Scattered Small Thoughts on the Acquittal of Michael Jackson

There's nothing important about the Michael Jackson case, but like much of America, I was riveted by the announcement of the verdict yesterday afternoon. I have nothing profound to say about it, but a few small thoughts to share:

Michael Jackson commands our attention because his has been the most spectacular celebrity train wreck of a career since Judy Garland's (with the possible exception of Garland's daughter, Liza Minnelli). Like Garland, Jackson was an astonishing young talent brought low in middle age by the inability to manage personal demons. In some ways, Jackson may be the most spectacular train wreck ever. Not only has he buried his enormous talent under an avalanche of scandal and speculation about his personal life, he has gone to the extreme of physically destroying himself with plastic surgery and skin-bleaching treatments. Twenty-some years on, it seems almost unbelievable that in the early 1980s, Jackson was best known for a series of spectacular recordings and videos that won him acclaim as the world's greatest young entertainer.

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If there is a social benefit to all of the media attention to the trials of Jackson, Robert Blake, O.J. Simpson and others, it is in the reminder that the United States Constitution guarantees that each of us is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Jackson's acquittal, like those before him, is not an "exoneration," despite the overuse of that term by television announcers. Rather, it says that the state did not meet the burden of proof necessary to convict him. These jurors weighed the evidence and found it insufficient to send a man to prison.

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That there was "reasonable doubt" in this case that should lead to acquittal was evident from the early days of the trial, when witness after witness was caught giving inconsistent, contradictory testimony. Many people, myself included, harbor strong suspicions about Michael Jackson's behavior around young boys, but it was clear from the outset -- and should have been clear to the prosecution before countless millions were wasted on this trial -- that questions about the veracity of these accusers was bound to doom the case before a conscientious jury.

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Most of the blame and scorn for this case has been directed at the mother of the young accuser in this case. But it seems to me that a fair share should be targeted toward the prosecutor, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon. If the accuser's mother is as tawdry a character and unconvincing a witness as has been described, how could this not have been apparent to an experienced prosecutor and his staff? If the inconsistencies and holes in the evidence were as glaring as they appear to be, wouldn't this have been obvious during discovery? Couldn't the prosecutorial team have made a decision -- before wasting countless millions of taxpayer dollars -- that there was not a supportable case here?
Mr. Sneddon has pursued various allegations against Michael Jackson for more than 10 years. Like Kenneth Starr before him, he tempts comparison to Javert, the relentless and, finally, pathetic, detective who pursued Jean Valjean to his death in Les Miserables. And unfortunately, that puts Michael Jackson in the position of the unfairly demonized Valjean.

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Last night at 8 pm PDT, the beginning of prime time, I did a quick survey of the cable news outlets. On each and every one of them -- MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CNN Headlline News, CNBC -- the fare was 100 percent Michael Jackson. Nothing else of note evidently happened anywhere in the world yesterday.
Finally, I turned to C-Span and watched a videotape of a press conference held by Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. It was pretty bad -- Hunter's defense of military practices at the Guantanamo detention center was based almost entirely on multiple recitations of a sample menu for detainees (Lemon fish! Fried chicken! Two kinds of vegetables! Two kinds of fruits! It's better than what the troops eat!) But it veered into the pathetically comic toward the end when Hunter attempted unsuccessfully to entice members of the press into tasting the sample meal he had laid out for their inspection. As the room cleared out, he moved folding chairs around a little table and did his best to strong-arm reporters into sitting down with him to enjoy (I'm not going to let this good food go to waste!)
A pitiful display of our democracy in action.
But at least it wasn't Michael Jackson.