Jackson's 'past' allowed in court

alonzomourning23

alonzomourning23

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4387247.stm

Not to argue whether jackson is guilty or innocent, or whether previous account had any merit, but do you think this should be legal? To me if a person wasn't convicted, in this case both settled out of court (one which said neither party was to ever talk about the incident again) or simply an allegation (the list is believed to include caulkin, who has insisted he was never abused), that it shouldn't be used as evidence in court. Previous convictions are fine, but here they are using an unproven allegation to attempt to send someone to jail.
 
The law under which this evidence can be entered in was to a large degree written specifically because of his prior run-ins with the law. When you realize that, Jackson's paranoia about a conspiracy seems a tad less paranoid - the law was rewritten specifically so that unrelated, unproven accusations from every yahoo on the planet could be used against him in court.

On a related note, is it just me, or does the prosecution's case seem remarkably weak? I mean, the boy who says he was accused has told about 15 different variations of his story, all of which vary significantly from his brother's 15 versions of what happened. Combine that with their admission that they lied in court before so that their mother could sue JCPenny...

Don't get me wrong: Jackson is a complete freak. I'm not really sure whether he molests children in general. I am, however, pretty sure that he didn't molest this kid in particular. Their story just has too many holes in it and their family is clearly lawsuit-happy and don't have any morals at all about lying to get money.
 
Let's assume, for just a minute, that this was written so that unrelated, unproven accusations from every yahoo on the planet could be used against him. Hmmm, do you pay multi-million dollar settlements to every yahoo that makes those unproven accusations?

Hmmmmmm, something to think about.
 
Jackson only settled with one kid: the prosecution are bringing in a bunch of people from a lot of different cases (or non-cases, for the most part, since there was so little evidence that the prosecution wouldn't waste time on it, and no lawyer would even spend time filing a lawsuit because there was no hope of a return.)

Also, payment of a settlement does not necessarily mean anything, legally. Jackson may have simply have decided it wasn't 'fun' enough to fight the suit and simply settled it so he could spend the time doing something he enjoys more. I'm not saying that he was innocent in that case (it certainly seemed to be a much more credible case than the current one...), but that settlements have no legal value as evidence. Or at least it didn't until the law was changed with the specific intent of using it against Jackson...
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Let's assume, for just a minute, that this was written so that unrelated, unproven accusations from every yahoo on the planet could be used against him. Hmmm, do you pay multi-million dollar settlements to every yahoo that makes those unproven accusations?

Hmmmmmm, something to think about.[/QUOTE]

If I'm michael jackson? You bet. He still had a viable music career at the time, he had plenty of money so the settlement wouldn't really effect him, and he didn't have to risk the public relations disaster, court and jail. Even if found not guilty, the trial would drag his image through the mud. He's gone from a freak, joke etc. to a criminal who should be thrown in jail, at least in the minds of most.

I don't know if he's guilty, I don't believe he is the worst type of pedophile, the kind that actually rapes 5, 6 etc. year old kids. Maybe consensual, semi-consensual touching (not forcing, but doing everything to convince the other to consent), drinking, showing porn etc. those maybe, but I don't think he's equivalent to the guy who abducts and rapes children. Also, he didn't seem to be very concerned about covering his tracks, if he was a pedophile he probably would have child porn which would have been found(unless he objected to their forceful, non-consensual nature and rape, which is entirely possible).

Personally, I think he just doesn't see the boundaries that many others do. Sleeping with children (non-sexual), for example, is taboo in our society, but accepted in others assuming it isn't sexual. Jackson, if not guilty, just needs to watch himself and be aware of how others percieve things. Then again, the stigma against pedophilia makes it difficult to believe a public figure who be a pedophile, and I'm fully aware that may be playing into my opinion.

Oh look, I discussed the trial itself, something I didn't want to do.
 
Drocket, I totally agree with you.

There are no winners here in this battle between the money-grubbing lawsuit-happy parents, overzealous prosecutors, and RIAA-sponsored kid-touchers.
 
If OJ goes on trial for murder again, should the past case be brought up in the new case? You bet. Verdicts aren't 100% accurate, and they merely represent what the jury thought about the evidence that it was presented.

There are probably all sorts of goodies that were brought up in MJ's first trial, and just because they happened to somebody else doesn't mean they aren't relevant. How many times does MJ have to be accused before you have to wonder "who is lying, MJ, or the kids". The fact that the first kid accurately described MJ's genitals kind of seals the deal for me.

And its not like he isn't around kids all the time anyway. To me, this whole case is just a formality, with the end result being that he can't be around kids anymore, ever.
 
I agree this is a fuzzy area, but theoretically this means as long as MJ has enough money to keep paying off the kids' families, he's above the law.

Also, I've read there were at least two boys who got paid off, one for $3 million and one for $15 million.
 
[quote name='MrBadExample']I agree this is a fuzzy area, but theoretically this means as long as MJ has enough money to keep paying off the kids' families, he's above the law.

