Hey people, guess what's back on the CMU agenda. Yep, the Phil Spector Trial. Again. You lucky people. Jury selection is due to begin later today.
As you all surely remember, legendary music producer Spector is accused of killing former actress Lana Clarkson at his home in Beverly Hills in February 2003. He was tried for murder last year.
The prosecution claims Spector has a split personality, and is prone to go a bit loony when alone with women late at night. Given that fact, and having pulled guns on women before, the prosecution said it was only a matter of time before he injured someone, deliberately or by mistake. On those grounds they said he was guilty of murder.
Spector's defence argued the prosecution's claims were circumstantial, and that the forensic evidence actually suggested Clarkson had been holding the gun when it went off. Portraying the former actress as a depressive on the edge, they said she killed herself, deliberately or otherwise.
In the end the defence's forensics case wasn't as strong as they had promised, but strong enough to put doubt into the minds of at least a couple of the jurors. As a result the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision as to Spector's guilt or otherwise, and a mistrial was declared.
The prosecution announced almost immediately they intended to have a second go, though with Spector's defence team not keen to go through the whole thing again, there was a year plus delay for trial two as the producer appointed a new legal team.
With said legal team in place, jury selection is now under way. Prospective jurors were asked to fill out a questionnaire earlier this month which asked them about their awareness of this case, other high profile celebrity cases, their opinion of the US criminal justice system, their knowledge and opinion of Spector's artistic work, their opinions on firearms and whether they reckon they could cope with being shown gory pictures from the scene of the crime. 85 potential jurors are now expected to come to court for questioning by the prosecution and defence in a bid to find the required number of jurors for the retrail, which could run for up to four months.
In related news, our old friend Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who will oversee the retrial, has said that a new witness will be allowed to testify that he had seen Spector use "incendiary language" about women and that the producer once stated that they should be shot. The defence team had said that a testimony by Vincent Tannazzo, a retired New York city policeman who met Spector when he worked as security at two of Joan Rivers' Christmas parties, was not relevant to the case. The prosecution, Spector's lead lawyer Doran Weinberg says, are planning on pursuing a case against Spector based on the allegation he hates women. But, he says, Spector can't be tried for "having an attitude". Fidler, however, disagreed, saying he thought Tannazzo's testimony was relevant to the prosecution's case, and that he was inclined to let it be presented to the jury.