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The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else's.

"My work?" Ms. Mitchell said. "No, no, no, not my work."

Earlier, the city medical examiner's office, where Ms. Mitchell said she was employed from 2000 to 2011, said it was reviewing 843 rape cases handled by a lab technician who might have missed critical evidence.

So far, it has finished looking over about half the cases, and found 26 in which the technician had missed biological evidence and 19 in which evidence was commingled with evidence from other cases. In seven cases where evidence was missed, the medical examiner's office was able to extract a DNA profile, raising the possibility that detectives could have caught some suspects sooner.

The office declined to identify the technician. Documents said she quit in November 2011 after the office moved to fire her, once supervisors had begun to discover deficiencies in her work. A city official who declined to be identified said Ms. Mitchell was the technician.

However, Ms. Mitchell, reached at her home in the Bronx on Friday, said she had never been told there were problems. "It couldn't be me because your work gets checked," she said. "You have supervisors."

She also said that she had resigned because of a rotator cuff injury that impeded her movement. "I loved the job so much that I stayed a little longer," she said, explaining that she had not expected to stay with the medical examiner's office so long. "Then it was time to leave."

Also on Friday, the Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal defense lawyers for most of the city's poor defendants, said it was demanding that the city turn over information about the cases under review.

If needed, Legal Aid will sue the city to gain access to identifying information about the cases, its chief lawyer, Steven Banks, said, noting that New York was one of only 14 states that did not require routine disclosure of criminal evidence before trial.

Disclosure of the faulty examination of the evidence is prompting questions about outside review of the medical examiner's office. The City Council on Friday announced plans for an emergency oversight committee, and its members spoke with outrage about the likelihood that missed semen stains and "false negatives" might have enabled rapists to go unpunished.

"The mishandling of rape cases is making double victims of women who have already suffered an indescribably horrific event," said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

A few more details emerged Friday about a 2001 case involving the rape of a minor in Brooklyn, in which the technician missed biological evidence, the review found. The victim accused an 18-year-old acquaintance of forcing himself on her, and he was questioned by the police but not charged, according to a law enforcement official.

Unrelated to the rape, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to third-degree robbery and served two years in prison. The DNA sample he gave in the robbery case was matched with the one belatedly developed from evidence the technician had overlooked in the 2001 rape, law enforcement officials said. He was recently indicted in the 2001 rape.

Especially alarming to defense lawyers was the possibility that DNA samples were cross-contaminated and led to false convictions, or could do so in the future.

"Up to this point," Mr. Banks said, "they have not made information available to us, as the primary defender in New York City, to determine whether there's an injustice that's been done in past cases, pending cases, or allowing us to be on the lookout in future cases." He added, "If it could happen with one analyst, how does anyone know that it stops there?"

The medical examiner's office has said that the risk of cross-contamination was extremely low and that it does not appear that anyone was wrongly convicted in the cases that have been reviewed so far. And officials in at least two of the city's district attorneys' offices — for Brooklyn and Manhattan — said they had not found any erroneous convictions.

But Mr. Banks said the authorities needed to do more, and that their statements thus far were the equivalent of "trust us."

"Given what's happened," he said, "that's cold comfort."

The agents knocked on Erika Andiola's door shortly after 9 p.m., asking for her mother, Maria Arreola.

Ms. Arreola had been stopped by the police in nearby Mesa last year and detained for driving without a license. Her fingerprints were sent to federal immigration officials as part of a controversial program called Secure Communities, which the Obama administration has been trying to expand nationwide.

That routine check revealed that Ms. Arreola had been returned to Mexico in 1998 after she was caught trying to illegally cross the border into Arizona with Erika and two of her siblings in tow. As a result, she was placed on a priority list for deportation.

