ELVIS
01-29-2005, 02:13 PM
January 29, 2005
http://www.1manband.it/images/funny/michael_jackson.jpg
Facing the music: Michael Jackson, 46, could be sent to prison for most of the rest of his life
Circus: an arena often covered by a tent and used for variety shows usually including feats of physical skill, wild animal acts and performances by clowns
— Webster’s Dictionary
THERE may not be a tent covering the proceedings at the Santa Maria Public Courthouse, but in every other respect the case of the People of the State of California v Michael Joe Jackson, which opens there on Monday, will conform perfectly to the dictionary definition of a circus.
Feats of physical skill will be performed by the police and the officers of the court as they try to ensure the safe conduct of the case in the presence of several thousand screaming, fanatical protesters.
The wilder elements of the animal kingdom will be well represented in the courtroom by a prosecutor who goes by the name of Tom “Mad Dog” Sneddon, elected district attorney of Santa Barbara six times.
And in the defendant’s chair there will be a 46-year-old black man who thinks of himself as a child, prefers to be known as the King of Pop and has spent the past ten years turning his skin white and apparently trying to eradicate his nose.
Surrounding them all, like spectators in the Big Top, will be thousands of lawyers, consultants, reporters, cameramen, pundits, commentators; beyond them tens of millions of people gawping and gasping at the remarkable sights and sounds of a full-fledged American celebrity trial.
P. T. Barnum, the man who more than a century ago produced the greatest show on Earth, boasting “a mammoth fat infant, rare and curious fish and a learned seal”, could not have devised a better entertainment for the public.
It is the trial America has, in a sense, been waiting for since O. J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in a Los Angeles courtroom almost ten years ago. There have been other famous cases, of course. In the past year alone we have had the basketball player Kobe Bryant, the domestic goddess Martha Stewart and the actor and accused wife murderer Robert Blake; but this is in class of its own.
The simple facts must be known to everybody who has not been living in a monastery for the past two years. Jackson is accused of committing a lewd act upon a child at his Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara in February or March 2003, a crime for which he could, if convicted, go to prison for most of the rest of his life. He denies the charges, saying they are the result of a collaboration between a vindictive prosecutor and some unscrupulous, money-grubbing parents.
On Monday, after more than a year of pre-trial hearings, motions and arcane legal procedure, the protagonists will at last move to select a 12-person jury who, if they play their cards right, can look forward to a post-trial bonanza of huge proportions thanks to book rights and TV interviews.
The celebrity trial has become almost as notorious a feature of the modern American legal landscape as the show trial was in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Which is unfortunate, and perhaps a little unfair.
The spectacle of the American people peacefully and conscientiously going about their legal business ought not to be a grubby indictment of America’s system but a celebration of it. The celebrity trial should be a testament to the proposition laid down by the founding fathers: no man is too grand or too powerful for the law.
Yet at the same time it ought to be a reminder of the protections for the individual those same framers drew up against the awesome power of the State — the rights of the accused to a fair, open and public trial, properly defended, in front of a jury of his peers.
Somewhere along the way the majesty of the law got lost and these events have become synonymous with much of what the world disdains about America.
The celebrity trial now serves only to point up the advantages, even in criminal law, that wealth and fame can buy you in America. It unveils the tawdry spectacle of law as public entertainment.
Though the Jackson trial will not be televised, there will still be plenty of opportunity to watch prosecutors, defence lawyers and even jurors grandstanding for the public. It reveals how large the issue of race in American justice still looms.
Those of a classical disposition might see in the modern American taste for the celebrity trial shades of Rome’s demise — the bread-and-circuses combination deployed to keep a troubled public distracted from costly and difficult foreign commitments. Or perhaps it might be redolent of Athens, a republic brought low, in the end at least, in part by the unhealthy fascination of its citizenry for the charms and rewards of litigation. And yet, for all its obvious flaws, it is still possible to see the spectacle in a more positive light. For the next few months the American people will be educated again in the contours and detail of their legal system. They will debate in their homes and workplaces depositions, cross-examinations, the rules of evidence, the burden of proof. Millions of people, in other words, will take part in one great, continuing civics lesson.
And, yes, all right. It really will be quite a show.
WHO'S WHO IN THE COURT
A HOLLYWOOD casting director might have devised the dramatis personae for the trial.
Apart from the accused himself, who became the most famous person on Earth in the 1980s, there is the accuser, Gavin Arvizo, 15, who claims that Jackson abused him while they lay in bed together at Neverland. A cancer survivor, he met the star after having a cyst weighing 16lb removed from his chest.
His relationship with Jackson was exposed by the British interviewer Martin Bashir, 41, who is also likely to be a star witness during the trial. Bashir, also known for interviewing Diana, Princess of Wales, now works for ABC News in New York.
Janet Arviso, 34, the youth’s mother, once called Jackson “the father Gavin never had” and “a saint”. Now, it is claimed, she has consulted Larry Feldman, the lawyer who negotiated a multi-million dollar settlement with Jordy Chandler, another child who accused Jackson of sexual abuse and is also potentially a star witness.
David Arvizo, 37, the boy’s father, is planning to sue his estranged wife for custody of his son, although his convictions for beating his wife and cruelty against his children may work against him.
Other key characters will include the chief prosecution and defence lawyers – Tom “Mad Dog” Sneddon and Thomas Mesereau Jr respectively.
Mr Sneddon, 62, is a former boxer and staunch Republican who was distraught after failing to prosecute Jackson in the 1994 Jordy Chandler case.
Mr Mesereau, 55, is a courtroom diplomat, whose former clients have included the boxing champion Mike Tyson.
The judge is Rodney Melville, who has presided over the trial with an iron fist, refusing to let deadlines slip.
