So, DNA dominated once again at the ongoing Phil Spector murder trial yesterday, as criminalist Steve Renteria continued to testify about his forensic analysis of items found at the crime scene. Spector, of course, is accused of shooting dead actress Lana Clarkson at his Beverly Hills home in early 2003. Spector claims Clarkson shot herself.
The forensics are important, of course, because Spector's defence have said that they intend to win the case based on their own forensic evidence. Renteria was called by the prosecution, but defence lawyers were keen to try and turn his testimony to their advantage.
As previously reported, Renteria had already confirmed that there was no DNA from Spector on either the gun that killed Clarkson, or on the bullets in it, which might help the defence in their claim that the legendary producer never held the gun - ie Clarkson held it as she shot herself. Convincing the jury Spector never touched the gun that night is also helpful for the defence because it throws some doubt on the testimony of one of the prosecution's most important witnesses, Spector's former chauffeur Adriano De Souza, who claimed that shortly after the shooting he saw the producer appear at a side door to his mansion carrying a blood covered gun. If he was mistaken about that, the defence may argue, perhaps he was mistaken in his claim that Spector told him "I think I killed somebody". All that said, Renteria confirmed for the prosecution that there was so much of Clarkson's blood on the gun, that it would be possible for Spector's DNA to be concealed.
Questioning Renteria for themselves yesterday, Spector's defence lawyer Christopher Proud had the criminalist discuss the presence or not of Spector's DNA on Clarkson's body. He confirmed that DNA of a person other than Clarkson herself was found on one of her breasts, and that while he couldn't say with 100% certainty that that DNA belonged to Spector, he was pretty damn sure it did. It is likely that DNA came from saliva (there were no sperm cells present, so that's one possible source ruled out), though Renteria said that the kind of cells found on the former actress' breast would be found in the mucous membranes of all body openings. Lovely.
The prosecution didn't raise the DNA on Clarkson's breast. The defence presumably raised it in another bid to tarnish the jury's opinion of Clarkson - ie while Spector might be a bit weird at times (as a number of prosecution witnesses have testified), Clarkson was not a wholly innocent character either. They are presumably playing on comments by one of the first police officers at the scene of the crime, who told the court last week his immediate thought was that there were "sexual overtones" to the death scene.
The defence were also keen to contrast the presence of Spector DNA on Clarkson's breast with the lack of Spector DNA under Clarkson's previously discussed broken finger nail. Presumably that was raised by the defence in a bid to convince the jury that Spector hadn't touched Clarkson's hands prior to her death - ie rubbishing prosecution claims that there had been some kind of struggle immediately before the shooting. It might also downplay the potential importance of the much reported missing bit of finger nail, which the prosecution claim the defence found and hid.
The trial continues.