Created: Thursday, 05 May 2005
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
On day 45 the only dramatic flourish - a routine motion for acquittal - came from the defense. Otherwise, the end of the prosecution’s nearly 10-week case against Michael Jackson was strictly no-frills and typical for this prosecution, without substantially convincing impact.
After his final witness left the stand Wednesday, for example, Sneddon advised Judge Rodney S. Melville that he would need to introduce several items into evidence before the prosecution could formally rest.
Melville responded that the prosecution could reopen its case depending on whether he decided to admit the items.
Prosecutors’ anticlimactic finish capped a case that has included more than 80 witnesses - often mesmerizing and contradictory - but also long days of dry testimony about phone records, how search of Mr. Jackson’s Neverland ranch was conducted, and how fingerprints are taken.
“It’s not the smoothest, most polished finish for the jury, but it’s not atypical,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. “They’re treating this like any other case and the rest of the world isn’t. You’d like to end with a big finish, but maybe they didn’t have a big finish.”
Many of the prosecution’s own witnesses wound up benefiting the defense, including Mr. Jackson’s ex-wife Deborah Rowe, who cast him as a victim and praised his parenting skills.
Prosecutors appeared blindsided when Ms. Rowe, the mother of his two eldest children, contradicted Sneddon’s opening statement claim that she would relate being manipulated by Mr. Jackson associates.
Instead, she called the unindicted alleged coconspirators “opportunistic vultures” and said they conspired against Mr. Jackson, not with him, scheming to make millions from his troubles.
The final witness, Rudy Provencio, told the jury about hearing a phone discussion in which Mr. Jackson’s associates talked with Mr. Jackson about response to a damaging documentary about him.
But the witness, who used to work for a Mr. Jackson associate, did not tie Mr. Jackson to the heart of the alleged conspiracy, quoting Mr. Jackson only as saying such things as that he didn’t want to hold a press conference.
Provencio then came under withering cross-examination by Mr. Mesereau. Provencio acknowledged that two weeks ago he was given a copy of an interview he gave to law enforcement long ago, andwhen asked to check it for accuracy, wrote in changes to implicate Mr. Jackson in the alleged conspiracy .
Provencio, told jurors that he worked with Mr. Jackson over a two-year period as Mr. Jackson and an associate, Marc Schaffel, tried to put together a charity record.
That project fell apart over controversy stemming from Schaffel’s background as a pornographer, Provencio said, but he overheard a series of phone calls between Mr. Jackson and associates in February and March of 2003 dealing with the fallout from the documentary.
It was during those calls, he said, that a plan was hatched to film a so-called rebuttal tape involving Mr. Jackson’s young accuser and his family — a tape that has become central to the conspiracy charges.
Provencio recalled the idea for a rebuttal tape emerging as Schaffel and another Mr. Jackson aide counseled Mr. Jackson that his accuser’s family “could ruin your career, they could blackmail you.”
Later Provencio, who claims that he took copious notes during his employment with Mr. Jackson, said Schaffel alarmed him when he made “a flippant remark about killers” pursuing the family.
Mr. Mesereau pointed out Provencio had not mentioned the “killers” in his first interview with police and had failed to name Mr. Jackson when he was first naming those involved in what he considered the suspicious events of early 2003.
The defense request for acquittal focused mostly on the conspiracy charge, seizing on two recent elements of the prosecution’s case: a display of calls from Mr. Jackson associates’ phones that could not be linked to Mr. Jackson directly, and testimony from Ms. Rowe that he was the victim of “opportunistic vultures” in his inner circle.
“The prosecution’s phone records evidence, if anything, proved the lack of substantial evidence tying Mr. Jackson to the alleged conspiracy,” the motion said. “Debbie Rowe’s testimony demonstrated that the people around Mr. Jackson were, if anything, conspiring against him.”
During his testimony, the accuser told jurors how he met Mr. Jackson while being treated for cancer and thought Mr. Jackson was “the coolest guy in the world.”
The boy recalled being whisked about in limousines and a private jet, being hosted by Mr. Jackson at a Florida resort and appearing in a rebuttal video with his family.
During cross-examination, the accuser became combative and admitted having been a troublemaker at school. He also said he protested leaving Neverland at the end because “I was having fun.”
During her five days on the witness stand the accuser’s mother admitted to lying under oath in an unrelated lawsuit and, extending her arms to the jury, implored jurors: “Please don’t judge me!”
Sneddon won key rulings from the judge, including one that let him all but try a 1993 case that never made it to court because Mr. Jackson and the accuser reached a multimillion-dollar financial settlement.
Under a California law specific to molestation cases that permits claims of past activities to show a pattern of behavior, the prosecution brought witnesses in to testify about claims against Mr. Jackson over 12 years ago. On cross-examination, however, Mr. Mesereau showed that most of these witnesses had been paid for their stories by tabloids or had lost a lawsuit to Mr. Jackson.
Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said he would consider the defense’s motion to dismiss all of the charges for lack of evidence on Thursday before jurors are called back to court. In most trials, the defense typically files a motion asking for an acquittal on grounds that prosecutors haven’t proved their case. The motions are rarely granted.
If Melville denies the motion Mr. Jackson’s lawyers will call their first witnesses in his defense, reportedly to include one or more of the young boys who prosecutors say he molested or treated inappropriately over the past decade.
Defense lawyers have vowed that some of the most famous people in America, including film legend Elizabeth Taylor and late-night talk-show host Jay Leno, will testify on Mr. Jackson’s behalf.
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