Jury Is Hidden in Jackson Case

As a secret grand jury concluded its first day of hearing testimony in the Michael Jackson molestation case Monday, a judge rescinded the most controversial parts of a tough “decorum order” banning interviews and photographs of witnesses or jurors.

The modified order by Judge Clifford R. Anderson III came hours after news organizations asked an appellate court to overrule the ban.

Attorneys had also asked the judge to modify his own order.

The late afternoon and evening modifications by Anderson came after Santa Barbara County officials took grand jury secrecy to unprecedented levels, convening the panel at a clandestine location away from the downtown courthouse where most grand juries meet.

Attorney Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., representing a coalition of national news organizations including The Times, praised Anderson for striking portions of his order that barred photographers from taking photos of anyone entering or leaving a grand jury building and reporters from interviewing witnesses about their general thoughts.

Anderson’s revised order still bars reporters from asking witnesses about their grand jury testimony and photographers from taking pictures of minors.

Saying that he will review his request that the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura overturn the order completely, Bourtrous said: “The court has rescinded some of the most egregious parts of the original order. But the amended order contains several unconstitutional provisions, such as witnesses not talking about their testimony.”

Speaking of Monday’s move to keep the media entirely away from the grand jury, Boutrous added:

“It takes grand jury secrecy efforts to a new level. “I’ve never heard of this kind of almost obsessive secrecy before, and people have to wonder what Santa Barbara County prosecutors are trying to hide.”

In Santa Barbara, it was clear by early Monday that prosecutors were trying to hide an entire 19-member grand jury, including six alternates.

Without any official word, they moved the hearings away from their usual locations, determined to keep the media from getting even a glimpse of witnesses. That led to a game of hide and seek between prosecutors and press that lasted most of the day.

Throughout the day, several television networks set up a perimeter outside the downtown courthouse, but the grand jurors were elsewhere.

Reporters prowled the courthouse and nearby county government buildings, but without any sightings. On the northern outskirts of the city, a few reporters gathered outside the sheriff’s main administration and jail complex. Not until late afternoon did reporters learn that the grand jury was meeting nearby at a sheriff’s training facility that was barricaded to keep the media away.

Shortly after 5 p.m., two black vans with darkened windows drove away with the grand jurors inside.

The grand jury must decide if there is enough evidence against Jackson to proceed to trial. He is already charged with nine felony counts in connection with the alleged molestation of a young cancer patient early last year.

The alleged victim, a boy shown holding hands with Jackson in a British documentary televised in the United States last year, is expected to be among the early witnesses before the grand jury. One witness Monday was attorney Larry R. Feldman, who has counseled the boy’s mother and who represented another alleged victim in a 1993 case that resulted in a multimillion-dollar settlement against Jackson, a source said.

As the grand jury proceedings were beginning, court officials were preparing for a public hearing Friday in Santa Maria. Judge Rodney S. Melville, who is actually presiding over the Jackson case, will consider a number of additional secrecy disputes.

Melville has released some partial transcripts of previously secret search warrants issued in the last two months, including the search of a storage unit in Woodland Hills where officials believed that Jackson stored computer equipment and videotapes.

The search warrant for rented storage space at Shurgard Storage was requested by Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Det. Craig Bonner.

In releasing portions of the previously sealed document, Judge Melville provided one of the most detailed official glimpses yet of the direction investigators are taking in the case.

“I know persons who are involved in the commission of, or attempts to cover up, crimes will oftentimes secrete evidence of the crimes in private storage facilities,” Bonner wrote in the warrant request dated March 2. “This is particularly true of individuals who believe law enforcement will attempt to find and seize the evidence through the service of search warrants at their residences.”

The warrant request indicated that investigators had learned of the storage locker from witnesses who told them that the materials to be found there were stored after the investigation was launched.

Among materials seized, according to a March 8 report, were more than 80 video recordings and various computer parts, including computer hard drives.

Bonner said in the search warrant affidavit that he believed a search of the storage unit would reveal “notes, diaries, documents, photographs, audiotapes and videotapes tending to show a relationship between Michael Jackson” and a person whose name was edited out.

Jackson, 45, is charged with seven felony counts of child molestation and two felony counts of providing an intoxicant to a minor under the age of 14 in order to seduce him.

Free on $3 million bail, the entertainer has described the accusations as a “big lie” concocted to extort money from him.