JUNE 5 - Judge Lance Ito dismissed two more jurors, leaving only two alternates in the case that could last several more months.
The defense filed an emergency appeal asking a California appeals court to reinstate one of the jurors. The court denied the motion on the grounds that trial judges enjoy almost absolute discretion in removing jurors. The defense had accused the prosecution of engineering the removal of black jurors to gain an unfair tactical advantage and "ultimately to secure a mistrial."
The latest furor over the embattled jury panel prompted Judge Ito to suspend testimony until Tuesday. He also delayed ruling on O.J. Simpson's request to be absent from the court during testimony about the autopsies on Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
The dismissed jurors -- a 28-year-old female real estate appraiser and a 54-year-old male postal operations manager -- had reportedly been under scrutiny for some time.
The female panelist had been investigated for passing a note to Francine Florio-Bunten, the juror who was dismissed late last month. The note may have concerned Florio-Bunten's alleged deal to write a book. The male juror had reportedly been the subject of complaints from other panelists that he was a bully.
Judge Ito will name replacements for the dismissed panelists on Tuesday, when Los Angeles Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran is expected to resume his testimony.
In asking that Simpson be excused from court during the autopsy evidence, defense attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. said, "Mr. Simpson does not want to hear that testimony. He does not plan to look at the photographs. This is very difficult for those who loved these people."
Deputy District Attorney Marcia Clark said case law allows Simpson to be absent during the grisly displays, but stressed she didn't want him leaving in the middle of the testimony.
"In that manner," she told Judge Ito, "the court will ensure that the proceedings are respectful and not turned into a circus sideshow for maudlin displays by the defendant and that he can preserve his right, exercise his right to be absent in the appropriate manner that shows proper respect for these proceedings."
JUNE 6 - The jury saw the first of the grisly autopsy photographs of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and heard detailed testimony about the murders.
Los Angeles County Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran also testified about mistakes made by Dr. Irwin Golden, who performed the autopsies. But Dr. Sathyagiswaran said the minor mistakes did not change his opinion about the cause and manner of the deaths.
Meanwhile, Judge Lance Ito named two black women to the jury to to replace the jurors dismissed Monday. The jury now has nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic. There are now ten women and two men.
In another jury-related matter, the judge scheduled a hearing for June 16 to look into defense claims that prosecutors are targeting black jurors for dismissal from the panel.
The jury and two remaining alternates heard Dr. Sathyavagiswaran offer a detailed description of how Nicole Simpson and Goldman died.
The jury was shown a dozen photographs of Nicole Simpson's body on a diagram board angled so that no courtroom spectators could see them.
The medical examiner then graphically described a photograph that showed Nicole Brown Simpson's face above a gaping neck wound exposing a part of her spinal chord.
He said the photos helped prove the theory that Nicole Simpson bled to death and was probably on the ground, face-down and unconscious, when her killer pulled back her head by the hair and slit her throat.
To demonstrate, the coroner grabbed a chunk of prosecutor Brian Kelberg's hair, pulled Kelberg's head back and brought his hand across the prosecutor's throat with a ruler to show the left-to-right slashing motion of the knife.
The pathologist also showed jurors four knives and described how the same sort of knife could cause various sizes and types of injuries. He testified that the nearly 30 stab wounds inflicted on the victims all could have come from the same single-edged knife. But he also conceded that he could not rule out a double-edged knife as a possible murder weapon..
Dr. Sathyavagiswaran conceded that Dr. Irwin Golden, who performed the autopsies, made as many as 30 errors. The errors included Golden's failure to record an injury on Nicole Simpson's brain; the mislabeling of a sample of Goldman's bile as urine; the failure to document several tears on Goldman's shirt and jeans; and the failure to take a palm print from Nicole Simpson's left hand.
The questioning was clearly an attempt by prosecutors to pre-empt attacks by the defense on the competence of Dr. Golden.
During the testimony, Simpson rocked quietly in his chair although his view of the photographs was obscured from his seat at the defense table. He had asked to be absent from the courtroom during the autopsy testimony but stayed nevertheless.
JUNE 7 - Nicole Brown Simpson was probably knocked unconscious in a struggle before her assailant turned to Ronald Goldman and killed him, according to Los Angeles coroner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, testifying Wednesday for the prosecution.
As Nicole Simpson lay face down on the ground, the assailant returned to her, yanked her hair to pull her head back, and slit her throat, according to Dr. Sathyavagiswaran's theory, which is based on autopsies of the victims.
