In the 1967 film, “In Cold Blood,” Robert Blake played a petty criminal who, along with a partner, murders a family in Kansas. They’re arrested, tried, sentenced to death and executed.
That true-life crime drama, based on a book by Truman Capote, would have been vastly different had Blake’s character Perry Smith escaped the gallows in the final scene. Of course, he didn’t, and the audience walked away satisfied.
On Wednesday at about 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time, the audience did not walk away satisfied. It was left confused, frustrated, even angry. This was not a movie based on real life, but real life itself, and this time Blake went free in the end.
“In Cold Blood” felt like justice. This did not.
I have no idea who shot and killed Bonny Lee Bakley, but I do know that Robert Blake was bursting with anger and motive. He shot off his mouth more than once about wanting to do in his wife. According to Bonny Lee’s sister Margerry, who was interviewed on Court TV Wednesday after the verdict came down in favor of Blake, the actor told Bonny Lee that he was going to kill her, and that he would get away with it because “I’m Robert Blake.”
Now, it’s a bit silly to think Blake’s global celebrity kept him from going to prison, because he didn’t really have global celebrity until this case. Before this he was a Hollywood oddity, a former child actor in “Our Gang” comedies, a promising young thespian in pictures such as “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here” and the star of the TV series “Baretta.” But he was more well-known for his troublesome personality than his credits.
Yet he was the recipient of “not guilty” verdicts on two of three counts Wednesday — and a hung jury on the third, with the jury leaning 11-1 for acquittal — because the prosecutors had a weak case, not because he was clearly innocent.
Blake has used up reservoir of public goodwill
No, Blake will enjoy the kind of post-criminal trial life that O.J. Simpson has experienced, although to a much lesser extent because his involvement in the actual killing is much less clear. Still, the public will view him as a man who got away with murder.
I’ve been to Vitello’s, the Studio City restaurant outside of which the murder took place, many times. I frequented the place well before it became infamous. The last time I went was in January, and the infamous pasta dish named after Blake was still on the menu. People now go to Vitello’s for the same reason they used to go to Mezzaluna in Brentwood, where Ron Goldman worked and where Nicole Simpson had her last meal.
But now that Blake has been set free, the attitude toward him won’t be as trivial as a plate of pasta. Blake has already used up his reservoir of favorable opinion that comes with fame. Now folks will look at him as somebody who pulled a fast one and got away with it. He hated his wife, he felt she was an unfit mother for their child, she’s dead and out of his life, and he emerged relatively unscathed.
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.