After being seized on Thursday, she could have been sent back to Mexico in a matter of hours, but Obama administration officials moved quickly to undo the arrests. Officials had been pressured by the robust response from advocates — through phone calls, e-mails and online petitions, but primarily on Twitter, where they mobilized support for Ms. Andiola, a well-known advocate for young illegal immigrants, under the hashtag #WeAreAndiola.

The reaction offered the Obama administration a taste of what it might expect when it gets into the thick of the debate over an immigration overhaul, which Congress is expected to tackle this year. President Obama has already been under harsh criticism for the number of illegal immigrants deported since he took office — roughly 400,000 each year, a record unmatched since the 1950s.

Ms. Andiola, 25, posted a tearful video on YouTube shortly after her mother and brother were handcuffed and driven away. "I need everybody to stop pretending that nothing is wrong," she said in the video, "stop pretending that we're all just living normal lives, because we're not. This could happen to any of us anytime."

She is the co-founder of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, one of the groups pushing for a reprieve for immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, as she was. She has been arrested while camped in front of Senator John McCain's office here, protested outside the United States Capitol, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in June under the headline, "We are Americans — just not legally."

In November, Ms. Andiola got a work permit under a program begun by the Obama administration last year that gives certain young illegal immigrants temporary reprieve from deportation. She graduated from Arizona State University in 2009.

On Friday afternoon, her mother returned home from a detention center in Florence, 70 miles southeast of Phoenix and usually the last stop for certain illegal immigrants before they are deported. Her brother, Heriberto Andiola Arreola, 36, who had been kept in Phoenix, was let go earlier, at 6 a.m.

Their swift releases underline the power of the youth-immigrant movement and their social media activism, which was critical in spreading Ms. Andiola's story overnight.

In a statement, Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a preliminary review of the case revealed that it contains some of the elements outlined in the agency's "prosecutorial discretion policy" and would "merit an exercise of discretion." Advocates have long argued that the policy has done little to keep families from being broken apart by deportations.

Ms. Andiola said in an interview that she told her mother to go to her room before opening the door Thursday night; she suspected the men standing outside worked for immigration. By the time the men came in, her brother, who was outside talking to a neighbor, was already in handcuffs, she said.

"Where's Maria?" the men asked her, she recalled.

Ms. Arreola walked out of the room and, in Spanish, the men asked her to accompany them outside, where they placed her under arrest.

Though she and her son are free, their future is uncertain, as they could be arrested again while their cases are under review or deported should the eventual ruling go against them, said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups helping the family.

Stories like this, Ms. Hincapié went on, "happen every day, in every state," outside of the media spotlight. What made it different this time is that Ms. Andiola had connections and wasted no time mobilizing them. There are others, she said, whom "you never hear about."

Narwhal tusks, which are made of spiraling ivory and are as long as nine feet, are sold legally in some parts of the world, including Canada, and can fetch prices as high as $30,000. But in the United States, their trade is mostly prohibited by the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The defendants, Jay G. Conrad of Tennessee and Andrew J. Zarauskas of New Jersey, face four kinds of charges in a 29-count indictment filed in federal court here late last year: conspiracy, conspiracy to launder money, smuggling goods into the United States and money laundering. Two Canadians, whose names were redacted in the indictment, were also charged.

According to the indictment, the Canadians obtained the tusks in Canada and hid them in the false bottom of a customized utility trailer. The indictment says they smuggled the tusks across the border through Calais, Me., and used a FedEx in Bangor to send at least 50 shipments of the tusks to buyers like Mr. Conrad and Mr. Zarauskas.

Mr. Conrad and Mr. Zauraskas were arraigned separately, and neither was detained after appearing.

This city's barren federal courtroom seemed an incongruous place to discuss the whimsical-looking toothed whale — a creature whose tusk has, throughout history, captured attention from kings and emperors, who thought they had magical powers, and scientists like Charles Darwin, who was curious about the evolutionary role of the tusks.

