if it's on the interweb it must be true
February 18, 2005 10:58 AM   Subscribe

The Smoking Gun is leaked the 1,903 Michael Jackson grand jury testimony. Because they're our friends, they have summarized the sealed information into three different webpages: witnesses, search. and destroy?, and topless photos (not as sexy as you might hope). And of course there are the individual transcripts broken up by witness. Isn't this leak grounds for a mistrial? And what does a lightskinned brotha have to do to get a fair trial any more?
posted by tsarfan (30 comments total)
 
I read a few pages this morning, it's really bad stuff. not even Perry Mason could get him to walk if the TSG stuff is true. I think Jackson will have to flee, it looks really really bad.
posted by matteo at 11:16 AM on February 18, 2005


IF the leak is intentional, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow Jackson's well paid legal minions are behind it in order to force a mistrial.
posted by zaelic at 11:20 AM on February 18, 2005


zaelic, exactly my thought. They know he's fucked so they want to throw the trial.

Anyone want to take bets on whether he actually does jailtime?
posted by fenriq at 11:25 AM on February 18, 2005


Matteo: I can't help but think of the movie Capturing The Friedmans where things got so out of control that who knows what the truth was anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if the real story lies somewhere in the middle.
posted by tittergrrl at 11:28 AM on February 18, 2005


Can you get a mistrial even before you have a trial? I think if that was the goal of the defense leaking these, then they had lousy timing. Now it only extends the process of jury selection but no judge will prevent the possibility of trial based on such a thing. Otherwise, any well-connected guilty person could do this to get off.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:30 AM on February 18, 2005


Keep in mind while you're reading that grand jury witnesses are not cross examined, and there could be plenty of 'evidence' admitted during the grand jury proceedings that would never be allowed in the real trial. Innocent until proven guilty, folks.
posted by spilon at 11:33 AM on February 18, 2005


I'm so goddamn sick of this Michael Jackson trial shit already, and they're not even close to having a fucking jury selected. God help me.

Anyone want to take bets on whether he actually does jailtime?

A better bet would be the over/under on when a verdict is delivered. I'll say three years and take the over.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:35 AM on February 18, 2005


God help me.

God help us all, The Card Cheat. God help us all.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:47 AM on February 18, 2005


The Card Cheat, I'd have gone with the over too.

God help you all, us athiests rely on a little something called Scotch.

How about a side bet? How many times is Corey Feldman going to milk his part in this to try and get a career going again?

I'll say four times (that's three more since he's already pushed it once).
posted by fenriq at 11:49 AM on February 18, 2005


God help us all.

yeah but it could be much worse. it could have been a tv show like the OJ trial -- there won't be cameras in the courtroom this time, won't they?
posted by matteo at 11:54 AM on February 18, 2005


as boring and stupid as i think this whole thing is, i think there could be serious legal consequences for the smoking gun over this ...and serious implications ... are we living in an age where grand jury secrecy is impossible? ... where sealed court records won't stay sealed? ... if this kind of thing happens more often, what will our legal system be like?

from what little i've heard about this case it seems like both sides are gaming the legal system to the point of abuse
posted by pyramid termite at 12:02 PM on February 18, 2005


If Lynne Stewart could be convicted by a Manhattan jury, than I think Michael Jackson could be convicted by a Santa Maria jury.

Santa Maria county is a combination of old-school California Republicans and new-school California Latinos (a lot more of whom are Republicans than you might think); neither group is terribly liberal on things like this.
posted by MattD at 12:03 PM on February 18, 2005


it's going to be more of a TV show - E! will do nighty reenactments.

god help us all.
posted by sachinag at 12:06 PM on February 18, 2005


The Stranger
posted by srboisvert at 12:07 PM on February 18, 2005


This is the official source of information on the trial, if you're interested.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 12:21 PM on February 18, 2005


It looks to me like the appearance of impropriety is so severe that nothing short of actual impropriety could justify it...
posted by ewkpates at 12:23 PM on February 18, 2005


And then there was the underwear.

