No, getting a "not guilty " verdict isn't enough to prove innocence. Just ask OJ Simpson. It just means that the prosecutor was not able to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
I remember watching the Martin Bashir do
entary in 2003 and being shocked at an intimate moment when 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo after telling Mr. Bashir that Jackson wouldn't hurt anyone, put his head on Jackson's shoulder and stared up at him. My first thought was "that kid's in love with Michael Jackson".
OK, a fan being in love with MJ maybe isn't unusual. But Jackson's response was. He let him do it. He was basking in it. He thought it was the greatest thing in the world and there wasn't a thing wrong with it.
That is not the action of a man who understands children and knows where the boundaries are and what they need from adults. It doesn't prove that there was hanky-panky going on, but it shows Jackson to be someone who's primary concern was about how children made him feel rather than what is best for children. And of course he also said in that interview that even after having to pay $25 million to settle a previous child abuse case out of court, he still slept with boys.
That is reckless. That is a person who thinks that the rules don't apply to him.
So I was not surprised when I found that not long after that Arvizo's parents went the the Santa Barbara police to file charges.
No, the charges didn't stick in court. Most child sex abuse cases are lost because in a he said/she said contest, juries tend to give the adult the benefit of the doubt. It's the reason most Catholic priests escaped prosecution; its the reason the boy scouts have a long list of "do not rehire" accused abusers that were not jailed even though all accusations in the BSA are referred to local police.
Why are people up in arms now about all these sex abuse accusations that followed priests from parish to parish? Because over 90% of the time in a sex assault case the victim is telling the truth. They lose cases because they cannot prove them - but the abuse happened nonetheless. In hindsight we know this. We see the patterns and we know this isn't kids in multiple places in multiple decades making up stories about the same priest. Just because each case couldn't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
So, no - the fact that MJ got off is not an exoneration. It does not clear his character. Rather, the fact that he was (again) accused and that the Santa Barbara Police felt they had a good case (most of the time the police won't press charges if they think they will lose in court) speaks volumes.
If MJ wanted to clear his name after the first accusations he could have done that. He could have steered clear of boys and focused on other community service.
He could have stopped taking boys to bed with him! He couldn't do that. That's what I saw then, and that's what I see now.