When criminal defense lawyers give Michael Jackson fashion advice.

So should Michael Jackson wear a conventional, conservative suit and tie as he goes to trial for child molestation? Criminal defense lawyers have their

standard fashion advice for criminal defendants:

"Particularly in a case of this type," said William B. Moffitt, a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, "what you don't want the jury thinking is, 'This guy is weird, and he's so weird he might have done this.' Would style play a role in that perception? Sure it can."

The trip back from weird is just too, too far for Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson in a gray suit would just be weird in a weird new way. And Michael Jackson's lifestyle, which will come out at trial, is terribly strange. He can't return from strange. His best hope, it seems to me, from my distant perspective, is to present himself as the strangest man in the world, a lost boy in a fantasy retreat, an asexual child, who surrrounded himself with children, whom he thought were his friends, but who had parents, who could see his money and succumbed to the temptation to bring him down. I have no idea what really happened, of course, and I loathe child molestation as much as the next person, but I would love for it to be true that Michael is innocent. For that to be true, given what we have heard so far, he must be a very weird person. So he really must continue to dress like the fantastical character he created for himself.