Garbage in, garbage out. It's true when computer operators enter faulty data that makes programs blow up in their faces, and it's true when prosecutors build criminal cases around witnesses who look just as perverse, if not more so, than the defendant.

And so Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon invoked the Rumsfeld doctrine after accused child molester Michael Jackson slipped through his fingers once again: You go to trial with the victim you have, not the one you might want or wish to have.

"We don't select victims of crimes and we don't select the family. We try to make a conscientious decision and go forward," Sneddon told reporters after his quarry was found not guilty on every count. "I'm not going to look back and apologize for anything that we've done."

Thus, the charges that Jackson molested the boy in this case remained unproven in the eyes of the jury, although not necessarily in the court of public opinion.

For those who still believe the ex-king of pop is an unconvicted pedophile who has used his money and power to entice victims and then buy them off, it's tempting to pose some rhetorical questions in the wake of his acquittal.

What does it take to get a conviction in a celebrity trial these days? How can a freakish character like Jackson appear more sympathetic than a 12-year-old boy with cancer, even if his mother did come across like a shake-down artist who pimped out her son?

But these are the wrong questions to be asking at the nexus of celebrity worship and reality TV, where lurid trials of the rich and famous take the place of the Christians and the lions -- except this time the Christians have very expensive lawyers who talk the lions half to death.

So perhaps the right question for this age is one nobody's posed yet: What if it were possible to apportion blame in criminal trials the same way as is done in civil cases? Would justice be better served?

Imagine Jackson's trial if the prosecutors had been able to say to the jury: "Yes, this boy's mother offered up her son to the defendant knowing the boy was sleeping in Jackson's bed, because she wanted the money and status of associating with such a famous star, and maybe even because she wanted to set him up. But that does not make Jackson innocent of this crime. Her wrong does not cancel out his. Therefore, we will stipulate that she is 30 percent responsible if you will find him 70 percent guilty."

I'm flying blind here, but if the jury had been able to convict Jackson for his part without appearing to reward a woman they so clearly disliked, maybe that would have made a difference. Maybe O.J. Simpson would not have gotten away with what many still believe was murder if the prosecution or jury had been able to slap Mark Furman for lying about using a racial slur.

This scenario has its problems, to be sure. It wouldn't exactly entice testimony from witnesses who have something to hide, and could open the door to blaming the victims and/or their families. But maybe it's worth exploring, because the fact is that juries made up of mere mortals seem increasingly loathe to convict rich and famous defendants unless they're Martha Stewart.

This could be because the prosecutors are outgunned or inept, or because the defendants are really innocent. But it could also be because celebrities are sometimes rather bizarre -- which is exactly why they become such objects of public fascination -- and therefore tend to surround themselves with bizarre associates.

The public will often allow the famous a certain degree of weirdness they will not allow in others. Left to weigh the word of a strange celebrity defendant against the word of a strange unknown accuser or witness, the former seems to have the advantage.

Jackson's lawyer, Thomas Mesereau Jr., said yesterday that the singer would not be sleeping with young boys anymore because "it makes him vulnerable to false charges." The nation rests better today knowing that.

As for garbage in and garbage out, that also fits a society that can't get enough of the celebrity cases so high in calories, so utterly lacking in nutrition for the body or soul. No wonder there's an obesity epidemic.