Take the Haidl Case -- Please

Sometime this year, I’ll write my 2,000th column for the paper. Almost all have been on things I wanted to write about, even if distasteful or depressing. The world is not all lollipops and rainbows.

The notable exceptions, however, have been the various offerings on the rape case involving three teenage boys and their female acquaintance.

Every trip to the keyboard to write about it evoked some new level of disdain.

In local lore, it’s the “Haidl Case,” although Gregory Haidl is but one of the three young men on trial essentially for the same thing -- having sex with and inserting foreign objects into an allegedly unconscious 16-year-old girl, all while videotaping it. But because Haidl was the son of an Orange County assistant sheriff, the case got shorthanded and became the subject last year of a TV news magazine segment.

Opening arguments for the retrial are expected to begin Monday. We’re long past the point where anything new can be learned from this sorry episode. The essential truth of the matter remains the same: The boys committed some debauched acts that warrant punishment but nothing near the several years or more in prison that the D.A. was asking for.

The D.A. elevated the stakes to a level a common-sense jury didn’t accept. The jurors, many of whom now are helping the defense, leaned toward acquittal on most of the serious charges.

How do I hate this case? Let me count the ways.

I hate it because it led me to take the side of boys whose behavior I considered disgusting. Convinced from the start the case was overcharged, I argued for a plea bargain and lesser sentence. That, naturally, provided fuel for the angry mob that didn’t care if the boys, then 16 and 17, spent 20 years in prison.

I hate the case because, no matter what the D.A. would have us believe, the victim’s promiscuous behavior plays into the overall context. In short, knowing that the girl drove from San Bernardino County to Orange County, after midnight, specifically to have sex with the boys -- all of with whom she’d had some variety of sex play the day before -- seemed to make no difference to those wanting the boys’ blood.

To the contrary, it led them to ask the wrong question: ‘Are you saying a promiscuous girl can’t be raped?’ No, I would never argue that, but I’d say it becomes a different circumstance when a girl who’d had sex with three boys one day then accepts their offer to return alone the next night and immediately begins engaging in sex.

I hate the case because, even if the boys had sex on the brain, they were dead wrong to poke and prod the girl with a pool cue and juice bottles. The first jury apparently wasn’t convinced the girl was unconscious, but I’ve assumed all along she wasn’t a willing participant. That makes the boys’ actions a crime, but to call this a vicious gang rape badly misses the point.

I hate this case because, at its core, the exact details are elusive -- other than revealing a side of teen life that we wish didn’t exist.

I hate this case because of its agendas. In some circles, it’s become sport. In others, it’s politics. And it must be noted that the prospect of a civil trial looms, if only because Gregory Haidl’s father is reportedly worth millions and financial settlement offers were discussed before the first trial.

I hate the shifting ground in the case. The prosecution originally argued that the boys drugged the victim. Now it says it won’t push that point. Mindful of the first outcome, prosecutors have eliminated some charges and floated the possibility of lesser sentences.

So 2 1/2 years after the incident, the outrageousness of the boys’ behavior remains, but the outrage subsides.

Finally, I hate this case because the message always needed to be sent that the boys deserved condemnation and jail time. Had that been done the right way, all the legal and moral questions would have been resolved a long time ago.

Dana Parsons’ column

appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.