Jackson Trial Highs And Lows
After nearly 14 weeks, the toll his child molestation trial has taken on Michael Jackson is easy to see, says CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.
As the days, weeks and months have worn on, Gonzalez observes, Jackson has looked progressively more fatigued and withdrawn. He began taking medication for back pain, which also made him appear sluggish.
He missed court one week after he was taken to the hospital with flu-like symptoms.
When he failed to show up a second time, the judge ordered him to come to court or face arrest. The singer's motorcade had to make a mad dash up the highway to Santa Maria. Jackson arrived looking more haggard than ever, in pajama bottoms. He never really seemed to recover.
Inside the courtroom, most of the trial consisted of a 45-day prosecution case that stumbled from the very beginning.
Key witnesses backfired nearly every time. Jackson's accuser, and the accuser's siblings, seemed evasive and contradicted each other. The accuser's mother sounded paranoid and delusional during her five days on the witness stand.
"On day four," remarked attorney and court observer Jim Moret, "I thought I was on day four of 'The Three Faces of Eve.' I thought, 'Who is this person?' "
Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, was supposed to attack the singer. Instead, she sung his praises, as she did during a documentary on Fox TV in February 2003. She may have done more for the defense than nearly any other witness, Gonzales says.
Prosecutors tried to turn things around with witnesses allowed under California law to testify about old, unproven allegations that Jackson abused other boys.
But many of them were found to have sued the singer, sought money from him, or sold stories to tabloids.
Lead Defense Attorney Tom Mesereau used several of them to score points for Jackson. He did so well, many observers thought he should rest without putting on a case.
But Mesereau went ahead, calling a series of young men and some of their mothers. Prosecution witnesses said Jackson abused the young men, including Macauley Culkin, when they were boys. The men denied that, but their stories of sharing the singer's bed, sometimes for months at a time, shocked the court, Gonzales says.
Says Moret, "I had a visceral reaction to that testimony; I have a 7-year-old son."
But statements made by the mothers of the men who said they were not molested may have done the most damage, Gonzalez comments.
"You saw a picture of these moms vying for Michael Jackson's attention, essentially selling their kids to get gifts," Moret summarized. "And that's a really disturbing picture."
Mesereau also wasn't able to deliver on some pledges in his opening statements, including a promised "Red Carpet defense," a series of big name stars who would come into court to defend Jackson.
A ruling by the judge that they could be grilled about pornography found in the singer's house appeared to contribute to the decision to scrap that defense angle.
Explains Jackson biographer and CBS News consultant J. Randy Taraborrelli, "Michael Jackson made a decision that he didn't want to bring a bunch of his celebrity friends to Santa Maria, only to have them humiliated and insulted by the prosecution team. So the 'red carpet defense' evaporated."
During the prosecution's rebuttal case, Jackson's accuser got the last word, through an old videotaped police interview in which he described the alleged molestation.
But as damaging as that was, some legal observers say Jackson could be acquitted.
"There is reasonable doubt here for a jury member who is inclined to find it," suggests CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen. "The question is, are jurors going to be leaning in that direction? And if so, we'll see some acquittals."
That, Gonzales says, depends on jurors letting their emotions get in the way, as they decide the fate of Michael Jackson.