"Is Michael Jackson, guilty?"

It doesn't look good for Jackson, but I agree with CJ. The media seems to highlight only the sensational news, and only the jury hears and sees everything. Sometimes body language can reveal much, and we're not privy to that part of the witness nor any rebuttal material.

After the OJ and Robert Blake trials, only a fool would predict the outcome of this one.

We hopefully learned from the OJ trial and judge Ito was
certainly too concerned about the media coverage,
whereas the judge at the Robert Blake trial openly
said to the jurors that he thought they were stupid in
their decision in letting him off the hook.

Some interesting talk shows about the Jackson trial brings up some interesting issues. All these witnesses now coming forward; why didn't they call and report him to the police if Jackson performed these atrocious acts on minors? Why have they waited until now? Seems to me like they are guilty - in protecting Jackson of such heinous crimes against children. Interesting points were made, but it'll depend on the jury on how they interpret all this new information.

I am a little slow in getting to why the past history is allowed, as it most often isn't. But that is not to say the judge is out of line, I am just surprised. Seems like a wavy shoring up of a weak case. Not that the past stuff is not true, it sure may be, but what is it doing here now, exactly.

Me, I see an aquittal and then Jackson becoming ill-er, perhaps martyrlike, with no one, except the fans, really believing innocence, and no law behind views of any possible guilt.

All sad, expensive, bizarre. If Jackson is a spoiler, then a lot of people have fed it. And they may be near as guilty, or they may be attached somehow to the circumstances.

Oddly, I have just finished reading an odd (to me) book, by T. Coraghessan Boyle called Riven Rock, about a dynastic heir of the McCormick's and what happens to him and associates over decades. I have to say, it was not a page turner, but I keep reading literate writing, especially if it is what is there by my bed. I suppose the book is a covert history of psychoanalysis, but then I haven't read reviews.
Point is, that fellow's situation and Michael's is not all so different to me.

California law, and a few other states, I believe, allow this in sexual abuse cases. It's allowed but not mandated. The judge weighs the prior bad acts information and then makes a decision on whether to include it.

Here's another issue with Jackson: he's already paid some kids millions of dollars to settle some abuse charges, so what is he doing still sleeping with children at his age? Odd at the most innocent level, and stupid at the most legal level.

It's looking bad for Jackson.
******
From BBC:

Jackson 'fondled Home Alone star'

Former employees at Mr Jackson's ranch claim he fondled young boys
A former chef employed by Michael Jackson in 1991 has told a court he once saw the pop star fondling child actor Macaulay Culkin.
A spokeswoman for the Home Alone actor, who has publicly said he was never molested by Mr Jackson, said Mr Culkin would not testify at the trial.

Also on Friday, Mr Jackson's lawyer tried to discredit a former maid who says she saw him molest boys.

The 46-year-old star denies a total of 10 charges, including child abuse.

Chef Phillip LeMarque, 70, told jurors he once surprised Mr Jackson with one hand in the young actor's shorts.

"I was shocked and almost dropped the French fries," the cook added, explaining he had gone to the actor's room at Neverland Ranch to deliver a late-night snack.

He said Mr Jackson was holding the child so he could reach the console while they were playing a "Thriller" videogame together.

Employees' testimony

Several former employees at Mr Jackson's ranch have testified over the past few days, all saying they had him fondling and abusing boys there.

The star's defence has tried to portray them as money-driven and vengeful.


Adrian McManus was a maid at Neverland
On Friday, Mr Jackson's lawyer, Thomas Mesereau, said a former maid who claims she saw the pop star inappropriately touching another boy wanted to get even with the singer after losing a lawsuit for unfair dismissal.

The maid, Adrian McManus, testified on Thursday that Mr Jackson had routinely shared his bed with three boys and touched the genitals of a minor.

That testimony relates to allegations over which Mr Jackson has not been charged.

But the judge has allowed prosecutors to raise them in court, as the lawyers try to establish a pattern of abuse at the Neverland ranch.

Analysts say the most damaging testimony so far came on Thursday, when a former Neverland guard, Ralph Chacon, told jurors he had seen Mr Jackson perform a sex act on a boy in the early 1990s.

The boy later won an out-of-court settlement from the pop star reportedly worth more than $20m (£10.7m).

Why Jackson would pay the money, after the story was already in the news, if he were innocent, is beyond me. His reputation had already been damaged. Not much left, except criminal penalties.

If Michael Jackson is found to be guilty, we'll see numerous
civil suits against him from parents whose boys have visited
Neverland, regardless if he touched them or not.

Are we to feel sorry for him in that event, assuming he is found guilty?

Guilty.

As was Blake.

As was OJ.

Whether or not he'll be convicted is an entirely different matter.

He really disgusts me. Think of how many children he has abused, and what it must have done to them. He's gotten away with it for so long--partly because of our society, and it's fascination with "stardom".

Perv.

If Jackson is found not guilty, his name is still gonna be mud. If he's found guilty, he's gonna be facing many suits from parents of children who have spent time at Neverland. I find it curious that one of Jackson's best friend, Liz Taylor, has not been there to support him.

