Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Michael Jackson Found Not Guilty

Aired June 13, 2005 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening, again, everyone.
As Larry has been saying, Michael Jackson is many things to us, strange to be sure, but one thing you can say he is not, tonight, and that is a convicted child molester. The verdict delivered in a California courtroom today was a clear-cut victory for Mr. Jackson and a stinging defeat for the prosecution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury in the above entitled case find the defendant not guilt of conspiracy, as charged in count one in the indictment. Dated June 13th, 2005. Foreperson number 80.

Count two verdict: We the jury in the above entitled case find the defendant not guilty of a lewd act upon a minor child, as charged in count two of the indictment. Dated June 13th, 2005. Foreperson number 80.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Not guilty of every count charged -- free to go home and do his best to put his life back together. Perhaps no easy task, at that. But it beats the alternative, which could have been more than 18 years in prison. For a man, who at times look so frail, it's hard to imagine him getting out of bed in the morning.

The case has dragged on for nearly two years. Charges that Mr. Jackson, who admitted sleeping with young boys, molested one as well. But under the weight of a courtroom, which is different from the lightness of the tabloid press, it fell apart.

We begin tonight with legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The case could have been a simple one. Michael Jackson admits on videotape that he slept in the same bed with a 13-year-old cancer survivor.

MICHAEL JACKSON, SINGER: That's the most loving thing to do, is share your bed with someone.

TOOBIN: that boy, then, tells prosecutors that Jackson had molested him in that bed, at the Neverland ranch. That case, one of simple child molestation, could have been tried with just a few witnesses ,in just a few weeks. But that wasn't the case that Thomas Sneddon, the district attorney in Santa Barbara county, decided to bring.

Instead, he charged Jackson with orchestrating a conspiracy to imprison the accuser and his family. His star witness? The accuser's mother. And that, it turned out, was the beginning of the end of the prosecution's case.

THOMAS SNEDDON, D.A., SANTA BARBARA COUNTY: We don't select our victims, and we don't select the families they come from. What we do is, we evaluate the case. We try it make a conscientious decision as to whether or not we have enough evidence to go forward, and that's what we did in this case.

TOOBIN: Thomas Mesereau, Jackson's attorney, used the prosecution's evidence in the conspiracy count to turn the tables, and put the accuser's family on trial for: lying in a case against J.C. Penney, for committing welfare fraud, for putting her son up to lie about Jackson in anticipation of a lawsuit against him.

PAUL RODRIGUEZ, JACKSON'S JURY FOREMAN: She just came on too strong with the jury. And she just was trying to make eye contact with individuals in the jury box. And trying to convinces us that, her story was the only story.

TOOBIN: Mesereau had help, too, from actor Chris Tucker who testified that he warned Jackson that the accuser's family was out for his money. From three of Jackson's other supposed victims, including Macaulay Culkin, who said that Jackson had never molested them.

Instead of a simple case, the prosecution made it complicated. And in that complexity, the jury found doubt -- reasonable doubt. And that was all Michael Jackson needed to win the complete victory he achieved today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TOOBIN: Aaron, you don't need a lot of greed to figure this one out. This was a wipeout, and Michael Jackson's a free man.

BROWN: Well, all right. Just -- I want to take your view of this, which makes great sense, as it always does, and just factor in what we just heard. And I'm not sure if you were able to hear it, but one of the jurors said to Larry, which was, "Yeah, I think he probably molested boys at some time or another. But that wasn't exactly the case before us. And they didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt."

TOOBIN: You know...

BROWN: Does that kind of -- does that surprise you?

TOOBIN: It does. But one of the interesting things I felt sitting there through summations, was that evidence against Jackson, in may respects, was better for at least one of the prior accusations of molestation than it was in this case. And you really did have the feeling that, you know, this was kind of a tacked-on case with all of those problems -- with the mother, and the issue of monetary gain for the family -- that in the earlier accusations, particularly one of them, the boy, or now man, who testified that Jackson molested him in the early '90s -- that case is the one that should have been the criminal case, not this one.

BROWN: Well, this was the case they brought. I was, just sitting here listening to the last couple of minutes of Larry, was blown away by the fact that jurors felt that it was likely. But they're not asked to vote on what is likely, they are asked to vote what is beyond a reasonable doubt.

And in some respects, it makes you feel -- I mean, people have varying feelings about this verdict -- it makes you feel pretty good about the system, that they took it that literally.

TOOBIN: You know, I think a lot of us are pretty cynical about: how jurors approach their jobs, and jury instructions, and whether jurors really pay attention to their -- to the instructions that they get, which are always very complicated and were particularly complicated -- 98 pages worth in this case.

But listening to the jurors, as I've done all evening, you know, they really paid attention to these instructions, and they really took the reasonable doubt standard seriously.

BROWN: Let me get one more in. They also -- several of them seemed to react to the victim's mother -- or the alleged victim's mother, or whatever we call him now. I don't know what even to call him anymore -- and they just didn't like her. She snapped her fingers. She tried too hard. She -- it wasn't so much what she said, it's how she acted.

TOOBIN: That, too, was somewhat surprising to me. But I think you have to consider the whole package. This wasn't just her snapping of her fingers. This was a woman -- it was certainly proved to me that she had lied under oath in the past, in a case where she was trying to get money; where she was making allegations of sexual misconduct.

It happened to be against security guards at J.C. Penney. And the --one of the brilliant aspects of Thomas Mesereau's defense, was the way he showed similarities between that case, and what family did in the Jackson case. And it was really all laid out for the jury to find a pattern of lying by the accuser's mother, and also the accuser himself. And that's what sunk him.

BROWN: Jeffrey, it was a fascinating afternoon. Thank you. Jeffrey Toobin, who's in Washington, today.

TOOBIN: It sure was.

BROWN: We said trial by press is different from trial by jury. A CNN-"Usa Today"-Gallup poll measured just how the verdict is sitting tonight with all of you. About a third of the people polled today, said they agreed with the verdict. About half said that they disagreed. When asked how large a factor the pop star's celebrity status played in the verdict, about 3/5ths said it was a major factor. Almost a fifth said a minor factor, and about another fifth said it wasn't a factor, at all. None of those polled, of course, sat through the trial -- twelve jurors did.

Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For several of the jurors, there was one witness who stood out in their minds, the accuser's mother. Foreman Paul Rodriguez says, "She just wasn't believable."

RODRIGUEZ: We just thought that she was not a credible person.

DORNIN (on camera): To you, was that one of the biggest factors in your mind reasoning reasonable doubt.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, actually, yes it was. Yes, it was. When we listened to her, and the way -- there were just so many things that came up.

DORNIN (voice-over): Rodriguez says the jury also had a hard time believing the boy who accused Michael Jackson of molestation.

RODRIGUEZ: We felt that he was pretty well programmed by his mother. You know, and we thought not completely programmed, but there was a lot of things that he was saying that sound exactly as is mother said.

DORNIN: the defense kept raising the issue of the time line. Why would Michael Jackson molest the accuser when the whole world was pressuring him to answer questions about his relationship with the boy? Jurors wondered as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We took notes so well that we could develop the timeline on the boards, and really analyze it. So, it was a question. The time line was a concern.

DORNIN: And while some may seem Michael Jackson is cookie or strange, to the one juror who watched him day in and day out, in court, he seemed very human.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It's not like he's way up here and everyone else is down there; it's not like that. He'd be some person that you could walk up on the street, and say, "Hey, what's up?" You know, I mean, it made him real.

DORNIN: The trial may be done, but it's not over for many of these jurors who are likely to be chased by media crews anxious for more interviews.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm going to hide in my room, and not answer the door or the telephone. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And I'm going to go play bridge tonight, and forget all of this.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And I'll just relax, and be able to just, like, enjoy a glass of wine, and just shut your mind down for a little while.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Wishes that may be tough to fulfill, considering the continual spotlight by the entire world on this case. You saw, a little bit, how people were absolutely mobbing the jury foreman, Paul Rodriguez.

That was shortly after he was on "LARRY KING." He, finally, was able to get in his truck, and leave. But for many of these jurors, that's going to continue over the next few days. And of course, some of them do enjoy it, and perhaps there's a book or two in the offing, for some of them -- Aaron?

BROWN: Yes, I was just -- to say the same thing. I think for some it is kind of fun and for others, it's pretty uncomfortable. Just give me a paragraph on what it was like in the courtroom. Jury comes in, sits down, hands the envelopes to the clerk. What was it like in there?

DORNIN: Well, it just -- the tension that's in a courtroom like that is hard -- even my heart is pounding -- of what's going to happen. I was sitting directly behind Michael Jackson's mother and father. We could hear the judge ripping the envelopes because he had to look at the verdicts first before the clerk could announce them. There was dead silence in the courtroom. Michael Jackson's mother cried a little bit. Some of the jurors became emotional. Michael Jackson, straight somber, staring straight ahead as he has much through the trial.

When they began reading those verdicts, the family, you could tell, was visibly relieved. She began to cry, the brothers and sisters, LaToya, Tito, touched their mother, Katherine. Michael Jackson, still straight as a ramrod, staring straight ahead, and at one point, he did wipe his eyes but other than that he showed very little emotion. Aaron?

BROWN: Rusty, thank you. You can go back to your regular life now, as someone once said to me after the Simpson case. Thank you.

With us in Santa Maria is juror number one, Raymond Hultman. Mr. Hultman, good to have you with us.

Just a quick comment, one your fellow jurors just said that when she looked at Mr. Jackson, she just saw a regular guy. Did you see a regular guy when you looked down at him? Mr. Hultman, are you able to hear me?

RAYMOND HULTMAN, JACKSON TRIAL JUROR: Yes, sir, I can hear you fine. BROWN: OK, let me try it again. One of your fellow jurors jurist said that when she looked at Michael Jackson, he seemed just like a regular guy. Did he seem that way to you?

HULTMAN: No, I wouldn't say that Michael Jackson appears to be a regular guy. I think he's an unusual person. He's -- he has a lot of eccentricities but that doesn't make him guilty of anything.

BROWN: How do you -- how did you separate the eccentricities including the eccentricities that he sleeps with boys and seems to think there is nothing wrong with that or particularly unusual about that. How did you separate that from the crime with which he was charged?

HULTMAN: Well, it's automatically separated actually, because he's not being charged with the crime of sleeping with boys. In fact that's not a crime, and we could only use that as evidence that says that the crime that we were -- or the alleged crime that we were considering -- could have happened, and based on other evidence and that evidence primarily being the credibility of the accuser, we determined that there was a reasonable doubt that Michael Jackson did molest this particular individual.

BROWN: Did you think that that young man got on the witness stand, put his hand on the Bible, took the oath and then lied?

HULTMAN: Well, the jury had a certain amount of evidence to deal with and we of course had to look at his testimony like we look at anyone else's testimony. And do people lie on the witness stand when they swear on the bible that they're going to tell the truth? Of course they do. And, in this case, this particular witness had -- yes, this particular witness, the accuser, had a history of lying. He had lied in a J.C. Penney case that he and his family brought in 1998, I believe it was. He lied about a number of things in that case when he testified. The question came down to the credibility of the accuser.

BROWN: You said a few moments ago in a conversation with Larry that you felt, probably, that Mr. Jackson probably had molested young boys at some point or another. Did that not give weight to the argument that this child -- he's not a kid anymore, child anymore -- this young man made when he testified before you?

HULTMAN: Well, of course it had some weight, but was it enough weight to erase the reasonable doubt? In my mind, when it was all said and done, it couldn't erase the unreasonable doubt in my mind because of a number of other things that occurred involving this particular accuser.

In addition to the lying, this accuser and his family had gone to see two attorneys, one of them being a nationally known attorney that had dealt with the Jackson case in the early '90s. This attorney referred the accuser to a psychologist that had also been involved in the case in the early '90s. It was only after that, and approximately three to four weeks after that, if that long, that he went to the sheriff's department and told the sheriff what happened to him, and to me, it leaves some questions in my mind about what transpired between the time that the accuser visited all of these people and then talked to the sheriff's department. There's just -- there's room for reasonable doubt.

BROWN: Do you think they were after money?

HULTMAN: I think that the accuser's mother is an opportunist. If she sees an opportunity to make money, she's going to do that. But that doesn't make her guilty of anything either. So, you know, but everything added together and all of the evidence weighed that came in on this case, you have to come to the conclusion -- or I came to the conclusion -- that there was just reasonable doubt. And that's...

BROWN: Based on...

HULTMAN: We don't...

BROWN: I'm sorry. Based on what you just heard. Let's assume everything that you did in fact hear, is there anything that anyone could have said that would have erased the reasonable doubt? Once you knew family's history, the J.C. Penney case and the trip to the lawyer and the psychologist and the rest, once you knew all that, was the case essentially done?

HULTMAN: You mean was it decided there and then that Michael Jackson wasn't guilty?

BROWN: Well, I think I'm asking, is there anything at that point the prosecution could have said that would have gotten you to change your mind?

HULTMAN: Well, I'll be quite honest with you, in that when I went through most of this trial and listened to most of the testimony, I was of the mind-set that the Arvisos were lying, that Michael Jackson may have not been innocent, but I was beginning to wonder whether this accuser had really been molested.

It wasn't until near the end of the trial when I actually saw the sheriff's interview that I was quite affected by that. I mean, my immediate reaction was that I felt that he was telling the truth, and I had to get around that in the deliberation room. And I mean, I'm not -- I'm not averse to changing an opinion if I feel like there's another possibility that could have happened. And the jurors talk about these things. That's what we're supposed to do, is talk about these things. That's why they call deliberations.

So, after I was shown that there could be some reasonable doubt, I had to agree with that. I mean, it's -- anybody can be affected by watching a video and thinking something's true, but if others can have another viewpoint, then you have to look at that viewpoint and say, OK, is it possible? And is it reasonable? And yes, it is possible, and yes, it is reasonable. And that's where we wound up.

BROWN: Mr. Hultman, appreciate your time. You're an honest man and you express yourself well. We appreciate that. Thank you, sir, very much. Raymond Hultman...

HULTMAN: Thank you.

BROWN: ...who sat on the jury and took you inside both his mind and that jury room, and that's about as interesting a conversation as I can recall in a long time.

Others were in the courtroom as well, not in the jury box but a clear view. Three of them join us now. Maureen Orth, contributing correspondent for "Vanity Fair," has covered Michael Jackson for more than a decade.

Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor for "Rolling Stone," has covered the Jackson trial the last month-and-a-half, and Nick Madigan has been covering the case for "The New York Times." They're all with us.

Matt, you're sitting across from me, and you listened to that interview, too.

MATT TAIBBI, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "ROLLING STONE": It's beautiful.

BROWN: It is fascinating, I mean, not because of any brilliance on my part, but the guy really kind of laid out his thought process through that whole trial.

TAIBBI: I think what is great about that is after all this media madness and celebrity nonsense, that we sat there for the last three months, we get a citizenship lesson from these people at the end. I mean, it's the best possible ending to this case, which was basically meaningless from beginning to end for the most part.

BROWN: Maureen, earlier today, you said to us that celebrities -- it's just hard to get a conviction on a celebrity. And I wonder, I mean, this wasn't exactly Debbie Reynolds on trial here. I wonder if you really believe that celebrity played a huge part in this.

MAUREEN ORTH, VANITY FAIR: I think that celebrity does play a huge part, particularly in California, where you see you have a huge star who is the governor. And if you look at O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake, those trials as well, I think you cannot discount celebrity, particularly in a small town like Santa Maria, where Michael Jackson had the reputation for a long time of being a very good citizen there, doing a lot of good for the community. And that's what I heard often from people.

So I definitely think you have to consider celebrity. And especially listening to one of the female jurors, because I watched her behavior in the courtroom, and she was just somewhat gaga every time we saw a celebrity. And a lot of them smiled at the Jackson family from the very beginning.

BROWN: Nick, weigh in on the question of celebrity. And add to it some of the things that Mr. Hultman said. Because as I heard him, he said, look, I think he might have molested boys, but. And he couldn't get past I guess the but in all of this.

NICK MADIGAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think you're probably right. They were -- the jury was evidently very troubled by the fact that this family had, shall we say, a dubious history. But what I've always thought from watching this trial for so long was that it -- none of that stuff necessarily had anything to do with the allegations of the heart of this case, especially when you have it backed up by so many other allegations from other boys, some of whom were actually paraded through the courtroom.

I think it was -- celebrity may have a role in the idea that these -- that a jury might be intimidated, but they all claim to have gotten past that, and to have treated Michael Jackson as just a normal person. So I'm not really sure how much that really had to do with it.

BROWN: Matt, rather, you said this trial is about nothing. This trial actually was something. It was about whether a young boy was molested.

TAIBBI: Right, right. But I think a lot -- certainly, that wasn't the primary motivation of all the media people who were at this compound, wasn't to decide whether or not a child had been molested. It was more gawking at a celebrity I think is what most of this is about. I mean, there are crimes of that magnitude that happen every day in America that are ignored, and that certainly wasn't the reason why there were 2,000 accredited media personnel.

BROWN: Was it, in the end, did it make you feel dirty?

TAIBBI: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I woke up every morning wondering whether this was going to be the thing that finally led me to suicide.

BROWN: Wow, don't. Nice to see you. Good to have all of you. We're a little rushed tonight. Thanks for being with us. We'll have more on this in a moment, the man, the music, and the money, Michael Jackson's future. Does he have a future? We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Michael Jackson's story is no longer about today or yesterday. It's all about tomorrow. Today is settled business. He's not guilty.

Tomorrow, who is Michael Jackson? Who is he as an entertainer? He was a great entertainer at one time. Who is he as a person? A mystery far beyond our ability to answer.

The tomorrows of life are both very complicated and quite simple. Just like the rest of us, Michael Jackson is at home tonight with bills to pay, lots of them, it turns out. Here's CNN's Ali Velshi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The verdict's in. He...

MICHAEL JACKSON, ENTERTAINER (singing): Beat it, beat it.

VELSHI: Michael Jackson's biggest problem just disappeared. His second biggest problem may be on the way out, too. That problem is cash flow. And if he's smart, Jackson will dive head first into dealing with that crisis.

BRETT PULLEY, SR. EDITOR, FORBES MAGAZINE: This guy's been cash- strapped for some time, but he's still asset rich.

VELSHI: Those assets are music catalogs. One of them contains his tunes. He calls it affectionately, my Jack. It's worth about $150 million. Another big asset, the Sony/ATV catalog, which controls more than 200,000 songs, including Beatles' and Elvis' hits. It's worth about a billion, and Jackson owns half of it. We're already over $600 million, and those songs he owns, well, every time they are played, Jackson gets paid. Recent estimates say he earns about $10 million a year from the catalogs.

But he's got debts, too, roughly $300 million in loans that are backed by those music catalogs and by his ranch. He's run up those loans with legal fees, upkeep at Neverland and his notoriously lavish lifestyle. A conviction would have meant no new sources of income, but now Jackson is free to resurrect himself and to generate new money, if he can.

PULLEY: Let's not forget, this is an immensely talented guy. So he can still release new music. Will he ever be the King of Pop again? I don't think we are going to see this guy earning $75, $80, $90 million a year.

VELSHI: Or he can go on tour, something he hasn't done in years.

ZENA BURNS, MUSIC EDITOR, TEEN PEOPLE: One of Michael Jackson's strengths throughout his entire career is that he has always been a really incredible and compelling live artist. And touring is so lucrative for so many artists, especially of his era. Look at Madonna, how many millions she made on her former tour.

PULLEY: And then there is another option that may seem like a come down for the King of Pop, and that's to do something a la Celine Dion in Las Vegas and have a show that's there, four, five, six nights a week.

VELSHI: Ali Velshi, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So we'll talk about tomorrow, as we are joined by Stuart Backerman. He is a correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight," a former spokesman for Mr. Jackson. He's in Vancouver, British Columbia tonight. Here in New York, Chris John Farley, "Rolling Stone" magazine, recent author of "Kingston by Starlight." And Linda Kaplan Thaler, author of "Bang: Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World." It's nice to hear you, or see you. Actually, I said "Rolling Stone," it's "Time."

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yeah.

BROWN: I apologize for that. So we'll give you the first one. As an entertainer, Michael Jackson's still in business?

FARLEY: Yes, I think he can come back. He's not coming back as a school teacher. He's coming back as a pop star. There are no credentials required to be a pop star. Just watch "American Idol." Anyone can do it. He can do it.

BROWN: Who's his audience? Who's his audience?

FARLEY: His audience is everyone. You go to a Michael Jackson show, you see everyone from young kids to, you know, older folks who were around when he started off in the '60s. So he has a broad audience to cater to. And I think a lot of them will still want to buy his albums.

BROWN: Stuart, does he have the energy to come back as an entertainer?

STUART BACKERMAN, FORMER JACKSON SPOKESMAN: I don't think so, Aaron. Frankly, just prior to the Neverland raid and the charges, Michael was very much more focused on a business career, film and other things. He expressed to me on a number of occasions and other members of the team that he was really, quote "burnt out," so of speak, about performing, and so frankly I think his segue is going to be perhaps a tour from the point of view of cash flow, but basically I think he's pulling back from performing and really focusing quite a bit more on his business, managerial and film things that he would like do.

BROWN: Linda, Chris said an interesting thing, he said he's not coming back as a school teacher, he's coming back as a pop star, and for that you don't need any credentials, you just need a hit record. Does the fact that he is -- was accused of, in at least in the minds of even some of the jurors, perhaps even guilty of -- it's sort of a remarkable thing, molesting young boys, does that stop him from being a star?

LINDA KAPLAN THALER, IMAGE CONSULTANT: No, it doesn't. This is a very forgiving society. We knock our idols down and then we build them back up again, and you know what? We love to do it time and time again. The fact is, he's a musical genius. He needs to go back to the music, stupid, create something breakthrough. Create a big bang in a different universe than he's in right now.

BROWN: And then we just say, oh, what the heck, those little boys, no big deal?

THALER: No, I mean, if you believe in the system, you have to say there were people who said, you know, he was innocent and we have to go on and move on from there, but he has to create something big in a different place, maybe in a different country. But not with the Vienna Boys Choir.

BROWN: You know, there is a weird thing about this. I'm not quite sure where this question goes. But this trial to me was a little big deal, not a big, big deal. Simpson, oddly, was a big, big deal. I remember being -- I was covering Simpson and -- within days after Oklahoma City, I was able to get pieces on the air. Here, weeks would go by and stuff wouldn't get on the air. Why is that?

FARLEY: I think part of it is because we do expect pop stars to act in eccentric, odd way, sometimes to sort of flaunt the law. I mean, think of Tupac Shakur. I mean, that's a guy who was convicted of sexual abuse and had a number one album from jail. R. Kelly, accused of child pornography charges, and he still had a multi- platinum album, despite all those charges.

So especially today, we almost expect pop stars to act out in this way and we still go out and buy their albums.

BROWN: But don't we reserve, Stuart, don't we reserve a special place in hell for child molesters?

BACKERMAN: Yeah, certainly the type of behavior that he was alleged of doing is something that turns people off. But let's be honest, this was devastating for Michael, this whole trial, this whole process. What people don't understand is that he is almost obsessive regarding his privacy. So the mere fact that he was charged and a trial happened, and all his peccadillos and behavior and little habits that he has came out was devastating to Michael. It really, really, really was difficult for him.

BROWN: Linda, let me give you the last word here. Other than come out with a great hit, which is not such an easy thing to do, frankly, a lot of people come out with one in their life and then don't have another one. Is there anything he can do, needs to do, should do, ought to do to rehabilitate his image? Or should he just accept that his image is his image and too bad, get over it, as Marion Berry said?

THALER: You know, everybody, we talk about it in the book, everybody is looking how to a create a brand. He has created a brand. He's got to un-brand himself. He's got to become the un-cola, he's got to become the 7-Up.

BROWN: But how do you do that?

THALER: He's got to become invisible for a while. You know what? He has to walk like a man, talk like a man. Lose the falsetto voice. He's got to get back to being a normal -- or seen as a normal, ordinary person. That is not going to be that easy, but that is what he needs to do. He needs to really de-brand himself right now.

BROWN: I'm sorry, is that practical?

FARLEY: Well, you know, a new nose might help. I guess that's maybe what she's getting to, getting, you know, sort of symbolically get a new nose. I don't know how he does that at this stage. It's going to be tough, but it is doable.

BROWN: It'll be a heck of a story to watch. Thank you all. Nice to meet you. Thank you.

We'll look at some of the other stories that made news today and got lost in all of this. And later, some of the stranger moments in a serious trial. We sometimes lose sight of the fact this was serious business that went on in California.

We will take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Michael Jackson trial ended as it began, larger than life. Twenty-two hundred members of the media, 2,200 waiting to report the verdict. Hundreds of fans keeping vigil outside the court. Millions of people watching around the world. And 11 doves. A spectacle and then some.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Well, really now, what did you expect? The decorum of a Supreme Court case? Whatever else he may or may not be, Michael Jackson is an unusual man, and it was from the get-go an unusual trial.

Perhaps no day stranger than this one. Jackson late for court, racing, literally racing against the judge's deadline. Cable TV news covering like it was -- well, like it was the Bronco chase of a decade earlier.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're getting word now from our CNN sources at the courthouse, he has not arrived yet.

BROWN: A countdown clock in the corner of the screen.

JUDY WOODRUFF, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: We're just about a minute away now from the end of that one-hour time period.

BROWN: Four minutes past the deadline, the King of Pop, not looking his very best to be sure, arrived. And this was and will forever be known as the pajama day.

Outside was like a carnival, in the sideshow sense in the world. Fans believing regardless of either the history or the allegations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thank you, Lord, for the love that you've given us for Michael, Lord.

BROWN: But our favorite group, all things considered, was this one, children for Jackson.

The media from all over the world couldn't get enough.

Neither could the late night comics. JAY LENO, HOST, TONIGHT SHOW: You know the first person to call Martha when she got out of jail? Does anybody know? Michael Jackson. Really. He said he wanted to know what it was like to be a white woman in prison.

BROWN: Night after night, comedian Jay Leno mined the trail on the set, and kept right on going when he came to testify.

LENO: There was one kind of embarrassing moment when I took the stand. They asked me to point to the defendant, and I pointed out LaToya. Yeah.

BROWN: Judge Rodney Melville, while reading 98 pages of instructions to the jury, quipped: "You know, I read to my wife at night so she'll go to sleep. I hope I'm not having that effect here."

But if he had, the defendant, who came to court every day in a different costume, would undoubtedly have had one for the occasion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As you can imagine, the morning papers are full of Michael Jackson. We'll get to them coming up.

But there were things that made news today other than Mr. Jackson. Erica Hill has patiently waited for us in Atlanta tonight -- Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: I can do that for you, guys. Actually, Aaron, we're starting out with a bit of breaking news. This is just coming to us out of Aruba. We're learning police have freed both the hotel security guards who were detained in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. She's of course the 18-year-old Alabama teenager who vanished on May 30th. We'll continue to update you on that as we learn more.

Next to Chile, where a powerful earthquake rocked the country today. The U.S. Geological Survey saying it measured a magnitude 7.9. It actually centered in the sparsely populated mountainous region, near Chile's border with Bolivia. We know at this time at least one person was killed; several others were injured. There are some reports of homes being destroyed.

Back in the U.S., on to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. And if you look at these pictures, it is amazing when we tell you all three people on board this cargo plane survived the crash. The DC-3 crashed shortly after takeoff. It was headed to the Bahamas. The fire officials say the pilot was able to land in the street and avoid hitting any of the houses. Incredible there.

Jury selection began today in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen. The 80-year-old reputed member of the Ku Klux Klan is on trial for the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers who were helping black residents register to vote. Killen was tried in 1967 of violating the victim's civil rights. An all white- jury, however, ended up deadlocked. And Aaron, that's the latest on this end. Back over to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. And again, thank you for your patience.

Coming up at the top of the hour, a special edition of "AC 360." Anderson will continue our coverage of the Michael Jackson verdict. That's coming up at the top of the hour. We'll check morning papers coming up, too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Celebrating outside the courtroom there in Santa Maria. Anderson Cooper is here, and he'll continue our coverage coming up at the top of the hour. What are going to do?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to talk to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, about whether he thinks Michael Jackson can actually stop sleeping with little boys in his bedroom.

BROWN: I think he should.

COOPER: So does Reverend Jackson. I'm not sure -- he thinks he will be able to stop. Remains to be seen, because there were plenty of people after '93 who said, look, you can't do this again, and obviously he did. We're also going to talk to a prosecution witness who testified who said not only does she think he's going to sleep with little boys again, she says she thinks he is going to molest little boys again.

BROWN: It's -- when you think about it, I mean, every great American story at some point or another has to have Reverend Jackson in it. And he shows -- it's like there is a federal law. If he has any weight at all with Mr. Jackson, I think he should encourage him to stop this.

COOPER: Yeah, the question is, does anybody have any weight with Michael Jackson?

BROWN: You know, that's a -- we were talking about celebrity earlier today and whether celebrity mattered in this case or not. And who's Michael Jackson's audience? I have a 16-year-old daughter. I don't think she cares one bit about Michael Jackson.

COOPER: Well, his -- I mean, I think his crowds tend to be -- skew much younger, and it's largely overseas. I mean, his domestic sales are way down.

BROWN: So it's like 12-year-olds...

COOPER: Right, in Japan. Huge.

BROWN: ... Japanese girls?

COOPER: Right.

BROWN: Like Jerry Lewis, but older -- or younger and in Asia. COOPER: Exactly.

BROWN: There you go. That's coming up at the top of the hour. We'll check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're not (ph) going to do six minutes on papers, but I'll do one quick one. "Santa Maria Times," an extra, "not guilty on all counts." Someone bet me $100 here "The Oregonian" would not have this on the front page. Fooled that person! "Jackson's next jury: The public," is how "The Oregonian" out in Portland leads. Send the check to charity, please.

"Newsday." "Michael Moonwalks." Pretty good headline on that, huh? Out on Long Island. That's "Newsday."

"Cincinnati Enquirer" plays it straight. "Michael Jackson acquitted. Child molestation, other charges rejected by jury."

"Rocky Mountain News" plays it pretty straight too. "Jurors: Case wasn't there." You heard a juror earlier make that pretty clear.

"Boston Herald." Like this headline too, "beat it!" Yeah.

And "Chicago Sun-Times." Straight ahead headline, "not guilty," and then some of the side bars, "M.J., you're no O.J.," "acquittal is tainted," "behavior must change." Oh no, I don't think so. I think the behavior is fine.

Weather in Chicago tomorrow? "Grumpy." We'll wrap it up with a "Then & Now" after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): He was already famous for negotiating the release of prostitutes in Iran, Libya and in Lebanon, when the tables turned on Terry Waite. On the 20th of January in 1987, the 6-foot-7 negotiator vanished. Accused of being an American agent -- he says he was not -- Terry Waite was taken hostage in Beirut. For nearly five years, he endured beatings, interrogations, solitary confinement, before he emerged a free man.

TERRY WAITE: After 1,763 days in chains, it's an overwhelming experience to come back.

BROWN: In seclusion, he wrote about his ordeal in the 1993 book "Taken on Trust."

WAITE: It's enabled me to come back to the world, slowly and gently.

BROWN: Now, Terry Waite splits his time between charity project and paid work, lectures and writing, inspired by his hostage experience. A grandfather of three, who enjoys travel, and music, and books, he has no intention of retiring, though he now approaches 70.

WAITE: I'm immensely fortunate to be able to be involved in so many different projects. And I like to think that they're doing something to help heal a world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our coverage of the Michael Jackson verdict continues with a special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360."

We'll leave you this hour with one picture of the thousands taken today that seems to speak to Michael Jackson and who he was and what he looked like at the very end -- tired, fragile. Kind of -- what was he thinking there? What was he doing? When it all came to an end for him today?

He's back at home, and the rest of us can ponder the criminal justice system. Anderson Cooper is next.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired June 13, 2005 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening, again, everyone.
As Larry has been saying, Michael Jackson is many things to us, strange to be sure, but one thing you can say he is not, tonight, and that is a convicted child molester. The verdict delivered in a California courtroom today was a clear-cut victory for Mr. Jackson and a stinging defeat for the prosecution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury in the above entitled case find the defendant not guilt of conspiracy, as charged in count one in the indictment. Dated June 13th, 2005. Foreperson number 80.

Count two verdict: We the jury in the above entitled case find the defendant not guilty of a lewd act upon a minor child, as charged in count two of the indictment. Dated June 13th, 2005. Foreperson number 80.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Not guilty of every count charged -- free to go home and do his best to put his life back together. Perhaps no easy task, at that. But it beats the alternative, which could have been more than 18 years in prison. For a man, who at times look so frail, it's hard to imagine him getting out of bed in the morning.

The case has dragged on for nearly two years. Charges that Mr. Jackson, who admitted sleeping with young boys, molested one as well. But under the weight of a courtroom, which is different from the lightness of the tabloid press, it fell apart.

We begin tonight with legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: The case could have been a simple one. Michael Jackson admits on videotape that he slept in the same bed with a 13-year-old cancer survivor.

MICHAEL JACKSON, SINGER: That's the most loving thing to do, is share your bed with someone.

TOOBIN: that boy, then, tells prosecutors that Jackson had molested him in that bed, at the Neverland ranch. That case, one of simple child molestation, could have been tried with just a few witnesses ,in just a few weeks. But that wasn't the case that Thomas Sneddon, the district attorney in Santa Barbara county, decided to bring.

Instead, he charged Jackson with orchestrating a conspiracy to imprison the accuser and his family. His star witness? The accuser's mother. And that, it turned out, was the beginning of the end of the prosecution's case.

THOMAS SNEDDON, D.A., SANTA BARBARA COUNTY: We don't select our victims, and we don't select the families they come from. What we do is, we evaluate the case. We try it make a conscientious decision as to whether or not we have enough evidence to go forward, and that's what we did in this case.

TOOBIN: Thomas Mesereau, Jackson's attorney, used the prosecution's evidence in the conspiracy count to turn the tables, and put the accuser's family on trial for: lying in a case against J.C. Penney, for committing welfare fraud, for putting her son up to lie about Jackson in anticipation of a lawsuit against him.

PAUL RODRIGUEZ, JACKSON'S JURY FOREMAN: She just came on too strong with the jury. And she just was trying to make eye contact with individuals in the jury box. And trying to convinces us that, her story was the only story.

TOOBIN: Mesereau had help, too, from actor Chris Tucker who testified that he warned Jackson that the accuser's family was out for his money. From three of Jackson's other supposed victims, including Macaulay Culkin, who said that Jackson had never molested them.

Instead of a simple case, the prosecution made it complicated. And in that complexity, the jury found doubt -- reasonable doubt. And that was all Michael Jackson needed to win the complete victory he achieved today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TOOBIN: Aaron, you don't need a lot of greed to figure this one out. This was a wipeout, and Michael Jackson's a free man.

BROWN: Well, all right. Just -- I want to take your view of this, which makes great sense, as it always does, and just factor in what we just heard. And I'm not sure if you were able to hear it, but one of the jurors said to Larry, which was, "Yeah, I think he probably molested boys at some time or another. But that wasn't exactly the case before us. And they didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt."

TOOBIN: You know...

BROWN: Does that kind of -- does that surprise you?

TOOBIN: It does. But one of the interesting things I felt sitting there through summations, was that evidence against Jackson, in may respects, was better for at least one of the prior accusations of molestation than it was in this case. And you really did have the feeling that, you know, this was kind of a tacked-on case with all of those problems -- with the mother, and the issue of monetary gain for the family -- that in the earlier accusations, particularly one of them, the boy, or now man, who testified that Jackson molested him in the early '90s -- that case is the one that should have been the criminal case, not this one.

BROWN: Well, this was the case they brought. I was, just sitting here listening to the last couple of minutes of Larry, was blown away by the fact that jurors felt that it was likely. But they're not asked to vote on what is likely, they are asked to vote what is beyond a reasonable doubt.

And in some respects, it makes you feel -- I mean, people have varying feelings about this verdict -- it makes you feel pretty good about the system, that they took it that literally.

TOOBIN: You know, I think a lot of us are pretty cynical about: how jurors approach their jobs, and jury instructions, and whether jurors really pay attention to their -- to the instructions that they get, which are always very complicated and were particularly complicated -- 98 pages worth in this case.

But listening to the jurors, as I've done all evening, you know, they really paid attention to these instructions, and they really took the reasonable doubt standard seriously.

BROWN: Let me get one more in. They also -- several of them seemed to react to the victim's mother -- or the alleged victim's mother, or whatever we call him now. I don't know what even to call him anymore -- and they just didn't like her. She snapped her fingers. She tried too hard. She -- it wasn't so much what she said, it's how she acted.

TOOBIN: That, too, was somewhat surprising to me. But I think you have to consider the whole package. This wasn't just her snapping of her fingers. This was a woman -- it was certainly proved to me that she had lied under oath in the past, in a case where she was trying to get money; where she was making allegations of sexual misconduct.

It happened to be against security guards at J.C. Penney. And the --one of the brilliant aspects of Thomas Mesereau's defense, was the way he showed similarities between that case, and what family did in the Jackson case. And it was really all laid out for the jury to find a pattern of lying by the accuser's mother, and also the accuser himself. And that's what sunk him.

BROWN: Jeffrey, it was a fascinating afternoon. Thank you. Jeffrey Toobin, who's in Washington, today.

TOOBIN: It sure was.

BROWN: We said trial by press is different from trial by jury. A CNN-"Usa Today"-Gallup poll measured just how the verdict is sitting tonight with all of you. About a third of the people polled today, said they agreed with the verdict. About half said that they disagreed. When asked how large a factor the pop star's celebrity status played in the verdict, about 3/5ths said it was a major factor. Almost a fifth said a minor factor, and about another fifth said it wasn't a factor, at all. None of those polled, of course, sat through the trial -- twelve jurors did.

Here's CNN's Rusty Dornin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For several of the jurors, there was one witness who stood out in their minds, the accuser's mother. Foreman Paul Rodriguez says, "She just wasn't believable."

RODRIGUEZ: We just thought that she was not a credible person.

DORNIN (on camera): To you, was that one of the biggest factors in your mind reasoning reasonable doubt.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, actually, yes it was. Yes, it was. When we listened to her, and the way -- there were just so many things that came up.

DORNIN (voice-over): Rodriguez says the jury also had a hard time believing the boy who accused Michael Jackson of molestation.

RODRIGUEZ: We felt that he was pretty well programmed by his mother. You know, and we thought not completely programmed, but there was a lot of things that he was saying that sound exactly as is mother said.

DORNIN: the defense kept raising the issue of the time line. Why would Michael Jackson molest the accuser when the whole world was pressuring him to answer questions about his relationship with the boy? Jurors wondered as well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We took notes so well that we could develop the timeline on the boards, and really analyze it. So, it was a question. The time line was a concern.

DORNIN: And while some may seem Michael Jackson is cookie or strange, to the one juror who watched him day in and day out, in court, he seemed very human.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It's not like he's way up here and everyone else is down there; it's not like that. He'd be some person that you could walk up on the street, and say, "Hey, what's up?" You know, I mean, it made him real.

DORNIN: The trial may be done, but it's not over for many of these jurors who are likely to be chased by media crews anxious for more interviews.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm going to hide in my room, and not answer the door or the telephone. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And I'm going to go play bridge tonight, and forget all of this.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And I'll just relax, and be able to just, like, enjoy a glass of wine, and just shut your mind down for a little while.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN: Wishes that may be tough to fulfill, considering the continual spotlight by the entire world on this case. You saw, a little bit, how people were absolutely mobbing the jury foreman, Paul Rodriguez.

That was shortly after he was on "LARRY KING." He, finally, was able to get in his truck, and leave. But for many of these jurors, that's going to continue over the next few days. And of course, some of them do enjoy it, and perhaps there's a book or two in the offing, for some of them -- Aaron?

BROWN: Yes, I was just -- to say the same thing. I think for some it is kind of fun and for others, it's pretty uncomfortable. Just give me a paragraph on what it was like in the courtroom. Jury comes in, sits down, hands the envelopes to the clerk. What was it like in there?

DORNIN: Well, it just -- the tension that's in a courtroom like that is hard -- even my heart is pounding -- of what's going to happen. I was sitting directly behind Michael Jackson's mother and father. We could hear the judge ripping the envelopes because he had to look at the verdicts first before the clerk could announce them. There was dead silence in the courtroom. Michael Jackson's mother cried a little bit. Some of the jurors became emotional. Michael Jackson, straight somber, staring straight ahead as he has much through the trial.

When they began reading those verdicts, the family, you could tell, was visibly relieved. She began to cry, the brothers and sisters, LaToya, Tito, touched their mother, Katherine. Michael Jackson, still straight as a ramrod, staring straight ahead, and at one point, he did wipe his eyes but other than that he showed very little emotion. Aaron?

BROWN: Rusty, thank you. You can go back to your regular life now, as someone once said to me after the Simpson case. Thank you.

With us in Santa Maria is juror number one, Raymond Hultman. Mr. Hultman, good to have you with us.

Just a quick comment, one your fellow jurors just said that when she looked at Mr. Jackson, she just saw a regular guy. Did you see a regular guy when you looked down at him? Mr. Hultman, are you able to hear me?

RAYMOND HULTMAN, JACKSON TRIAL JUROR: Yes, sir, I can hear you fine. BROWN: OK, let me try it again. One of your fellow jurors jurist said that when she looked at Michael Jackson, he seemed just like a regular guy. Did he seem that way to you?

HULTMAN: No, I wouldn't say that Michael Jackson appears to be a regular guy. I think he's an unusual person. He's -- he has a lot of eccentricities but that doesn't make him guilty of anything.

BROWN: How do you -- how did you separate the eccentricities including the eccentricities that he sleeps with boys and seems to think there is nothing wrong with that or particularly unusual about that. How did you separate that from the crime with which he was charged?

HULTMAN: Well, it's automatically separated actually, because he's not being charged with the crime of sleeping with boys. In fact that's not a crime, and we could only use that as evidence that says that the crime that we were -- or the alleged crime that we were considering -- could have happened, and based on other evidence and that evidence primarily being the credibility of the accuser, we determined that there was a reasonable doubt that Michael Jackson did molest this particular individual.

BROWN: Did you think that that young man got on the witness stand, put his hand on the Bible, took the oath and then lied?

HULTMAN: Well, the jury had a certain amount of evidence to deal with and we of course had to look at his testimony like we look at anyone else's testimony. And do people lie on the witness stand when they swear on the bible that they're going to tell the truth? Of course they do. And, in this case, this particular witness had -- yes, this particular witness, the accuser, had a history of lying. He had lied in a J.C. Penney case that he and his family brought in 1998, I believe it was. He lied about a number of things in that case when he testified. The question came down to the credibility of the accuser.

BROWN: You said a few moments ago in a conversation with Larry that you felt, probably, that Mr. Jackson probably had molested young boys at some point or another. Did that not give weight to the argument that this child -- he's not a kid anymore, child anymore -- this young man made when he testified before you?

HULTMAN: Well, of course it had some weight, but was it enough weight to erase the reasonable doubt? In my mind, when it was all said and done, it couldn't erase the unreasonable doubt in my mind because of a number of other things that occurred involving this particular accuser.

In addition to the lying, this accuser and his family had gone to see two attorneys, one of them being a nationally known attorney that had dealt with the Jackson case in the early '90s. This attorney referred the accuser to a psychologist that had also been involved in the case in the early '90s. It was only after that, and approximately three to four weeks after that, if that long, that he went to the sheriff's department and told the sheriff what happened to him, and to me, it leaves some questions in my mind about what transpired between the time that the accuser visited all of these people and then talked to the sheriff's department. There's just -- there's room for reasonable doubt.

BROWN: Do you think they were after money?

HULTMAN: I think that the accuser's mother is an opportunist. If she sees an opportunity to make money, she's going to do that. But that doesn't make her guilty of anything either. So, you know, but everything added together and all of the evidence weighed that came in on this case, you have to come to the conclusion -- or I came to the conclusion -- that there was just reasonable doubt. And that's...

BROWN: Based on...

HULTMAN: We don't...

BROWN: I'm sorry. Based on what you just heard. Let's assume everything that you did in fact hear, is there anything that anyone could have said that would have erased the reasonable doubt? Once you knew family's history, the J.C. Penney case and the trip to the lawyer and the psychologist and the rest, once you knew all that, was the case essentially done?

HULTMAN: You mean was it decided there and then that Michael Jackson wasn't guilty?

BROWN: Well, I think I'm asking, is there anything at that point the prosecution could have said that would have gotten you to change your mind?

HULTMAN: Well, I'll be quite honest with you, in that when I went through most of this trial and listened to most of the testimony, I was of the mind-set that the Arvisos were lying, that Michael Jackson may have not been innocent, but I was beginning to wonder whether this accuser had really been molested.

It wasn't until near the end of the trial when I actually saw the sheriff's interview that I was quite affected by that. I mean, my immediate reaction was that I felt that he was telling the truth, and I had to get around that in the deliberation room. And I mean, I'm not -- I'm not averse to changing an opinion if I feel like there's another possibility that could have happened. And the jurors talk about these things. That's what we're supposed to do, is talk about these things. That's why they call deliberations.

So, after I was shown that there could be some reasonable doubt, I had to agree with that. I mean, it's -- anybody can be affected by watching a video and thinking something's true, but if others can have another viewpoint, then you have to look at that viewpoint and say, OK, is it possible? And is it reasonable? And yes, it is possible, and yes, it is reasonable. And that's where we wound up.

BROWN: Mr. Hultman, appreciate your time. You're an honest man and you express yourself well. We appreciate that. Thank you, sir, very much. Raymond Hultman...

HULTMAN: Thank you.

BROWN: ...who sat on the jury and took you inside both his mind and that jury room, and that's about as interesting a conversation as I can recall in a long time.

Others were in the courtroom as well, not in the jury box but a clear view. Three of them join us now. Maureen Orth, contributing correspondent for "Vanity Fair," has covered Michael Jackson for more than a decade.

Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor for "Rolling Stone," has covered the Jackson trial the last month-and-a-half, and Nick Madigan has been covering the case for "The New York Times." They're all with us.

Matt, you're sitting across from me, and you listened to that interview, too.

MATT TAIBBI, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "ROLLING STONE": It's beautiful.

BROWN: It is fascinating, I mean, not because of any brilliance on my part, but the guy really kind of laid out his thought process through that whole trial.

TAIBBI: I think what is great about that is after all this media madness and celebrity nonsense, that we sat there for the last three months, we get a citizenship lesson from these people at the end. I mean, it's the best possible ending to this case, which was basically meaningless from beginning to end for the most part.

BROWN: Maureen, earlier today, you said to us that celebrities -- it's just hard to get a conviction on a celebrity. And I wonder, I mean, this wasn't exactly Debbie Reynolds on trial here. I wonder if you really believe that celebrity played a huge part in this.

MAUREEN ORTH, VANITY FAIR: I think that celebrity does play a huge part, particularly in California, where you see you have a huge star who is the governor. And if you look at O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake, those trials as well, I think you cannot discount celebrity, particularly in a small town like Santa Maria, where Michael Jackson had the reputation for a long time of being a very good citizen there, doing a lot of good for the community. And that's what I heard often from people.

So I definitely think you have to consider celebrity. And especially listening to one of the female jurors, because I watched her behavior in the courtroom, and she was just somewhat gaga every time we saw a celebrity. And a lot of them smiled at the Jackson family from the very beginning.

BROWN: Nick, weigh in on the question of celebrity. And add to it some of the things that Mr. Hultman said. Because as I heard him, he said, look, I think he might have molested boys, but. And he couldn't get past I guess the but in all of this.

NICK MADIGAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think you're probably right. They were -- the jury was evidently very troubled by the fact that this family had, shall we say, a dubious history. But what I've always thought from watching this trial for so long was that it -- none of that stuff necessarily had anything to do with the allegations of the heart of this case, especially when you have it backed up by so many other allegations from other boys, some of whom were actually paraded through the courtroom.

I think it was -- celebrity may have a role in the idea that these -- that a jury might be intimidated, but they all claim to have gotten past that, and to have treated Michael Jackson as just a normal person. So I'm not really sure how much that really had to do with it.

BROWN: Matt, rather, you said this trial is about nothing. This trial actually was something. It was about whether a young boy was molested.

TAIBBI: Right, right. But I think a lot -- certainly, that wasn't the primary motivation of all the media people who were at this compound, wasn't to decide whether or not a child had been molested. It was more gawking at a celebrity I think is what most of this is about. I mean, there are crimes of that magnitude that happen every day in America that are ignored, and that certainly wasn't the reason why there were 2,000 accredited media personnel.

BROWN: Was it, in the end, did it make you feel dirty?

TAIBBI: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, I woke up every morning wondering whether this was going to be the thing that finally led me to suicide.

BROWN: Wow, don't. Nice to see you. Good to have all of you. We're a little rushed tonight. Thanks for being with us. We'll have more on this in a moment, the man, the music, and the money, Michael Jackson's future. Does he have a future? We'll take a break first. From New York, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Michael Jackson's story is no longer about today or yesterday. It's all about tomorrow. Today is settled business. He's not guilty.

Tomorrow, who is Michael Jackson? Who is he as an entertainer? He was a great entertainer at one time. Who is he as a person? A mystery far beyond our ability to answer.

The tomorrows of life are both very complicated and quite simple. Just like the rest of us, Michael Jackson is at home tonight with bills to pay, lots of them, it turns out. Here's CNN's Ali Velshi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The verdict's in. He...

MICHAEL JACKSON, ENTERTAINER (singing): Beat it, beat it.

VELSHI: Michael Jackson's biggest problem just disappeared. His second biggest problem may be on the way out, too. That problem is cash flow. And if he's smart, Jackson will dive head first into dealing with that crisis.

BRETT PULLEY, SR. EDITOR, FORBES MAGAZINE: This guy's been cash- strapped for some time, but he's still asset rich.

VELSHI: Those assets are music catalogs. One of them contains his tunes. He calls it affectionately, my Jack. It's worth about $150 million. Another big asset, the Sony/ATV catalog, which controls more than 200,000 songs, including Beatles' and Elvis' hits. It's worth about a billion, and Jackson owns half of it. We're already over $600 million, and those songs he owns, well, every time they are played, Jackson gets paid. Recent estimates say he earns about $10 million a year from the catalogs.

But he's got debts, too, roughly $300 million in loans that are backed by those music catalogs and by his ranch. He's run up those loans with legal fees, upkeep at Neverland and his notoriously lavish lifestyle. A conviction would have meant no new sources of income, but now Jackson is free to resurrect himself and to generate new money, if he can.

PULLEY: Let's not forget, this is an immensely talented guy. So he can still release new music. Will he ever be the King of Pop again? I don't think we are going to see this guy earning $75, $80, $90 million a year.

VELSHI: Or he can go on tour, something he hasn't done in years.

ZENA BURNS, MUSIC EDITOR, TEEN PEOPLE: One of Michael Jackson's strengths throughout his entire career is that he has always been a really incredible and compelling live artist. And touring is so lucrative for so many artists, especially of his era. Look at Madonna, how many millions she made on her former tour.

PULLEY: And then there is another option that may seem like a come down for the King of Pop, and that's to do something a la Celine Dion in Las Vegas and have a show that's there, four, five, six nights a week.

VELSHI: Ali Velshi, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So we'll talk about tomorrow, as we are joined by Stuart Backerman. He is a correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight," a former spokesman for Mr. Jackson. He's in Vancouver, British Columbia tonight. Here in New York, Chris John Farley, "Rolling Stone" magazine, recent author of "Kingston by Starlight." And Linda Kaplan Thaler, author of "Bang: Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World." It's nice to hear you, or see you. Actually, I said "Rolling Stone," it's "Time."

CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yeah.

BROWN: I apologize for that. So we'll give you the first one. As an entertainer, Michael Jackson's still in business?

FARLEY: Yes, I think he can come back. He's not coming back as a school teacher. He's coming back as a pop star. There are no credentials required to be a pop star. Just watch "American Idol." Anyone can do it. He can do it.

BROWN: Who's his audience? Who's his audience?

FARLEY: His audience is everyone. You go to a Michael Jackson show, you see everyone from young kids to, you know, older folks who were around when he started off in the '60s. So he has a broad audience to cater to. And I think a lot of them will still want to buy his albums.

BROWN: Stuart, does he have the energy to come back as an entertainer?

STUART BACKERMAN, FORMER JACKSON SPOKESMAN: I don't think so, Aaron. Frankly, just prior to the Neverland raid and the charges, Michael was very much more focused on a business career, film and other things. He expressed to me on a number of occasions and other members of the team that he was really, quote "burnt out," so of speak, about performing, and so frankly I think his segue is going to be perhaps a tour from the point of view of cash flow, but basically I think he's pulling back from performing and really focusing quite a bit more on his business, managerial and film things that he would like do.

BROWN: Linda, Chris said an interesting thing, he said he's not coming back as a school teacher, he's coming back as a pop star, and for that you don't need any credentials, you just need a hit record. Does the fact that he is -- was accused of, in at least in the minds of even some of the jurors, perhaps even guilty of -- it's sort of a remarkable thing, molesting young boys, does that stop him from being a star?

LINDA KAPLAN THALER, IMAGE CONSULTANT: No, it doesn't. This is a very forgiving society. We knock our idols down and then we build them back up again, and you know what? We love to do it time and time again. The fact is, he's a musical genius. He needs to go back to the music, stupid, create something breakthrough. Create a big bang in a different universe than he's in right now.

BROWN: And then we just say, oh, what the heck, those little boys, no big deal?

THALER: No, I mean, if you believe in the system, you have to say there were people who said, you know, he was innocent and we have to go on and move on from there, but he has to create something big in a different place, maybe in a different country. But not with the Vienna Boys Choir.

BROWN: You know, there is a weird thing about this. I'm not quite sure where this question goes. But this trial to me was a little big deal, not a big, big deal. Simpson, oddly, was a big, big deal. I remember being -- I was covering Simpson and -- within days after Oklahoma City, I was able to get pieces on the air. Here, weeks would go by and stuff wouldn't get on the air. Why is that?

FARLEY: I think part of it is because we do expect pop stars to act in eccentric, odd way, sometimes to sort of flaunt the law. I mean, think of Tupac Shakur. I mean, that's a guy who was convicted of sexual abuse and had a number one album from jail. R. Kelly, accused of child pornography charges, and he still had a multi- platinum album, despite all those charges.

So especially today, we almost expect pop stars to act out in this way and we still go out and buy their albums.

BROWN: But don't we reserve, Stuart, don't we reserve a special place in hell for child molesters?

BACKERMAN: Yeah, certainly the type of behavior that he was alleged of doing is something that turns people off. But let's be honest, this was devastating for Michael, this whole trial, this whole process. What people don't understand is that he is almost obsessive regarding his privacy. So the mere fact that he was charged and a trial happened, and all his peccadillos and behavior and little habits that he has came out was devastating to Michael. It really, really, really was difficult for him.

BROWN: Linda, let me give you the last word here. Other than come out with a great hit, which is not such an easy thing to do, frankly, a lot of people come out with one in their life and then don't have another one. Is there anything he can do, needs to do, should do, ought to do to rehabilitate his image? Or should he just accept that his image is his image and too bad, get over it, as Marion Berry said?

THALER: You know, everybody, we talk about it in the book, everybody is looking how to a create a brand. He has created a brand. He's got to un-brand himself. He's got to become the un-cola, he's got to become the 7-Up.

BROWN: But how do you do that?

THALER: He's got to become invisible for a while. You know what? He has to walk like a man, talk like a man. Lose the falsetto voice. He's got to get back to being a normal -- or seen as a normal, ordinary person. That is not going to be that easy, but that is what he needs to do. He needs to really de-brand himself right now.

