THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL

UCLA law professor Peter Arenella and Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson offer their take on the Simpson trial. Joining them is defense attorney Howard R. Price, who will rotate with other experts as the case moves forward. Today’s topic: The coroner holds center stage.

PETER ARENELLA

On the prosecution: Time for decompression. Instead of using gory photos that had triggered an emotional upheaval, prosecutor Brian Kelberg employed diagrams and re-enactments to show Ronald Goldman’s wounds. Jurors may have forgotten most of what they learned about DNA, but images of Nicole Brown Simpson’s slit throat and Goldman’s frenzied struggle for life will be fixed in their minds forever.

On the defense: If a picture is worth a thousand words, an autopsy photo might be worth a million, but whose words, the coroner’s or those of defense expert Dr. Michael Baden? Robert Shapiro can point out that the wounds inflicted on both victims could have come from two skinny assailants with matching knives, rather than the coroner’s scenario.

LAURIE LEVENSON

On the prosecution: The coroner’s words were almost as graphic as his photos. By describing how Goldman “was cornered, with no place to escape,” and his neck was “penetrated by a knife” that tore through his skin as he tried to wrestle away, the coroner created a deadly image of the murders. His demonstration added to the image.

On the defense: Shapiro must concentrate on defusing the emotional impact of the coroner’s testimony. O.J.’s indifferent looks are unlikely to do the trick. Simpson did get some help from his capable lawyers, who were able to put on hold testimony by Robert Kardashian about what may have been in O.J.’s suitcase.

HOWARD R. PRICE

On the prosecution: Trying to take the wind out of the coming cross-examination, Kelberg tediously re-examined Dr. Irwin Golden’s reports and all the corrections made by the coroner. Kelberg clearly wants to establish with the jury that the coroner and the prosecutors are credible and are in no way brooking any incompetence or trying to hide the truth.

On the defense: Kelberg’s scenario is that a single assailant using a knife with a single-edged blade hacked the victims to death. But the coroner already has tacitly conceded that other scenarios are possible. The defense, through cross-examination and their own experts, will try to hammer home that the coroner’s analysis is hardly definitive.

Compiled by HENRY WEINSTEIN / Los Angeles Times