Jackson Judge Nixes Mistrial

The judge in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial on Friday denied a defense request for a mistrial on the grounds that a witness testified this week about the singer's relationships with 10- to 14-year-old boys at his Neverland ranch.

The defense claimed that testimony Thursday by a former Neverland housekeeper violated the judge's order that no evidence would be admitted on allegations of past sexual crimes until the judge rules on its admissibility.

In denying the motion, Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville said prosecutors elicited the testimony to establish how much contact Jackson had with the boys, not to suggest any impropriety by the singer.

The issue was debated at a hearing in which the judge set a March 28 date for a hearing on the prosecution request to allow evidence of alleged prior offenses into Jackson's trial.

Jackson has never been convicted of a prior sexual offense but prosecutors want to present witnesses they believe will show that the current case is part of a pattern. On Thursday, the housekeeper mentioned the name of a boy who made molestation allegations against Jackson in 1993 and received a multimillion-dollar civil settlement.

Jackson, 46, is charged with molesting a 13-year-old cancer patient at Neverland in 2003, giving the boy alcohol and conspiring to hold his family captive to rebut a damaging TV documentary in which he appeared with the boy and said he allowed children to sleep in his bed, although he characterized it as innocent.

On other matters, the judge said he will not allow extensive probing of Jackson's finances, and he heard arguments over how the prosecution will try to rebut defense suggestions of evidence contamination.

Prosecutors acknowledged that fingerprint analysis was not performed on adult magazines seized from the singer's home until after grand jury proceedings in which the alleged victim and his brother testified about the items.

After arguments that raised the possibility of grand jurors having to testify before Jackson's jury, the prosecution decided it would call Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss to say he did not see boys touch the magazines.

The question of whether fingerprints got onto the magazines has been raised during defense cross-examination of witnesses, and prosecutors initially asked Melville if they could call the grand jury foreperson to rebut the idea.

Deputy District Attorney Ronald Zonen argued that prosecutors were not negligent because they opted to look first for biological evidence such as semen or sweat before doing fingerprint analysis.

"The actual fingerprint process did not begin until after the grand jury," he said.

One magazine had one print each from Jackson and the accuser.

The defense objected to calling the foreperson as a witness on grounds it would be prejudicial.

"The interesting thing about your argument is that through excellent cross-examining skills, you, the defense, have put into issue whether the children touched the magazines during the grand jury proceedings," Melville said. "Having skillfully raised this inference, you say that the district attorney should be barred from rebutting it."

The judge also suggested that other grand jurors might have seen something the foreperson had not.

But after Melville indicated he might order the names of the grand jurors turned over to the defense, the prosecution withdrew its request to call the foreperson and offered the compromise of calling the deputy district attorney as a witness to the grand jury proceedings.

CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen notes that jurors are off Friday, with a long weekend - their second in a row - and an awful lot of information to sort through in their own minds.

"It has been a whirlwind week in court, with plenty of dramatic testimony and sharp questioning and two completely different versions of events and perceptions about Jackson," says Cohen.

Fournier, says Cohen, testified that "the children appeared intoxicated, which is different from knowing that the children were intoxicated. She says that she never saw Jackson give alcohol to a minor and that the children, including the alleged victim in the case, may have taken advantage of Jackson being too kind a host."

"She's a prosecution witness, and she did some damage to Jackson, but clearly the defense scored some points as well," he adds.