KOBE'S IMAGE TAKES THRASHING BRYANT HAD MEANS TO BEAT CASE, BUT WILL LIKELY END UP IN CIVIL COURT.

Byline: EARL O. HUTCHINSON Local View

A year ago, Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert called the nearly $300,000 he then requested to prosecute superstar athlete Kobe Bryant on rape charges ``bargain basement.'' The eventual prosecution tab for the 14-month comedy of legal errors will be anything but - the final cost for the county will probably top $1 million.

The money that Bryant shelled out to beat the charges against him was also anything but ``bargain basement.'' He had to pay top dollar for a top-flight defense team that ultimately proved capable of demolishing the prosecution's evidence and preventing the case from going to trial. But his wealth, sports fame and legal guns were no guarantee of victory. Many of the potential jurors reportedly expressed some doubt about Bryant's innocence on their 82-item questionnaire.

His wealth also couldn't totally cancel out the huge advantage that prosecutors start out with in major felony cases, especially celebrity felony cases. The defendant generally will face the best prosecutors in the District Attorney's Office, who have many years of experience. Most prosecutors have unlimited resources, teams of investigators, clerical, and technical staff. They depend on skilled medical, forensic, and mental health experts to present and interpret facts and evidence. They have local police and FBI crime labs with state-of-the-art technology to uncover and analyze the evidence they present.

They had all that in Eagle. The problem was that the forensic evidence against Bryant was shaky, and the alleged victim was uncooperative.

But even without the hard scientific evidence, prosecutors have public consensus about crime on their side. Much of the public equates an individual's arrest with guilt. When a defendant is released because of police error, insufficient evidence, constitutional or procedural violations, many politicians and much of the public howl that weak laws and bleeding-heart judges permit criminals to escape justice. Some state and local court judges who have tried to uphold the law fairly and impartially have been defeated at the polls or have been the targets of successful recall campaigns.

Prosecutors also have the jury system. The mostly middle-class men and women who make up most juries often reflect middle-class attitudes and biases, and that can include hidden bias. In Eagle, the overwhelming majority of potential jurors were middle-class. According to Census figures, Eagle residents are better educated and have a higher median income than the national average.

Were it not for his fortune, Bryant would have had to fight a tough uphill battle. As it was, he had to pay dearly to counter the DA's army of experts. He had to hire jury consultants to try to weed out potentially biased jurors. He had to assemble a skilled legal team capable of undermining the prosecution's case, or at least creating the necessary reasonable doubt to obtain an acquittal.

This type of defense is far outside the reach of poor defendants. A large percentage of felony defendants are represented by grossly overworked, underpaid public defenders or court-appointed attorneys. In a study examining the quality of legal representation in capital and major felony cases, the National Law Journal found that some states do not even maintain public-defender offices, let alone allocate the funds to hire investigators, clerks or secretaries for poor defendants. Only a tiny percent of indigent defendants see an attorney before their first court appearance. The shoddy, or nonexistent, legal representation for many poor defendants has resulted in shocking and embarrassing legal foul-ups.

Bryant, of course, never had that worry. But he's got other worries. He still faces a civil suit, and the alleged victim's attorney has made it clear that though the criminal charges have been dropped, the civil case will still go forward. Judging from the apologetic statement that he made to his alleged victim, Bryant fully expects that he will be back in court again, and that he will have to dish out even more dollars in legal fees - and a possible lucrative settlement.

But that worry pales in comparison to the battering his image has taken. As long as Bryant puts up the points, and the team wins, he will make megamillions and continue to be revered by the fans. But the carefully cultivated - and as it turned out, hollow - image of Bryant as the solid, strait-laced family man was shattered forever. In June, Forbes ranked him as the 10th highest-paid celebrity of 2004. Product endorsements made up about half his take. But while fans will forgive and forget, corporate execs have long memories, and the one thing they hate more than anything else is scandal. McDonald's and Sprite have pretty much washed their hands of Bryant, and despite inking a five-year, $45 million deal with Nike last year, he hasn't appeared in any of the sneaker company's commercials.

Bryant no longer faces a jail sentence, but he's learned a bitter, age- old lesson: Deep pockets can often buy justice, but they can't buy back a reputation. It will take much time, good behavior and good deeds for Bryant to do that, and I don't mean just on the basketball court.

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Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant leaves court during jury selection in Eagle, Colo., on Tuesday. The charges have been dropped, but he can expect to face a civil case.

M. Spencer Green/Associated Press