FOR THE DEFENSE
Roger Synenberg, 58, of Cleveland is Donna Moonda's lead attorney. He drew wide attention in 2005 by employing a battered-woman defense that kept an Ohio housewife from going to prison. The defendant, Traci Heath, hired a "hit man" -- actually an undercover policeman -- to murder her husband. Mr. Synenberg argued that she was an abused woman who was terrified of her spouse. A judge sympathetic to Mrs. Heath placed her on probation after she pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated murder. But an appeals court this year threw out the sentence, saying it was too lenient. She must be resentenced and likely will go to prison.

Lawrence J. Whitney, 58, is one of the leading defense lawyers in Akron, Ohio, where Mrs. Moonda will be tried. He is perhaps best-known for his defense of Denny Ross, who stood trial for his life in the 1999 rape and murder of 18-year-old Hannah Hill. Jurors voted to acquit Mr. Ross, but the judge declared a mistrial before their verdict could be announced. Mr. Ross later was convicted of raping and beating a different woman. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

David L. Grant, 55, of Cleveland, will handle the penalty phase of the trial if Mrs. Moonda is convicted. At that point, jurors would decide whether she lives or dies. Mr. Grant typically is lead counsel in murder trials. In one of his notable cases, he won an acquittal in 1997 for a Parma, Ohio, man who was charged with murdering his 3-month-old daughter. Prosecutors said the man suffocated the baby out of spite after breaking up with her mother.

FOR THE PROSECUTION
Linda Barr, 49, is a career prosecutor with experience in Pennsylvania and Ohio. She worked for five years as an assistant district attorney in Mercer County, Pa., where the Moondas lived. Ms. Barr then spent 13 years on the Pennsylvania attorney general's staff. She prosecuted two men in 2002 for the murder of Aliquippa police Officer James Naim. Jurors convicted the shooter, but acquitted his alleged accomplice. Ms. Barr became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Ohio four years ago.

Nancy Kelley, 53, has been an assistant U.S. attorney for 15 years. Before that she was a state prosecutor in Summit County, Ohio. She won convictions in 2005 against two Cleveland men accused of kidnapping and murdering an FBI informant, then starting a gunfight with FBI agents. Both received life sentences. Many of Ms. Kelley's prosecutions in recent years were in concert with Project Safe Neighborhoods, a program to reduce gun violence by targeting armed felons.