THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Shock of Goldman Photos Forces Early Adjournment : Simpson trial: Ito ends day after family, some jurors are overcome. Turmoil over panel seems to have subsided.

Ronald Lyle Goldman, whose death has loomed for months in the background of the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, re-emerged in testimony and photographs Thursday as jurors recoiled at pictures of the face of his corpse. His family, ashen and sobbing, sat just a few feet away.

The shock and horror of the autopsy photographs, which jurors at first had seemed to be adjusting to, appeared to overwhelm several of them. After breaking to allow one upset juror to leave the courtroom carrying a handkerchief--and after expressing concern for the obviously distraught Goldmans--Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito called off the session almost two hours early.

“This has been a long day,” Ito said, looking directly at the visibly affected members of the jury and audience. “We’re going to take a recess at this time. . . . All right? See you tomorrow morning.”

The panelists then shuffled out of the courtroom for the day, but they will be called upon to hear more grisly testimony when the trial resumes today. Outside court, sources said all juror investigations have come to an end, suggesting that no more changes in the dwindling panel are imminent.

Testifying for the first time about Goldman’s injuries, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran told the jurors that Goldman was stabbed and slashed to death and that all those wounds could have been caused by a single knife. Two of the cuts, he added, appeared to have been the result of Goldman’s assailant drawing the knife across the victim’s throat threateningly while holding him still--a brutal and chilling scenario acted out in front of the jury.

“You can see this type of injury when somebody is immobilized,” the coroner said, “and you are threatening to do bodily harm to them.”

Although some of Goldman’s wounds suggest that he put up a fight, the young man probably lost strength as cuts to his throat, lung and elsewhere robbed him of blood pressure and vitality, Sathyavagiswaran said. Eventually, Goldman succumbed to the ferocious assault, slumping near a fence outside Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium.

Goldman, Sathyavagiswaran said softly, experienced “death at the hands of another: homicide.”

Later, he added that the attacker delivered several sets of potentially lethal blows, causing bleeding in various vital parts of Goldman’s body.

“Without medical treatment,” the coroner said, Goldman “would have died within five minutes.”

Earlier in the day, jurors had appeared to grow accustomed to the litany of autopsy photographs and descriptions, listening carefully and attentively as Sathyavagiswaran testified about more injuries to Nicole Simpson. But when the coroner turned to the depiction of Goldman’s fatal wounds, the display of the photographs, some of which depict the victim’s head and face, immediately stunned the panel.

One older man on the jury gagged and appeared to choke. He reached for a white monogrammed handkerchief and wiped his face. A juror sitting next to him turned toward him, and Ito’s clerk came over a few minutes later, asking if he could continue. He nodded, and she returned to her chair.

Another juror, a 24-year-old receptionist for a fire department, stared into the distance. Two of her colleagues looked forward to see how she was faring, and when the trial broke for a brief sidebar conference, another juror offered her a candy.

Later, the testimony was interrupted briefly when a 37-year-old Bellflower woman, long considered one of the jury’s more emotional members, signaled that she needed a break and was excused. After waiting for her for several minutes, Ito eventually decided to halt the proceedings.

The Goldmans were even more overcome. Bracing for the photographs to be introduced, Goldman’s father, sister and stepmother had pressed close together and joined hands. A member of the prosecution team handed them tissues, which they clutched as Sathyavagiswaran began to testify about the injuries.

When he described the wounds to Goldman’s neck, Fred Goldman, the victim’s father, began to sob heavily. When the coroner said that Goldman might have been able to live had he gotten immediate medical care for his injuries, Fred Goldman dropped his chin to his chest, tears streaming openly but silently from his bowed head.

Seeing the Goldmans crying, a sheriff’s deputy approached with three small cups of water on a white tray. They accepted them gratefully and sipped from them when the testimony was interrupted for a recess.

Although the Goldmans sit less than 15 feet from the jurors, the panelists did not make eye contact with the victim’s family. Only one juror, a 43-year-old marketing representative, glanced at the Goldmans. He looked at them for a moment, then turned back to the testimony of the coroner.

For his part, Simpson seemed far less disconcerted than when the testimony centered on the injuries to his ex-wife. Thursday afternoon, the defendant watched the coroner as he testified, in contrast to Simpson’s refusal even to glance toward that side of the courtroom when the fatal blows to Nicole Simpson were described.

Simpson has pleaded not guilty to the June 12 murders of his ex-wife and Goldman. Although Simpson, through his lawyers, had originally warned that he did not believe he could stand to stay in the courtroom while the autopsy of Nicole Simpson was described, he stayed throughout, though he spent much of the time distracted and consoled by members of his legal team.

