I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball.

You've probably heard that Sean, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy, love, Combs.

He's always just going to be puffy to me.

He was found not guilty on the most serious charges in the racketeering and sex

trafficking case that the government put on against him. He's only been found guilty on two

counts of the least serious charge, transportation for prostitution. And throughout the

trial, I really struggled with whether to pay attention to this case. But I also knew that,

like a lot of people, I had to for a number of reasons. For one thing, this is a yet another

very famous black man on trial.

And I mean, it's a cultural icon.

And for some people, you know, like a cultural hero.

But it also involves some classic intersections of the American criminal justice system.

Grindhouse, race, sex, and the government.

The government is trying this rich and famous black man on behalf of two women witnesses,

one of whom filed a lawsuit against him. And for a while, I was really content to just watch

from the sidelines. For a month, I read all the great reporting

that my colleagues at the New York Times were doing, Ben Cesario and Julia Jacobs and Joe Coscarelli.

I mean, they were really doing it, getting up at the crack of dawn every day to go down to that

courthouse. And then there were these wonderful courtroom sketches from Elizabeth Williams,

and she did them every day.

And they were your only window really into what was going on in the courtroom, visually,

because there were no cameras.

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