Deliberations Continue in CIA Leak Case

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby leaves Federal Court in Washington, Monday, Feb. 26, 2007, after the day's jury deliberations for his perjury trial. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)

Barcella agreed the Libby case could take longer than "deciding whether the traffic light was red when the car went through."

The government says Libby lied to investigators to avoid being fired for leaking to reporters the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war. Libby's lawyers claim he learned it from his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, but forgot that and thought he heard it for the first time a month later from a reporter and then told other reporters he had heard it from reporters but couldn't confirm it.

"The government did a good job of showing this was not the kind of thing he would likely forget, and the defense did a good job of showing that everybody in the case had some memory flaws," Barcella said. "Every juror has a memory, so it's something everybody can disagree about."

Each morning, the jurors arrive by 9 a.m. in a U.S. marshals' van. Coffee, juice and pastries await them. Lunch is brought to them from the courthouse cafeteria, but no one knows whether they work while they eat. Cookies and beverages are wheeled in around 3 p.m., and they go home at 5 p.m.

They have windows, so they worked through a two-hour power blackout Monday.

Walton has promised only 15 minutes notice before the jury delivers its verdict in court, so prosecutors and the defense team inhabit separate witness waiting rooms down the hall from the courtroom. The lawyers have laptops and Internet access to read e-mail and even work if they can concentrate on other projects.

Libby and his wife are crowded with up to 11 defense lawyers in a 15-by-20-foot room with a couch, tables and chairs. The prosecutors, FBI agents and their staff have a tad more space around a corner.

The defense team usually eats lunch together in the court cafeteria. Prosecutors have lunch brought in or visit a small restaurant a block away.

Occasionally the outside world intrudes: One defense attorney gave birth to a daughter last week. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald drove 15 hours when a weekend storm canceled flights from Chicago, his home.

Libby's wife, Harriet Grant, and attorney William Jeffress sometimes visit a park next to the courthouse to smoke. Lawyers on both teams, and Libby himself in late afternoon, stretch their legs in the chairless, marble-walled corridors, but the teams don't mingle.

Tuesday morning, defense lawyer Theodore Wells bought souvenirs, original trial sketches drawn by artists for news organizations. "Don't you have one that shows less of my stomach?" he asked, cracking up his colleagues.

He offered them this advice: "Always buy your sketches before the verdict."

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Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.