Pondering.

[changeling]

The whole of LJ seems to be up in arms about the fact that OJ MJ wasn't convicted, which I think is kinda dumb. We weren't there, we don't know what evidence was presented. All that verdict means was there was reasonable doubt he may not have done it. Innocent until proven guilty, guys. Last I checked you had that too (unlike pre-revolutionary France).

Besides, it reminds me a bit of Eddie Izzard's sketch on house arrest: "Don't go in that fuckin' house". It's not like every mother in America doesn't know what he looks like, and that he's a creepy bastard. JUST KEEP THE CHILDREN AWAY FROM HIM. Jeez. It's not that hard. It's like that saying: It takes a whole village, yadda yadda.

Comments

[cruelest-month.livejournal.com]

I love you. :)

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

At least one person doesn't hate me for the sort of crap I spout first thing in the morning when I've hardly woken up. :D

[cairnsy.livejournal.com]

Hell, I thought he was guilty before the trial, but the evidence swung me in the exact opposite direction. To be honest, I would have been surprised if he HAD been found guilty.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

I heard so little of the evidence I can't talk, but I must say that what little I heard made me doubt whether there was a strong enough case against him ... which is a different thing to his being innocent of ever touching little boys in the wrong way.

[jolly-oddness.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Voice of reason! I keep saying the same thing. I wasn't there, I don't know. As if an entire jury wouldn't give a guilty verdict if there was the smallest doubt at all that he was guilty. They didn't, that's something. I trust the jury to've been smart enough. Why can't anyone else?

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And I keep thinking of the days they spent going over this. It's not like it was a decision given lightly, or because of celebrity, or whatever. That was my feeling.

[icefalcon.livejournal.com]

But if he was completely innocent, why would you need to keep the children away from him?

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

I don't believe he's innocent - certainly not completely innocent. It's that "presumed innocent" bit. Burden of proof and all.

Anyway, I think he's sufficiently bugfuck whether he touches little boys or not. I'd keep my kids away.

[fineliner.livejournal.com]

I can't help feeling you may have misread the popular reaction, not to mention the meaning of the verdict, not to mention patronised the fuck out of all those people upset by it.

Firstly, I'd wager most Americans have a fairly GOOD idea of what evidence was presented; the media coverage has been exhaustive, right down to re-enactments of key moments on E!News.

We've got one juror who said he's pretty sure MJ was a pedophile, he just wasn't convinced by these charges; and another who was clearly enraged by the victim's mother, saying she thought it was her fault for letting her child sleep with the man, which, when you think about it, is not exactly a statement consistent with a belief in his innocence.

A not guilty verdict means a lot more than "he's innocent until proven guilty", for the principle of double jeopardy operates to prevent any further charges from EVER being brought against him in relation to the conduct at issue in this trial.

Further, statements made by that awful mother in her evidence, right about the time she clicked her finger at the jury, may now be used to prevent her from bringing civil proceedings against MJ to have her son's claims tested in a less challenging forum.

I'm not surprised by the verdict but I feel very uncomfortable about it; that poor kid has gone through a lot of shit, and if something DID happen, his mother and the high profile of his accused have probably fucked up any chance of him ever receiving justice for it.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

You know far more about this than I. I didn't mean, though, that Jackson was innocent, merely that my meagre understanding of the law meant he was presumed innocent, burden of proof etc., and that if the case wasn't strong enough it didn't mean that they could just proclaim him guilty. My friend Dee said that had he been in Scotland he would probably have got the "not proven" verdict.

I feel pretty sorry for the kid, too. Even if Jackson never did anything to him, as some people have surmised, and that his parents put him up to it (unlikely, but you know), then a trial with such enormous publicity is not something he needs. If Jackson did ... well. It's pretty awful.

Why does it seem that the parents of these sort of children seem to be hurting their kids' causes more often than they help?


... and I really think that some of the Americans who were coming up on my flist really weren't talking from an informed perspective. I'm on a lot of communities with a large following. Some of them were being even more flippant that I was.

[wittgensteinian.livejournal.com]

That's actually all there is to criminal law.

But you'd be surprised at how many juries forget the burden of proof.

Richard Dawkins says he would rather be tried by a jury if he was guilty (but was pleading not guilty), and by judges if he was actually innocent. Juries are pretty stupid. I've read lots of appeal cases for law where juries made very bizarre decisions.

That said, there wasn't exactly any overwhelming proof in the MJ case. I'd rather a not guilty verdict in a maybe-he-did-it case than having to prove your innocence, like in Continental Europe.