Robert Blake

[Deleted]

foxy said:

Hee! whitefalcon, if that was a Phil Spectre (misspelling intentional) reference, I think I love you! Will you be my witty pretend boy/girlfriend?

"

Heh! Buy me lots of chocolate, lovah!

[tipsygrrl]

Amen, Spiffsin. If he killed his wife, he should be punished. But Robert Blake probably isn't going to run around killing people anymore. Michael Jackson, on the other hand...if he is guilty of what he is accused of I don't think he can stop himself. He'll offend again. (And I don't just mean what he wore to court today.)

[Deleted]

Thing is, the prosecution couldn't tie him to the murder weapon, or find DNA evidence, and the witnesses were unreliable.

Now, I don't believe he did it-well, not himself. I think he hired someone to off her for him. But the prosecution, sadly, couldn't prove it beyond reasonable doubt. Which, I agree, fucking sucks.

[thingee]

eh I can't bring myself to get all worked up about this. Mostly because if he was guilty and got off, I don't really see him as being a danger to society at large again.

tipsygrrl said:

Amen, Spiffsin. If he killed his wife, he should be punished. But Robert Blake probably isn't going to run around killing people anymore. Michael Jackson, on the other hand...if he is guilty of what he is accused of I don't think he can stop himself. He'll offend again. (And I don't just mean what he wore to court today.)

I don't get the point of comparing Blake to CEMJ. And the fact that he probably won't kill again? WTF does that have to do with anything?

Good to know killing women is OK, just so long as you keep the numbers down. Yeeks.

[foxfair]

I think the innocent finding was the correct finding, although I also suspect he was responsible for her death. No matter how you feel about someone's guilt or innocence, in order to convict someone, the burden of proof has to be met, and in this case, it wasn't. Being a celeb means you have $ and access to good lawyers, which helps A LOT. The legal system is weighted towards letting a guilty man go free before convicting an innocent man.

I also think there is less outrage over the Blake case because, compared to Laci Peterson, who was portrayed in the media as a young, beautiful, naive woman dreaming of motherhood (not commenting on the truth of this...just saying), Bonnie Lee Bakley is decidedly NOT a sympathetic person. She had a proven history of grifting and sponging and most people agreed she had taken advantage of Blake. Does this mean she deserved to be killed? No way, no one deserves that. But does it make her less sympathetic in the public's/media's eye? I think so.

I don't even think Scott Peterson should technically have been found guilty - not that I am personally bothered because I think the bastard is guilty as sin, I am just saying that technically, I don't think the 'burden of proof' was met in his case either.

Who knows about CEMJ?

[tipsygrrl]

Thingee, I didn't mean to imply that it's ok that he killed his wife. I think the only thing the two trials have in common are that they are both high-profile celebrity trials that I've been sort of following. That's pretty much the only reason they were linked together in my mind. My thoughts run to the the MJ trial because I'm sadly fascinated by it right now.

In my opinion, Blake should be in jail. It's a travesty that he's not. But... that being said, it is true he probably won't kill anyone else, so the ramifications of the travesty (after the ruling - the terrible ramifications for the victim have already taken place) are less than the ramifications would be if he continued committing the same crime over and over again (as a sex-offender is likely to do).

My original post wasn't the smartest thing I ever wrote- I hope this clarifies it and shows that I don't condone wife murdering.

Again, Thingee, I agree with your post below. In fact, I wavered between writing "victim" and "victims" and only chose the singular because I was worried about being confusing in an already confusing post.

[thingee]

tipsygrrl said:

In my opinion, Blake should be in jail. It's a travesty that he's not. But... that being said, it is true he probably won't kill anyone else, so the ramifications of the travesty (after the ruling - the terrible ramifications for the victim have already taken place) are less than the ramifications would be if he continued committing the same crime over and over again (as a sex-offender is likely to do).

My original post wasn't the smartest thing I ever wrote- I hope this clarifies it and shows that I don't condone wife murdering.

Thanks for clarifying, and I do get what your saying. However, I'd argue that the victims of the murder include others beyond Bonny (sp?) herself.

(a) Her family, who must feel so horrific watching their loved one's murderer get off, and now will probably have to hand the daughter over to the murderer. What a nightmare for them. Not to mention the daughter herself, who's got a whole lot of pain ahead.

(b) Other women, and society in general. This adds to the perception that "amoral" women are disposable. It seems to me that people are less than upset with this verdict because, well, the victim was not such a savory character. And the fact that Blake and his team smeared her all this time is sickening.

[Deleted]

I don't get the point of comparing Blake to CEMJ. And the fact that he probably won't kill again? WTF does that have to do with anything?

Good to know killing women is OK, just so long as you keep the numbers down. Yeeks.

Where in my post did I say that it's okay to kill women? That's not even close to what I said.

What I said was that Blake getting off doesn't work me up as much as it would if MJ got off. The reason being that I consider MJ to still be a danger to society at large and to children specifically.

The sad fact is that some people who may be guilty get off due to reasonable doubt. But that's the way our legal system works. It's better that a person who may be guilty walk free then a man who is innocent be convicted. It's not okay that Blake may have killed a woman. But if our legal system couldn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt then that's the way it should be. In Blakes case I'm comforted by the fact that I don't see him as a danger to anyone else.

[Deleted]

I think the problem is that there's the line between pointing to someone's history to suggest that there could be others who wanted them dead and using that history to encourage jurors to feel sorry for the accused.

I'm not sure what happened with my previous post? lol

But anyway I agree with what you're saying. I do agree that the defense could have handled things better. I think they came on way to strong initially. But man that woman's life was screwed up. It's hard to tell the details and not have it look like you're smearing someone.

[Deleted]

At the same time, just to play the devil's advocate, does the defence really have that sort of obligation? The D's role is very different than that of the prosecution - and you could always say that by shifting the whole focus of the trial, the D attorney was just doing his job

My guess is that Blake is very happy with the job his attorneys did. And really I guess that's really what the defense job is.

It's interesting that the vast majority of defence attorneys (and pretty much all of the most prominent ones) are male.

What's even more interesting is a study I read that trial attorneys have higher testosterone levels then any other type of attorney. I guess it's the modern equivilant to going out and hunting.

At any rate, even without the murder charge, I always found Robert Blake to be a major weirdo.

Agreed. The only redeeming quality to him imo is how much he seemed to love his daughter Rose.