The testimony about Goldman’s injuries marked the first time that jurors have heard about how the 25-year-old Mezzaluna waiter was killed late on the night of June 12. Although prosecutors have said Goldman stumbled upon the murder scene in a good-natured attempt to return a pair of eyeglasses, the vast bulk of the case so far has focused on Nicole Simpson and her relationship to the defendant.

But while Nicole Simpson’s family has declined to attend the sessions centering on her autopsy, the Goldmans have made a point of occupying their places in the front row. On Thursday, they stayed until the end, never budging from their seats, even when they were overcome with emotion.

Jury Problems Subside

The panelists on hand for Thursday’s session included the 12 jurors and two alternates left after this week’s latest jury shuffle, in which two of the jurors were dismissed. That expulsion sent a shock wave through the trial and raised anew the fears that a mistrial could soon result.

On Thursday, however, sources said the turmoil that has surrounded the jury for months at least temporarily has subsided.

One juror, the 43-year-old marketing representative who sits in the front row of the jury box, has been under investigation for possibly failing to disclose a past allegation of domestic abuse. But sources close to the case said that while the juror had been accused of domestic violence, the allegation was raised in the course of his divorce and never was formally presented to him because the documents containing the accusation were not served.

Parties close to that case have been questioned and confirmed that characterization, sources said.

As a result, there does not appear to be evidence that the man was misleading when, during jury selection, he denied past instances or allegations of domestic abuse.

That appears to end the current juror investigations, bringing some respite to a panel that has been embattled almost from the day it was seated.

Although she would not comment on any investigations of jurors, a court spokeswoman said that as far as she knew, there are no sitting jurors currently under investigation.

Allegations against various jurors have surfaced regularly during the trial, and the shrinking of the panel has raised widespread speculation that the remaining panelists--just 14 remain from an original group of 24--may not be enough to see the trial to its conclusion. The lull in investigations of panelists suggests that no more juror departures are imminent, but few people close to the case believe the panel will survive the rest of the trial in tact.

No Evidence of Rape

Before turning to the testimony about Goldman’s death, the coroner completed a grim recitation of the injuries to Nicole Simpson, testifying that no evidence suggested she had been the victim of a sexual assault and that his staff therefore was not to blame for failing to run a sexual assault test on her body.

Such a test, said Sathyavagiswaran, would not have helped identify the person or people who murdered her or Goldman, and would not have helped narrow the time of death--an issue the defense has raised throughout the trial.

Nicole Simpson’s clothing, which was not torn or in disarray when her body was found, did not in any way suggest that her attacker was carrying out a sexual assault, and she did not have injuries consistent with such an attack, Sathyavagiswaran said.

“She was fully clothed. The intimate apparel were in place,” he testified. “There was no evidence of any injuries to the thigh that I could see.”

The coroner also testified that Nicole Simpson had no evidence of drugs in her system when she died and only a modest amount of alcohol, far less than the legal standard for intoxication.

Again contradicting the findings of his subordinate, Sathyavagiswaran said marks on her back did not appear to be a bite, as Deputy Medical Examiner Irwin Golden initially concluded. And the chief coroner said that a mottled bruise on Nicole Simpson’s lower back could have been caused by a heavy assailant--Simpson weighs 210 pounds--standing on her back in preparation for administering the final slash to her throat, the wound the coroner said killed her.

Despite the graphic nature of that testimony, jurors did not appear especially disturbed. Some took notes and glanced back and forth between the coroner and the photographs he was describing.

Those photographs, however, were far less gruesome than the initial set of pictures showing the wounds to Nicole Simpson’s head and neck. And when the photographs of Ron Goldman were displayed, the first set included the most horrific of those pictures portraying the extensive wounds to his head, face, throat and chest.

Prosecution Theory Expanded

Beyond the emotional impact of the Goldman photographs, the coroner’s testimony about their significance added important elements to the prosecution theory of the crimes.

Sathyavagiswaran said, for instance, that the entire attack on Goldman could have been carried out in a minute or less--testimony that he was allowed to offer over objections from one of Simpson’s attorneys, Robert L. Shapiro.

“Even within a minute it is possible,” the coroner said, “because he has a certain number of sharp force injuries which could have been inflicted in that short time.”

That testimony bolsters the prosecution’s suggestion that Goldman was killed while Nicole Simpson lay unconscious nearby. His testimony that a single knife could have caused all the wounds to Goldman and Nicole Simpson dovetails with the prosecution contention that a single assailant delivered all the blows.

And the coroner’s description of the assailant threatening Goldman with a knife to his throat strengthens the prosecution’s characterization of that killing as a premeditated murder, not an uncontrolled explosion of rage.