Winona: The Day After

She probably won't do jail time. She probably will seek a new trial. And her career? Well...

The jury might have returned a verdict in the Winona Ryder shoplifting trial, but it's still out when it comes to the actress' future.

One day after the two-time Oscar nominee became a first-time convicted felon, found guilty of theft and vandalism, the only sure date in Ryder's Filofax (the one, we learned during her 10-day trial, features phone numbers for Bono and Keanu Reeves) is this: December 6.

That's when the Reality Bites star, currently free on $20,000 bail, is due back in a Beverly Hills court for sentencing on the Saks Fifth Avenue un-shopping spree that shocked the world, or at least the part of it that cares about celebrity defendants.

The good news for Ryder is that, after pursuing the case with all the white-hot fervor of Inspector Javert after Jean Valjean, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office seems to have duly vented its spleen. Prosecutor Ann Rundle says she'll recommend the actress be sentenced to probation and community service, ordered to undergo counseling, and required to pay restitution to Saks.

"This case was never about jail time," Rundle said after Wednesday's guilty verdicts. "We wanted Ms. Ryder to take responsibility for her conduct."

Ultimately, the decision as to whether Ryder draws a maximum two-year guest spot in state prison will be up to the judge.

Ryder's defense, meanwhile, now moves onto mulling its next move. Camera-ready attorney Mark Geragos was uncharacteristically camera shy Wednesday. Per one report, he sped away from the courthouse in a sports car. Later, the frequent Larry King Live guest said he wouldn't be in talking-head mood until after sentencing, though he did allow he was "disappointed [with the verdicts] and plan to file a motion for a new trial."

During trial, Geragos argued that Saks security guards, whom comprised the majority of the prosecution's witnesses, lied about the events of December 12, 2001, the day Ryder was stopped outside the store, accused of stuffing her bags with 21 pieces of non-paid-for merchandise worth more than $5,500. But it's unclear how this claim would figure, if at all, into a Ryder appeal.

To Rundle, a Ryder appeal has about as much chance of succeeding as Autumn in New York has at making AFI's top 100 films of the 21st century list.

"I don't see any appeal issues," she said on CBS' Early Show Thursday. "I'm very comfortable with our conviction. I have no concerns about whether or not it will be overturned."

Whether or not the case will win the D.A.'s office style points is another matter.

Legal experts have long questioned why the Ryder case wasn't settled before a trial, or why prosecutors were intent on extracting the maximum pain for an offense that would never be confused with the crime of the century.

"This was all designed to show we can win high-profile cases," an unnamed prosecutor in the D.A.'s office told the Los Angeles Daily Journal. The source labeled the trial "a witch hunt."

To the district attorney himself, Steve Cooley, the Ryder case was a matter of what's good for the regular person is good for the famous person.

"The jury trial verdicts indicate that in Los Angeles County, justice is blind regardless of the status of the accused," Cooley said in a statement.

But a study of similar shoplifting cases in Beverly Hills by TV's Celebrity Justice showed that of the 17 incidents in 2001 involving more than $1,000 of allegedly stolen goods, only Ryder was held to felony charges of grand theft and burglary. (Any amount above $400 is grounds for felony grand theft.)

On Wednesday, Ryder was cleared of the burglary charge. Juror Dr. Walter Fox told NBC's Today that he and his fellow trial-watchers couldn't be sure that the actress walked into Saks intending to walk out of it with stolen socks, and what-not. (Intent is key to a burglary charge.)

But on the matter of theft, Fox said the grainy security-cam footage proved to be the clincher.

"I think the most damaging thing was that everybody saw her walking out of the door on the videotape and when they apprehended her, she had the merchandise that belonged to the store that had not been paid for and some of which had been vandalized," Fox said on the morning-news show.

Fellow juror Peter Guber wasn't as chatty. The trial's second-most famous player--Guber is a former Sony honcho who now runs Mandalay Entertainment--shunned the spotlight Wednesday, saying in a statement: "I have fulfilled my obligation to the court as a private citizen and will have no further comment on the matter."

Ryder wasn't in the mood to gab, either. Waiting to catch the elevator in the courthouse after the verdicts Wednesday, the actress, who turned 31 during the trial, begged off the "Thanks for asking," she told the horde. "I just can't talk right now."

In a statement released later by her rep, Ryder thanked family and friends who had supported her, "especially during this time."

The big question now is: Will Hollywood support her?

In an Industry where Hugh Grant got caught in the company of a lady named Divine Brown on the eve of the release of what was then his biggest Hollywood film, Nine Months, to no ill effects, it seems unlikely misappropriated hair bows will make render Ryder an untouchable.

Truth is even before the arrest, Ryder's film career was not exactly cooking. Finding the transition from gamine to grownup difficult, she'd starred in two bombs (2000's Lost Souls and Autumn in New York) and gotten upstaged by Angelina Jolie in her would-be comeback vehicle (1999's Girl, Interrupted).

The Adam Sandler 2002 comedy, Mr. Deeds, in which she had a supporting role as The Girlfriend, offered Ryder her largest audience in nearly a decade. The last commercially successful film in which she starred was 1994's Little Women.

It's enough to drive an actress to shop her troubles away. On second thought...