(Top) Ryder and .J. Simpson: Private moments

Los Angeles, May 12 (Reuters): Some people vie to be in the same room as celebrities, but Mona Shafer Edwards does one better. She captures them at their most emotional ? in the defendant’s chair.

Edwards is a courtroom artist, one of a dying breed who sketches celebrity trials here in a city known for the intersection of celebrity and crime.

From Michael Jackson and .J. Simpson to Courtney Love and Winona Ryder, Edwards ? with a pad of vellum paper and oil-based markers in hand ? brings life to the high-profile trials and court appearances of the rich, famous and infamous that capture the imagination of this star-obsessed city.

“Any courtroom can be a fascinating place, but my courtroom is located in the heart of the glamorous, scandalous City of Angels...” begins Edwards in Captured! Inside the World of Celebrity Trials, her collection of sketches and remembrances of nearly 50 trials and court appearances, published by Santa Monica Press.

“What I do captures a little bit of the soul of the case,” Edwards, 54, said. “There’s more humanity in a drawing than in a photograph.”

Edwards began her career as a fashion illustrator and said sketching allows her to be the “fly-on-the-wall” that photographers cannot be since defendants, witnesses and lawyers alike often feel threatened by cameras or alter their performances to play up to them. Edwards estimates there are a mere dozen court artists in the US, all of whom hope that judges will bar cameras or video in their courts.

Drawing up to eightsketches a day, Edwards begins by seizing on a physical element of her subject, such as bushy eyebrows, an aquiline nose or a prominent jaw.

As she draws, Edwards awaits the “selling point,” the moment when her subject breaks down, bows to pray or suddenly sneers.

A sketch of .J. Simpson, acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole but found liable in the civil trial, shows him on the witness stand testifying about “wrassling” with her one evening.

Edwards’ drawing shows him clenching his fists as he describes the incident. “I was looking at his hands during the trial and was wondering what those hands did,” she recalled.

Edwards also notices details the casual observer would not. Michael Jackson’s perfectly symmetrical hairline and ever-changing hair length convinced her that he was wearing wigs during his molestation trial.