Narwhals are about 15 feet long, not including their tusks, and live primarily in the Canadian Arctic, where they are dependent on dense winter ice for protection. They are listed as near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Narwhals are the most vulnerable of the ice-dependent species — vulnerable to climate change," said Peter Ewins, a senior officer at World Wildlife Fund Canada.

The tusk, found mostly on males, is actually a single tooth growing out of the upper lip. Many scientists believe it is a sexual trait, like peacock feathers or antlers on a stag. "It's a sexual thing that males use for developing dominant hierarchies and competing for females," said Kristin Laidre, a research scientist at the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington. She spends a month or two each year in Greenland, studying narwhals in their icy habitat.

"They are among the whales that we know very little about, because of where they live and because of how they behave," said Dr. Laidre, who explained that they can dive more than a mile underwater when feeding. "You can't even really sit and watch them."

Inuit hunters have long harvested narwhals for subsistence, consuming their meat, blubber and skin, which is a source of vitamin C. The governments of Canada and Greenland permit hunters to kill about 400 narwhals in total per year — some of whom still do so traditionally, using harpoons shot from handmade kayaks.

As for the tusks from those hunted animals, "they're mostly used for a display item," said David Boone, an ivory dealer based in Brinnon, Wash., who occasionally sells narwhal tusks that were in the United States before 1972, which is legal.

"The beautiful thing about a narwhal tusk," he said, "is that twisting, they're very unique."

According to his financial affidavit, Mr. Zarauskas, 59, has no income. He walked into court wearing loose green pants and a khaki jacket, holding a printed copy of the indictment against him. "It is obviously a very unusual case, and we'll make sure that Mr. Zarauskas's rights are preserved," said his court-appointed lawyer, Stephen Smith.

Mr. Conrad, 66, wore a gray fleece over a dark dress shirt and answered the judge loudly and clearly, with a slight Southern accent. He is a collector of animal-related items, according to his court-appointed lawyer, Virginia G. Villa.

During Mr. Conrad's arraignment, the federal magistrate judge, Margaret J. Kravchuk, asked if some of those assets could be liquidated to cover his legal costs.

"The market for shrunken heads being what it is, yes," Ms. Villa said.

If convicted, Mr. Zarauskas and Mr. Conrad could each face up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine no greater than $500,000.

In 2009, David L. Place, an antiques dealer from Nantucket, Mass., who was convicted of illegally importing and trafficking up to $400,000 worth of narwhal tusks and sperm whale teeth, was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison.

The $60 billion industry is facing intense political pressure from an unlikely alliance of critics who say that violent imagery in video games has contributed to a culture of violence. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with industry executives on Friday to discuss the concerns, highlighting the issue's prominence.

No clear link has emerged between the Connecticut rampage and the gunman Adam Lanza's interest in video games. Even so, the industry's detractors want to see a federal study on the impact of violent gaming, as well as cigarette-style warning labels and other measures to curb the games' graphic imagery.

"Connecticut has changed things," Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Virginia Republican and a frequent critic of what he terms the shocking violence of games, said in an interview. "I don't know what we're going to do, but we're going to do something."

Gun laws have been the Obama administration's central focus in considering responses to the shootings. But a violent media culture is being scrutinized, too, alongside mental health laws and policies.

"The stool has three legs, and this is one of them," Mr. Wolf said of violent video games.

Studies on the impact of gaming violence offer conflicting evidence. But science aside, public rhetoric has clearly shifted since the shootings, with politicians and even the National Rifle Association — normally a fan of shooting games — quick to blame video games and Hollywood movies for inuring children to violence.

"I don't let games like Call of Duty in my house," Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said this week on MSNBC. "You cannot tell me that a kid sitting in a basement for hours playing Call of Duty and killing people over and over and over again does not desensitize that child to the real-life effects of violence."

Residents in Southington, Conn., 30 miles northeast of Newtown, went so far as to organize a rally to destroy violent games. (The event was canceled this week.) Mr. Biden, meeting with some of the industry's biggest manufacturers and retailers, withheld judgment on whether graphic games fuel violence. But he added quickly, "You all know the judgment other people have made."

