McMARTIN TRIAL: The Verdict : We All Wanted the Truth, but Must Settle for Justice : Cost and duration rightly raised eyebrows, but the outcome was a shining example of our legal system in action.

I first met Raymond Buckey at the Los Angeles County Courthouse last July. We had lunch together. A few days later, I joined him at a barbecue at his lawyer’s house. He seemed a little odd. He didn’t talk very much. He picked at his food with his fingers. I can’t say I enjoyed his company. But did his taciturn manner and lack of personality mean that he was a child molester?

For almost three years, prosecutors and defense lawyers waged all-out war before a jury, trying to prove or disprove whether Ray and his mother, Peggy Buckey, had sexually abused 11 youngsters left in their care at the McMartin Pre-School.

The evidence presented by the prosecution was compelling: Nine of the children appeared in court and accused the defendants from the witness stand.

The defense countered that the case was a witch hunt: that overprotective parents, overaggressive prosecutors and underqualified psychologists had manipulated the children into believing they had been abused. Some of the children admitted they had been coached.

I wanted to know the truth. I read thousands of pages of trial transcripts, watched hours of videotapes of the children’s first interviews and questioned the lawyers for days. Yet, the more I learned, the more confused I became. The arguments for both sides made sense. There was no way to compromise.

Almost instinctively, I looked to the jury for the answer. These 12 “average Americans” had seen all the evidence and heard all the witnesses. They would know the truth. They had to.

I expected too much. The verdict came down and with it an asterisk. The ballots read: “Not guilty.” But the jurors refused to say “innocent.” As one explained during the post-verdict press conference: “I don’t know if Ray (Buckey) is innocent, but it was not proven that he is guilty.” We had waited through 28 months of trial (from opening arguments to closing statements) and 65 days of deliberations, but the truth of what happened at the preschool remained uncertain.

Does that make the McMartin trial a waste?

The case has been criticized for its record length and cost, and rightfully so. A seven-year prosecution, a nearly three-year trial, a $15-million-plus price tag--that is excessive. Certainly, adjustments are necessary.

But even with improvements, indeed, even in a perfectly packaged prosecution, this trial would have been a monster because of the case’s complicated facts. The prosecutors had to reinforce the testimony of complaining witnesses who were only 5 years old or 6 years old at the time of the alleged abuse and who did not tell anyone about it until they were 8 or 9. Meanwhile, because the children could not set the time, day or even year of the alleged molestation, the defendants had to present an alibi for six years of activities. Perhaps the trial could have been trimmed from three years to two years. Perhaps it could have cost “only” $12 million. Then McMartin would not have broken records. But it would still have raised eyebrows.

To properly judge the McMartin trial, we must ask a larger question: What do we expect of our criminal justice system?

We would like truth, but we must settle for justice. And while the alleged victims and their families may view the verdict as anything but just, in many ways the McMartin trial is a shining example of the cornerstone of the American criminal justice system: innocent until proven guilty.

Seven years ago, Ray Buckey was accused of molesting hundreds of preschoolers. In other legal systems, he would have been summarily jailed for life, or worse. Yet, in Los Angeles, Buckey was given an opportunity to defend himself, at taxpayer cost. Although he was held in jail for five years without a conviction, while prosecutors made their case, in the end he was acquitted.

We will never know the truth about what happened at the McMartin Pre-School. As the jury verdict acknowledged, there are too many inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case not to provoke lingering doubts. There is also too much conviction and horror in the children’s stories of abuse not to wonder. Perhaps we should never have expected any more.