Committee Republicans, energized at the beginning of the hearing by a visit from Senator Trent Lott, the Senate minority leader and Judge Pickering's principal patron, mounted a vigorous defense.
At the beginning of the hearing, Judge Seibel hoisted a binder that she said was filled with letters from Mr. Spano's supporters, asking her to be lenient.
At the beginning of the hearing on Thursday, Judge Baird ruled that he would allow the hearing to go forward.
Feinstein, as one of the most senior senators, spoke at the beginning of the hearing.
From the beginning of the hearing, which took place by conference call at 3 P.M.
"Nobody has any idea of what's going on," Mr. Vallone said at the beginning of the hearing.
Despite what was at stake in the courtroom, Rakoff was at times playful, addressing both sides at the beginning of the hearing by saying, "Welcome to my ballpark".
Although life sentences had been precluded by that agreement, Judge Rakoff calculated what sentences the men could receive under federal sentencing guidelines at the beginning of the hearing.
A bushy-bearded man wearing a navy blue smock over an orange prison T-shirt and baggy trousers, Mr. Medunjanin, a building superintendent, nodded in response when Judge Dearie greeted him at the beginning of the hearing.
At the beginning of the hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the administration's actions after the explosion, saying that officials had engaged in an "all-hands-on-deck response to this event".