Industry executives are steeling for a political battle, and they have strong support from Congress as well as from the courts.

Industry representatives have already spoken with more than a dozen lawmakers' offices since the shootings, urging them to resist threatened regulations. They say video games are a harmless, legally protected diversion already well regulated by the industry itself through ratings that restricting some games to "mature" audiences.

With game makers on the defensive, they have begun pulling together scientific research, legal opinions and marketing studies to make their case to federal officials.

"This has been litigated all the way to the Supreme Court," Michael Gallagher, chief executive of the industry's main lobbying arm, said in an interview, referring to a 2011 ruling that rejected a California ban on selling violent games to minors on First Amendment grounds.

Twenty years ago, with graphic video games still a nascent technology, manufacturers faced similar threats of a crackdown over violent games. Even Captain Kangaroo — Bob Keeshan — lobbied for stricter oversight. The industry, heading off government action, responded at that time by creating the ratings labels, similar to movie ratings, that are ubiquitous on store shelves today.

This time, with a more formidable presence in Washington, the industry is not so willing to discuss voluntary concessions.

Game makers have spent more than $20 million since 2008 on federal lobbying, and millions more on campaign donations.

Mr. Gallagher's group, the Entertainment Software Association, has five outside lobbying firms to push its interests in Washington. And the industry has enjoyed not only a hands-off approach from Congress, which has rejected past efforts to toughen regulations, but also tax breaks that have spurred sharp growth.

Game makers even have their own bipartisan Congressional caucus, with 39 lawmakers joining to keep the industry competitive.

Hurricanes shuffle the landscape. Developers bulldoze and build, bulldoze and build. Cafes or watering holes swoop in and out, leaving no trace.

So when news spread that Spec's Records and Tapes would close this month after 65 years, a collective sense of melancholy settled over this city of graceful banyan trees and Mediterranean-style homes in Miami-Dade County. After all these years — and despite a long-ago change in ownership — the record store looks frozen in time: the same 1980s red-letter sign and awning hangs out front; the white-and-tan facade has been immune to the decades; even the carpet retains a Me Decade hue.

"I feel emotionally connected to the place; a lot of us feel that way," said Tere Batista Worland, who grew up nearby and trolled the aisles for Elton John and Led Zeppelin, later becoming an executive at Universal Music. "It was a big part of my childhood. It's where we all bought our first records, where we went to see pop artists. It was a huge part of my growing up. It marks the end of an era."

For generations, Spec's was the place where teeny-boppers and musicians, hippies and squares, classical music lovers and punk rockers, blue-haired ladies and purple-haired youths all congregated in the search for vinyl, eight-tracks, reel-to-reel, cassettes and, finally, CDs. Students, many from the University of Miami, which is across the street, camped out for concert tickets. Fans lined the block to get an autograph from Plácido Domingo. The Bee Gees once played an acoustic set among the record bins. Bruce Hornsby shopped there.

Martin Spector, a former talent agent and violinist from Virginia, opened the store in 1948 on U.S. 1, then just a two-lane road. The shop sold records and cameras. Five years later, he moved the store a few blocks north on U.S. 1 to its permanent location and zeroed in almost exclusively on records for a few decades. Classical music was Mr. Spector's specialty, although he sold all genres. He treated customers like members of an exclusive music club, and that kept the people coming back.

By the 1970s, Spec's grew to become a record powerhouse in Miami and the region. It influenced music charts with its ability to move records and promote songs, and it nurtured the local music scene. In 1985, Spec's went public and continued to thrive for more than a decade until the rise of downloadable music. Spec's was recognized by Forbes in 1987 as one of the 200 best small companies in America.

