SOUTHLAND : Prosecution Closing Arguments Begin in McMartin Marathon

With the judge predicting deliberations alone could take more than a month, the prosecution in the nation’s longest criminal trial began its allotted 6 1/2 days of closing arguments today, telling jurors that the McMartin Pre-School molestation case developed by gradually escalating abuse of children.

Final arguments in the 2 1/2-year-long trial began after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders rejected a defense request to dismiss charges.

The judge said each side will have 6 1/2 days to argue, and he suggested that the jury’s deliberations might take a very long time and that he might call the panel back into the courtroom if that happened. “If they have been in deliberations for more than a month, we may bring them in and see where they stand,” Pounders said.

Raymond Buckey, 31, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 62, are charged with 64 counts of molestation and a shared count of conspiracy involving 11 children from the Manhattan Beach preschool.