juries were once trusted
to forestall government tyranny. Thomas Jefferson considered “trial by
jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government
can be held to the principles of its constitution." Lamentably, the
Founders’
Blackstonian view of the jury as a bulwark against government abuses
has been supplanted by the notion of the law as an implement of
government, to be utilized by all-knowing rulers for the “greater
good.”
Such
Benthamism has allowed zealous prosecutors (and their
graceless handmaidens) to discard a defendant’s rights. Thomas
Sneddon’s nickname says a lot about the Santa Barbara DA’s métier and
mood. And “Mad
Dog” definitely breached his prosecutorial obligations. Of his “Rights
Of Englishmen” (due process, habeas corpus, the right to counsel; no
crime without intent, no self incrimination, no retroactive law),
Jackson was most egregiously deprived of a prosecutor who pursues truth
and justice; tries the defendant in the courtroom, not in the media (as
Sneddon did), makes sure there is strong evidence against the defendant
before indicting him (Sneddon didn’t); refrains from bringing the full
power of government against an individual citizen, and avoids piling on
charges as a means of gaining a conviction (ditto).
The DA kicked off the proceedings by depriving Jackson of a preliminary
hearing. A preliminary hearing compels the prosecution to lay out the
evidence—the basis of its case, if you will—to the satisfaction of a
judge. “In California, prosecutors may initiate a criminal action either
by filing a complaint, or by obtaining a grand jury indictment,”
explains FindLaw’s Jonna M Spilbor. “The overwhelming majority of
felony cases in California are done by complaint.” But once a grand
jury indictment is filed, the defendant loses his right to a
preliminary hearing, and, with it, the opportunity to prepare for trial.
Glaring discrepancies exist between
the initial felony complaint and the
indictment, chief of which is that the conspiracy count is
conspicuously absent from the complaint. Was the count that carried the
stiffest sentence conjured in the process of throwing at Jackson
everything but the kitchen sink? Was conspiracy a “clever” prosecutorial
afterthought? Or did the "complaining witnesses" suddenly “recall” they
had been abducted and imprisoned at Neverland?
All of the above, it would seem. The accuser’s mother, the key witness
in the state’s case, “remembered” late in the game that the family had
been imprisoned in Neverland. Pesky things that they are, the
facts, however, indicate that her kidnapping and “coerced
confinement” included a trip to a beauty parlor, where she was depilated
of bodily bristles; dental appointments, shopping sprees, and dinners
out—all on Jackson's dime. By admitting this woman’s testimony,
Sneddon, then, suborned perjury. As to sonny’s incarceration: the
accuser testified he didn’t want to leave, “Because I was having lots of
fun.”
Furthermore, the nature of the conspiracy must, by law, be described in
the indictment (it
isn’t) and the co-conspirators named (they aren’t). “Defendants need
to know who they supposedly conspired with, and what they supposedly
conspired to do—and to know it when the indictment is issued, not
later,” noted FindLaw’s
Jonna M. Spilbor.
Last I looked,
Ex post facto law was unconstitutional. But with Superior Court
Judge Rodney Melville’s blessing, a law was passed to allow Sneddon to
parade Jackson’s prior accusers into court. By admitting into evidence
prior alleged acts committed by Jackson—acts never proven in a
court of law—Sneddon hoped to demonstrate “Jackson's
pattern of behavior.” But, as FindLaw’s
Julie Hilden warned, “Evidence of prior criminal behavior that does
not result in a conviction is a classic example of prejudicial
evidence.” Indeed, that Jackson paid off an accuser is no proof of his
guilt, yet it was treated as such. Absent convictions, these charges
ought to have been ruled inadmissible. In any case, who’s to say that
the housemaids (sons in tow) who mulcted Jackson of millions were not
flaunting their preferred “pattern of behavior”: extortion?
When it comes to popular and popularizing crusades like child sexual
abuse, contemporary America has sustained the spirit of 1692 Salem.
Merely accusing someone of sexually abusing a child is enough to strip
him of his rights.
And convictions can be
obtained with no proof or evidence of guilt other than the word of the
accuser. Thus it mattered not that the evidence in
Jackson’s case consisted solely of the say-so of a family of transients
and tramps: the accuser’s mother—and coach—is a felon in her own right.
From welfare fraud she graduated to extortion, chiseling JCPenny of
$150,000 for alleged… sex abuse (they paid. Does that mean they’re
guilty?). If a history of criminality was not sufficient to render Mrs.
Arivizo unfit to testify in a court of law, the odd ideation she
exhibited ought to have done the trick: Arivizo testified Jackson was
going to eliminate her family by dispatching them in a hot air balloon!
Described as
really smart and cunning, Arivizo’s five-foot-seven, hirsute “child”
(the accuser) was every bit as acquisitive (a shoplifter) and
imaginative (a liar) as mom. He and his brother had helped buttress
their mother’s assorted bilking schemes. Or as a wise juror put it, the
lad lied habitually because that’s all he knew. That Jackson plied him
with “Jesus Juice,” and licked his forehead is something only the
shakedown clan witnessed. The alleged molestation occurred, if to go by
tiny’s timeline, after Martin Bashir’s devastating
exposé (“Living with Michael Jackson”) aired, and while the Los
Angeles Department of Children and Family Services was searching
Neverland, sicced on Jackson by busybody,
Gloria Allred. A subsequent raid (carried out by 75 lawmen!) on
Jackson’s home produced some legal porn, proving only that, as weird as
he is, Jackson’s carnality, at least, is shared by millions of
Americans.
Expecting a prosecutorial touchdown,
Countdown With Keith Olbermann aired a rather cruel segment
called “Prepping for the Pokey,” in which Olbermann pondered how Jackson
would fit his prosthetic proboscis in jail. The only man (Jon
Stewart disappointed) to have distinguished himself from the pack
was Geraldo Rivera. The Fox News reporter conceded Jackson’s conduct was
creepy and said as much (as
did I). But he understood that creepy is not necessarily criminal.
Hooray for Geraldo.
And hooray for the twelve wise men and women who stood between Michael
Jackson and a parlous prosecutor.
©2005 Ilana Mercer
Free Market News Network
July 5
|
