Judge in Spector’s trial offers scenarios to jury
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors in Phil Spector’s murder trial resumed deliberations after a two-day break with a new set of instructions from the judge that legal experts deemed an unprecedented effort to break a deadlock.
Outside the jury’s presence, defense attorneys on Thursday fought vigorously against the instructions, which inject new scenarios of how Spector might have killed actress Lana Clarkson.
They complained that Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler was presenting the jurors with new theories after they had already deliberated for days. And they said he was turning the defense’s own evidence against Spector.
The jury, which got the case Sept. 10, resumed talks briefly Thursday and returned to deliberations Friday.
Among the scenarios offered by the judge was that Spector forced Clarkson to put a gun in her own mouth and it went off.
The focus of the defense’s scientific evidence in the five-month trial was aimed at proving that the 40-year-old Clarkson had probably pulled the trigger herself.
Background
Spector, 67, is charged with killing Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion on Feb. 3, 2003, a few hours after she met him at her job as a nightclub hostess and went home with him.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson embraced the judge’s move on grounds there was “a plethora of evidence” that would support the hypothetical scenarios even though Jackson had not advocated them during the trial.
Experts said jurors may continue to cling to their positions and maintain their 7-5 deadlock.
Fidler told the panel that to prove Spector guilty, “the people must prove that ... the defendant committed an act with a firearm that caused the death of Lana Clarkson, such as placing a gun in her mouth or forcing her to place the gun in her mouth at which time it discharged, pointing the gun at or against her head at which time it entered her mouth and discharged, pointing the gun at her to prevent her from leaving the house, causing a struggle which resulted in the gun entering her mouth and discharging.”