"Star status means things have to be a little different," he said. "You just can't have a celebrity walking about, going to the cafeteria — people running up to ask for autographs."

Others, however, say the courthouse has gone too far.

"It's outrageous," Manny Medrano, a Los Angeles-based defense attorney and former television reporter who regularly comments on high-profile cases. "It sends the wrong signal to the world — that if you are a celebrity, you won't be treated like everyone."

Her treatment may be a result of Chicago's relative lack of experience with celebrity cases. In Southern California, said Medrano, people expect celebrities to be treated at court like everyone else.

The unease of the Hudson trial judge shows. He spent months compiling special decorum rules, including bans on tweets from court, and appears to eye journalists' every move in his courtroom. He threw one out for half a day after spotting her holding a pen in the corner of her mouth, deeming it a distraction.