"Starting tomorrow, you only get one lawyer up here," the judge warned at a bench conference on Monday.

That only led to more bench conferences, however, slowing down matters still more.

This results in a bench conference, three lawyers and the judge, how to dig yourself a hole.

The judge allowed potential jurors who felt they could not impartially serve to step forth for a private bench conference with her and the lawyers.

People shot up right and left for the bench conferences.

And it has brought several admonitions from the judge in bench conferences out of the hearing of the jury.

"Not on the jury's time," he said several times in rejecting lawyers' requests for bench conferences.

A transcript of Wednesday's bench conferences reflects just how raw emotions in the case have become.

At another point in the second bench conference, the judge could be heard raising his voice in apparent frustration with the prosecution.

The witness on the stand during the bench conference was Agent Stern.