Blake verdict doesn’t
feel like justice

Next he has to endure a civil trial brought against him by Bonny Lee’s family, and the burden of proof is not as difficult there. So he may have to pay up —  if he loses and if the plaintiffs can find his assets. From what I understand, Fred Goldman still hasn’t received anything from O.J.

Many of the pundits observing the Blake case felt after the verdict came down that, contrary to the assertion of Bonny Lee’s sister that he bought his way to freedom, he might have won it with a public defender in his corner rather than Gerald Schwartzbach. That’s how flimsy the case was. There were no fingerprints, no witnesses, no physical evidence at all save for the murder weapon, which was found in a dumpster and was not traced back to Blake, and some gun residue on Blake that could have come from his own weapon.

Yet while the public will concede that a man is innocent until proven guilty, and Blake was not proven guilty, perception is a whole different thing. People who followed the case will long remember that two stuntmen testified Blake approached them to kill his wife. They were deemed by the jury to be unreliable, but isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that two of them revealed similar solicitations?

A good lawyer can poke holes in the Pope’s testimony. Blake could have enlisted their help knowing they have so much personal baggage in the way of drug abuse and hallucinations that a jury would never believe them if it ever came to that. And it did.

Exactly where is the real killer or killers? Blake’s side alluded to the fact that Bonny Lee was a pornographer and as such made lots of enemies. So one of them happened to stalk her and shoot her outside Vitello’s in the moments when Blake when inside to retrieve a gun (not the murder weapon) he said he left there? That’s a scenario that, years from now, people will still have difficulty swallowing.

The jury deliberated for 35 hours spread out over nine days. That’s a long time to debate a case before reaching a verdict. It seems obvious that there were people on that jury who thought he was guilty, but couldn’t justify it by the evidence and testimony. If the suspicion wasn’t so overwhelming, they would have concluded a lot sooner.

All of these factors will contribute to a legacy of doubt surrounding Robert Blake. He wasn’t the slam dunk that was Scott Peterson. He wasn’t the miscarriage of justice that was O.J. Simpson. Instead, he is the lucky actor who — despite personal demons, mostly of his own making — has led a charmed life. When he had his electronic bracelet cut off Wednesday, he accomplished in Los Angeles what  Perry Smith couldn’t do in Kansas.

He beat the rap.

Time and public opinion will decide if the two were equal in their guilt.

Michael Ventre is a frequent contributor to MSNBC.com. He lives in Los Angeles.

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