Did new evidence provoke this humiliating conclusion? Nope! Belted disclosure of bribery perhaps? Uh, no. A claim of hypnotism, maybe…or demonic possession, or being influenced by will-bending drugs surreptitiously poured in their coffee by Michael Jackson's henchmen…Tito! No again.

Then what happened? Well, they felt pressured. The Foreman said mean things to them.

So now they are writing a book about it all…in fact, two books, one for each gutless, dishonest juror.

And anyone that buys them can lay claim to being just as irredeemably stupid as these twin disgraces to the American jury system.

Let's begin with the primary victim here, Michael Jackson. Whatever anyone thinks of Mr. Jackson and his odd and inappropriate behavior towards young boys, he is an American citizen, and he has rights. He stood trial over many grueling weeks, and when the jury members announced, each and every one, that they could not find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, he had earned that verdict. Others could question it and argue about it, but that non-guilty verdict was his pass to begin rebuilding his life and reputation. For two jurors to come out later and tell the media that "they made a mistake" is an outrageous act of pure malice. It is worse than having your child's teacher, after awarding a high grade that has became a cause for celebration in the family, tell you and your child, "Actually, the grade was a mistake: it should have been an F, but I'm stuck with it." It is worse than if a judge in an Olympic Competition told a gold-winning athlete after his medal had been awarded, "You know, you didn't deserve that high mark I gave you that made you the winner. I really don't know what I was thinking."

But, some will say, why care about the feelings of Michael Jackson? After all, he's a child-molester. No, he's not. The law of the land says he's not. Even if these jurors actually had discharged the duty they had pledged to honor and voted to convict (assuming that really was their conclusion, which, given their admitted unreliability and obvious fecklessness, is an unwarranted assumption), Jackson still wouldn't have been a convicted child-molester. He would have just been a defendant in a mistrial. Now, he is a free man and an acquitted accused child-molester. And he still has both rights and the human right to be treated decently.

But Cook and Hultman have absolutely no right to cast doubt on the verdict now. They had a duty, an obligation, to have the integrity and the courage to stand up and vote guilty in the jury room if that is what they felt the evidence showed, take the arguments and antipathy of their fellow jurors, and cause a mistrial. They didn't. Either they weren't certain enough to hold onto their opinions in the face of a determined majority, or worse, they knowingly voted the opposite of what they believed. This isn't the fault of any other juror. This is their fault, and having done it, they had an obligation to shut up about it forever. Recanting their votes now doesn't help the alleged victim, nor does it further the interest of justice. Michael Jackson cannot be retried. What it does do is give them book deals.

Hooray.

They are undermining the American justice system for a couple of lousy book deals for what will undoubtedly be a couple of lousy books.

Cook and Hultman say the Forman threatened to kick them off the jury unless they voted guilty. What kind of a pathetic excuse is that? If they were being unfairly pressured, they could complain to the judge; that's the system. If they were removed from the jury, it was not going to cause a worse result, in their eyes, than if they stayed and voted against their conscience. Why stay? Why was the threat of removal so effective? The potential book deals, perhaps. Or, more likely, just an epic failure of courage and character on their parts.

If Cook or Hultman had been in Henry Fonda's place in "Twelve Angry Men," the movie would have been over in ten minutes.

Michael Jackson's lawyer, Tom Mesereau, told the Associated Press that the jurors' comments were "embarrassing and outrageous." He got that right, but he didn't go far enough. They broke their juror's oath. They lied when they said they had concluded, after weighing the evidence, that Jackson was not guilty. They didn't have the basic courage to stand up for what they believed after accepting a core democratic responsibility that requires that courage. They undermined the trial and the verdict after the fact, and they did so while basking in media attention and hawking their future books.

No American should feel anything but contempt for these two people, who have taken a sacred duty and distorted it beyond recognition. Perhaps shame and sadness too, that our fame and money obsessed culture may have so eroded our democratic values that even being a juror is now just one more opportunity to garner fifteen minutes of fame, a People Magazine feature, and some quick cash.

Cook and Hultman aren't merely Ethics Dunces; they are Super Ethics Dunces who should frighten us as much as any terrorist. If their value system…devoid of courage, honesty and accountability…flourishes, democracy cannot survive.