:elvis:
http://www.1manband.it/images/funny/michael_jackson.jpg
Facing the music: Michael Jackson, 46, could be sent to prison for most of the rest of his life
Circus: an arena often covered by a tent and used for variety shows usually including feats of physical skill, wild animal acts and performances by clowns
— Webster’s Dictionary
THERE may not be a tent covering the proceedings at the Santa Maria Public Courthouse, but in every other respect the case of the People of the State of California v Michael Joe Jackson, which opens there on Monday, will conform perfectly to the dictionary definition of a circus.
Feats of physical skill will be performed by the police and the officers of the court as they try to ensure the safe conduct of the case in the presence of several thousand screaming, fanatical protesters.
The wilder elements of the animal kingdom will be well represented in the courtroom by a prosecutor who goes by the name of Tom “Mad Dog” Sneddon, elected district attorney of Santa Barbara six times.
And in the defendant’s chair there will be a 46-year-old black man who thinks of himself as a child, prefers to be known as the King of Pop and has spent the past ten years turning his skin white and apparently trying to eradicate his nose.
Surrounding them all, like spectators in the Big Top, will be thousands of lawyers, consultants, reporters, cameramen, pundits, commentators; beyond them tens of millions of people gawping and gasping at the remarkable sights and sounds of a full-fledged American celebrity trial.
P. T. Barnum, the man who more than a century ago produced the greatest show on Earth, boasting “a mammoth fat infant, rare and curious fish and a learned seal”, could not have devised a better entertainment for the public.
It is the trial America has, in a sense, been waiting for since O. J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in a Los Angeles courtroom almost ten years ago. There have been other famous cases, of course. In the past year alone we have had the basketball player Kobe Bryant, the domestic goddess Martha Stewart and the actor and accused wife murderer Robert Blake; but this is in class of its own.
The simple facts must be known to everybody who has not been living in a monastery for the past two years. Jackson is accused of committing a lewd act upon a child at his Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara in February or March 2003, a crime for which he could, if convicted, go to prison for most of the rest of his life. He denies the charges, saying they are the result of a collaboration between a vindictive prosecutor and some unscrupulous, money-grubbing parents.
On Monday, after more than a year of pre-trial hearings, motions and arcane legal procedure, the protagonists will at last move to select a 12-person jury who, if they play their cards right, can look forward to a post-trial bonanza of huge proportions thanks to book rights and TV interviews.
The celebrity trial has become almost as notorious a feature of the modern American legal landscape as the show trial was in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Which is unfortunate, and perhaps a little unfair.
The spectacle of the American people peacefully and conscientiously going about their legal business ought not to be a grubby indictment of America’s system but a celebration of it. The celebrity trial should be a testament to the proposition laid down by the founding fathers: no man is too grand or too powerful for the law.
Yet at the same time it ought to be a reminder of the protections for the individual those same framers drew up against the awesome power of the State — the rights of the accused to a fair, open and public trial, properly defended, in front of a jury of his peers.
Somewhere along the way the majesty of the law got lost and these events have become synonymous with much of what the world disdains about America.
The celebrity trial now serves only to point up the advantages, even in criminal law, that wealth and fame can buy you in America. It unveils the tawdry spectacle of law as public entertainment.
Though the Jackson trial will not be televised, there will still be plenty of opportunity to watch prosecutors, defence lawyers and even jurors grandstanding for the public. It reveals how large the issue of race in American justice still looms.
Those of a classical disposition might see in the modern American taste for the celebrity trial shades of Rome’s demise — the bread-and-circuses combination deployed to keep a troubled public distracted from costly and difficult foreign commitments. Or perhaps it might be redolent of Athens, a republic brought low, in the end at least, in part by the unhealthy fascination of its citizenry for the charms and rewards of litigation. And yet, for all its obvious flaws, it is still possible to see the spectacle in a more positive light. For the next few months the American people will be educated again in the contours and detail of their legal system. They will debate in their homes and workplaces depositions, cross-examinations, the rules of evidence, the burden of proof. Millions of people, in other words, will take part in one great, continuing civics lesson.
And, yes, all right. It really will be quite a show.
WHO'S WHO IN THE COURT
A HOLLYWOOD casting director might have devised the dramatis personae for the trial.
Apart from the accused himself, who became the most famous person on Earth in the 1980s, there is the accuser, Gavin Arvizo, 15, who claims that Jackson abused him while they lay in bed together at Neverland. A cancer survivor, he met the star after having a cyst weighing 16lb removed from his chest.
His relationship with Jackson was exposed by the British interviewer Martin Bashir, 41, who is also likely to be a star witness during the trial. Bashir, also known for interviewing Diana, Princess of Wales, now works for ABC News in New York.
Janet Arviso, 34, the youth’s mother, once called Jackson “the father Gavin never had” and “a saint”. Now, it is claimed, she has consulted Larry Feldman, the lawyer who negotiated a multi-million dollar settlement with Jordy Chandler, another child who accused Jackson of sexual abuse and is also potentially a star witness.
David Arvizo, 37, the boy’s father, is planning to sue his estranged wife for custody of his son, although his convictions for beating his wife and cruelty against his children may work against him.
Other key characters will include the chief prosecution and defence lawyers – Tom “Mad Dog” Sneddon and Thomas Mesereau Jr respectively.
Mr Sneddon, 62, is a former boxer and staunch Republican who was distraught after failing to prosecute Jackson in the 1994 Jordy Chandler case.
Mr Mesereau, 55, is a courtroom diplomat, whose former clients have included the boxing champion Mike Tyson.
The judge is Rodney Melville, who has presided over the trial with an iron fist, refusing to let deadlines slip.
:elvis: