Jamison
Cadet
Jax jurors bank on flip-flop
BY MICHELLE CARUSO
DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU CHIEF
Thursday, August 4th, 2005
LOS ANGELES - Two jurors who acquitted Michael Jackson of child molestation charges now say they think the pop star was guilty - and they are penning tell-all books about the jury's deliberations, the Daily News has learned.
"Guilty As Sin, Free as a Bird" is the title of 79-year-old Eleanor Cook's tome, according to Larry Garrison, president of Silver Creek Entertainment.
He will co-write the book with Cook's granddaughter.
And Ray Hultman, 62, will pen "The Deliberator" along with former Jackson family friend and author Stacy Brown. He co-wrote the successful "The Man Behind The Mask" with Jackson's former publicist Bob Jones.
"These books are going to rock the nation," said Garrison, a film and TV producer.
"Elly and Ray are two of the three jurors who [initially] voted for 'guilty'" Garrison said, referring to the early balloting in the jury's deliberation process.
Garrison declined to identify the third juror he said initially voted to convict the pop star.
On June 13, after 32 hours of deliberation over seven days, 12 jurors voted unanimously to acquit Jackson of charges he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor after plying the boy with alcohol.
Ironically, in interviews immediately after the verdict, Cook fervently supported the verdicts, and she openly mocked the accuser's wacky mother, whose trial testimony was punctuated with annoying finger snaps.
"Don't snap your fingers at me, lady!" Cook said at post-verdict press conference where jurors explained why they acquitted Jackson.
Most said they felt the family had credibility problems and the evidence was weak.
Garrison declined to reveal what went on in the jury room or why Hultman, Cook and the third juror changed their votes from guilty to not guilty.
"The jurors had made a pact to stick together" and not talk about what went on in the jury room, Garrison said.
But after several jurors appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live," Hultman and Cook felt "that was it" and decided to reveal the inside scoop, Garrison said.
A film about the Jackson jurors' experiences is also in the works, Garrison said.
Google this and you can find a lot more articles on it...this was just the first one I grabbed.
So the basic jist of the story is that these two jurors were adament that Michael Jackson was not guilty and voted so during the trial. Now they've gotten book deals and have publically come out and said that they feel that he's guilty.
Eleanor Cook was actually in contact with Jackson's mother all throughout the trial and would wink at her during testimony and wore the same colors as the family to show solidarity with them. She was very vocal in thinking that he was innocent not only in the jury room but in all the post trial interviews that she did...now she's singing another tune.
The point is, should jurors be allowed to profit from the trials they sit on? If these two jurors hadn't known that they could get killer book deals to sell their story, then would that have changed the outcome of the trial?
It just seems to me, that you shouldn't be able to profit from something like jury duty. I realize to many people it's a bother and takes a lot of time and money away from their lives, but allowing them to profit from it opens up cases exactly like this.