The Ruling in the Michael Jackson Case Allowing Testimony About Past Molestation Allegations:

Why It Was Wrong on the Law, and Unfair to the Defendant, Yet May End Up Hurting the Prosecution More
By JONNA SPILBOR



Read the entire article here.

Debra, How will it end up hurting the prosecution more?

Thanks, Debra. Still hmmmming here.

I'm wondering how much of all this is being scripted for the media. The judges rulling before it was made, everyone I spoke to agreed it would be wrong to allow the past so called acts as evidence. But on the other hand, is it entertaining? absolutly, so little doubt in my mind which way the judge would rule on that one.

How many people have got up and lied on the stand ? Is'nt there some law against it?

Slippery slope

'Vaseline jelly has a variety of uses. Now it is even being used to smear Michael Jackson'

John Sutherland
Monday April 25, 2005
The Guardian

The Jackson trial pollutes everything it touches: Peter Pan, motherhood, circus elephants - above all, American justice. One presumes the man (man?) is innocent. But does anyone think that even if guilty, and the convicted monster of Neverland spends the rest of his days banged up in a cell with a tattooed biker, any child in southern California will be safer?

Now even the household jar of Vaseline has been defiled. The "smear" was spewed out on their websites last Thursday by those two reverse sewage spigots, Matt Drudge and Smoking Gun.

For the "grand finale" of the state's case, Drudge breathlessly reported, the prosecution "hopes to present a shocking story of Vaseline and alleged sex abuse". In 1993 a former Neverland security guard, Abdool (everything about this trial is surreal), was instructed by an "aroused King of Pop" to bring some Vaseline from the glove compartment of the star's SUV to the bedroom where he was hanging out ("wearing only his pajama bottoms") with a kid who Abdool "believed was Jordie".

Once it had been leaked from supposedly sealed court documents, news agencies were duty-bound, sanctimoniously holding their noses, to put the Vaseline story into the public domain.

The PR people at Unilever must have groaned. The multinational company bought the brand name in 1987. They have put millions into burnishing Vaseline's image - particularly with schoolchildren.

Unilever did not invent Vaseline. That credit goes to Robert Chesebrough, an English chemist who emigrated to the US in the 1850s. Young Chesebrough went into the kerosene business and was quick to see that the future of the fuel that lit and warmed America was in Pennsylvania, where the first American oil fields were being drilled.

When he went there, Chesebrough noticed that roughnecks who worked the rigs were maddened by a gelatinous black gunk that clogged up their drills. They called it "rod wax" and were constantly having to wipe the stuff away. But these same working Joes, Chesebrough was interested to see, slapped "rod wax" on their cuts to help them heal faster.

Chesebrough took some jelly to his lab and tested its healing property on himself. It worked. He soon had a fleet of wagons trundling around the country distributing "Vaseline" (a barbarous combination of the German "wasser", and the Greek "elaion": "water-oil").

Chesebrough was an evangelist. In front of rapt audiences he would burn his skin with acid and then anoint the wounds with his wonder-jelly, pointing to earlier scars Vaseline had healed. Next day, every druggist in town would have bought a wagonload.

Chesebrough's patented jelly was translucent. Unlike vegetable or animal oils, it didn't go rancid or smell, except faintly of hospitals. It had that quality which all pharmaceutical products aspire to - purity. Vaseline was so pure it was virtually Platonic.

The distinctive property of Vaseline is its resistance to water. It will weatherproof footwear, safeguard wounds, and soothe chapped lips. It has innumerable household uses. It is the base ingredient in a vast range of cosmetics and pomades (Jackson must have used vats of the stuff in his Jeri-Curl days).

Beauty queens dab Vaseline on their teeth for that flashing smile. Bulls in the Spanish corrida have Vaseline smeared on their eyes, to make them charge wildly (bull's eye-smearer must be one of the less desirable offerings at the Madrid jobcentre). Cross-channel swimmers slather themselves with it. Japesters daub it on lavatory seats (you wipe it on, they can't wipe it off). Photographers get artistic effects with Vaseline on the lens. Chesebrough, a man who believed in his product, swallowed a spoonful of it every day. He lived to be 96.

Notoriously, it has less salubrious usages. But "rod wax" is the one thing Vaseline shouldn't be used for. It does bad things to latex condoms and has other disadvantages as an intimate lubricant. It's not, as Talking Heads naughtily implied, the sand in the Vaseline that does the damage. It's the Vaseline in the Vaseline.

Would a man as morbidly nervous as Jackson about things medical not know that? Would someone as pampered as Jackson remember what one of his chauffeurs had stuffed into the glove compartment of one of his cars?

If Abdool is the best the prosecution has for its "grand finale", the show's over.

he's definitely guilty of bad judgement, at the very least.

Any 40ish man who says "Oh, yeah, I just want to sleep in my room with boys...its just love and nice...."

Well, unfortunately that right there is unacceptable in our world.

Its like a card is missing in his brain...