Is the R. Kelly Trial Making Chicago A "Laughingstock"?
By Margaret Lyons in News on May 20, 2008 8:44PM
Both sides presented opening arguments today in the ongoing media circus that is R. Kelly's kiddie porn trial. The jurors will be shown the now-infamous tape that shows two people engaging in sex acts; the prosecution says those people are R. Kelly and an underage girl, and the defense says it's not R. Kelly, nor has the prosecution correctly identified the girl on the tape.
Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker argued for the prosecution that "the child pornographer that sits before you is Robert Kelly," saying common sense would lead jurors to convict, but defense attorney Sam Adam, Jr. said Kelly has a large mole on his lower back, and the man in the video has no such mole. "No such mole" = the best phrase I've typed in weeks.
An article in the New York Times today draws a parallel between Al Capone's tax-evasion conviction and Kelly's child pornography charges, calling both a "sideways approach to crime-busting." And according to Leonard L. Cavise, a professor at DePaul University’s College of Law, that might not be the legal legacy we ought to embrace.
"This is a very weird case," Mr. Cavise said. "It makes Chicago look like a laughingstock. It's as if they said, 'Let's spend millions of dollars and six years, shut down an important courtroom, cause a media circus and end up either convicting him of nothing at all or on some charge that has nothing to do with what you really should get him on if he's guilty: sex with children.'"