LA Times MJ analysis -' The Mother ... Was a Disaster'

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-analysis14jun14,0,5276286.story?coll=la-home-headlines

'The Mother ... Was a Disaster'
By Henry Weinstein and Maura Dolan
Times Staff Writers

June 14, 2005

snip

Monday, as the Jackson jurors talked about their deliberations, they made clear how well Mesereau's strategy had succeeded.

"What mother in her right mind would … just freely volunteer your child to sleep with someone, and not so much just Michael Jackson but anyone, for that matter? That is something mothers are naturally concerned with," juror Pauline Coccoz of Santa Maria, a 45-year-old mother of three, said at a post-verdict news conference.

Juror Eleanor Cook, a 79-year-old grandmother, spoke of her distaste for the mother's demeanor. The juror "disliked it intensely when she snapped her fingers at us," she said. "I thought, 'Don't snap your fingers at me, lady.' "

Juror Susan Rentschler, 52, of Lompoc, said she was "very uncomfortable" with the way the mother kept staring at jurors as she testified.

Mesereau's strategy triumphed. But ironically, it was a decision by prosecutors that made it possible.

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