It was Dr. Sathyavagiswaran's third day of testimony, and the jury was shown more gruesome autopsy photos and heard graphic descriptions of the murders.
The prosecution continued its painstakingly detailed direct examination in an attempt to preempt the defense's anticipated cross-examination regarding Dr. Sathyavagiswaran's subordinate, deputy coroner Irwin Golden.
With diagrams and a pointer, Dr. Sathyavagiswaran described the victim's wounds and how they were inflicted. At times, he used prosecutor Brian Kelberg as a model to show how a killer could have slashed and stabbed Nicole Brown's neck. Dr. Sathyavagiswaran clenched an imaginary knife in his hand and made a stabbing motion at the right side of Kelberg's neck.
On the night of her murder, Nicole Simpson tried to fight back, Dr. Sathyavagiswaran concluded from the cuts and bruises on her hands. The blow to the head she received not only knocked her out, it bruised her brain, he said.
When her neck was slit, he said, she was probably face down because she did not swallow blood through her air pipe. The fatal wound was probably inflicted by a right-handed person using a single-edged knife, he said.
Dr. Sathyavagiswaran acknowledged several mistakes made by Golden. He downplayed them, saying they were insignificant because they didn't affect the manner or cause of death.
For a third time, Judge Lance Ito told jurors that they could ask for breaks if the autopsy photos disturbed them. No juror asked for one. The judge admonished members of the court audience for "contorting" themselves, apparently either to see the autopsy photos or the jury's reaction to them.
O.J. Simpson, seated at the defense table throughout the day, could not see the photographs, which were displayed on an easel visible to the jury and a few reporters.
Also Wednesday, the defense witness list shrank after Mary Anne Gerchas pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles court to three felony theft charges. She was expected to testify that she saw three men near the crime scene on the night of the murders. Gerchas faces up to six years and four months in prison.
JUNE 8 - The court day abruptly ended when one juror appeared close to breaking down as a coroner described the horrifying death of Ronald Goldman.
The juror, a 37-year-old black woman who sits in the front row of the jury box, left the courtroom during the testimony of Los Angeles County Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran. The juror was seated immediately in front of the autopsy photos which showed Goldman's brutally slashed body.
Before court ended, the prosecution had started to question Dr. Sathyavagiswaran about the details of how Goldman was killed. Dr. Sathyavagiswaran testified the killer may have held a knife to Goldman's throat, slicing superficial, parallel wounds, while threatening him. He also testified that it could have taken a man of O.J. Simpson's strength and size less than a minute to inflict the wounds on Goldman.
The doctor told prosecutor Brian Kelberg that he believed the killer was holding Goldman from behind and sliced a knife lightly across his throat before inflicting a final gash that severed Goldman's jugular vein and damaged his aorta.
Before the testimony turned to Goldman's death, Kelberg spent much of the day again going over the mistakes in the autopsy performed by Dr. Irwin Golden on Nicole Brown Simpson.
Dr. Sathyavagiswaran defended Dr. Golden's decision not to examine Nicole Simpson for signs of sexual assault. "I didn't feel it was necessary," he said, because the circumstances surrounding her death suggested that rape was not a motive.
"She was fully clothed," he said. "The intimate apparel were in place."
JUNE 9 - The Los Angeles County coroner continued his gruesome descriptions of the fatal stab wounds to Ronald Goldman as the judge cautioned jurors not to be swayed by their feelings.
"In evaluating the evidence that is presented to you in this case, I want to instruct you that you must not be influenced by mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling," Judge Lance Ito told the jurors.
The admonition came as Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaram testified for a sixth day. He described two gaping slash wounds in Goldman's neck - one six inches long that pierced his jugular vein, the other three inches long.
Goldman's killer, he testified, could have slashed the victim in less than a minute, trapping him in a small gated area of Nicole Brown Simpson's condominium that left him nowhere to run.
"If Mr. Goldman was confronted by the assailant in this confined area, he has no place to escape, especially if he is cornered between that railing and the tree and that sapling," the coroner said. "He's stuck there."
To show the jury how be believed Goldman was attacked, Dr. Sathyavagiswaram held prosecutor Brian Kelberg from behind with his left arm. With his right hand, he drew a ruler, representing a knife, across Kelberg's neck.
Meanwhile, Judge Ito denied a defense request to adjourn court on Monday - the anniversary of the murders.
