Court Date of the Century : Law: Simpson and Fleiss are both scheduled to go on trial Sept. 19 in the same building Downtown.

Call it the harmonic convergence of the mid-1990s. Call it a national holiday--Court Day, say--and let everyone stay home and stare at their TV sets. Call it anything you like.

But the fact is, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson and the pandering trial of Heidi Fleiss are both scheduled to begin on the same day, Sept. 19, in the same place, the Criminal Courts Building in Downtown Los Angeles.

“It’s tantamount to hitting Lotto or going to Vegas and having all the coins fall in your lap,” said KCBS Channel 2 cameraman Carl Stein as he viewed Wednesday’s contentious Simpson pretrial evidence hearing in a news van outside the 19-floor courthouse.

The confluence of the two ongoing media “cases of the century” came about this week when Fleiss’ defense team was granted a continuance because defense attorney Anthony Brooklier will be engaged in another trial on the East Coast on the previously scheduled date of Aug. 22.

“It was coincidence,” said district attorney’s office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. “When (Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Carter, who is prosecuting the accused Hollywood madam) came marching down to tell us, I said, ‘Do you realize what day that is?’ and he said, ‘No.’ It didn’t dawn on him at the time the defense made the motion.”

But some courthouse denizens are more than a little skeptical. They believe Brooklier and Carter agreed on the new date at least in part to deflect media attention from the Fleiss proceedings.

“I’d call it deliberateness,” said defense attorney Leslie Abramson, whose retrial of the Menendez brothers murder case, the third current Los Angeles “case of the century,” is due to begin in late October. “Nobody wants publicity on their cases (and) I’m quite sure that they are both intelligent enough to have figured it out.”

For their part, TV executives can draw on their industry’s history as they weigh the perils of cutting away to Heidi. In 1968, after all, NBC drew the undying wrath of football fans when it shifted from the final minutes of a seesaw New York Jets-Oakland Raiders contest to begin airing the movie “Heidi” at its scheduled time.

Where the Simpson case is concerned, no Heidi--neither Alpine waif nor accused Hollywood madam--is likely to preempt live coverage of the ex-football superstar’s court proceedings.

“I mean, we are talking about a murder case that’s national in scope,” said Sheryl Fair, news director for KABC TV Channel 7.

KTTV Channel 11 news director Jose Rios agreed: “O.J. will continue to be the high-profile case.”

Of course, that’s not to say there would not be plenty of cutaways if the Simpson jury selection process continues ad infinitum.

“I can imagine editors saying, ‘While you’re waiting, why don’t you do the ‘madam to the stars,’ ” KABC TV Channel 7 reporter Mark Coogan said as he stood on the courthouse steps along with nearly two dozen TV and still photographers, waiting for Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro to leave the building.

Coogan, like many courthouse observers, said the joint trial date is bound to give new meaning to the term “media event,” particularly at his outdoor perch, where TV and print photographers regularly battle for position to shoot trial participants.

“Can you imagine two rugby scrums for the price of one?” he asked.

What’s more, if both trials are proceeding at full steam in the days before November’s state election, “Kathleen Brown, Pete Wilson, Dianne Feinstein and Michael Huffington will have to be picketing out in the street here because that’s the only way they will be on TV,” Coogan added.

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Inside the courthouse Wednesday, some officials said they were unfazed by the dual trial dates of the case of the brown glove and the case of the black book.

“Sept. 19 is just another day,” said Criminal Courts coordinator John Iverson. “It’s a big court system and there are 35 Superior Court criminal judges in this building alone.”

But others conceded that the circumstances are more than a little amazing.

“We’ve been kidding among ourselves about what would be the ingredients to turn this building into the mass media event of the century,” said district attorney’s office spokesman Mike Botula. “We figured it was the convergence of the Heidi Fleiss and O.J. Simpson trials. Then all of a sudden, the prosecutor tells us the dream may well become a reality.

“Change that word dream , “ Botula added, catching himself, “to nightmare.”

For some at the courthouse, two trials will probably mean more work. “People have suggested they just ought to rent a stage at Paramount--then you don’t have to dress it up here every day,” said Stein of KCBS as he packed two milk crates worth of cables, mixers and light stands after the Simpson hearing.

Thirteenth-floor snack bar operator Zohrab Bedikian feared that the double trials could actually cost him business. “The media people don’t bring in that much,” he said. “And regular customers in the building don’t stop in if they know the floor will be jammed.”

Moreover, the trial date of either case is subject to change.

“The Fleiss date has been continued many times already and who is to say it won’t be postponed again?” said Gibbons of the district attorney’s office.

That did not stop at least two people from savoring the possibility of the dual trial dates.

One was Deputy Sheriff Keith Brown, the bailiff in the 13th-floor courtroom where the Fleiss case is scheduled. The Simpson case, he said, will draw far more media attention. “Thank you, Lord,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “Thank you.”

The other was Aziz Muhammed, who was hawking “Cut the Juice Loose” T-shirts outside the courthouse.

“I’m going to call Heidi,” Muhammed laughed, “and ask her if she wants to think about T-shirts of her own.”