Mr. Spector's work ethic was legendary; he kept an office in the Coral Gables store, its flagship, and always made the rounds. He chose employees wisely. And he stayed a step ahead of tastes and trends, ushering in Latin music when he saw Miami's population shift, building a renowned classical collection, selling concert tickets, hosting artists, and then adding movie rentals when necessary. At its peak, Spec's grew to 80 stores in Florida and Puerto Rico. In 1998, Spec's was sold to Camelot, which was later bought by Trans World Entertainment. Mr. Spector died in 2003 at age 98.

The companies that bought out Spec's considered it wise to keep the Spec's name and the store's same design. And so it remains.

"It was the place to be," said Ann Spector Lieff, Mr. Spector's daughter who took the helm of Spec's in 1980 and is now a consultant. "I think the new owners saw the value in the name. I think they got it, and that was very gratifying to all of us."

Pascale Laurent, 48, who grew up nearby and got word in Africa, where she now lives, that Spec's was closing, felt an immediate pang. She landed a job there in the early '80s, a coup for a high school student. She earned $3.35 an hour and invaluable perks: first dibs on concert tickets, free records and flawless on-the-job music. One afternoon, she ushered around the pop singer and soap actor Rick Springfield as he signed autographs.

"There was something about how cool it felt and looked to be there," said Ms. Laurent, who stayed on four years. "It was a place where people came to find something they loved — music."

Flipping through the last remaining jazz CDs, Morrie Hollander, 78, said he started making pilgrimages to Spec's 30 years ago. "This is my nook-and-cranny," he said, of the jazz section, lamenting the store's passing.

The old building will be leveled, and Chase Bank, with more than 280 branches in the state, will occupy a new structure this year.

"Just what we need," Mr. Hollander said. "Another bank."

On Friday, opponents of the law were preparing for a demonstration on Sunday condemning legislators who had voted for the ban — organizers were calling it the "March Against Scoundrels" — and a top official at the governing party, United Russia, lashed out with unusual vitriol. Opposition "hysteria" over the adoption ban was useful, in a way, the official, Andrei Isayev, wrote on the party's Web site, because it created a vivid distinction between patriotic Russians and others whom he witheringly called "citizens of the world."

"All the enemies of Russian sovereignty have revealed themselves as ardent supporters of American adoption," wrote Mr. Isayev, who sits on the party's general council, adding that on Sunday, "the latter will go out to march for the right of unrestricted export of Russian children to America."

"Let's look attentively and remember the faces of the organizers and active participants of this march," he wrote, calling Sunday's event a "March of Child Sellers." "Our task in the coming years is to drive them to the farthest edge of political and public life, to the middle of nowhere."

President Vladimir V. Putin approved the adoption ban last month, in retaliation for a new American law aimed at punishing human rights abuses in Russia. In 2011, about 1,000 Russian children were adopted by Americans, more than residents of any other foreign country, but still a tiny number given the nearly 120,000 children in Russia who are eligible for adoption.

Anger over the ban may not be enough to reinvigorate a protest movement in Russia that has flagged recently, when it became clear the rewards would be meager and the punishments harsh. But the reaction is deepening a rift that began to open last year, after Mr. Putin decided to address himself to a conservative, loyal electorate in the hinterlands, turning away from the prosperous urbanites who were drawn to antigovernment rallies.

"The country is really dividing," said Lev D. Gudkov, director of the Levada Center, a Moscow-based polling agency. Two-thirds of Russia's population, he said, lives in villages and small towns where people get their information from television, which often reports that American parents are never punished for abusing children adopted from Russia. Polling by the Public Opinion Fund in late December showed that 56 percent of respondents approved of the ban.

The rest are city dwellers who increasingly graze the Internet for news, and are less and less dependent on the government. That group lurched back to life after its long winter holiday and mobilized against the ban. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta has gathered 130,000 signatures in favor of revoking the law; on Thursday it announced 100,000 signatures on a petition in favor of dissolving Parliament.

All week, prominent entertainers have been promoting Sunday's march by posting video clips online in which they explain — often emotionally — why they are opposed to banning adoption by Americans.

