Goldman Cornered in Attack, Coroner Says

Sketching a chilling scenario in calm, forthright tones, the medical examiner who reviewed autopsies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman testified Friday that Goldman was cornered in a virtual cage of fences, railings and trees--and was unable to flee his attacker.

The coroner, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, emphasized that a single murderer could have killed Goldman in a savage but stunningly brief attack of less than a minute.

Pumping his right hand up and down as though stabbing with a knife, Sathyavagiswaran told the attentive jurors: “Take any knife . . . plunge it quickly [and] you could cause 15 wounds in a few seconds.”

In a rare lighthearted moment, Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Kelberg added quickly: “I assume the court will admonish everyone not to go home and do [that].”

While most of Friday’s testimony was dry and clinical--a detailed account of the wounds, cuts and abrasions Goldman suffered--there were moments of drama. Sathyavagiswaran several times re-enacted the attack by grabbing Kelberg from behind in a bulky body lock and pretending to slice or stab him with a wooden ruler across the neck.

In one such demonstration, Sathyavagiswaran urged Kelberg to wrestle free, to show the jurors how Goldman might have received a deep, twisting neck wound while trying to escape.

Although his view was partially blocked by a prosecution chart, Fred Goldman, the victim’s father, was clearly disturbed by the noisy mock struggle. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

But that expression of grief was decidedly low-key compared to Goldman’s outburst of sobbing during Thursday’s court session, when he first heard testimony about the many brutal injuries his son suffered. Sitting with his wife and daughter in the front row, Goldman maintained a stoic, quiet demeanor throughout Friday’s session.

The jurors, too, seemed to have steeled themselves. The gruesome autopsy photos that had badly shaken several panelists Thursday were placed much farther away from the jury box Friday, and most of the panel was able to get through the half-day of testimony without showing emotion.

Still, prosecutors and defense attorneys recognized the power of the autopsy photographs. At the defense’s request, Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito opened the session Friday morning by reminding jurors that “mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling” should not sway their verdict.

O.J. Simpson has pleaded not guilty to the murders of his ex-wife and Goldman.

Tougher Questioning

As part of his defense, Simpson’s attorneys have called attention to every mistake that police officers, lab technicians and criminalists may have committed during their investigation into the June 12 murders.

Bracing for a similar assault on the coroner’s office, prosecutors have decided to strike first, freely admitting that the autopsies were less than perfect. Kelberg has grilled Sathyavagiswaran again and again about mistakes made by Dr. Irwin Golden, the deputy medical examiner who conducted the autopsies.

On Friday, Kelberg toughened his already pointed questioning. When Sathyavagiswaran sought to characterize some possible errors as mere differences of opinion, Kelberg refused to let him downplay the problems. In an odd twist, the prosecutor urged his own witness to make damaging statements about the autopsy work.

And he repeatedly reminded Sathyavagiswaran to speak loudly so every juror could hear the recitation of errors.

In one exchange, Kelberg questioned Golden’s decision to count two distinct marks on Goldman’s neck as a single wound. Sathyavagiswaran said he did not agree with Golden’s analysis. But that mild censure was not enough for Kelberg. He bore down on the witness, repeating an earlier question and demanding a direct answer.

“Does [Golden’s opinion] make medical sense to you?” he asked.

“No,” Sathyavagiswaran answered.

Yet for all the time he spent discussing Golden’s failings, Sathyavagiswaran continued to insist that the errors were relatively minor. None of the mistakes, he said, affected the coroner’s ultimate determination of the time and manner of death, or the type of weapon used to kill Goldman and Nicole Simpson.

“We have nothing to hide,” Sathyavagiswaran said. Speaking of one particular mistake in characterizing a wound, he later added: “It wouldn’t affect my opinion as far as the big-picture items” are concerned.

Before he began his analysis of Golden’s errors, Sathyavagiswaran bolstered the prosecution’s theory that a single assailant committed the murders after surprising both victims outside Nicole Simpson’s condominium. Each victim, he said, could have been killed in a minute or less.

Groping to explain how one person could have overpowered two young, athletic victims so quickly, Sathyavagiswaran drew on familiar analogies.

Although 60 seconds may sound like an impossibly brief time frame to commit a murder, the coroner asked the jurors to consider how long one minute can be in some everyday situations. “We all heat our coffee cups in the microwave oven, and we all know that a minute takes a long time,” Sathyavagiswaran said.

He also reminded jurors how easily and quickly they can cut themselves while shaving. “It doesn’t take very long to [make] a sharp-force injury with a knife,” he said. “You’re talking about a very sharp instrument.”

The knife used to attack Goldman and Nicole Simpson, he said, was likely a single-edged blade. But “you can’t absolutely exclude a double-edged blade,” he added.

