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Long Live the Little Man Defense!How R. Kelly got off.

By Josh LevinPosted Friday, June 13, 2008, at 7:21 PM ET

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Aside from its overlong visit to the Van Allen radiation belt, the state didn't make any glaring errors. This wasn't the O.J. trial, where the prosecutors snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Boliker and Heilingoetter had the more-convincing forensic video analyst and the more-believable friends and relatives. When three defense witnesses said they knew the alleged victim wasn't the girl in the video, the prosecutors devised an ingenious, understated way to undermine their testimony, showing the witnesses and the jury a pair of identical-looking images: one from the sex tape, one from a video made by the alleged victim's musical group. But in the end, Boliker and Heilingoetter were undone by what they didn't have. Even without a cooperative victim, the state's attorneys might have swayed the jury if Judge Vincent Gaughan had allowed them to present evidence of Kelly's past transgressions, like the four known settlements he's paid to underage girls who've accused him of sexual misconduct. Once you know all of that stuff, it's somewhat hard to imagine that R. Kelly didn't tape himself having sex with an underage girl. If, like the jury, you don't know the singer's history, there's a lot more room for doubt.

Despite the holes in the prosecution's case, Kelly's legal braintrust took no chances. In his closing argument, the always-exuberant Sam Adam Jr. debuted three new defense theories:

The Hannah Montana theory: Adam Jr. reminded the jurors that all of the people who identified the girl in the tape—save threesome-haver Lisa Van Allen—said they had no idea that Kelly and the alleged victim, his goddaughter, had any kind of sexual relationship. Adam Jr. found it hard to believe that this cone of silence could have existed. "You couldn't keep a 13-year-old girl's mouth quiet about having Hannah Montana tickets," he said.

The there-is-no-Santa theory: Smartly neglecting to mention media reports that Kelly is functionally illiterate, Adam Jr. noted that the singer isn't dumb enough to tote around a satchel of homemade pornography, as alleged by Van Allen. Or, if you prefer, he does not "carry around a bag full of porno tapes like he was a porno Santa Claus."

The I'm Gonna Git You Sucka theory: If the alleged victim was really on the tape, Adam Jr. argued, her relatives would have "beat the crap out of [Kelly]." Since nobody beat the crap out of Kelly, it couldn't have been her on the tape. QED.

While I have a hard time believing that any of these new hypotheses could have changed anyone's mind, it is possible that the defense team finally succeeded in driving the jurors completely insane. Though deliberations lasted for less than a full day, this was enough time for one member of the jury to go bananas on a waiter who failed to bring his hamburger with sufficient haste. This morning, another juror wrote Judge Vincent Gaughan a letter saying, "How can I be removed and go home? I really need to." A few hours later, that became a moot point.

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Josh Levin is a Slate senior editor. You can e-mail him at and follow him on Twitter.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

I don't think this is too complicated. The jury heard from the "victim" who didn't seem to think she was a vicitim and decided that was enough. If she wasn't clamoring for justice then what was the point of sending the guy to jail?

--TJA

(To reply, click here.)

(6/13)

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