BRASILIA - At 5:46 p.m. this Wednesday, the 10th, Minister Alexandre de Moraes yawned for a long time. Aware that he was being watched by lawyers and journalists, he quickly covered his mouth. Before that, Attorney General Paulo Gonet, who had a tired expression on his face, left the First Chamber's plenary session for more than 10 minutes and returned with a look of seriousness and fatigue on his face. Shortly thereafter, Moraes did the same, also leaving his chair for 10 minutes. But the day didn't start that way.

In the morning, Justice Luiz Fux enjoyed the full attention of his peers, but their focus waned as his vote dragged on late into the afternoon, generating an additional extraordinary session in the trial of the crucial core of the coup plot. The voting agenda initially set by the President of the Court, Cristiano Zanin, called for only about four hours of discussion in the early part of the day.

Fux overcame the lengthy five-hour vote of rapporteur Moraes. The legal reasoning presented by the minister lasted more than eight hours and required two 10-minute breaks, in addition to a one-hour lunch break. The minister's initial explanation was listened to attentively by his peers without interruption, which required even greater focus from those present in the First Chamber, as he had warned his colleagues the day before that he would not want to be challenged on his arguments.

Before the lunch break around 1 p.m., Justices Moraes, Cármen Lúcia, and Flávio Dino could be seen taking notes and analyzing documents while listening to Fux's vote. This behavior changed in the afternoon, when justices like Moraes and Dino could be seen fiddling with their cell phones, drinking coffee, and staring at the white light on the ceiling for a few seconds. Cármen continued organizing papers and writing.

Zanin, as president of the First Chamber, kept shifting his gaze from the laptop in front of him to Fux's face. He remained this way throughout the day. The justice changed his posture only a few times during the trial, only to take off his glasses and rub his eyes.

Fux announced last Tuesday, the 9th, that his vote would be extensive, but few expected the explanation to be so long. The minister divided his oral arguments between an in-depth analysis of the preliminary issues, a lengthy theoretical explanation of each of the crimes under discussion, and an individualization of the conduct of each of the defendants, presenting different reasons for acquittal and conviction on each charge.

Later in the morning, Fux unintentionally tested the First Chamber audience's attention. The justice was discussing Supreme Court case law when he used the word"vista," which means suspension of the judgment. This revealed that some in the plenary session weren't entirely focused on his vote, as a buzz quickly began about whether the justice would suspend the vote after presenting so many arguments. Moraes, who had been paying attention, laughed.