‘Pure Medical Opinion’

Responding to a set of hypothetical questions from Kelberg, Sathyavagiswaran said several factors could have improved an assailant’s chances of killing both Goldman and Nicole Simpson relatively quickly and quietly. If the murderer were muscular, agile, in good physical condition and bigger than both victims, the crimes would likely have been easier to carry out, he said.

Sathyavagiswaran took care to tell jurors that his testimony was based solely on “medical facts,” not on any prejudice against Simpson, the 210-pound former football star. He never based his analysis, he said, on a hypothesis proposed by either the prosecution or the defense.

“It’s pure medical opinion, and nothing more than that,” the coroner said.

Based on his study of the crime scene, Sathyavagiswaran concluded that Goldman was quickly cornered, and could not squirm away from the deadly knife. “If you have a confined space, you don’t have much space to move, so all the [aggressor’s] thrusts will land on the victim,” he explained.

The day’s testimony ended at noon, as usual on a Friday.

Because the coroner plans to attend an international conference Monday morning, Ito adjourned court until 1:30 that afternoon. Representatives of 48 news organizations will spend half an hour Monday morning viewing for the first time several dozen autopsy photographs in a courtroom next to Ito’s.

Noting that Monday will mark the one-year anniversary of the murders, defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. suggested canceling all testimony for that day. “I’d like to propose that for the court and for the victims that we take the balance of Monday off,” he said.

Kelberg promptly objected. “Quite frankly, I believe the sooner the case gets to the jury, the happier this jury will be,” he said. Noting that the next month will be filled with commemorative dates, including the one-year anniversary of the victims’ funerals, he added: “I think it would be wiser to move forward than to acknowledge [those anniversaries] and give them some sense of importance [and] influence that they should not have.”

Ito scheduled testimony to continue as usual Monday afternoon.

“Have a good weekend,” he told the jurors as they left the courtroom for their 150th night in sequestration.

Attorneys returned to the Criminal Courts Building after lunch for a hearing before Superior Court Judge J. Stephen Czuleger.

The proceeding focused on Robert Kardashian, who drove Simpson home from the airport the day after the murders, when the defendant returned from Chicago. Several pieces of Simpson’s luggage ended up at Kardashian’s home. Later, they re-emerged--empty--inside Simpson’s closet.

Hearing on Kardashian

Prosecutors want to call Kardashian as a witness to explain what happened to the bags. But defense lawyers argue that Kardashian’s interactions with Simpson should be protected under attorney-client privilege.

Kardashian, one of Simpson’s closest friends, was not an active-status lawyer at the time of the murders. Days later, he paid the fees necessary to reinstate his active status. He has since joined the defense team.

With the defense and prosecution at odds about the legality of calling Kardashian as a witness, Ito last month told prosecutors to give Czuleger a list of questions they would like to ask Kardashian. On Friday, Czuleger was to have used that list to question Kardashian, in the presence of attorneys from both sides.

Prosecutors, however, refused to tip their hand by announcing in advance how they would approach Kardashian on the witness stand. When they would not submit a single question, Czuleger adjourned the hearing.

While Kardashian may be off the hook for now, prosecutor Christopher A. Darden vowed to bring up the issue again, most likely before Ito.

“We’re not going to participate in any process that deprives us of our constitutional right to cross-examine and examine witnesses,” Darden said. “This is a viable issue and we’re going to pursue it.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Cheri Lewis said she plans to ask Ito to clarify the prosecution’s options for scheduling a new hearing on Kardashian. She pointed out that Kardashian appeared on a list of potential defense witnesses last fall, and argued that he should be able to testify for the prosecution now if he had been prepared to help out the defense then.

But Kardashian’s attorney, Janet Levine, said the prosecution had forfeited its chance for a hearing on the issue. “The prosecution has made absolutely no attempt to comply” with Ito’s request that it prepare a list of questions, she said. “That speaks poorly of their respect for the justice system.”

Meanwhile, book publisher Michael Viner cited his respect for the justice system as the basis for his decision to delay publication of a book by Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman, who testified that he discovered a bloody glove at O.J. Simpson’s estate.

Fuhrman’s testimony--and the defense contention that he was a racist rogue cop who may have planted evidence to frame Simpson--attracted much attention inside and outside the courtroom. The detective had planned to publish a book containing some of the letters he has received since entering the public spotlight.

In a press release, Viner said he would postpone publication until after the trial so that the hoopla that might surround the book would not influence the case.

“Frankly, we don’t want to diffuse the focus of [Fuhrman’s] testimony with any book at this time,” said the detective’s lawyer, Robert H. Tourtelot. “Justice must be the only priority.”