The evidence against the three teenagers seemed overwhelming: a videotape that prosecutors said captured them sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who was knocked out by drugs and alcohol.
But jurors were persuaded by an aggressive defense that portrayed the girl as a deceitful would-be porn actress.
The outcome last week of the two-month-long gang-rape trial -- a hung jury -- is the latest to provoke debate in the legal community over how far attorneys should go to defend clients charged with sexual assaults. Like the approaching Kobe Bryant trial, the gang-rape case put the spotlight on the alleged victim -- leaving some to think that she was the one on trial.
Sexual-assault experts say that increasingly harsh sentences for rape encourage defense lawyers to stretch the limits of legal ethics to defend those accused of sex crimes.
When the tactics are successful, victim advocates said, it gives defense attorneys in future cases more license to gratuitously attack accusers.
"Once you trample boundaries, it becomes OK for the next guy to trample them too," said Dawn Foor, executive director of the Orange County Sexual Assault Victim Services.
"If public sentiment had been keeping lawyers leashed to a certain extent before, this case shows that restraint doesn't pay."
Advocates and attorneys agree it is a constant struggle to balance justice for defendants and the interests of alleged victims.
When defense attorneys believe a false rape accusation has been made, their job is to expose that by whatever means necessary -- within the boundaries set by the trial judge.
"This girl was not a victim," said Joseph G. Cavallo, one of the defense lawyers in the Orange County case. "I have a duty to my client to show the jury that, so I'm going to do what I have to do to win my case."
Jurors in his case, which ended with a mistrial declared June 28, were split on all 24 counts against Gregory Scott Haidl, Kyle Joseph Nachreiner and Keith James Spann, all now 19. On four counts, they were leaning 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal. Prosecutors said that they would refile charges.
The case received national attention in part because Haidl is the son of Orange County Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, at whose Corona del Mar home the sex took place.
Before the trial started, Cavallo filed legal motions calling the alleged victim a "slut" who craved group sex.
