In the mahogany-paneled room, time seemed to decelerate. The frantic scratching of journalists’ pens ceased, and even the hum of the air conditioning felt like an intrusion on the sanctity of the moment. Every eye was fixed on the judge, whose face remained a mask of judicial neutrality, and on the defendant, who had spent the better part of the last few years as a lightning rod for national debate. For those present, the room felt suspended between two worlds: the long, chaotic history of the crime and the imminent, unchangeable future that the verdict would usher in.
