SOMERVILLE, N.J. — Jayson Williams wants jurors in his manslaughter trial to tour his estate and see the master bedroom where he shot and killed a chauffeur.

A lawyer for the former NBA star asked a judge Monday to allow the visit, known as a jury view, saying the panelists would be in a better position to determine the circumstances of the driver's death.

"The scene is critical in terms of understanding what happened and the best evidence is going out to the scene under the tight supervision of the court," defense lawyer Joseph Hayden Jr. told Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman.

Hayden proposed jurors be escorted around the circumference of Williams' 61-acre property, which includes a lake, skeet-shooting range, putting green, antique car garage and working farm, and then see various rooms in his 41-room mansion, culminating with the bedroom where Costas "Gus" Christofi was gunned down on Feb. 14, 2002.

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The driver was killed as Williams gave a midnight tour of his property to four Harlem Globetrotters and several other friends.

Assistant Hunterdon County Prosecutor Katharine Errickson opposed the trip. She told the judge that a tour of the enormous home Williams shares with his pregnant wife and toddler might lead jurors to feel more sympathy for Williams.

"It's hard to articulate a way the jury could not sympathize — this wonderful estate, seeing everything the defendant has accomplished and seeing this memorabilia of all the wonderful people the defendant has come in contact with," she said.

The prosecutor also suggested that two years after the shooting, it would be impossible to arrange Williams' bedroom exactly as it was. Instead, she argued, jurors should rely on more than 100 police photographs already in evidence, a video of the death scene and diagrams drawn by the eyewitnesses.

Hayden said Williams had kept the furniture, including the gun cabinet and bloody rug, in storage in anticipation of such a view. Williams nodded his head as his lawyer spoke and when the attorney struggled for a word to explain how the defense could be sure the bloody rug would be returned to the right position, Williams piped up, "shading" — an apparent reference to fade marks that could indicate the carpet's previous place on the floor.

Hayden also said the view would help jurors gauge distances and lines of sight in the bedroom and help determine whether prosecution witnesses, including former pro basketball players Benoit Benjamin and Kent Culuko, testified truthfully about what they saw of the shooting.

"The single, biggest issue in this case is going to be who to believe in terms of the eyewitnesses: What did they see? When did they see it? What was their vantage point?" Hayden said.

Judge Coleman could rule on the jury view as soon as Tuesday afternoon. The discussion of the view came as the judge suspended testimony for two days to address several legal issues. Jurors are scheduled to return to court Wednesday when the defense will open its case with the testimony of several experts.

Prosecutors Errickson and Steven Lember asked the judge to limit the testimony of three of those witnesses — noted forensic pathologists Michael Baden and Cyril Wecht and gun examiner Richard Ernest. The prosecutors said each of the defense experts had "surprised" them with last-minute supplements to their original reports.

Of Ernest, who submitted a report Sunday, five days after the prosecution rested its case, Lember said, "This man had almost two years to do whatever testing he wanted to do. To wait until the state puts on its case ... and then come forward with this information is just plain unfair."

Baden and Wecht also submitted additional reports last week.

Hayden and fellow defense attorney Billy Martin defended the new reports, saying their experts were reacting to the testimony of prosecution witnesses and experts. Martin accused the prosecution of trying to get any evidence beneficial to the defense tossed out.

Coleman said he would review the testimony and the reports and issue a decision Tuesday afternoon.

The prosecution also asked the judge to bar the defense from showing jurors an animated presentation concerning mechanical problems that may have caused Williams' 12-gauge Browning Citori shotgun to misfire.

According to the lawyers' statements in court Monday, the three-minute animation shows the inner workings of the shotgun and suggests two possible reasons the gun may have gone off by itself.

At one point, the animation shows the "pristine" firing mechanism of a brand-new weapon and then contrasts it with the dirty mechanism of Williams' 10-year-old gun. Finally, the animation shows a wood chip resting on the mechanism and causing the gun to malfunction.

A wood chip was found in the gun's inner workings and a prosecution expert conceded it may have made the Browning discharge without Williams ever touching the trigger.

Lember said the animation is objectionable because it shows the wood chip on the firing mechanism — something that no expert who examined the gun ever saw.

"It has the clear capacity to confuse the jury ... into thinking this is what happened, and there's no evidence that this is what happened," said Lember.

Martin said the animation only demonstrated a theory, not a fact and that the graphic presentation was a "far cleaner, more professional way" for jurors to understand the testimony of defense ballistics experts.

Also Monday, the defense asked the judge to dismiss all eight counts against Williams, saying the prosecution had fallen "woefully short" of meeting its burden of proof. It is standard for defense attorneys to ask for a complete dismissal at the end of the prosecution's case, but such motions are rarely successful.

Williams, 36, faces 55 years in prison if convicted of aggravated manslaughter and seven other charges stemming from Christofi's shooting and an alleged cover-up that followed.