Jackson judge rejects defence request for mistrial

The judge in Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial tonight denied a defence request for a mistrial on the grounds that the jury has heard about the singer’s previous relationships with young boys.

Lawyers acting for Jackson argued that testimony yesterday 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 Santa Maria, California, in which the judge set a March 28 deadline on the prosecution request to allow evidence of alleged prior offences into Jackson’s trial.

Jackson has never been convicted of a prior sexual offence 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.

Only motions were being heard today, and Jackson had been told he did not have to attend. One of his lawyers said at the end of yesterday’s session that Jackson was still in pain from a back injury and would rest through the weekend.

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 characterised 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 defence 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 the boys touch the magazines.

The question of whether fingerprints got onto the magazines has been raised during defence 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 defence 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 defence, have put into issue whether the children touched the magazines during the grand jury proceedings,” Melville said. “Having skilfully 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 defence, 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.