Peter Pan May Hover Over Jackson Abuse Trial

The original Peter Pan will not be in the courtroom.

But Michael Jackson, who faces a September trial on child molestation charges, has described himself as a sort of real-life incarnation of the fairy-tale boy who never grew up.

Over the years, Jackson has said his identification with Scottish author James M. Barrie’s creation reflects a desire to indulge in childhood joys that were denied him as a pop star prodigy.

The Peter Pan connection remains thematic in Jackson’s explanations for why he loves to frolic, travel and even share a bedroom with children not his own.

Behavioral experts, however, differ on whether a Jackson-style preoccupation with youngsters can be an understandable consequence of a traumatic childhood. And courthouse veterans are similarly split over whether such a fixation would be a plus or minus if it were explored before the jury that will decide the entertainer’s fate.

“That’s going to be very, very difficult to deal with,” said Santa Barbara attorney Steve Balash, who has represented dozens of molestation defendants. “You have to bring in as many witnesses as you can who will say his behavior is innocent. But most people will be skeptical.”

Harland Braun, a Los Angeles defense attorney who has handled high-profile trials, sees it differently. He said Jackson’s long and unusual history with children gave him the framework of an alibi.

“His own strangeness is his best defense,” the lawyer said. “Everyone knows he’s strange.... In this case, it helps him.”

That’s because, Braun said, Jackson can maintain that he has always been upfront about his associations with children, and that they have made him an easy target for false accusations. “Everything in this case cuts both ways,” the attorney said.

A Santa Barbara County grand jury indicted Jackson, 45, on four counts of committing lewd acts on a child under 14, one count of attempting a lewd act and four counts of providing an intoxicant to a child for the purpose of sexual seduction.

The singer has also been charged with conspiracy involving child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion. He has pleaded not guilty.

People vs. Jackson has been shrouded in extraordinary secrecy, with Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville sealing court documents that are typically open to public review, and imposing an order forbidding attorneys, investigators and witnesses to discuss the case.

Thus, it is unclear whether Dist. Atty. Thomas Sneddon Jr. intends to present evidence of Jackson’s relationship with children apart from the alleged victim -- especially the pop star’s penchant for hosting sleepovers at his Neverland Ranch, a property named for Peter Pan’s imaginary home.

Nor is it apparent whether defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr. plans to highlight the compassionate and charitable side of Jackson’s Peter Pan lifestyle, as well as its origins in the grown-up demands of his youth.

In many molestation trials, attorneys note, accounts of the defendant’s contacts with other children are entered as evidence of intent or “state of mind,” even if they are not criminal.

“I would want to admit this evidence,” Mary Leary, director of the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, said of behavior like Jackson’s. “Although these previous acts may not be criminal, they still shed light on elements of the offense.”

William Dworin, a retired Los Angeles police detective who headed a 1993-94 molestation investigation of Jackson, said spending lots of innocent time with other people’s children is a “common occurrence with offenders.”

“The guy who seems to care more about children than the parents do.... Someone has to say, ‘What’s his motive?’ ” Dworin said. That earlier case was dropped after Jackson paid a multimillion-dollar civil settlement to the accuser, who then refused to cooperate with authorities.

“It’s just not normal, I’m sorry, for an adult male to sleep with a child,” Dworin said. “Schoolteachers are around kids, but after the bell rings they go home and have an adult life.”

Jackson plainly has an adult life -- as one of the best-selling recording artists ever, and as a shrewd businessman who managed to land publishing rights to the Beatles song catalog.

On the other hand, he has flaunted his childlike sensibilities. His ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley boasts an amusement park, where he has entertained disadvantaged and sick youngsters. During a “60 Minutes” interview in December, he said it was appropriate for him to share a bed with visiting children.

“Why not?” Jackson said.

The boy he is accused of molesting was suffering from cancer when he entered Jackson’s orbit. The 12-year-old later appeared with the entertainer in an ABC television documentary broadcast early last year. In the documentary, Jackson said he and the boy had slept in the same bedroom, and the youngster vouched for the wholesomeness of their friendship.

Jackson also spoke of his absorption with Peter Pan. “I am Peter Pan,” he told interviewer Martin Bashir.

Later, the boy alleged that Jackson had molested him, according to lawyers familiar with the investigation. Jackson’s supporters at the time said the child had been manipulated by adults who were intent on shaking down the singer. Spokesmen for the boy and his family have denied that.

In the 1980s, psychologist Dan Kiley’s book “The Peter Pan Syndrome” popularized that term for a condition experienced by men unable to cope with adult feelings and responsibilities. It is not a medical diagnosis, and Jackson’s conduct doesn’t fit neatly into any broadly recognized category of adults scarred by childhood ordeals, the behavioral specialists said.

They stressed that their observations were general in nature, because they hadn’t examined Jackson as a patient. Most of those interviewed said they had not encountered a case that closely paralleled Jackson’s -- perhaps because of the rarified realm he inhabits.

“He’s in a very different universe, the show-business universe, which has its own level of distortion -- a funhouse mirror,” said Harold Bursztajn, a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor.

Bursztajn said immature grown-ups sometimes doted on children as a way of avoiding adult relationships, and rationalized their actions. “It is something along the lines of ‘I need to be taking care of children.’ ”

Like others in his field, however, Bursztajn said that sharing a bed with children was “out of the ordinary,” even for adults “frozen in time” emotionally.

“It’s going to be very hard for a jury to be very open about this.”

In the Santa Maria area, where the Jackson trial is scheduled to be held, psychologist Robert Owen said: “Certainly somebody who is denied a childhood can really become emotionally stunted.”

And in a case such as Jackson’s, he added, “simply because he’s emotionally stunted doesn’t mean he did this.”

James O’Neil, a University of Connecticut psychologist, agreed. “There could be circumstances where people were denied childhood experiences and yearn for them,” he said. “It is possible.”

But he said that, in his three decades of practicing, “I have never seen anybody who’s had that problem.”