Feb 22, 2005. - Los Angeles Times
Potential
Jackson Jurors May Be Put Off by Delay
By Steve
Chawkins, Times Staff Writer
When prospective jurors in the Michael Jackson trial
return to court in Santa Maria, Calif., this morning, the last
big news
about the child-molestation case that they will be allowed to
know will already be a week old: The pop icon spent one night
in the hospital, laid low by a nasty flu.
If they followed the
orders of Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville
during a weeklong postponement, they would
have avoided all news of the case. They would not have glanced
at hundreds of pages posted on the Web of purported grand jury
testimony that cast Jackson as a sexual predator, and they would
not have sat through another two-hour television special with journalist
Martin Bashir stressing the star's alleged fondness for young boys.
But
even if they managed to avoid hearing all the media speculation and lawyerly
spin about the singer, some may be miffed by what
they know for sure: They had to alter their schedules for a week
because a big star had the flu.
"Some of them are going to feel somewhat annoyed by the delay," said
Marshall Hennington, a Los Angeles trial consultant. "Others
will think it's nothing more than a PR stunt by Team Jackson to
manipulate them, to conjure up emotions of sympathy, empathy, pity
and compassion. Then there will be those jurors who are genuinely
concerned about his health and well-being."
Such neighborly
concern may come naturally to a number of potential panel members,
according to a Times analysis of a court-administered
jury questionnaire.
In the findings, 7% of the 243 potential jurors
whose responses were reported said they or someone close to them personally knew
the ordinarily reclusive Jackson. Twenty-six percent said they
or someone they knew have dropped by the star's Neverland ranch — which
the singer occasionally opens to groups of ill and underprivileged
children.
Numbers like that can be good news
for Jackson's lawyers, who are trying to cast the 46-year-old entertainer as
a well-regarded,
if eccentric, fixture in the community.
On the other hand, more
than 44% of prospective panel members have some close connection with law enforcement,
and nearly 72%
have ties to the military. The region's largest employer is Vandenberg
Air Force Base in Lompoc, and the federal penitentiary at Lompoc
also is a major source of jobs.
"That's problematic," said Laurie Levenson, a professor
at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor. "Michael
Jackson doesn't fit in with the military image of how people should
behave."
Lawyers on both sides will have other numbers in mind as well
when they examine prospective jurors. More than 34% of the potential
panelists know someone who has been accused of a serious crime
or have been accused themselves. More than 60% know about allegations
of sexual molestation lodged against Jackson in 1993. (No charges
were filed in that case.) And more than 71% have either had cancer
or have a family member who has had the disease — a figure
that may be significant because Jackson's accuser is a leukemia
survivor.
When the jurors are finally selected, perhaps in a few
weeks, Jackson must avoid upsetting them with another delay, experts
said.
"He's spent his capital," Levenson said. "You
get one strike. After that, they'll really hold it against him."
In
the past, Jackson has had a tough time maintaining his health for
court appearances. A 2002 civil trial in Santa Maria and one
in Indianapolis the following year, both concerning contractual
disputes, were marked by delays because Jackson fell ill.
Brian
Oxman, one of his attorneys in Indianapolis, explained at the time: "It
makes him ill to have to cope with litigation that people seem to heap on him."
Oxman
is also one of Jackson's attorneys in the current criminal case.
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