Case for, Against Buckey Recapped : McMartin: Final arguments will conclude today. Jury will begin deliberating next week.

Final arguments began Monday in the retrial of McMartin Pre-School teacher Ray Buckey on molestation charges, with prosecutors focusing on circumstantial evidence they believe buttresses the testimony of alleged victims, and the defense attempting to portray Buckey as an innocent young man caught up in a national witch hunt.

“I would not ask you to convict the defendant in this case based solely on the testimony of the children,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Pam Ferrero told the jury.

But she urged the panel to consider the statements of the three girls who took the witness stand in the context of testimony provided by their parents and by a pediatrician who examined them.

“These are rational but damaged people,” Ferrero said, referring to the alleged child victims, now approaching adolescence. “They were damaged not only by what happened to them at McMartin, but damaged by the system as well.”

The prosecutor said that when the admittedly flawed direct evidence the youngsters gave is viewed along with corroborating circumstantial evidence, “you will not be able to come to any rational conclusion consistent with Mr. Buckey’s being innocent.”

However, defense attorney Danny Davis told the jury of seven women and five men that “the truth simply never had a chance” in the historic case, which he described as “a disaster that has plagued our county for nigh onto seven years.”

Saying the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, he warned jurors against convicting Buckey as a child molester just because he photographed youngsters, worked in a traditionally female field, and read Playboy magazine.

“Where are the items that tie Mr. Buckey to a sexual act?” he asked. Then, referring to his client’s admitted practice of not wearing underwear, he demanded, “Do all men without underwear molest children?”

He noted that the children’s accounts of events a decade ago have changed over time, and that their accusations against Buckey’s mother and other former defendants in the once-massive case have been dropped along the way.

One child witness even said she does not recall or know anything about the specific sex acts Buckey is accused of having performed with her, he said.

Arguments in Buckey’s retrial will conclude today, with the case going to the jury next week.

Buckey is charged with eight counts of rape, sodomy, oral copulation and digital penetration involving three girls who attended his family’s Manhattan Beach nursery school in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. If convicted, he could receive a sentence of 22 years; he has already served five years in Men’s Central Jail. The charges were among 13 counts left undecided by an earlier jury, which acquitted him of 40 molestation counts.

The courtroom was packed Monday as the three-month-long retrial neared its end, with Buckey’s father, his sister, McMartin supporters and parents of former McMartin students among the spectators.

Buckey, now 32, watched the jury intently, his jaw occasionally twitching. The style and content of his attorney’s three-hour argument contrasted sharply with that of Ferrero. Davis talked of social movements and medical trends, managing to work in an analysis of a favorite Russian painting, the yelps and howls of dogs on a raccoon hunt, and the loss of his cocker spaniel, “Mr. Chips.”

Davis said the children lied, perhaps unintentionally, as the result of an investigation the district attorney’s office placed in the hands of “carpetbaggers and overnight experts,” a reference to those who interviewed and examined hundreds of McMartin students at Children’s Institute International, a Los Angeles child abuse diagnostic and treatment center.

The case, he said, became “molestation through therapy.”

He noted that no child pornography linked to his client has ever been found, and that teachers--all former defendants--testified that nothing improper ever happened at McMartin.

Ferrero took a more straightforward approach, finishing in less than two hours.

While there may be rational explanations for the alleged victims’ nightmares and fears, physical symptoms, and sexualized behavior, and for Buckey’s “inordinate interest” in children, she said, when taken together, “there’s one really good rational explanation and that’s Ray Buckey (as child molester). Any other would be a tortured, twisted, irrational conclusion.”

Ferrero acknowledged that early videotaped interviews of the children are imperfect. But, she said, “there are things that cannot be explained away. . . . I’m not conceding that leading questions lead to damaged testimony.”

Although some former defendants in the case may have been wrongly accused, she said, their testimony at Buckey’s retrial should be viewed with suspicion because they have “an ax to grind.”

In the end, Ferrero said, “this case boils down to credibility. If you believe the children, then we have proven our case beyond a reasonable doubt.”