MJ Facts

Fans make a great deal of fuss over Raymond Chandler (Jordan Chandler’s uncle) being subpoenaed to produce documents during the 2005 trial and Raymond’s subsequent objection to same. Officially, a Subpoena Duces Tecum – literally “under penalty to bring with you”, is a legal term for a subpoena for production of documents or other evidence in to court for scrutiny.

Fans say that Raymond refused to bring the documents to court, yet in his objection (linked below), he makes the following points:

• He rightly calls the defence tactics a “fishing expedition”;
• He says he has made available publicly over 700 documents for perusal;
• Many of the documents sought are available from their original sources; and
• Most importantly, refuting fan’s claims, he offers to present all the documents he has to the court “in camera” (privately) so that the court may decide for itself which (if any) documents are relevant to the then current case.

He also points out that Jackson withdrew his claims of extortion in January 1994 (thus negating fan claims that “extortion” was involved).

Also of note: in the document below we see that the defense wanted to keep the name of the person subpoenaed (Raymond Chandler), as well as all the information and documents the subpoena may have produced, a secret from the court, the prosecution as well as the public (see from page 27 of the document linked below).

Another great find – on page 52 of the same document is a news story detailing the fact that there was absolutely no evidence of extortion – the Jackson camp didn’t even go to the police until the media pointed out that no complaint about extortion had been made to the authorities.