Jackson Judge Has Everyone Running on Empty

Atkins, Scarsdale, Pritikin: They’re all baloney compared to one of the most rigorous, court-ordered eating regimens since bread and water: the Melville Diet.

Jurors, attorneys and a horde of reporters have been on the diet since opening arguments in Michael Jackson’s child-molestation trial three weeks ago. Jackson, who can generously be described as gaunt, and Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville also are on the diet -- devised by the judge himself.

The basics are simple: Take your seat at 8:30 a.m. and count on staying there for the next six hours except for three 10-minute breaks. And forget about lunch.

During the breaks, dash to the bathroom, shoot off a couple of phone calls, gobble what morsels you can, schmooze, gather your thoughts and prepare for reentry.

Members of the media, unaccustomed to such privation outside war zones, are grumbling. And jurors, who are obliged to stay awake even as their strength ebbs, have taken on a lean and hungry look. When a local Olive Garden restaurant sent them 10 pizzas one day this week, they demanded the right to pig out, as well as extra time to do so.

“The jury sent out an attack squadron, and they basically threatened my life if I didn’t let them eat the pizzas,” Melville said in court.

He let them eat the pizzas.

During jury selection, the judge promised great things from what he called “the Melville Diet.” First off, skipping lunch and short breaks would allow him to cram a full court day into just six hours and allow jurors to resume their normal lives in midafternoon.

But there were even loftier considerations.

“We’ll all lose 30 pounds,” Melville dreamily predicted. “I’ll make a million dollars.”

Some nutrition experts are dubious.

“Isn’t this cruel and unusual punishment?” asked a shocked Evelyn Tribole, an Irvine dietitian who wrote a self-help book called “Eating on the Run.”

“The judge is totally disrespecting the need for our bodies to eat,” she said. “You’ve got to honor your hunger.”

For journalists, that’s particularly tough as they also try to honor deadlines and the demands of far-off editors during the oh-so-brief courtroom breaks.

On some afternoons, the gurgle of empty stomachs in the packed courtroom is as loud and as constant as crickets on a summer evening. During the testimony of Jackson’s former housekeeper this week, a deep rumble was clearly audible to the audience in the courtroom and even to the dozens of reporters watching on closed-circuit TV in a listening room across the campus.

Sheepishly, the woman owned up to it as the jury burst into laughter. A reporter in the courtroom felt her pain, whispering to a friend: “Welcome to my world.”

Later, the judge joked that every witness in the case be required to bring along an energy bar.

A nearby restaurant, Coffee Diem, has been allowed to set up a table with juice and such outside the courtroom entrance, but other demands often come first for those inside.

Bill Robles, one of three artists sketching the proceedings, has to put the final touches on his work during his so-called breaks.

“Sometimes you can’t squeeze the art and the bathroom in at the same time,” he said, “and the art has the priority.”

With the jurors allowed no treats in the courtroom other than bottled water, they need a hearty breakfast, heavy on carbs and, given the restroom restrictions, light on coffee and juice, Tribole said.

Their best bet for breaks, she added, is good old-fashioned, protein-laden peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut into quarters for convenience.

But after they endure months of testimony, those on the Melville Diet may find that it puts on more pounds than it takes off:

“Seventy percent of people under stress overeat,” Tribole said. “At the end of the day, you just don’t care. Ravenous hunger prevails.”