So, the Jackson death trial. There’s something about it that just sits very wrongly with me.
It’s not the verdict; I can see why it was so. It’s not the media, for you can count on them to be fucktards given the slightest opportunity. It’s not the prosecutors, for much the same reason.
It’s the complete loons outside, who were dancing in the street and announcing that “justice had been done”. No, it hasn’t. The wheels of the justice system have turned, and someone who is probably guilty of being bloody stupid has been caught and punished for it. But that’s not the same as justice; justice would be getting all the people who surrounded Jackson, who were catering to his every whim, who put him in a place of being in terrible pain and having to prepare for a show that clearly he wasn’t capable of doing. Justice would be letting the world know the cost of being a media creature for your entire life, and trying to stop it happening again.
Justice, in fact, would be demystifying the poor man. And getting the nutters on the street to move on. But they’re not going to dance to celebrate that, are they?
+1.
Whatever the crime, I don’t think a conviction is ever grounds for joy. The crime is still the wrong that has been perpetrated. The punishment is a regretable necessity.
I can think of counter examples; for some cases I think that people are entitled to feel a certain satisfaction that justice has been done. But that’s not what this case is really about, because people are celebrating as if jailing Murray was the culmination of a major effort to find a murderer.