LOS ANGELES - The ritual begins each morning the O.J. Simpson murder case opens before millions of television viewers: the daily evaluation of prosecutor Marcia Clark.
First is the fashion forum - the grading of her hair, recently cut shorter; the skirt-alert of how much leg the 40-year-old former dancer is showing. Next, the check of circles under her eyes. And finally, the acid test - a gauge of her prosecutorial mood ranging from nasty to nice.
Sexist? Yes. But it seems everybody these days is unabashedly watching Clark - history's most famous female deputy district attorney.
That includes her bosses, who have been tinkering with her style and look, despite her elite status as one of the winningest prosecutors in the USA's largest district attorney's office.
This case could hinge on image and the jury manipulation industry's bid to shape it.
The biggest reason: The defendant is a well-respected, sympathetic character.
"A living nightmare" is how Clark's mentor, prosecutor Harvey Giss, describes the pressure.
This week begins the ultimate exam, the one by which Clark will be graded most directly. When the first of 304 prospective jurors files in for questioning Wednesday, it will kick off her relationship with the 12 people who will decide the case.
In court, she's beaten back almost every defense challenge. But to win her case, unlike the defense, she must sway all 12 jurors.
"Her demeanor has to be helpful, open and respectful," jury consultant Sonya Hamlin says. "She cannot get mad."
Since the opening days Clark has evolved from a sometimes shrill and overbearing prosecutor to a warmer, calmer woman.
That's no accident. Associates say she draws constant schooling from District Attorney Gil Garcetti. Some of her biggest changes came after a focus group in Phoenix criticized her as too acerbic - even though her style had been extremely successful.
Result: A change both in personal and prosecutorial form. She caused a stir by showing up with a haircut - "It was too long before," Hamlin says. "Jurors want to see your face." - and a conservative but feminine white dress with a pearl choker.
Since then, Clark has shed much of her dark-and-stark look. But critics still urge a bigger wardrobe investment to, in Hamlin's words, "take advantage of the fact that she's a woman. She doesn't do that enough."
Nonsense, says Robert Pugsley, who teaches at Clark's alma mater, Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles. He thinks fashion critiques are garbage.
"Frankly, I like seeing a prosecutor showing up dressed for work without looking like she's spent $5,000 for what's on her back."
But he agrees her behavior is important. At the outset, Clark frequently objected to defense questions before they were out of the questioner's mouth. She sometimes interrupted the judge, and her style "was generally too vituperative," Pugsley says.
Now her delivery is firm but calm and easily paced. Her mouth closes the instant the judge's opens. She smiles, she laughs, she jokes.
Which is quite an accomplishment, considering the enormity of the case.
Polls showing two out of three Americans consider Simpson guilty - he's pleaded innocent - are no comfort. And, Clark is relying heavily on DNA tests, evidence still shaky in court and regarded by only 40% of the population as very reliable.
Still, Clark's more relaxed, more open. Giss says she spent the beginning of the case cloistered away "like a nun . . . totally insulated." Clark still won't grant interviews, but she does chat with reporters in the hall now.
"I think what we may have seen at the beginning was a very frightened Marcia," Pugsley says. "She's a woman in a very tough world for women who's used to working two or three times harder than men. She may have been overcompensating, showing the high-priced defense that she couldn't be pushed around."
Whatever the criticism of Clark, most experts acknowledge her performance thus far as technically flawless. Clark hasn't lost a case in five years, including the 1991 prosecution of John Bardo for the stalking murder of TV actress Rebecca Schaeffer.
The daughter of a federal Food and Drug administrator, Clark traveled all over as a child, starting in Berkeley, Calif., and finishing high school in Staten Island, N.Y.
She's been an actress, a dancer, a $2.50-per-hour waitress. She's a mom with two kids. She's been married twice, first to a professional backgammon player. She filed for divorce from her second husband, a computer analyst five years her junior, the week before the Simpson case began.
Giss says Clark works out daily and is a constant dieter. But he says she also has chain-smoked through case preparation - she's an intense and inexhaustive worker - and has been known to throw down a whiskey or two with the cops after work.
Bottom line, in Giss' mind: She's fundamentally likeable, despite her hard streak..
"Brass knuckles and high decibels" might hurt her in a short trial, he says. But in a long one, when the full range of her personality surfaces, "I think the jury appreciates it. Business is business, and there's a time for the tough-guy hat."
"She'll never be Mary Poppins," Pugsley agrees. "But in the end, when they've seen how many bowls she can balance in the air and how well she can argue on her feet, they'll respect her."
