Grand Jury Convenes In Jackson Case

Michael Jackson has been invited to defend himself against allegations of child abuse in front of a grand jury.

The move by Tom Sneddon, the district attorney who charged Jackson with child molestation, is apparently designed to sidestep a public preliminary hearing. Rather than deliver a verdict against the accused, a grand jury decides whether a case should proceed to trial.

"It doesn't surprise me if [Sneddon] has decided to go to the grand jury", said Loyola University Law School Professor Laurie Levenson. "It avoids the media spectacle and it gives them a chance for a dress rehearsal" [before a possible trial].

In other Jackson news, Lisa Marie Presley has clarified remarks she recently made about the things she "saw but couldn't do anything about" during her brief marriage to Jackson in an interview with Australian television programme 'Enough Rope'.

"I was in no way referring to seeing something inappropriate with children, as I have stated publicly before. I never have", Presley said in a statement released by her Los Angeles publicist, Paul Bloch.

"Unfortunately, due to the recent media frenzy surrounding Michael Jackson, my comments regarding him were completely taken out of context and erroneously read into", Presley said in the statement.

"In saying I saw things, I was specifically referring to things in that relationship with us that went on between us at the time as husband and wife", she said.

KS