BROWN: I'm sorry, is that practical?

FARLEY: Well, you know, a new nose might help. I guess that's maybe what she's getting to, getting, you know, sort of symbolically get a new nose. I don't know how he does that at this stage. It's going to be tough, but it is doable.

BROWN: It'll be a heck of a story to watch. Thank you all. Nice to meet you. Thank you.

We'll look at some of the other stories that made news today and got lost in all of this. And later, some of the stranger moments in a serious trial. We sometimes lose sight of the fact this was serious business that went on in California.

We will take a break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The Michael Jackson trial ended as it began, larger than life. Twenty-two hundred members of the media, 2,200 waiting to report the verdict. Hundreds of fans keeping vigil outside the court. Millions of people watching around the world. And 11 doves. A spectacle and then some.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Well, really now, what did you expect? The decorum of a Supreme Court case? Whatever else he may or may not be, Michael Jackson is an unusual man, and it was from the get-go an unusual trial.

Perhaps no day stranger than this one. Jackson late for court, racing, literally racing against the judge's deadline. Cable TV news covering like it was -- well, like it was the Bronco chase of a decade earlier.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're getting word now from our CNN sources at the courthouse, he has not arrived yet.

BROWN: A countdown clock in the corner of the screen.

JUDY WOODRUFF, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: We're just about a minute away now from the end of that one-hour time period.

BROWN: Four minutes past the deadline, the King of Pop, not looking his very best to be sure, arrived. And this was and will forever be known as the pajama day.

Outside was like a carnival, in the sideshow sense in the world. Fans believing regardless of either the history or the allegations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thank you, Lord, for the love that you've given us for Michael, Lord.

BROWN: But our favorite group, all things considered, was this one, children for Jackson.

The media from all over the world couldn't get enough.

Neither could the late night comics. JAY LENO, HOST, TONIGHT SHOW: You know the first person to call Martha when she got out of jail? Does anybody know? Michael Jackson. Really. He said he wanted to know what it was like to be a white woman in prison.

BROWN: Night after night, comedian Jay Leno mined the trail on the set, and kept right on going when he came to testify.

LENO: There was one kind of embarrassing moment when I took the stand. They asked me to point to the defendant, and I pointed out LaToya. Yeah.

BROWN: Judge Rodney Melville, while reading 98 pages of instructions to the jury, quipped: "You know, I read to my wife at night so she'll go to sleep. I hope I'm not having that effect here."

But if he had, the defendant, who came to court every day in a different costume, would undoubtedly have had one for the occasion.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As you can imagine, the morning papers are full of Michael Jackson. We'll get to them coming up.

But there were things that made news today other than Mr. Jackson. Erica Hill has patiently waited for us in Atlanta tonight -- Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: I can do that for you, guys. Actually, Aaron, we're starting out with a bit of breaking news. This is just coming to us out of Aruba. We're learning police have freed both the hotel security guards who were detained in connection with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. She's of course the 18-year-old Alabama teenager who vanished on May 30th. We'll continue to update you on that as we learn more.

Next to Chile, where a powerful earthquake rocked the country today. The U.S. Geological Survey saying it measured a magnitude 7.9. It actually centered in the sparsely populated mountainous region, near Chile's border with Bolivia. We know at this time at least one person was killed; several others were injured. There are some reports of homes being destroyed.

Back in the U.S., on to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. And if you look at these pictures, it is amazing when we tell you all three people on board this cargo plane survived the crash. The DC-3 crashed shortly after takeoff. It was headed to the Bahamas. The fire officials say the pilot was able to land in the street and avoid hitting any of the houses. Incredible there.

Jury selection began today in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen. The 80-year-old reputed member of the Ku Klux Klan is on trial for the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers who were helping black residents register to vote. Killen was tried in 1967 of violating the victim's civil rights. An all white- jury, however, ended up deadlocked. And Aaron, that's the latest on this end. Back over to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. And again, thank you for your patience.

Coming up at the top of the hour, a special edition of "AC 360." Anderson will continue our coverage of the Michael Jackson verdict. That's coming up at the top of the hour. We'll check morning papers coming up, too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Celebrating outside the courtroom there in Santa Maria. Anderson Cooper is here, and he'll continue our coverage coming up at the top of the hour. What are going to do?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to talk to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, about whether he thinks Michael Jackson can actually stop sleeping with little boys in his bedroom.

BROWN: I think he should.

COOPER: So does Reverend Jackson. I'm not sure -- he thinks he will be able to stop. Remains to be seen, because there were plenty of people after '93 who said, look, you can't do this again, and obviously he did. We're also going to talk to a prosecution witness who testified who said not only does she think he's going to sleep with little boys again, she says she thinks he is going to molest little boys again.

BROWN: It's -- when you think about it, I mean, every great American story at some point or another has to have Reverend Jackson in it. And he shows -- it's like there is a federal law. If he has any weight at all with Mr. Jackson, I think he should encourage him to stop this.

COOPER: Yeah, the question is, does anybody have any weight with Michael Jackson?

BROWN: You know, that's a -- we were talking about celebrity earlier today and whether celebrity mattered in this case or not. And who's Michael Jackson's audience? I have a 16-year-old daughter. I don't think she cares one bit about Michael Jackson.

COOPER: Well, his -- I mean, I think his crowds tend to be -- skew much younger, and it's largely overseas. I mean, his domestic sales are way down.

BROWN: So it's like 12-year-olds...

COOPER: Right, in Japan. Huge.

BROWN: ... Japanese girls?

COOPER: Right.

BROWN: Like Jerry Lewis, but older -- or younger and in Asia. COOPER: Exactly.

BROWN: There you go. That's coming up at the top of the hour. We'll check morning papers after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're not (ph) going to do six minutes on papers, but I'll do one quick one. "Santa Maria Times," an extra, "not guilty on all counts." Someone bet me $100 here "The Oregonian" would not have this on the front page. Fooled that person! "Jackson's next jury: The public," is how "The Oregonian" out in Portland leads. Send the check to charity, please.

"Newsday." "Michael Moonwalks." Pretty good headline on that, huh? Out on Long Island. That's "Newsday."

"Cincinnati Enquirer" plays it straight. "Michael Jackson acquitted. Child molestation, other charges rejected by jury."

"Rocky Mountain News" plays it pretty straight too. "Jurors: Case wasn't there." You heard a juror earlier make that pretty clear.

"Boston Herald." Like this headline too, "beat it!" Yeah.

And "Chicago Sun-Times." Straight ahead headline, "not guilty," and then some of the side bars, "M.J., you're no O.J.," "acquittal is tainted," "behavior must change." Oh no, I don't think so. I think the behavior is fine.

Weather in Chicago tomorrow? "Grumpy." We'll wrap it up with a "Then & Now" after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): He was already famous for negotiating the release of prostitutes in Iran, Libya and in Lebanon, when the tables turned on Terry Waite. On the 20th of January in 1987, the 6-foot-7 negotiator vanished. Accused of being an American agent -- he says he was not -- Terry Waite was taken hostage in Beirut. For nearly five years, he endured beatings, interrogations, solitary confinement, before he emerged a free man.

TERRY WAITE: After 1,763 days in chains, it's an overwhelming experience to come back.

BROWN: In seclusion, he wrote about his ordeal in the 1993 book "Taken on Trust."

WAITE: It's enabled me to come back to the world, slowly and gently.

BROWN: Now, Terry Waite splits his time between charity project and paid work, lectures and writing, inspired by his hostage experience. A grandfather of three, who enjoys travel, and music, and books, he has no intention of retiring, though he now approaches 70.

WAITE: I'm immensely fortunate to be able to be involved in so many different projects. And I like to think that they're doing something to help heal a world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Our coverage of the Michael Jackson verdict continues with a special edition of "ANDERSON COOPER 360."

We'll leave you this hour with one picture of the thousands taken today that seems to speak to Michael Jackson and who he was and what he looked like at the very end -- tired, fragile. Kind of -- what was he thinking there? What was he doing? When it all came to an end for him today?

He's back at home, and the rest of us can ponder the criminal justice system. Anderson Cooper is next.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com