"It's a horrible story.," said Liya Akhedzhakova, an actress beloved for Soviet-era comedies. "The most defenseless, unwanted children who are not quite healthy when they are born — they are not needed by anyone."

Tatyana Dogileva, another actress, practically spat out her words about politicians. "They play their cruel, dirty games, and this is their business. But why do they get children involved in it?"

She went on to address Alina Kabayeva, a gymnast who now sits in Parliament and who years ago was rumored to be Mr. Putin's mistress. "Alina, why did you vote for this law?" Ms. Dogileva said. "Aren't you sorry for these children, these specific children? They will die there, Alina."

Yevgeny S. Gontmakher, a social scientist, said Mr. Putin had made a gamble not unlike the one he made by arresting the oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky in 2004: Russian elites might disapprove, but they would get used to it, and a vast part of the electorate would not care much.

But he said the Kremlin would eventually suffer for the ban.

"In the long-term perspective, it is of course a loss, because there is 25 or 30 percent of society that has formed the opinion, because of these orphans, that politics has become immoral," Mr. Gontmakher said. "It's clear that a certain break has taken place inside these people. They may not say so during a public opinion poll, because there are elements of fear. But for these people the government has lost the last remains of its moral authority."

On Friday, nine days later, he resigned, citing a 1996 case in which he was charged with an "attempted lewd act upon" a 15-year-old girl, whom he later married. In a statement, Mr. Dare, 48, said he believed that "media attention to my family's personal life will harm the organization and musicians I cherish, as well as needlessly embarrass my wife."

Stephen Sichak, the orchestra's co-chairman, said it knew about the charge when Mr. Dare was hired but that inquiries into the case from "friends of the symphony," not reporters, began coming in. "Concerns about the public perception of this subject matter" emerged, Mr. Sichak said. "The situation has become a distraction and is keeping us from being able to do what we do best," making music, so the board accepted Mr. Dare's resignation.

The development came as a New York Times investigation into Mr. Dare's background raised questions about aspects of his résumé and business accomplishments. Former associates have suggested that he exaggerated the extent of his business dealings, and evidence to support some of his claims — like his having testified frequently before Congress — could not immediately be found.

Mr. Dare declined to answer questions during a conference call with New Jersey Symphony officials but said that he would consider e-mailed queries. He did not respond to an e-mail sent late Friday afternoon

Mr. Dare pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 60 days in jail in the criminal case. He was placed on probation for three years and was registered as a sex offender in California, where the incident occurred, according to court documents. In his statement Mr. Dare called his actions "attempted misbehavior," said the charges were "completely dismissed, and the case was set aside." The court documents show that the case was dismissed in 1999 and his probation cut short by a year.

According to reports at the time in The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif., Mr. Dare had been a fifth-grade teacher at Loma Linda Academy before opening an alternative school in 1992 called Brightwater Academy. The victim — now his wife — had been a student there. Her mother came home one day to find Mr. Dare naked in the house with her daughter and called the police. Mr. Dare then lived in Grand Terrace, in San Bernardino County, west of Los Angeles.

The prosecutor, Arthur Harrison, said in a telephone interview that the girl did not cooperate with police.

"As soon as she turned 18, he up and married her," said Mr. Harrison, now a state judge. "It was clearly a willing victim, but clearly under age as well."

Mr. Dare said he had told New Jersey Symphony officials early on about his encounter with the law.

Mr. Sichak, the co-chairman, confirmed that and said a "thorough background check was completed." Orchestra officials reviewed court documents. "We were satisfied with what we saw," he added. He declined to disclose Mr. Dare's salary, but the previous chief executive earned about $200,000 a year.

Mr. Sichak said reference calls were also made to former business associates.

"We attempted to understand his capabilities, his management style, what he was good at, what areas he could improve in," Mr. Sichak said. "We did not assess nor, frankly, base our decision on business results and the accuracy thereof."

