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And, in general, a good guy. The son of journeyman NBA forward Joe (Jellybean) Bryant, Kobe speaks fluent Italian from having lived in Italy for the eight years when Joe played pro ball there. At suburban Philadelphia's Lower Merion High, where he led his team to the state championship and broke the region's all-time high school scoring record once held by Wilt Chamberlain, Kobe had good grades and SAT scores. "He never really talked to women," says Emory Dabney, 22, a high school teammate who stayed friendly with the star after Bryant turned pro. "He concentrated on basketball and schoolwork, so he never let women get close."
For the next few months (a hearing is slated for Aug. 6), Bryant will be close to one woman--Pamela Mackey, his attorney, who successfully defended another sports star, Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy, on a charge of domestic violence. She is likely to take a gentle approach in undermining the accuser's testimony. "I don't think you need to tear apart the victim," says Phoenix attorney Darrow Soll, who got charges dropped against Mike Tyson in two recent rape cases. "What you can do is say, 'Let's talk about the fact that a 19-year-old girl had sex with a basketball player who was married, and maybe her boss found out. What was she to do?' That's the approach. It's not: 'She's a liar; she's evil; she's a nut job.' It's: 'She's 19; she's a young woman; she made a mistake.'"
The accuser, who lives in a comfortable two-story beige frame house with a basketball hoop above the garage door, is already the subject of speculation about her emotional frailty--classmates say she had broken up with her boyfriend and was devastated by the death of a friend--and reports about her active sex life at the University of Northern Colorado, where she has completed her first year. But under Colorado's "rape shield statute," a complainant's previous sexual activity is deemed irrelevant and inadmissible. Rape is an act of violence. Period.
At a rape trial, medical science can provide clues as to whether sex may have been consensual. The prosecution's witness list, which for now comprises only medical and law-enforcement personnel, indicates that the county's case will be argued on this "evidence." But in any rape case, the accuser is also on trial. Perhaps for this reason, Hurlbert talked with the young woman for a long time before deciding to prosecute her allegation. He had to be convinced that she was strong enough to defend herself.
Bryant proved last week that he can be a charismatic testifier. But he may have a tougher audience in Eagle County, a Colorado district in which blacks total only 0.3% of the population. Even here, though, Bryant's benign image may trump his color. "Kobe the superstar is in some ways raceless," says Kenneth Shropshire, author of In Black and White: Race and Sports in America. "He could be like Michael Jordan, someone nonurban white folks think of as a superstar, and not primarily a black man."
Color is one possible factor; class is another. There's a financial gulf between those who pay $175,000 for a golf-club membership and those who caddy for them. Most who work in Vail can't afford to live there. Trailer parks are home not just to carhops and maids but to social workers and the police. Could a local jury reflect the resentment the near poor have for the very rich?