ANALYSIS : Palm Beach Rape Trial Has Some Unusual Twists : Law: The resources of the Kennedy family have turned the prosecution into the underdog. Both sides seem to be avoiding any courtroom drama.

The televised proceedings in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial have given millions of Americans their first opportunity to see an actual criminal trial.

Actual, but not typical.

With the end of the first part of the trial--the presentation of the prosecution’s case--the scene in the courtroom and the strategies of the two sides have served to underscore just how far from typical is the case of Florida vs. Smith.

And the most unusual element of the trial goes to the heart of the case: This time, the government appears as the underdog.

In the overwhelming majority of criminal cases, the defendant never goes to trial; the case is plea-bargained, with the accused pleading guilty to a lesser charge to avoid the risks of more severe punishment if convicted of the original charge. Of those that reach courtrooms across the nation, the government is the overwhelming favorite, clothed in the righteous authority of prosecution, backed by the massive resources of the state and opposed by a harassed and overworked defense lawyer with far fewer resources.

Here, by contrast, prosecutor Moira K. Lasch, who concluded her portion of the case Saturday, has been met by a defense team that has been able to employ the resources of the Kennedy family to match the government at every point.

Saturday afternoon, for example, Lasch tried to persuade Judge Mary Lupo to allow testimony from an expert on “rape trauma syndrome” whom the prosecution had only recently found. The testimony, Lasch told the judge, would help explain to the jury why the alleged victim in the case might have forgotten certain events from the day on which she claims Smith assaulted her. During his cross-examination of the woman, defense lawyer Roy E. Black hammered at those memory lapses as he attempted to challenge her credibility.

Black objected to the expert’s testimony, saying that the defense had not received sufficient notice of the prosecution’s plans.

Lasch’s explanations of why the witness only recently had been named underscored the relative disadvantages under which the prosecution has been working in the Smith case. Prosecutors had contacted two other experts earlier, she said, but both people already had been contacted by the defense.

Lupo was not convinced and ruled against allowing the witness, although she noted that Lasch might be able to call her expert if Black introduces witnesses of his own to testify about the alleged victim’s credibility.

Not surprisingly, given what she faces, Lasch has begun to employ some of the tactics a defense lawyer would normally use in a major case. For example, when Black called an architect to testify about the way sounds--such as a victim’s screams--might travel through the Kennedy mansion, Lasch made a point of requiring the man to repeat several times to the jury how much he was being paid for his testimony: $100 per hour to sit waiting to testify, $200 per hour for his time on the stand and $6,000 to prepare three charts depicting the inside of the house.

In addition to its atypical financial resources, the defense in this case has benefited from something else that is highly uncommon in criminal trials.

Because of an unusual provision in Florida law and because of the unusual behavior of police in this case, the defense has available to it six detailed previous statements by the alleged victim, including a 677-page deposition. In most states, depositions--lengthy pretrial testimony--are not given in criminal cases. And in virtually no case do police interview a victim five times before bringing charges.

This peculiarity of Florida law works only for the defense because the 5th Amendment bars prosecutors from having the right to take depositions from a defendant.

Other unusual aspects of the case involve strategy. The “drama of the courtroom” as portrayed on television and in the movies is usually drastically overplayed. In this case, however, both sides seem to be unusually set on underplaying the inherent drama of the case, even at the risk of at times appearing to bore members of the jury.

Black has a clear reason to avoid dramatics. The central contention of his client is that nothing particularly dramatic happened on Good Friday night at the Kennedy estate, just a routine sexual encounter that has been blown out of proportion. The goal of the defense in such a case is to drain the life out of the accuser’s case and reduce it to a matter of confusing technicalities.

The reason for Lasch’s low-key approach is somewhat harder to discern. In the eyes of most trial lawyers, boring the jury is among the worst possible things an advocate can do, a step that jurors are apt to resent. And yet Lasch has repeatedly run that risk, apparently because dramatics are simply not her style.

With the defense now prepared in its phase of the trial to call numerous witnesses--experts on soil, on grass stains, on acoustics--as Black tries to pick apart key elements of the prosecution’s case, Lasch appeared during her portion of the trial to be laying the groundwork for a claim often made by defendants--that they are being attacked by an enemy with overwhelming resources. The idea is to use the strength and power of the other side against it, to rally the jury’s sympathy by appearing as an underdog.

And as the case proceeds over the next week, that strategy could be increasingly important.

Lasch spent the last week laying out the accusations against Smith. But in the week to come, Smith and his attorneys are certain to try to turn the tables and place Smith’s accuser on trial. For Black, the appearance that he is using the immense resources of a politically powerful family to beat up on a lone woman is only one of several minefields that must be avoided as the trial turns from the prosecution to the defense.