Prosecutors rely on new law in case against Jackson

The California Legislature agreed in 1995 that sex crimes against minors – which often pit the word of a child against that of an adult – were so hard to prove that admitting evidence of a defendant\'s past helped to even the playing field, reports the Los Angeles Times. Critics say the law goes against the fundamental precept that a defendant should be tried for specific offences, not for his overall character and past. But in 1999, the California Supreme Court upheld the law, and now at least a dozen states have similar laws. In the Jackson case, prosecutors spent five days focusing on Jackson\'s past. They presented testimony that the entertainer had fondled his former maid\'s son, took a shower with a young Australian boy and performed a sex act on a boy while a Neverland security guard watched through a bathroom window – all of this 12 to 18 years ago. Former state Assemblyman James Rogan said he wrote the 1995 law with Jackson in the back of his mind. A year earlier, prosecutors had ditched an investigation of Jackson after the singer paid a reported $20m settlement to an alleged victim. Full report in the Los Angeles Times