SOMERVILLE, N.J. — Jayson Williams scored a legal victory Tuesday when the judge in his manslaughter trial tossed out key testimony from a prosecution gun expert.

Somerset County Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman said the expert, state police Detective Sgt. James Ryan, did not follow a set of established scientific protocols in two of the experiments he performed on the gun that killed a chauffeur.

"There's nothing to indicate this is an accepted test in the scientific community," Coleman said in granting a defense motion to strike the testimony.

His decision came on the final day of testimony in the 11-week case. The defense rested its case and the prosecution opted not to call rebuttal witnesses. Summations are scheduled for Thursday.

In the tests at issue, Ryan slammed or flipped the 12-gauge Browning Citori shut while squeezing the trigger with what he described as less-than-maximum pressure. At least three times, the detective testified, the gun snapped shut and fired.

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Witnesses have said Williams flipped the shotgun shut with his finger on or near the trigger and that it immediately went off, killing driver Costas "Gus" Christofi.

Ryan, who first testified last month and returned to the stand this week at the request of the defense, acknowledged that he could not quantify the amount of pressure he applied to the trigger. He also conceded that he had difficulty recreating the experiment repeatedly because it was hard to reproduce the same amount of pressure each time.

Grilled by defense attorney Michael Kelly about what scientific protocols he used, Ryan said he followed a standard of reasonableness, but not any established protocol of the ballistics community.

Coleman said he did not think Ryan could offer his findings to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty — the standard for forensic experts in the state.

The ruling leaves other parts of Ryan's testimony in tact. Additional tests he performed indicated the gun was in good working order and would not fire if it was simply shut roughly without a trigger pull.

Lead prosecutor Steven Lember asked Coleman to give him more time to research the issue. He said he was caught off guard by the request from Williams' lawyer since the judge refused to strike the testimony when Ryan initially testified.

Coleman said his ruling stood, but held off informing jurors, saying to the prosecutor, "If you bring new information to me, I'll consider it."

The ruling was the second time in the trial that the defense has successfully argued for damning testimony to be struck from the record.

In February, medical examiner Steven Diamond testified that the victim was in a "defensive mode" when gunned down. The defense challenged his findings and Coleman later instructed the jury to disregard that characterization.

Williams, 36, a one-time All-Star New Jersey Net, sat with a Bible in front of him on the defense table. His wife, Tanya, came to court for the first time since the birth of the couple's second child last Tuesday.

Williams appeared to pay close attention Tuesday to the often dry testimony of two defense gun experts.

Richard Ernest and John Butters, both private ballistics consultants from Texas, were recalled by the defense as witnesses after a judge determined prosecutors had withheld evidence concerning their own gun expert.

The witnesses criticized prosecution expert Larry Nelson for what they referred to as a "secret examination" of the shotgun. Defense attorneys did not receive photos and notes making clear Nelson had partially disassembled the gun for testing until after they had rested their case.

Ernest said he would have altered his own report had he known about Nelson's testing.

"I would've put in disclaimers regarding tampering with the evidence," he said.

Ernest added that for Nelson, chief engineer of Browning, to inspect his own company's weapon for problems was "letting the fox guard the chicken coop."

Coleman ordered the jury to ignore the remark.

Under questioning from Lember, however, both men admitted that Nelson disclosed the exam, if not the disassembly, in reports provided to them. In contentious exchanges wtih the prosecutor, Ernest said he overlooked the references in Nelson's report, and Butters called the two mentions "misleading."

The acrimonious testimony about small details of one of several gun examinations done in the case was interrputed repeatedly by lengthy sidebar conferences. Some jurors smiled and shook their heads as the attorneys and experts battled, but others appeared bored and impatient.

Williams faces 55 years in prison if convicted of aggravated manslaughter and seven other charges stemming from the Feb. 14, 2002, shooting at his mansion. He insists the death was an accident caused by a malfunction in the gun.

Lawyers will be back in court Wednesday to hammer out the details of the jury instructions.