STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – It's the photo that sent shock waves around the globe and put an unmovable spotlight on the Steubenville rape scandal, the trial of which opened Wednesday with graphic testimony flying inside and snow squalls swirling outside here in this old steel town on the Ohio River.

In the photo, a slumped and seemingly passed out 16-year-old West Virginia girl is being carried, her wrists grasped by Steubenville Big Red football player Trent Mays, her ankles by teammate Ma'lik Richmond.

Her head is sagged back, her hair dragging on the floor. She looks, if not dead, then incapacitated. With the context of the two boys having been charged with her rape, the natural reaction of anyone of any measure of decency was horror.

This looked like an innocent girl being hauled off for … well.

Even months after the photo hit the Internet courtesy of an affiliate of the hacking group Anonymous, it remains a visceral cornerstone of this hotly debated and closely followed case that has come to include the legal obligations of bystanders, most notably the people who took the photo or witnessed the scene it depicts.

It is also emblematic of the immense challenge facing defense attorneys, who must change perceptions and deconstruct, in painstaking detail, incident after incident, photo after photo and – in what might come as soon as Thursday – eyewitness after eyewitness testimony of not just the specific acts of rape, but a culture of boorish behavior among a crew of young Steubenville High athletes.

[Related: Steubenville rape trial divides Ohio town]

"This is a court of law, not a court of public opinion," said Walter Madison, the attorney for Richmond as he stood outside the Jefferson County Justice Center late Wednesday afternoon, with giant snowflakes sticking to his overcoat.

For that, he is fortunate. Across five hours Wednesday, Madison made clear he is an excellent attorney – quick, smart and engaging. Yet while Judge Thomas Lipps, who alone will determine guilt or innocence, might be swayed, the public at large has long made up its mind and additional details are likely to only make it worse, no matter how well things are spun.

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, have been charged for raping the girl after a night of partying last August. Since both were charged as juveniles they face imprisonment until they turn 21. Each maintains their innocence.

The most powerful evidence could come from two eyewitnesses.

One is Mark Cole, who testified at a preliminary hearing in October he videotaped Mays using his fingers to penetrate the possibly passed out girl in the backseat of a car.

Later Cole, and friend Anthony Craig, testified they saw Mays again digitally penetrating the girl in Cole's basement while an exposed Richmond attempted to put his penis in the girl's mouth and later slapped it on her naked hip. More camera phone photos were taken at that time – including one described Wednesday of both the girl and Mays naked from the waist down – although they were soon deleted.

The prosecution is expected to call both Cole and Craig, perhaps as early as Thursday's expected 11-hour session. Each could still plead the Fifth Amendment in an effort to avoid future legal trouble. While both received letters from the Ohio Attorney General saying they wouldn't be charged for the videotaping or photos, that isn't the same as full immunity.

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