He refused to apologize for his actions in the leadup to the Duke University lacrosse rape scandal, stating that he did not know whether or not anything happened to the young accuser.

For Macedonski, the young accuser embodied "the aspiration for beauty", "the new aesthetics", "courage and selflessness".

After a social worker disclosed that a young accuser had told him that she had been forced by the detective to lie, Mr. Perez named him, too, as a child-rape suspect.

The young accusers agreed.

But Mr. Epstein fought back, assembling a team of star lawyers, including Gerald B. Lefcourt and Alan M. Dershowitz, a friend of his, to look into the backgrounds of his young accusers.

The witnesses included the young accuser, his father and the boy's psychologist, who alerted the authorities to the accusations against Mr. Jackson after hearing them from the boy.

Prosecutors say they were part of a scheme to imprison the young accuser and his family and frighten them into doing Mr. Jackson's bidding.

But the Court did not question the right of a defendant to confront his young accusers personally at his actual trial or to have his lawyer present at any competency hearing.

In defending his client, Mr. Murphy had a delicate task: to try to undermine the credibility of the young accusers - now 11 to 13 years old - without creating undue sympathy for them among the jurors.

In his own relief performance for Mr. Leno, Mr. Miller had referred to the prosecution's contention that Mr. Jackson had plied his young accuser with wine.