Jurors reach verdict in Jackson trial

[Wolfie]

Jurors reach verdict in Jackson trial

 

Monday, June 13, 2005 Posted: 3:43 PM EDT (1943 GMT)

 

A Michael Jackson fan walks in front

of the singer's Neverland ranch

Sunday in Los Olivos, California.

 

SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- Jurors in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial told the trial judge Monday that they have reached a verdict.

 

The announcement came after about 32 hours of deliberations.

 

Earlier Monday jurors requested the continuation of the reading of the teen accuser's lengthy testimony, sources close to the case said. The accuser was on the stand for four days in March.

 

Meanwhile, attorneys for media outlets, including CNN, filed another motion with the court Monday, demanding access to hearings where the court is answering jurors' questions and requests to listen to the reading of previous testimony.

 

"Barring the public from these final, pivotal stages of this case is, from a constitutional standpoint, simply intolerable," the media attorneys argued in their motion.

 

Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville has set a hearing for Thursday on a previous request to disclose jury questions and release transcripts of hearings.

 

Media attorneys have been pressing the judge to move up the hearing's date, arguing that their request will be moot if the jury reaches a verdict first.

 

Jackson's attorneys have filed a motion opposing the media's request, arguing that providing public access to the jury's questions, and hearings related to them, "would invade the confidentiality of the jury deliberation process and would threaten Mr. Jackson's right to a fair trial."

 

Sources said Melville and attorneys in the case have met at least three times as jurors deliberated.

 

The jurors adjourned Friday afternoon, ending six days of discussion on the 10 accusations against the pop star.

 

Spokeswoman dismissed

 

Jackson's Web site said Friday night that the singer had fired his spokeswoman, Raymone Bain, who has been with him throughout the trial.

 

"MJJ Productions regretfully announces the termination of Raymone Bain and Davis, Bain & Associates. We thank you for your services," said the complete text of the statement at www.mjjsource.com.

 

Lead defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. visited Neverland ranch Wednesday after a flap arose over who should speak for Jackson.

 

Mesereau received court permission to release a statement saying that he had "not authorized anyone to speak or hold press conferences on behalf of Michael Jackson or his family."

 

Jackson and his family posted a similar statement on his Web site.

 

Jackson fans and supporters have joined the media from around the world outside the Santa Maria courthouse each day for news of a verdict.

 

Jackson, who is not required to be on hand for deliberations, has been awaiting the jury's decision at Neverland with his family.

 

The 46-year-old pop star is facing judgment on 10 counts, stemming from events that allegedly took place with a 13-year-old boy two years ago: four counts of lewd conduct with a child younger than 14; one count of attempted lewd conduct; four counts of administering alcohol to facilitate child molestation; and one count of conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment or extortion.

 

Jackson has denied the charges and pleaded not guilty.

 

CNN's Dree De Clamecy and Rusty Dornin contributed to this report.

 

Original source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/13/jackson.trial/index.html

[Wolfie]

Jackson not guilty

 

Monday, June 13, 2005 Posted: 5:20 PM EDT (2120 GMT)

 

Michael Jackson arrives at the

courthouse Monday to hear the verdict.

SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- A California jury found pop superstar Michael Jackson not guilty Monday of all charges in his child-molestation trial.

 

The jury deliberated about 32 hours before reaching its decision.

 

A number of Jackson's family members accompanied him to the courthouse to hear the verdict.

 

The verdicts were read in a packed courtroom, with a crowd gathered outside the courthouse in Santa Maria.

 

Monday's verdicts capped a chain of events that began in February 2003, after the broadcast of "Living With Michael Jackson," an unflattering television documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir.

 

In the program, Jackson was shown holding hands with the boy now accusing him of child molestation, and he defended as "loving" his practice of letting young boys sleep in his bed.

 

In November of 2003, California authorities searched Jackson's Neverland Ranch, following molestation allegations against the singer. Jackson was booked on child-molestation charges that month and released on $3 million bail. Formal charges against Jackson were filed in December 2003.

 

A grand jury indicted the 46-year-old pop star in April 2004 on charges of molesting the boy at the center of the trial, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive in 2003.

 

Jackson pleaded not guilty to the charges and did not testify during the trial.

 

Jurors had deliberated during the course of seven days. Testimony and closing arguments stretched nearly 14 weeks before the jury got the case.

 

Prosecutors alleged that, following the broadcast of the Bashir documentary in 2003, Jackson and five associates plotted to control and intimidate the accuser's family to get them to go along with damage-control efforts, including holding them against their will at Neverland. The molestation charges relate to alleged incidents between Jackson and the accuser after the Bashir documentary aired.

 

Jackson's lawyers, however, consistently portrayed the singer as a naive victim of the accuser's family, who, they claimed, were grifters -- schemers -- with a habit of wheedling money out of the rich and famous.

 

The Jackson trial was full of salacious testimony, dramatic moments and celebrity defense witnesses.

 

Among the more than 130 people who testified were former child star Macaulay Culkin. He disputed testimony from earlier witnesses who claimed they saw Jackson behaving inappropriately with him in the early 1990s.

 

On March 10, the first day Jackson's accuser testified, the pop star arrived late for court as the judge threatened to revoke the singer's $3 million bail. Jackson, claiming he had a back injury severe enough to require a hospital visit, finally came to court in pajamas and slippers, walking gingerly while supported by a bodyguard and his father.

 

The accuser, now 15, testified in graphic detail about what he claims were molestations by Jackson on two separate occasions in early 2003. During cross-examination, however, the teenager admitted he told an administrator at his school that nothing happened between him and the singer.

 

Prosecution witnesses included the accuser's mother, who was on the stand for three days, and a former security guard who testified that he saw Jackson engaged in oral sex with another teenage boy.

 

That boy received an out-of-court settlement in his family's molestation case against the pop star for an undisclosed amount. Jackson was not charged in that case and denied any wrongdoing.

 

Testimony in the trial closed with prosecutors showing a police videotape in which the accuser tells detectives the singer gave him wine and masturbated him as many as five times.

 

Members of the jury came from a pool of 200 people from Santa Barbara County, just north of Los Angeles. The eight-woman, four-man jury ranged in age from 20 to 79, including a 21-year-old male paraplegic who said he once visited Neverland Ranch, where Jackson has a mansion, zoo and small amusement park.

 

Original source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/13/jackson.trial/index.html

[-Dodge-]

Man, he should be guilty on ALL counts! You know, I could see him getting a kid drunk as getting drunk himself.

[BONES]

In my opinion the dude is guilty on all counts. He got away with it just like OJ and Robert Blake.

 

I do not care who you are what kind of a parent leaves a child with a "man" ---parents are suppose to protect their children not hand them over to a perv like Wacko Jacko.

[BananaSplit]

I agree, the dude obviously isn't sane...and he looks like an alien if I may point out, anyway, I wasn't suprised that they found him not guilty. Not the verdict I was hoping, but the verdict that I was expecting.

[shivaree]

I was really dissapointed, though I can understand why the jury reached it. There might not of been a real "victim" in this particular incident but there is no doubt in my mind Jackson did a lot of that stuff, even if it wasn't with that boy. Unfortuantly that's not how the justice system works >.< gar gar.

[Sin]

that still really pisses me off... damn child molester..

[Mephisto]

He wouldn't last an hour in prison. He'd get hit once and his face would fall apart. Be fun to watch.