Dear Sam Adam Jr.,

First, love your beer. HA! I bet you get that all the time. Am I right?

Anyway, I read the account of your closing statement in the Tribune today. Now, I’m not a lawyer, but…well, based on what you said in court today, it doesn’t really sound like you’re one either. Mainly because what you said in court today doesn’t really sound…legal. Let me explain.

"Any solid man or woman would have gone over and broken his legs. They would have beat the crap out of him. That’s real. That’s practical. That’s family."

I grew up just south of Calumet City so while that sounds like a lot of families I knew, it also sounds like assault and battery. But a lack of legally actionable behavior on the part of the victim’s family doesn’t have any bearing on whether you should or shouldn’t bring someone up on criminal charges in a court of law, right? No one says, "Well, we could have charged him, but since no one beat his ass, it must not be that big a deal." Also, is the first time that as a defense lawyer you’ve advocated for the innocence of your client by pointing out that the lack of an imaginary, theoretical crime is proof that your client is innocent? And then you said this:

"She is a 13 year-old-girl having raunchy, dirty, nasty sex …with a superstar who’s won Grammy Awards and she tells no one? You couldn’t keep a 13-year-old girl’s mouth quiet about having Hannah Montana tickets."

This made me wonder: Does the staff at the Chicago Rape Crisis Hotline ask the young women they speak to "So on a scale on 1 to 10, how likely is it you will tell someone about this significant event, if 1 is "Saw a squirrel" and 10 is "Got Hannah Montana tickets?" I’ve had conversations with some of those people, and no one has ever said they use this as a means of crisis intervention.

Since you’re unclear about this, let me break it down for you: Someone who is 13 years of age cannot legally consent to sex with someone over the age of 18. Even if that person sang “Ignition.” When that happens, it’s called rape. No matter if that person “threw herself at you” or “made the first move” or “didn’t look 13” or whatever. Moreover, if you’re laboring under the presumption that getting raped and peed on by someone – even (swoon!) a Grammy-award winning musician – is something to brag about…well then you and I clearly live on another plane of existence. I live on the planet Earth and you live in…well, let’s go with Arkham Asylum. Finally, there’s this:

You’re going to have to say this girl, before the world, is a whore."

Is it irony that people call R. Kelly a “pimp” all the time, and it’s considered a compliment? Also, the term you’re looking for, sir, is “survivor of rape.” And the jury’s being asked to call R. Kelly a child pornographer or not a child pornographer. See, he’s the one on trial here. Or did you forget that when you said you didn’t want to "mess that girl’s life up" any further?

Incidentally, I learned all this by watching Law and Order and being human. Have you tried this? Maybe in between screenings of Little Man, you’ll have more time when this is all over.

Sincerely, Scott Smith