Not guilty, but probably not innocent
MORRIS MANNING
Iowa State Daily (Iowa State U.)
Iowa State Daily (Iowa State U.)
(U-WIRE) AMES,Iowa -- There is a huge difference between being found innocent and not guilty.Being found innocent means that a person did not commit the crime in which they were charged. Not guilty merely means that the charges against the person were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
On Monday, Michael Jackson was found not guilty of child molestation charges. No one of any stature outside his high-priced legal team and camera-loving spiritual advisor claims he is innocent. In fact, one juror, Raymond C. Hultman, said publicly following the trial that he believes Jackson had, in fact, molested young boys in the past. He voted for the not guilty verdict only because he didn't believe prosecutors had proven their case in this most recent instance.
Now, I don't have any knowledge that would seem to prove Jackson has at any point molested anyone at any time.But I do strongly suspect that had Jackson been a middle-income, run-of-the-mill truck driver without the means to hire the best legal team available, he would most certainly have been convicted and jailed a long ago.
At one point in the trial, Jackson's lead attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. said that Jackson was nothing more than a typical American man who had been wrongly accused of a terrible crime which he didn't commit.In all my years on this planet -- more than I care to admit -- I have never seen or met a "typical American man" who has subjected himself to repeated cosmetic surgeries in a seemingly attempt to change his racial features.
I have never met a man who has worn pasty-white makeup and lipstick, nor have I met one who endangers his child by dangling it from a balcony. And, most certainly, I have never met a man who speaks in a falsetto voice and makes a routine practice of sleeping in the same bed with young boys who are not his own children. By his own account, Jackson has been entertaining young, mostly male, children in his bedroom for years.Old habits are indeed hard to break.
Jackson paid $22.5 million to erase past accusations of child molestation and now he has been subjected to a three-month trial for the same reason. Given his bizarre behavior, he has no one to blame but himself. He is now again in control of his reputation,and it has no where to go but up.
On Monday, Michael Jackson was found not guilty of child molestation charges. No one of any stature outside his high-priced legal team and camera-loving spiritual advisor claims he is innocent. In fact, one juror, Raymond C. Hultman, said publicly following the trial that he believes Jackson had, in fact, molested young boys in the past. He voted for the not guilty verdict only because he didn't believe prosecutors had proven their case in this most recent instance.
Now, I don't have any knowledge that would seem to prove Jackson has at any point molested anyone at any time.But I do strongly suspect that had Jackson been a middle-income, run-of-the-mill truck driver without the means to hire the best legal team available, he would most certainly have been convicted and jailed a long ago.
At one point in the trial, Jackson's lead attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. said that Jackson was nothing more than a typical American man who had been wrongly accused of a terrible crime which he didn't commit.In all my years on this planet -- more than I care to admit -- I have never seen or met a "typical American man" who has subjected himself to repeated cosmetic surgeries in a seemingly attempt to change his racial features.
I have never met a man who has worn pasty-white makeup and lipstick, nor have I met one who endangers his child by dangling it from a balcony. And, most certainly, I have never met a man who speaks in a falsetto voice and makes a routine practice of sleeping in the same bed with young boys who are not his own children. By his own account, Jackson has been entertaining young, mostly male, children in his bedroom for years.Old habits are indeed hard to break.
Jackson paid $22.5 million to erase past accusations of child molestation and now he has been subjected to a three-month trial for the same reason. Given his bizarre behavior, he has no one to blame but himself. He is now again in control of his reputation,and it has no where to go but up.
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