Mr. Dare described his career this way in a television interview on NJTV: "I spent most of my career — the last say, 15, almost 20 years — building large companies."

His major business venture was as founder of Pacific Rim Partners Inc., which acted as a go-between between Japanese and American businesses. It was founded in 2008 and ceased most operations after the March 2011 earthquake in Japan.

The average query and response consumed 13 seconds, hardly enough time for enlightenment. Eighteen of the 23 answers were more succinct than the questions, including the last one.

"You don't like to reveal a whole lot, which you might have in common with your coach," a reporter began. "Why is that?"

"The more that you reveal, the less of an advantage you have," Kaepernick said. With that, he walked away.

Presuming Jim Harbaugh was not hidden behind Kaepernick like a ventriloquist with a hand up his jersey, the coach must have been pleased with his student's performance. It was straight from Harbaugh's public relations playbook.

Kaepernick is Harbaugh's quarterback, molded in Harbaugh's stony persona. He was drafted for the purpose of eventually leading Harbaugh's team and was promoted in November to carry Harbaugh's immediate championship aspirations.

So the attention in these playoffs is on Kaepernick. But it is the man behind him, working the controls, who has the most at stake.

Harbaugh is perched at a peculiar turning point in his coaching career. He is popular in the Bay Area because he has won, not because he is liked, relying on victories instead of personality to build good will. Now, due to the late-season swap to Kaepernick, and the rising expectations caused by his own success, Harbaugh's popularity promises to be tested like never before.

"Two things sustain you as a coach," said the former quarterback Trent Dilfer, an ESPN analyst who lives in the Bay Area. "Winning, No. 1. Likability, No. 2. Very few coaches have both. Jim does not have the consciousness of the public perception of him to have sustainability unless he wins. That's just a fact. He has to win."

So far, Harbaugh has won plenty. After four seasons of resurrecting Stanford into a powerhouse, in part behind quarterback Andrew Luck, Harbaugh moved triumphantly to the nearby 49ers in 2011.

His wealth of confidence and dash of intensity lifted San Francisco's enviable roster to a 13-3 record. The 49ers came within one game of last year's Super Bowl, losing to the Giants, 20-17, in overtime last January.

For the first time, he faces the full weight of expectation. The 49ers feel built for a championship. And Harbaugh, in his final tinkering, benched the rejuvenated and widely admired Alex Smith for the unleashed potential of Kaepernick.

"If it all blows up on Saturday, that will take a lot of that good will out of the bank," said Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led San Francisco to its last Super Bowl, 18 years ago.

Before November, a key to the franchise's renewal was Harbaugh's rehabilitation of Smith. He was the first overall draft choice in 2005, tested and abandoned by a string of failing coaches. Harbaugh turned him into a trustworthy player of robotic efficiency.

On Oct. 29, Smith completed 18 of 19 passes for 232 yards and 3 touchdowns in a victory over the Cardinals. The 49ers were 6-2. Two days later, Smith and Harbaugh chauffeured cars in the San Francisco Giants' World Series victory parade. It was easy to imagine a Super Bowl parade come winter.

But Smith left the next game with a concussion, after throwing a touchdown pass through blurry vision. Kaepernick started the next game, against the Bears. His poise and pinpoint passing led the 49ers to a prime-time blowout victory.

Smith recovered. He had the league's highest passer rating. He had completed 25 of his previous 27 passes, for 304 yards and 4 touchdowns. He had led the 49ers to a 19-5 regular-season record under Harbaugh, including a season-opening 30-22 victory at Green Bay in September.

Harbaugh, somewhat clumsily over a couple of weeks, handed the job to Kaepernick.

"For the first time, fans have a little bit of pause about Harbaugh," said Brian Murphy, who co-hosts a morning sports radio show in San Francisco. "Because it's the first thing that isn't perfectly aligned with good feelings and wins."

