Comments by jurors impressed me once again how seriously juries take their duties.
All the huffing and puffing of attorneys is deflated in the hands of twelve ordinary men and women charged by the court with judging the facts of a case, which is all they're asked to do (as opposed to judging or making the law).
One juror said that they'd resolved to treat Mr. Jackson just like any other person who might be on trial and not to become star-struck.
Once they did that, she said, they had no trouble judging the believability of witnesses and the force of the evidence.
Trial lawyers like Tom Snedden and Tom Mesereau know from their first courtroom experiences that witnesses constantly disappoint on the witness stand, while others come through like shining stars.
A conspiracy charge charges an illegal agreement, either to do something illegal or to do something that's legal in an illegal way. Conspiracy is called the prosecutor's friend because it generally widens the scope of admissible evidence. You get more dirt in, in other words, because in addition to proving the main crime charged, you get to show who the alleged criminal was involved with and why.
Once Snedden accused Jackson of molesting the boy in question, the defense was entitled to show who was behind him, that is, influencing him, such as his mother, who is portrayed as something of a stage-mother, but in her case, more like a lawsuit-mother.
I don't know enough about the facts, having only followed the trial generally, as who could avoid it, to comment on other participants or theories.
I do recall saying, when discussing possible outcomes, that this case reminded me of the old defense lawyer's analysis: "I wouldn't convict a yellow dog on evidence like this."
No, I don't know why a yellow dog might be worse than some other color. Maybe 'yellow' dog is meant to convey not color, but lack of fighting spirit, not good if you're breeding dogs to fight. That must be it.
Snedden's comment, through the gritted teeth of disappointment, that he thought he'd done the right thing by going forward, i.e. prosecuting, on the basis of the alleged victim's complaint, which he and his deputies believed, struck me as being true, that is a true statement of belief warranting the effort made.
The deeper question, resolved by the jury, is that perhaps he shouldn't have had; perhaps he'd allowed himself to have been misled by a witness who led him astray. Prosecutors and defense attorneys are notorious for doing this, which is why we have juries in the first place.
The jury serves, when functioning at its highest, as this jury seems to have done, as the conscience of the community.
It's no disgrace to Snedden to have failed to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. As prosecutors love to argue when they have bad witnesses, "When the stage is set in Hell, you don't get angels for witnessses." That's when they start making deals with the devil... I guess Snedden ran out of devils.
Good for the jury.
A big win for the system, imho.