The book "Poo-Chi," detectives wrote, contained "photographs of female groin area." Officers, they only look like the female groin area! The volume is the, um, inventive work of Mayumi Lake, who photographs underarms and knees to create the illusion that you are looking at a woman's nether region. Some photo titles: "Wetting Porn," "Puffy Pink Porn," and "Cheerleader Porn."

[Poo Chi link potentially NSFW if you work in a knee-pits-look-like-groinal-regions-shy workplace]
posted by tpl1212 at 12:25 PM on February 18, 2005


Ah Michael, we knew you when you were a cute little kid. I always wondered how such a great voice and amazing stage presence got bundled into that little body.

How did it all go so awry?

Ok that was rhetorical, I'm not really asking.

Man, I think you're a very sensitive caring person but maybe you need to be kept somewhere well, safe.
posted by scheptech at 12:31 PM on February 18, 2005


Innocent until proven guilty, folks.

By the time someone makes it to TSG, that decision's already been made, inside the court or outside.
posted by AlexReynolds at 1:03 PM on February 18, 2005


He's probably guilty, but he's definately creepy, and broke. I think it would be interesting to go back and run an audit of his finances to see where his hundreds of millions went. We know of one time that he paid off an accuser to avoid going to trail. That was public. I wonder how many times he might have done that in the past privately.
posted by Arch Stanton at 1:52 PM on February 18, 2005


How on earth do his nephews look remotely like him? Were they taken to the same chop shop? Freak show.
posted by Frank Grimes at 2:26 PM on February 18, 2005


Oh lord, some of this stuff is really horrible. I'm reading the accuser's first grand jury testimony; he's with Jackson, his brother, and another adult named Frank Tyson in Jackson's bedroom, and they're all looking at (straight) porn online:

Q: Did [Jackson] say anything else to anybody in the room during that time?
A: Yes. Prince and Paris were sitting on the bed-- laying on the bed asleep. And then he leaned over to Prince and whispered in his ear, "Prince, you're missing the p-u-s-s-y."
Q: Did he spell it or say it?
A: He said it.

First I've heard that his own children might very well have been abused as well (Prince is, what, 5?). This stuff is damning, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is an attempt to force a mistrial.
posted by jokeefe at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2005


I've got a few old Jackson Five tracks, and that little bugger could belt out a song like no one's business back in the day. And then there's his comeback Thriller album which is really quite an amazing bit of music. And IIRC, he did a couple of other cool musical things subsequent to that.

And somewhere in there he just went off the freakin' deep end. Endless sick body modifications. The whole freakshow Neverland thing. And a weird predilection for... not sex with children, I don't think, but some sort of bizarre sharing-of-sex with children. Like he wants to "hang out with the rough boys" and talk dirty and look at skin pictures and all that.

The guy needs a rubber room.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:51 PM on February 18, 2005


Opps. Looks like there may indeed have been some sex with children. Sick.

Odds are he suicides.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:54 PM on February 18, 2005


you know, I would pay a monthly fee to have all michael jackson related news screened from my viewing.
posted by mcsweetie at 4:52 PM on February 18, 2005


fff, for a pithy chronology of those body mods:

A Photographic History of Michael Jackson's Face
posted by telstar at 5:46 PM on February 18, 2005


i'm with you, mcsweet.

lock him away in an institution, and keep him there. he's obviously not well.
posted by amberglow at 5:58 PM on February 18, 2005


us athiests

Please, if you're going to be an atheist, learn how to spell it. Thank you.

I of course could be mistaken, and you were merely letting us know that you (and others) are the most athi of all.
posted by beth at 6:21 PM on February 18, 2005


After reading more from TSG, it look to me like there are a whole lot of people who should all be prosecuted. There was a freakin' conspiracy of support going on there. Someone should have squealed a decade ago.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:06 AM on February 19, 2005


Actually if this is all there is I think the case against Jackson is weak. On the alcohol charges, he is probably in trouble. On the molestation charges, you have his word against the word of two brothers and their very erratic mother. The rest of the testimony appears to be more incriminating of his employees.

If they can put Jackson away for allowing a minor to drink alcohol and view porn, half of the nation's parents should probably be in jail.
posted by DirtyCreature at 12:29 PM on February 19, 2005


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