As the jury ponders Michael Jackson's fate, my take on this disturbing case So many friends and family members have expressed bewilderment regarding my position on Michael Jackson's guilt or innocence that I thought to attempt to explain myself prior to the jury's verdict. For most people, the issue boils down to two aspects. First, how can I support a freak like Jackson, who, if not specifically guilty of abusing this particular youngster, certainly has been guilty of abusing others in the past? And, much less significantly, why would I become so personally involved that I would put not just my reputation as a legal analyst and victims rights advocate on the line, but also my iconic mustache?

On the first point, let me say broadly that if the Constitution, and applicable statutes aren't applied fairly when the state targets a 'freak', then no one can be assured of those fundamental guarantees. And no one can seriously argue that fairness has been applied in this case. Beginning with the law passed specifically to allow the state to introduce so-called pattern evidence, allowing testimony from 12 and 13 year old allegations never tested or even charged in a court of law, Michael Jackson has been the target of one of the most extraordinary prosecutions in American judicial history.

How else can the prosecutor explain his enormous commitment of time and energy in his crusade to nail Jackson. 75 lawmen raided Neverland. That works out to almost one deputy for every pound of the entertainer's frail body. More massive 'raids' followed, all broad enough and sufficiently telegraphed to insure the accused the maximum negative attention in the media.

Why the need, for example, for the elaborately executed December 2004 search warrant to obtain a DNA sample from the defendant that could and was later easily arranged with a simple phone call to Jackson's attorney? Why a bail of three million dollars, more than any in the history of the county, more even than any murderer has ever received?

Has a sitting district attorney in a jurisdiction as large as Santa Barbara ever personally conducted surveillance, and in another county to boot, as D.A. Tom Sneddon did here, when he personally staked out the Jackson investigator in Los Angeles?

Has a district attorney ever charged a crime whose timing seems more unlikely? In this case, the allegations of molestation all coming only after Jackson had been exposed by Martin Bashir's documentary, and in the midst of the furiously negative media storm that program created.

And now to the accuser, and particularly his mother. Is there a person in America who does not believe that this mother has behaved unscrupulously regarding past claims of abuse, including the manipulation of her children's testimony regarding J.C. Penny, and in family court against her former husband, their own father? Has everyone forgotten that Larry King was prepared to testify that Larry Feldman, the attorney the accuser's mother sought out after the alleged abuse, (rather than the police), told the CNN host that she was just in this for the money?

So eager has Sneddon been to nail the prey that eluded him in 1993, that he was more than willing to forgive the accuser's mother her patent welfare fraud and other cons, and in every other way suspend his professional skepticism. He ignored every statement the accuser and his family made exonerating Jackson, including their testimony before the Los Angeles social workers. Additionally, by allowing testimony from her, like that concerning the infamous bikini wax she got during her supposed kidnap ordeal, he has suborned perjury.

Perhaps, like the prosecutor who gave Sammy 'the bull' Gravano a pass on 19 homicides in exchange for his testimony against John Gotti, Sneddon believes he did it all for the greater good of society, to crush the 'Gloved Menace of Neverland.

Having said all this, Michael Jackson should take no comfort from my outrage against his legal foe. I am as appalled at his habit of sharing his bed with other people's children as the rest of you. By doing that, he places himself at the scene of the supposed crime in this and other cases. And while he has promised never to do it again, however innocent his conduct may have been, he must know that he set himself up for this persecution.

But sharing your bed with a kid, however creepy, is not a crime. If he is charged why not charge the kids' parents with conspiracy? Or pimping? Michael Jackson should be acquitted. If he is not, consider my cutting off the long worn mustache a protest against this patent injustice.