THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Out of Spotlight : A Year After Serving in the ‘Preliminary Hearing of the Century,’ Judge Kennedy-Powell Is Back to the Usual Routine in Court

It was 10:08 a.m. Friday and Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell sat on the bench in her half-empty courtroom, waiting for an attempted murder defendant to be escorted in for his preliminary hearing.

Trying to kill the time with small talk, Deputy Dist. Atty. Renee Urman told the judge that she had watched her preside over the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing last year.

“What a waste of a perfectly good vacation day watching court on TV,” replied Kennedy-Powell, cracking a smile before returning to a more characteristic impassive stare as the defendant, Leo Cunningham Jr., entered the room from the adjoining lockup.

One year ago Friday--the day the “preliminary hearing of the century” began--Kathleen Kennedy-Powell was the most highly visible judge on the planet.

On television sets across the world, her no-nonsense visage filled the screen. And in subsequent days, her legal rulings were devoured as avidly as those of Earl Warren, Oliver Wendell Holmes or TV’s Joseph Wapner ever were.

Now, a year later, life has returned to normal for Kennedy-Powell.

Her daily court routine is a dizzying stew of mostly unpublicized drug, theft, fraud and homicide cases. There are no “Dancing Kennedy-Powells” on the “Tonight Show.” And the strong-willed 42-year-old Loyola Law School graduate refuses to publicly discuss her 15 minutes, make that 15 days, of fame.

Yet it still comes up.

Last week, during a preliminary hearing in a child homicide case, a defense attorney made reference to the extraordinary interest of the media in the proceedings at hand. Kennedy-Powell looked down from the bench and saw two reporters in her no-frills courtroom, six floors below Judge Lance A. Ito’s “Cirque du O.J.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s excessive,” she said as attorneys, court personnel and the pair of reporters cracked up.

On Friday morning, Kennedy-Powell made no mention of the O.J. Simpson anniversary and most on hand had forgotten.

“Oh yeah?” asked Sheriff’s Deputy Clarence Conwell, the courtroom bailiff. “They’re all the same to me. I don’t care if it’s O.J., B.J., C.J. or M.J.”

Several defendants, moreover, had no idea who the momentarily famous judge was.

“Give people enough time, they’ll forget anyone,” Conwell said. “Look at Brando’s son. That was hot for a time. Now people say: ‘Brando, he had a son?’ ”

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Friday’s court session began on a rocky note, with a hurry-up-and-wait routine that is frequently a part of the average judge’s life. Five cases were listed on Kennedy-Powell’s calendar, but none could go forward immediately because most of the lawyers involved were busy in other courtrooms.

A few minutes later, Kennedy-Powell sat on the bench twiddling a pen as she waited for two attorneys to arrive so she could sentence a Bible-toting welfare cheat to five years probation.

The former deputy district attorney’s courtroom was also marked by the red tape and confusion so typical of the Downtown Criminal Courts Building.

Because another judge was on vacation, Kennedy-Powell, whose courtroom is Division 35, was handling cases normally assigned to the judge in Division 46. In turn, most cases normally heard in Division 35 were transferred to Division 41.

When a man who said he had been subpoenaed to Division 46 came into Kennedy-Powell’s courtroom and asked where on earth he should be, Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Minnetian stepped in and said he was in the right place, “unless your name ends in a vowel or it’s a year of harmonic convergence.”

Before the morning ended, though, the stark reality of violent crime hit home for anyone within earshot of Kennedy-Powell’s court.

The Cunningham preliminary hearing stemmed from the shooting of Monique O’Bannon, 22, in the parking garage of the Petersen Automotive Museum, where she worked as a cashier.

O’Bannon, still on crutches, testified that Cunningham--her angry ex-fiance--fired at her with a 9-millimeter weapon, striking her in the stomach and thigh.

It was a simple case for Kennedy-Powell to send forward to trial. The defense presented no witnesses, there were no sidebars and the entire hearing lasted less than an hour.

Before it ended, however, Kennedy-Powell left the bench once. It was to hand a tissue to O’Bannon, who, after dabbing her eyes, thrust her chin forward and gave chilling details of being viciously attacked by a former lover at close range.