lyssie | I need to move to California.

I know! I just want to be famous so that I can give the finger to the law, and then when it doesn't suit me become Governor! Isn't that what life is supposed to be all about - CHEATING society of justice?

A woman who is innocent of drug smuggling is found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in a Bali jail.

A man who is so very VERY guilty of sleeping with boys is found innocent. A slap on the wrist would have been a good thing, you know... just to show that society actually doesn't CONDONE adults sleeping with children ....

Methinks Australians are the only sane bunch in the world at the moment. And that's scary. Because we have a Prime Minister who looks like Penfold from Danger Mouse .....

Dude, I've heard about the PM. Isn't he, er... kinda crappy?

Well, he's kept a lot of comedians in business. So that should be testament enough. :P

And if I grope women on camera, I can become governor!

...I like groping women. Point me towards a camera, I'm gonna be famous.

You would think they would have convicted him just based on irritation at his constant antics. Argh!

If nothing else, it's proof that juries aren't swayed by really straaaaaange defendants. ;)

Oh, come off it. The prosecution sucked, and the kid he supposedly molested lied on the stand and had a sleazebag for a mother.

Do I think Wacko looked at dirty magazines with kids? Yep. Because Wacko Jacko is a twelve year old boy, and so goes over to other 12 year old boys, giggles, and says "You wanna look at dirty magazines?" I'm glad that douchebag of a mother got nothing.

Let's be honest, here. Who leaves their kid in a place like that with a celebrity for a week unsupervised ANYWAY?

I said it in someone else's journal and I'll say it again... if he ever did share porn with minors, or give them alcohol, or fondle them in bed, nobody will ever know now-- because one parent in a convenient position decided to use her child in a scam against him.

if he ever did share porn with minors, or give them alcohol, or fondle them in bed, nobody will ever know now - what would be the big deal?

Do 12 year olds get porn? All the damn time. The internet, their big brother, their father's old Playboy collection. Do people give minors alcohol? Mine did, and I'm glad. I plan to let me kids have a sip of whatever they want however old they want. Fondling in bed? Not the same as molesting. Why? Because molestation is against the will of the child, and I don't know how many people I know that got felt up at that age.

The ONLY thing that makes it weird is that it was an adult feeling up a kid instead of another kid. But it really wasn't. Michael Jackson is a kid trapped in a deformed and bleached body. Excuse it? Not really. Was it harmful? Not really. The fallout from this trial will be ten times worse for that kid than his stay in Neverland ranch ever could have been.

Regardless of your personal feelings about the harmfulness of giving a child porn, alcohol, or a hand job, it's all illegal. They scammed him to make it look like he'd done illegal things, and failed. That doesn't mean he never did any of it to anyone.

I'm also not sure if the legal definition of 'molestation' involves the desires of the child at all. As I understand it, at least in this country, all the law requires for statutory rape is that one person be an adult and the other be a minor.

You're correct, statutory rape is defined as one being an adult and the other being a minor, regardless of willingness. That is not the same charge as molesting a minor. I guess my knee-jerk reaction to all this is not necessarily whether what he did was illegal, but whether it was done with malicious intent.

Villifying him irritates me, particularly because he's eccentric without hurting anyone. As opposed to, say, Charles Manson, who is eccentric and had a horde of women harming at his command. If we have this need as a society to go after rich famous people, I really wish we'd go after the ones that were willfully and maliciously preying on others, instead of the kooks.

...Because no one bothered to prosecute Charles Manson, after all. Who else do you suggest? Me, I'd rather go after the ones targeting kids than petty shoplifting, thanks.

Hmm. I'm going to have to take issue with a few of those statements. Yes, children get porn. However, we take steps to keep it AWAY from them as a society, and criminalize adults actually providing it. Your parents giving you alcohol or you giving your children alcohol is a different matter, because a parent has authority over the child's upbringing and is entitled to decide whether they can have alcohol or not. But that's all minor. The worst part of this comment was "molestation is against the will of a child."

Technically, child molestation in California is defined in part as: "The intentional touching of the genitals or intimate parts (including the breasts, genital area, groin, inner thighs, and buttocks) or the clothing covering them, of a child, or of the perpetrator by a child, for purposes of sexual arousal or gratification, except that, it does not include acts which may reasonably be construed to be normal caretaker responsibilities; interactions with, or demonstrations of affection for, the child; or acts performed for a valid medical purpose."

Nothing about the will of the child, only the intent of the adult. Because an adult using a child to get his rocks off is wrong, no matter what the children think about it. Children are impressionable and very willing to believe what the adults around them tell them. That's why we don't just smile and say "oh, isn't that nice!" when a six-year-old says she's happy to lick Daddy's pee-pee because he needs it to relax. The will of the child isn't at issue, because children don't KNOW what they need. That's the entire point for having adults make rules for children until they're old enough to make decisions for themselves. Their parents are supposed to be the ones doing that, but when -- as is too often true -- the parents are part of the problem, society has to look out for them through laws.

What Jackson was accused of doing was against the law. Does it happen every day? Sure. So does murder. That doesn't mean we don't do everything we can to stop it. I don't think the prosecution did a particularly good job of proving its case, and I think the sleazy mother did a lot of harm. But I think Jackson is insulated enough from the real world of right and wrong that he did everything he was accused of and more without caring the least. It made him happy, and that's all his world is about.

I doubted there would be a conviction on the main ten counts, but I really thought there would be a conviction for the misdemeanor furnishing alcohol to a minor. That's at least a slap on the wrist for society to say his behavior is inappropriate. Now he's just vindicated. It makes me sick.

Yes, we know. It was the jury's fault for returning a bad verdict.

No, I said I don't think the prosecution did a very good job. That doesn't mean I don't think he's guilty. Those are two different issues. Any comment on the actual substance of the post?

Ah, kneejerk reaction the second. It's amazing what a terrorist kitten with a new kittytree can do for perspective.

Ahem.

As it turns out, the actual text of the law is superior to my moral feeling, which is as long as it isn't malicious or, as you so delicately put it, 'getting your rocks off,' then it's not the same offense. Without having been in the courtroom to actually see and hear the evidence, I think it's likely that while they could prove Wacko might have allowed porn to come into their possession, or not drive them from the room while he was enjoying it (aka showing them) they had little to no reason to believe that he was feeling up the kids to get his rocks off.

As I said before, I think that Jackson is really a twelve year old. He's surrounded himself with children and built an amusement park as a home because he never had his childhood, never matured (a point of view backed by his ex-wife) and can relate most comfortably to kids, or even forces himself to think he relates most comfortably to kids. My reaction to all of this has been and continues to be that he is crazy, legally insane in that he does not always understand 'right' from 'wrong,' but in a harmless kind of way. And for some reason, I feel that that exonerates him. Does it legally? I don't know.

The law states that if he is doing it in a friendly, non-sexual and non-malicious way, that it's borderline. I guess that pretty much sums up my stand on things that are illegal, actually - if the intent was not to be stupid/evil/mean, then the action is somehow significantly less serious. I take this stand on any crime, even when I am the one the crime is being committed against. At work, for example, if a user breaks a computer not out of sheer stupidity, not just to break it, not to download a virus in order to email it to someone to infect their machine, then my lecture to them is decidedly more friendly, and my desire to monitor their usage in order to 'catch them' misbehaving from then on is nil.

That's fair enough. Mental state is the key. However, there are a lot of crimes that don't require actual intent, just...shall we say criminal stupidity? ;) I think that MJ definitely reached that threshhold, though without knowing what actually went on in the courtroom, there's no way to say what was proved. That's what juries are for. :)

I need to move to California.

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