The debate among fans has swirled since, funnel-like, all spilling into the story line of Saturday's game. Now people will know whether it was the right move.

"He went all in," Young said. "But that's Jim."

Harbaugh remains a bit of a mystery in San Francisco, stalking the sidelines in a black sweatshirt tucked into khaki pants. He can be hard to read behind his revolving kaleidoscope of expressions: perplexed, angry, smiling, wild-eyed, sometimes all at once.

He has a reputation, dating to his 14 years as an N.F.L. quarterback, for being a pugnacious sort. He once broke his hand punching the retired quarterback Jim Kelly because he did not like Kelly's critiques.

He is the rare coach to pick spats with opposing coaches, including a rare handshake controversy. Excited after a victory at Detroit in 2011, Harbaugh brusquely shook the hand of Lions Coach Jim Schwartz and slapped his back while jogging past. Schwartz, miffed, chased Harbaugh down. Players surrounded the coaches in a surreal scrum.

"I shook his hand too hard," Harbaugh said later, calling it a "slap-grab handshake." Without apologizing, he said, "That was on me."

When the Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said this season that 49ers defensive lineman Justin Smith "gets away with murder" — part of an otherwise complimentary assessment — Harbaugh issued a statement. It demonstrated, among other things, a loyalty to his team and a flair for hyperbole.

"Kevin Gilbride's outrageous, irrational statement regarding Justin Smith's play is, first, an absurd analogy," Harbaugh said. "Second, it is an incendiary comment targeting one of the truly exemplary players in this league. It's obvious that the Giants coaching staff's sole purpose is to use their high visibility to both criticize and influence officiating."

In the locker room and on the practice field, Harbaugh is high energy. "Attack each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind" is an axiom he brandishes regularly, handed down from his father, Jack, a longtime football coach. (John Harbaugh, Jim's brother, coaches the Baltimore Ravens.)

But little of that is on display to the broader world. During news conferences and television interviews, Harbaugh looks like a man distracted, as if he were perpetually trying to remember if he left the coffee maker on at home. He has no aversion to awkward silences, and can rival Bill Belichick's ability for spoken minimalism.

On Monday, a reporter reminded Harbaugh that he said San Francisco's division was "arguably the best."

"Arguably," Harbaugh said.

The reporter asked if he wanted to bolster the argument, given the playoff victory of the rival Seahawks.

"Yeah, I'm willing to go further, a week later, to continue to argue that," Harbaugh said. "I think that's a fair argument."

So you think it is the toughest division?

"Arguably the toughest division," Harbaugh said.

The reporter, tugging hard on the verbal leash, asked what made it so tough.

"The strength of the teams," Harbaugh said.

Occasionally, a memorable line helps take the edge off Harbaugh's persona of quirky intensity. Earlier this season, Harbaugh described public concern over Alex Smith's confidence as "gobble gobble turkey."

And, coach, what is gobble gobble turkey?

"Just gobble gobble gobble turkey from jive turkey gobblers, you know," Harbaugh said with a smile.

On Wednesday, during a typically laborious news conference, Harbaugh said that the injured Justin Smith would play, "God willing and the creek don't rise."

Someone later asked Harbaugh if he was a fan of the entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford.

"Who isn't?" Harbaugh said.

You just quoted him, Harbaugh was told. (Actually, Ford's catchphrase usually began, "The good Lord willing.")

"That was Tennessee Ernie Ford?" Harbaugh replied. "I thought that was Jack Harbaugh."

Performances like that, while hardly necessary to win football games, could go a long way toward endearing Harbaugh to the masses cheering him on. And maybe they will rub off on Kaepernick, his intriguingly talented, tight-lipped quarterback.

Or the two of them could just keep winning games.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure on Saturday night for 'the decision,' " Murphy, the radio host, said of the lingering quarterback controversy. "A lot is on No. 7. And a lot is on the guy in the black sweatshirt and khakis."