Jesse James Hollywood is on trial in Santa Barbara for the murder of Nicholas Markowitz in 2000. Part one of our coverage, regarding the beginning of the trial, was published here on May 27; part two, describing the witnesses for the prosecution, was published here on June 18.

SANTA BARBARA-Yesterday I arrived at the Santa Barbara courthouse during the trial's lunch break, and so I wandered over to a small café off the main shopping drag. The place was called Judge For Yourself. Jack Hollywood and his family, all blondes with tan skin and bright clothing, sat at a corner table with their diner fare. I approached the counter and kept my gaze locked on the menu.

I remembered when, after we had witnessed Jesse James Hollywood get fingerprinted and jailed, we-the Markowitz family, some friends and I-went to eat at a family diner south of Santa Barbara. When we asked for the check, a teary-eyed waitress explained that the bill had been taken care of. She delicately put her arms around Nick's mother.

This time, I ordered a BLT. Over on the wall by where the Hollywood family were eating was a hand-stitched needlework. It read: "Lawyers don't die, they just lose their appeal."

District Attorney Joshua Lynn held up an 8 by 10 photograph for the defendant. The picture was a school portrait of a sleepy-eyed boy with gelled brown hair and a sideways smile.

"Whom is this a picture of?" Lynn asked Jesse James Hollywood, who took the stand in his own defense this week.

"It's a picture of Nicholas Markowitz," Hollywood said.

"Do you realize that in your three hours of direct examination today you rarely mentioned Nick's name?" Lynn asked.

Hollywood stammered. Lynn went on: "This is what Nick looked like." Throughout the cross examination, Lynn made sure to only reference Nick in the past tense and he made sure Hollywood did the same.

Hollywood is the first witness for the defense. His testimony is, to be quite obvious, is meant to present a narrative for his case. Instead of being the masterminding drug-thug who exacted revenge on Ben Markowitz by abducting and murdering Ben's younger brother Nick, Hollywood portrays himself as a passive bystander to the violence. Hollywood maintains that when he and three other men assaulted Nick and "ushered" him into a van, he had no further plans to physically harm Nick. And although the gun that was used to kill Nick belonged to Hollywood, he was not present for its use. In this version, the slap-dash capture and subsequent murder of Nick Markowitz up in the mountains was devised and perpetrated by Hollywood's crew.

Lynn asked how much force Hollywood used when he pinned him against a tree, while his previously-convicted accomplices William Skidmore and Jesse Rugge punched Nick in the stomach before they threw him in the van.

Hollywood explained that he had to use a significant amount of strength because "Nick is taller than me."

"Nick was taller than you. He was taller than you, Mr. Hollywood," Lynn said.

Lynn's questioning was controlled, methodical, and unrelenting. He challenged Hollywood to make definitive statements about the "decision-making." Lynn insisted that Hollywood pinpoint whether he believed each action he took "was a good idea or a bad idea."

Hollywood responded with the same answer several times: "It was a stupid idea."

Judge Brian Hill interrupted, unprompted. "You are not testifying on how you feel now," he said. "You are testifying on how you felt then."

Hollywood contends that it was because Ben Markowitz had smashed the windows of his West Hills home that he was motivated to drive by the Markowitz's house. According to Hollywood, he was looking for a confrontation with Ben. "It was the straw that broke the camel's back," he said.

Instead they found Nick.

Throughout his entire testimony, Hollywood has been careful to not use the words "kidnap" or "murder." He consistently referred to the crimes he's being accused of "the situation" or " the incident." Lynn tried to dismantle Hollywood's benign language. When Hollywood wouldn't budge, Lynn sarcastically adopted Hollywood's descriptions. Lynn referred to Nick's abduction as "the event that caused Nick to be ushered into the van." Several jury members smirked.

Hollywood is a compact man. He is short with broad shoulders, a strong jaw, and arching cheekbones. He has a soft, strangled voice. And though he spent the past four years in Brazil, where he married and fathered a child, he still maintains the Southern California affectation of dragging the last word of every sentence upwards so most of his statements sound like questions. He also has a sedate but irrepressible swagger. If we were in school, a teacher would call it "getting cute."

Lynn asked what was going through Hollywood's mind when he encountered Nick that night. Hollywood said he wasn't thinking of anything specific. After several minutes of phrasing and rephrasing the question to draw a more concrete response, Lynn asked, "Do you think you were being irrational?"

"You could say that," Hollywood said.

"I am saying that. What do you say?" Lynn asked.

"About what?" asked Hollywood.

Whenever Lynn was able to get Hollywood to reveal any unsavory details about his character, Hollywood would double back and contort his testimony. Lynn asked Hollywood when he decided to have the murder weapon, a Tech DC-9 machine gun, modified from semi-automatic. Hollywood said he couldn't recall and said that even though he owned a machine gun, a pistol, and a rifle, he wasn't really a "gun person."

This careful avoidance of culpability made his testimony appear over-rehearsed. Hollywood said he regretted "the terrible situation" so many times that eventually the judge asked him to stop. Hollywood's detached, dry repetition of remorse, the kind of penance found in high school detention hall, was undermined by what he was so obviously omitting. Whatever humanizing counter-narrative Hollywood was expected to create while telling a story that we have waited to hear for nearly a decade-well, none of it materialized.