Also, I've read there were at least two boys who got paid off, one for $3 million and one for $15 million.[/QUOTE]

It doesn't really mean that at all. The families didn't have to take the pay off. If they were more interested in seeing justice served instead of a payout, they would have gone to court regardless.
 
[quote name='Drocket']The law under which this evidence can be entered in was to a large degree written specifically because of his prior run-ins with the law. When you realize that, Jackson's paranoia about a conspiracy seems a tad less paranoid - the law was rewritten specifically so that unrelated, unproven accusations from every yahoo on the planet could be used against him in court.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps in that state incidents with Jackson fueled the law being made there, but lots of states have similar laws when it comes to past crimes or even past accusations involving pedophilia, rape and other sex crimes, and I highly doubt that all those states put laws on the books thatnks to just Michael Jackson.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']If I'm michael jackson? You bet. He still had a viable music career at the time, he had plenty of money so the settlement wouldn't really effect him, and he didn't have to risk the public relations disaster, court and jail. Even if found not guilty, the trial would drag his image through the mud. He's gone from a freak, joke etc. to a criminal who should be thrown in jail, at least in the minds of most.

I don't know if he's guilty, I don't believe he is the worst type of pedophile, the kind that actually rapes 5, 6 etc. year old kids. Maybe consensual, semi-consensual touching (not forcing, but doing everything to convince the other to consent), drinking, showing porn etc. those maybe, but I don't think he's equivalent to the guy who abducts and rapes children. Also, he didn't seem to be very concerned about covering his tracks, if he was a pedophile he probably would have child porn which would have been found(unless he objected to their forceful, non-consensual nature and rape, which is entirely possible).

Personally, I think he just doesn't see the boundaries that many others do. Sleeping with children (non-sexual), for example, is taboo in our society, but accepted in others assuming it isn't sexual. Jackson, if not guilty, just needs to watch himself and be aware of how others percieve things. Then again, the stigma against pedophilia makes it difficult to believe a public figure who be a pedophile, and I'm fully aware that may be playing into my opinion.

Oh look, I discussed the trial itself, something I didn't want to do.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure there can be consensual sex with someone so young; I don't think they'd have the mental capacity to know the situation.

Whether or not Jackson is guilty, he needs some serious psychiatric therapy.
 
[quote name='Mike23']I'm not sure there can be consensual sex with someone so young; I don't think they'd have the mental capacity to know the situation.

Whether or not Jackson is guilty, he needs some serious psychiatric therapy.[/QUOTE]

While that's true, a person who holds a kid down while he's begging him to stop should recieve more jail time than a person who starts touching a kid after he asks, and is told that he can.

Though if someone isn't convicted for a crime, why should you be able to hold that against them in a trial? They're being blame for something that hasn't been proven. Sure, juries aren't 100% accurate, but you're treating it as if the person was guilty for something that there was either no trial for, a settlement, or found not guilty. That can't be moral.
 
Sex crimes are the only type of crimes that are allowed into court as evidence that the accused commited the sex crime in question. Similarly, the sexual history of a woman claiming she was raped is not allowed into court as evidence. There are ways around these rules such as disguising it as character evidence when trying to impeach a witness, etc. but that's the gist of it. Basically, it's OK to mention past sex crimes of Michael Jackson (the fact he was never convicted was the issue here though) but not to mention the OJ case when he goes out and kills again...
 
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/30/jackson/index.html

It seems that the allegations came out while seeing a psychologist, and that he was also the first to hear allegations from a previous boy. I'm always suspicious of this, sometimes well meaning psychologists accidentally find memories that were never there, and since this happened twice it makes me more suspicious. I remember those thousands of satanic ritual abuse cases, none of which happened, or all those people who make allegations against their parents for sexual abuse, but are later found out that it never happened (often by a doctor who discovers that the supposedly abused women is still a virgin). He could be a very good psychologist and not have "created" any memories in the kid, but it's happened before.
 
I found that 'expert's' testimony somewhat unusual, to say the least. He wasn't permitted to say what the kid actually told him about the molestation, and he wasn't permitted to give his professional opinion about whether the kid was telling the truth or not. Considering that he was the first 'professional' to have heard the kid's accusations, this seems like pretty important information.
 
[quote name='Drocket']I found that 'expert's' testimony somewhat unusual, to say the least. He wasn't permitted to say what the kid actually told him about the molestation, and he wasn't permitted to give his professional opinion about whether the kid was telling the truth or not. Considering that he was the first 'professional' to have heard the kid's accusations, this seems like pretty important information.[/QUOTE]

Nothing unusual about it really, people have confidentiatlity with psychologists, if it was a rape case and the accuser was an adult the testimony would've gone down in a very similar fashion. In this cross-examination it seemed particularly tight because the prosectution was careful to not go into much detail and you can only cross-examine him on what the prosectuation revealed.
 
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