Jackson to face lawyer in court showdown
Troubled pop star Michael Jackson is confronting the man who wants to put him behind bars over child-sex charges today, in a pre-trial hearing.
Jackson paid a surprise visit to a Los Angeles church yesterday and met 35 Sunday school pupils.
One girl at the First AME Church asked if the children could visit Jackson’s Neverland ranch, to which the pop star replied: “You’re welcome to come anytime”.
Jackson, who wore a dark blue velvet jacket with a gold armband on one sleeve, did not answer press questions. He appeared with his lawyer, Tom Mesereau, his brother Randy and comedian Steve Harvey. Mesereau declined to comment on the case.
Today, Jackson’s family will be standing by him for a courtroom confrontation with a district attorney who investigated a child-molestation case against Jackson that was abandoned a decade ago when the accuser took an undisclosed settlement.
Although the legal agenda for the pre-trial hearing is significant, emotional overtones may take centre stage.
The subject of this session is District Attorney Tom Sneddon, the man who also tried to bring charges against Jackson in 1993 in a confrontation so bitter that Jackson wrote an angry song that only slightly disguised Sneddon’s name.
Today, Mesereau gets to question Sneddon about his actions in the weeks before the current charges against Jackson were filed.
The defence is seeking to show that Sneddon breached the lawyer-client privilege between Jackson and his former lawyer.
Jackson has not been required to attend pre-trial hearings, but he decided he wanted to be present for this confrontation.
In the audience will be his parents, Joseph and Katherine, and siblings including Janet, LaToya, Jermaine and Jackie.
“It’s a face-off between Jackson and Sneddon,” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola University law professor and former federal prosecutor. “And emotionally, it’s a big moment in the case. This is high drama.”
The hearing was also important legally, she said, because prosecutors stood to lose their key evidence if it was found that they obtained it illegally. “This is the basis of the conspiracy count,” she said.
In addition, she said, a finding that the prosecution intentionally interfered with the lawyer-client relationship could prompt a motion to dismiss the charge entirely.
Jackson, aged 45, is charged with committing a lewd act upon a child, administering an intoxicating agent and conspiring to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion. He has pleaded not guilty and is on bail.
Sneddon was subpoenaed by Jackson’s lawyers to testify about surveillance he personally conducted at the office of a private investigator who was working for Jackson’s former lawyer, Mark Geragos.
