Angry in the Great White North

From the Daily News:

Jury deliberations in Michael Jackson's child-molestation trial were allegedly tainted by shocking misconduct that included smuggling in videotaped Court TV shows and secretly communicating with the pop star's mother, the Daily News has learned.

Author Stacy Brown revealed the stunning jury room shenanigans he heard from two jurors who consulted him for help with tell-all books they plan to write.

"From what I've heard, the whole trial was a waste of taxpayers' money and time. That jury would have acquitted him even if they had a videotape [of the alleged crime]," said Brown.

For instance:

A gang of three female jurors were such rabid Jackson fans that they cooed, "Not my Michael . . ." when the panel discussed the felony charges against the pop idol. Both [Eleanor] Cook and juror Ray Hultman "said these three women formed a bond, and their minds were made up about one-third of the way through the trial," Brown said.

Both Cook, 79, and Hultman, 62, say they now believe Jackson was guilty.

Shocking allegations designed to sell books are a dime a dozen in this industry, but one wonders...

Still, there are disconnects. For instance, Eleanor Cook herself broke the rules:

Juror Eleanor Cook says she smuggled a medical text into deliberations to show "Jackson fit the book's definition of a pedophile to a T." Other jurors later held it over her head to "intimidate" her into voting for acquittal, she says.

She admits to weird behavior in the courtroom:

Cook admits she frequently winked at Jackson's mother Katherine in court and "exchanged wardrobe tips" with the entertainer's mom, which resulted in them wearing the same colors on certain days. "She [Cook] intimated that she communicated with Katherine Jackson, in some manner, during the trial," said Brown.

Yet despite these flagrant violations, Cook was not tossed from the jury:

Brown said Judge Rodney Melville never found out about the medical book, but a bailiff reported the video incident [involving a different juror sneaking a video of a relevant CourtTV program in the jury room]. Still, the judge did not boot the rule-breaking jurors.

This is at odds at what Judge Melville had promised:

Acknowledging that there was a high risk of jury misconduct in such a high-profile trial, the judge said he would have no hesitation in replacing an errant juror with one of eight alternates at his disposal.

"If someone doesn't heed my admonitions, I've got eight jurors willing to help," he said.

All and all, this is shaping up to be a mess. I'm not a legal scholar, so I don't know how double jeopardy attaches to a verdict if there is evidence that the trial resulting in the verdict was a shambles.

I willing to guess that double jeopardy still applies, otherwise a precedent would be set and prosecutors would be look for any excuse to challenge acquittals for minor infractions of the rules. If I'm right, Jackson can return from Bahrain at any time. On the other hand, if a majority of people believe these accounts and form an opinion that Jackson was never properly tried, and thus is possibly, or even probably, guilty, he might reconsider coming back to the US.

In that case, he should probably stay in Bahrain for the long term, or until local fundamentalists decide he is more of a threat to Islamic virtue than the presense of a US naval base.

Why doesn't he just go to Thailand? Too obvious, probably.