US: As the Michael Jackson defence case rests, Sally Connell and Michael Muskal in Santa Maria, California, assess its strengths and weaknesses.
After presenting a shorter and faster case than it had promised, the defence in the Michael Jackson molestation trial rested on Wednesday evening after playing an aggressive offence.
It had said it would call hundreds of witnesses in a presentation that could take as long as six weeks, but instead just 50 took the stand during 15 working days. Nor was there the promised flock of celebrities praising the singer.
Lead defence lawyer Thomas A Mesereau indicated in his opening statement that the eight- woman four-man jury would get to hear Jackson's denial from his own lips. The pop star didn't take the stand, but he did explain in several video-taped interviews that his love of children was pure.
The defence did meet expectations by portraying the boy who accused Jackson of molestation as far less innocent than the prosecution made him out to be. The defence also targeted the boy's mother, painting her as the mastermind of a family of greedy grifters eager to cash in by using a pliable and overly generous pop star.
The mother never testified that she saw her son sexually abused. But in a no-holds-barred attack, the defence sought to discredit her as a liar and a welfare cheat so that her son's charges of molestation would not be believed by the jury.
It was in early February 2003 when British documentary Living With Michael Jackson aired. On the video, Jackson held hands with his accuser and explained he shared his bed with children in a non-sexual way.
Over the next five weeks, the prosecution alleged, Jackson (46) committed child molestation, attempted child molestation, gave alcohol to a minor to aid in the commission of a felony and conspired to kidnap, falsely imprison and extort the family of the accuser to get the family to make a positive video.
Judge Rodney Melville allowed past allegations of child molestation to be admitted in the trial, setting the stage for the most dramatic confrontations in the defence case.
Three former "special friends" of Jackson's, now young men, denied Jackson had ever inappropriately touched them when they were young. The star was Macaulay Culkin, and the trio included Wade Robson and Brett Barnes.
Their testimony was crucial, because the prosecution had been allowed to put on witnesses who testified that they had observed Jackson molest Culkin, shower with Robson, and regularly sleep and travel with Barnes in the early 1990s.
No charges were ever filed in their cases, or in two other cases, which occurred in the early 1990s. The boys in the latter cases, who said they were molested, received multimillion- dollar settlements from Jackson.
Culkin, who became famous for his role in the Home Alone films, was unflappable on the stand, calling the charges against Jackson "absolutely ridiculous".
Beyond Mesereau's attempt to use witnesses to portray Jackson as childlike and innocent, other defence witnesses were brought in to attack the accuser's family as anything but those things.
Testimony from Rijo Jackson, his sister Simone Jackson and at least two other witnesses placed the accuser and his brother either drinking or near alcohol when Jackson wasn't present.
A maid testified to finding one of the boy's backpacks containing two adult magazines. All of the testimony was supposed to discredit the accuser.
Mesereau asked many witnesses questions meant to remind the jury of points he made during the prosecution's case, that the accuser, his brother, sister and mother all admitted to lying under oath for financial gain in a civil case by denying domestic violence.
But Mesereau did not deliver on many points he made in his opening statement.
He had promised to show the mother was "greedy", pushing her son to stand at a comedy club door "with his hand out", seeking donations as he recovered from cancer.
Mesereau also said that he would prove the family preyed on celebrities and that no less a star than Tonight Show host Jay Leno had qualms about the family. But Leno's testimony was less than what the defence had sought. Leno said the family never asked him for money.
Even though jurors received promises that they would hear from Jackson directly, the judge will instruct them that they cannot take into consideration that the singer didn't testify when they decide the case.
But jurors got a look inside Jackson's thoughts as presented in video-taped interviews in which he reflects on his relationship with children:
"I feel I've received God's smile of approval. I feel so pure inside . . . I feel like I've taken a nice shower. I feel good inside," he said. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, if it wasn't for the children, I would throw in the towel."