June 13, 2005

You've Been Struck By, A Smooth Criminal

So Michael Jackson has been found not guilty. Despite what many non-lawyers think when they ask me about it, I haven't followed this thing at all. Really, with all the various crimes and trials going on all the time I just don't care about one, especially one I'm not directly involved in. Anyway, I'm sure we're all going to know people, hell some of us might be them, that are pissed off like crazy about this. I'd just like to remind everyone that we have one of the most fair and least corrupt court systems in the world, the pinacle of which is the trial by jury. A group of strangers came together, looked at the facts, and made the best decision they could. Anyway, enough preaching. Like other high profile celebrity trials, this isn't really about the legal system, or even the facts of this case, it's about class, politics, and the really odd facination people have with seeing the once mighty humbled.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard today that four of the jurors came out and said that they beleive that Jackson has molested children in the past but they just did not have enough evidence that he molested this particular boy.

J

Noumena said...

You really think we're going to know people pissed at the veridct? Personally, I really think no-one I know is going to care. Ratings for coverage of the trial have been consistently low; what's so bizarre is the way the 'news' media has been obsessing over it in face of public indifference. I suppose I can understand why they wouldn't cover anything actually important, like the Downing Street Memo -- wingnuts would throw a fit, and today's media hates saying anything remotely controversial -- but there's been tons of banal crap they could talk about instead of Jackson. Maybe it's just cheaper to put a news reader and a camera crew up in Santa Barbara for a few months than pay the salaries of actual investigative journalists?