The ultimate defense

Dan Nied wonders if Michael Jackson walked away from court a free man simply because he is Michael Jackson

By Dan Nied [send email]

Apparently, the one surefire way to get out of anything is to be good at something.

As long as that something is singing, dancing, acting, running or jumping. If you have any of those skills, then you can go to your local shopping mall and shoot the place up without fear of prosecution.

If one thing was proven Monday as Michael Jackson was acquitted of 10 counts related to child molestation, it is that celebrity is the ultimate defense.

Here's a guy that not only admits to sleeping with children, he thinks anyone who doesn't is crazy. Here's a guy that named his home Neverland after the Peter Pan story because he never wanted to grow up. However, I don't think Peter Pan had an amusement park in his backyard or a pet chimp named Bubbles.

Here's a guy that has already beaten child molestation allegations in 1993, yet did not take that as a warning sign to stay away from kids.

We understand Michael, the innocent spirits of children bring you so much joy. But then again, heroin can bring people joy too, but most of us have the sense to stay away.

So in the eyes of the court, Jackson did not molest his accuser. At least that is what a jury said. Could it be that this was such a clear-cut guilty verdict that it would be too logical for those 12 jurors to act with a little bit of common sense?

Hmm, repeatedly accused of child molestation? Check. Likes to sleep with young boys? Check. Owns the Elephant Man's bones? Check. May or may not be an alien? Check.

But then maybe the jury was blinded by possibly the biggest celebrity the world has ever known. Or maybe they were blinded by Jackson's pasty white skin that might be bleached or might be the result of some skin disease.

Either way, Jackson walked. A short time after the verdict was read, all the jurors gathered together for their very own news conference, where they soaked in the limelight and said that almost none of the nearly 150 witnesses that testified were credible to them.

Could it have helped that Jackson had actors Macaulay Culkin and Chris Tucker testify in his defense? I mean, did you see Culkin in Home Alone? He was sooo cute. And if Michael could keep his hands off of a young Culkin, then he surely could not be a child molester. You would figure that, to a child molester, a 10-year old Culkin must be like Angelina Jolie to a regular guy, right?

But still Jackson is a free man today. He is a celebrity accused of acting improperly, but never faced any consequences other than a lawyer's bill.

Comedian Chris Rock once said that if OJ Simpson, the former Buffalo Bill who was acquitted of murdering his wife in 1994, drove a bus instead of playing football, then he wouldn't be OJ to us.

"He would be 'Orenthal the Bus-Driving Murderer,'" Rock said.

It is a fair assumption. It might also be fair to say that if Jackson was a janitor instead of the King of Pop, then he would be the guy moving into a new house after being paroled 20 years from now, knocking on his neighbors to inform them of his sex-crime conviction.

But it doesn't work that way when you have a name that means something to people. Somehow the world got its rocks off last year when Martha Stewart was convicted of insider trading. So supposedly we can point to her as an example of celebrity justice. But Stewart's crime did not really hurt anyone directly. There was no singular victim in that case. But throw in a murder, as with the cases of Simpson and recently-acquitted former "Baretta" star Robert Blake, or a molestation case such as Jackson's and the sympathy card gets twisted, mangled and reversed. All of a sudden people are forced to picture someone they think they know, and maybe even like, performing a lewd or violent act that no reasonable person would dream of.

Simpson couldn't have killed his wife. He rushed for 2,000 yards in a 14-game season AND he was Nordberg in The Naked Gun. Jackson couldn't have molested that boy. He made Thriller. How can the people we hold highest in this erroneous society of popular culture commit these heinous crimes? Celebrities are absolved of being crazy. Celebrities are our best and brightest. There is no way they could perform evil.

As for Stewart and her insider trading conviction, that crime was one that any average person would at least consider, if not embrace. That is why it was so easy to vilify her. It took no thought at all to assume she was guilty.

That was her difference.

The truth is that no average person could hope for freedom with as much evidence stacked against them as there was for Simpson and Jackson. That is because a jury that is actually ruling on its peers would not be awestruck by the defendant. But for Simpson and Jackson, their stars shone brighter than any piece of evidence gathered against them.

So let this be a lesson to all celebrities. If your name is big enough, you can do whatever you want to whoever you want. Kill your wife, molest kids, rape as many women as you can.

The legal system is here to keep us peons in check. But American royalty is free to live violently.