The Other Verdict

R. Kelly was acquitted. But, what is to be said about silent motives and irresponsible parenting?

When word came that singer R. Kelly was found not guilty on 14 counts of child pornography, I wasn't surprised at all—but my reaction to the reality of it caught me by surprise.

Part of me is happy to live in a country where the legal system works. After all, the female principal denied it was her on the videotape, and her family denied it was her, too. Then there was the parade of witnesses with shady histories and muddy motivations going head to head with a firebrand young lawyer making a name for himself. This, on top of the indisputable fact you cannot look at a piece of film and reliably determine age. Defense attorney Sam Adam Jr.'s job was to raise reasonable doubt, and there was reasonable doubt all over the place.

The other part of me—the father of a young daughter—knows we've crossed a threshold and revealed an ugliness we didn't know was there: Some Daddies can't or don't protect their little girls, and the law can't either.

A lot of this came back to the family and friends of the alleged victim, many of whom rose up to testify against Kelly. Reports of the verdict mentioned that jurors were concerned about the motives of those close to the young woman. Upon discovery of the tapes, the first call family members made was to a lawyer and not authorities. I question their motives, too. Friends say they didn't know of any relationship between Kelly and the alleged victim—I don't buy that. And the parents? What kind of parents allow their children to hang out with adults, unsupervised, Michael Jackson-style? Where were all the friends and family when the girl was allegedly getting down with Kelly? Instead of trying to cash in with a rent-a-lawyer, why didn't the family reach out to try and protect the young lady?

I don't know.

As a reporter, I've covered enough cases of people behaving badly to read them from the curb—I have an unnatural taste for hunting game where the answers are not clear, where there are no heroes or villains: just the truth, the process and the scum it can leave behind. As with the Duke lacrosse rape case and the Imus incident, I got the R. Kelly case right. But this was different—see, I have a little girl. And I have little girls in my charge. What struck me first, once the trial ended, exactly as I said it would, was that someone's little girl had to grow up too fast. Instead of hanging out with her friends and talking on the phone, a grown man was offering her money to be his plaything. And that little girl is damaged.

Forever.

And after all the cameras are gone, after all the (alleged) hush money is spent, that little girl, now a woman, will one day be left alone to wonder where her innocence went. She will ask her father to account for (allegedly) selling the soul of his daughter. What will he say?

What would I say?

I wouldn't say a word because I wouldn't be answering that question. I'd be pressing my hands against the Plexiglas window of a maximum security prison, sad that I couldn't touch the face of my precious daughter, but knowing that I rose up to protect her where the law failed.