Here come closing arguments. The beginning of the end of the O.J. Simpson trial. Sure, it's not THE END, but we can see it from here.
On Tuesday, barring natural or legal disaster, lawyers begin final arguments before jurors who've recently looked downright comatose. Attorneys haven't looked much better. The trial could be tree-dated by the circles under prosecutor Marcia Clark's eyes.But wait, is that excitement in the air? On Friday, when both sides rested and the judge suggested working overtime to speed the arrival of deliberations, jurors actually guffawed. Work late next week? You bet. Just get us the darn case.
"There's a certain crackle in the air from people who are understandably tired and propping their eyes open with toothpicks, like some of the lawyers at the table are doing," says Southwestern University law professor Robert Pugsley.
Not to mention everyone else involved in this lumbering spectacle.
From snappy lawyers to weary journalists to the frequently cranky Judge Lance Ito, the strain of this year-old trial is visible.
The behind-the-scenes support system for all the hype surrounding this trial is mind-boggling. Since last year, TV crews have run up to 80 miles of cable at the downtown Criminal Courts building and at the makeshift compound across the street known as "Camp O.J."
Two hundred-fifty phone lines snake through the courthouse's 12th-floor press room; 650 have been installed at Camp O.J., home to television journalists. The latest estimate for credentialed press members is 1,000 - and no one in charge of issuing those credentials seems to know how many of that number are reporters coming in for closing arguments who haven't been present for much else.
Even though the weariness factor is high, some of the anticipation initially present in this case has returned. And there is new excitement as well, the kind normally associated with horses putting on speed when they smell the barn.
"It's very similar to the feeling in Rodney King and even the (Reginald) Denny case," Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said, speaking of the final days in both high-profile cases. "The expectations are high. Adrenalin is running. You can feel it in the air."
Susan Yan, a public information officer for Los Angeles County Superior Court, said she has received at least five calls a day for the past two weeks from frantic reporters wanting courtroom seats for the trial's final days.
No way, she tells them. The 24 media passes were given out long ago.
She says she is amused by the rush for seats during the final days of a proceeding that is called, in total seriousness, "The Trial of the Century."
"They didn't call for the DNA part," Yan said, laughing. "Wonder why?"
Even Clark, who seldom admits to any weakness in court, slipped last week. Ito had asked a question. Clark's brain malfunctioned. "I'm so tired, your honor," she said by way of explaining she had no answer at all.
Stan Goldman, a Loyola Law School professor and Levenson colleague, also does television, newspaper and radio commentary for the Simpson trial. "I haven't had a free Friday night in a long time," he said.
But he isn't complaining. "I got into a Hertz rental car in Florida and the driver looked up and said, `Professor Goldman!" '
He recently went to meet a friend for dinner, who informed him that someone wanted to meet him.
"Peter Falk shows up," Goldman says, clearly impressed. "I'm a big fan of Peter Falk. And we spend two hours discussing `Columbo' and O.J. Now when else would something like that ever happen?"