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this column predicted two weeks ago, Puffy Combs beat the rap last
Friday. This column also predicted his young
colleague, Jamaal "Shyne" Barrows, an up-and-coming rapper on Combs's
Bad Boy label would likely end up serving the big prison time.
Sure enough, Puffy was not guilty on all counts of gun possession
and bribery. Shyne was found not guilty of attempted murder, but
guilty of first-degree assault and gun possession. He's facing 25
years.
The temptation is to think of this as a third-rate rerun of the
O. J. Simpson trial. Johnnie Cochran's presence certainly forced
a superficial similarity. In fact, while the jury was deliberating,
one wag was known to observe, "Well, at least they've learned one
thing from the O.J. trial: Wait, a respectable period of time before
you choose to ignore the evidence and acquit the guy."
But that's just a joke. While the Simpson drama was a murder trial
that was not about race, except for the defense lawyers forcing
it to be about race, the Combs trial wasn't about race either.
In both cases, it was definitely about celebrity. If anything, Combs's
fate vividly demonstrated something that was overshadowed in the
earlier psycho/judicial saga because of the passions unleashed from
the O.J. verdicts. To quote Michael Jackson, "it doesn't matter
if you're black or white" — if you have the resources
to hire A-1 legal talent. Black or white celebrities who have the
power to hire lawyers like Cochran and Brafman have at their disposal
resources that put the state on the defensive — an imbalance
of power not usually seen in criminal cases. Green trumps black
or white in many situations.
This case was all about the benjamins — money — in another
way, one that would prove fatal to the prosecution. While the O.J.
civil verdict — and its $30 million-plus judgment against Simpson
— served to bring a measure of justice (though the Juice has
turned over hardly any money to the Goldmans and the Browns so far),
the money lust for many of the people in the nightclub on Dec. 27,
1999 helped corrode the prosecution's case.
As an alternate juror stated earlier in the week (well before the
verdicts came back), the fact that most prosecution witnesses had
already filed lawsuits against Combs (one to the tune of $800 million)
that made their testimony seriously suspect. The list of litigant-witnesses
included Combs's driver that night, Wardel Fenderson, who gave some
of the most damaging testimony against the rap mogul.
The aforementioned alternate juror who rightly predicted that Combs
would walk caused other questions to be raised: She seemed to have
a remarkably high regard for Puff Daddy. She might not have been
a "fan," per se, but it seemed that she knew more about who Combs
was and his background than you might want in a juror. If she managed
to survive all the way to the alternate-juror status, one can rightly
wonder whether the prosecution did a good enough job during voir
dire.
Regardless, in contrast to the prosecution's difficult witnesses,
the defense's call of Sharise Myers, a security guard in the nightclub,
turned out to be a master stroke. She testified that she had fallen
on top of Combs when the shooting started and that she hadn't seen
a gun in his possession. Her words seemed to stand out from the
litany of "Yes, he did have a guy/No, he didn't" cacophony of conflicting
testimony.
Finally, distinguishing itself from O.J.'s trial was the fact that
the defendant took the stand in his own defense. Apparently the
jury was ready to believe Combs — and he didn't let them down.
Thus, while the inclination of those generally suspicious of rap
celebrities in general might be to think that another jury screwed
up with one more thug walking, this might actually be a situation
where the legal system works its will in the best, most human (therefore
imperfect) way possible. True Puffy is no angel (he plea-bargained
out of an assault conviction a year ago), but Brafman and Cochran
were hired to introduce reasonable doubt in the case of the People
of New York vs. Sean Combs, involving shooting and bribery.
They did their job.
Puffy is now free — to fight a billion dollars in lawsuits,
plus a further legal action taken by the mother of his son, claiming
that he owes more in child support.
Maybe he was right when he produced the song, "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems."
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