It Ain't Over Till It's Over

As I was reading the newspaper last week, I came to a screeching halt when I choked on my coffee over the story about the "Reluctant Aquitter." It seems that Jackson juror, Ray Hultman and his wife, are suing to get out of the "after-the-verdict-book-deal." Am I guessing correctly that the missus is also a plaintiff due to the community property rules in this state?

Anyway, this juror is claiming that they were misled by the publisher's representatives and that their "simplicity, naiveté, overly trusting natures, lack of sophistication and inexperience" was the reason they were duped. Excuse me, but aren't those the very attributes that the attorneys want in a juror? Well, OK, defense attorneys anyway.

Immediately after the verdict, both jurors and alternates, 19 in all, gave a press conference where they were all waxing nostalgic about "life long friendships, how close they got, how they'd stay in touch, etc, etc." At this press conference Mr. Hultman said that he and two others didn't initially share the opinion that Jackson was innocent, but the majority eventually convinced the three that the evidence wasn't strong enough to convict. Everyone was slap happy and fancy free.

Then by the time August rolled around, Mr. Hultman gave another interview, this time with with fellow juror Eleanor Cook, where they both whined about being pressured to acquit. This of course came hand in hand with their announcement to write books about the trial, most especially about being bullied. They said in the interview that they believed that Jackson was guilty, but were "railroaded into acquitting him." Mr. Hultman then went on to say that he felt that the other panelists were not educated enough, so he went along with them knowing he'd never be able to convince them that Jackson was guilty. Ouch. Think Roy is off their Christmas card lists?

Interestingly enough, while researching for this article I found a news story dated June 07, 2005 that Mrs. Cook's granddaughter had been talking to the Associated Press about how her grandmother, talked about wanting to write a book about her jury duty experience, back in February when she was first chosen. She also mentioned the possibility of being on 60 Minutes and the Oprah Winfrey Show. Huh?

There was no way to tell how it would play out as this trial progressed. The Santa Maria Times columnist/romance novelist, Steve Corbett was always writing about jurors behaving badly, or jurors talking to other people about the case during the trial or some other colorful issue, while the "Hang 'Em High" anchors on Court TV were discussing detailed plans on how they were going to draw and quarter Jackson. once he was convicted. The only thing that ever changed was the number of helicopters hovering.

According to Robert Frost, " A jury is a group of 12 people, who, having lied to the judge about their health, hearing, and business engagements, have failed to fool him." Since the extremely organized no-nonsense Rodney Melville presided over the Michael Jackson jury selection, I'd say that's probably a fair statement, since they were chosen so quickly. Judge Melville is an excellent jurist. He's definitely raised the bar, whereas countless others like Lance Ito have done everything they could to lower it, and in some instances, bury it, while becoming a joke. I often wonder why we've been so very lucky to have him in Santa Maria, but i'll be quiet about it so as not to jinx it.

However, once the trial was came to an end, I found that H.L. Mencken's quote, "A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer" was much more appropriate. Since I might be one of the three people in all of Santa Maria that stayed away from the court house, I never saw Thomas Mesereau in action, but after seeing him and his flowing silver locks coming and going on Court TV, I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that he out maneuvered Thomas Sneddon, since his team won.

Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. My guess is that Mrs. Cook and Mr. Hultman want more time and money to boot. This puts a whole new spin on "doing your civic duty." --reenee