"When he is confronted with the right circumstances, he turns sinister and deadly". That was the conclusion of Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson, opening up the case for the prosecution at the long awaited and much anticipated murder trail of the legendary music producer Phil Spector, which kicked off in LA yesterday.
Jackson, of course, is keen to show to the jury that while Spector can be charming and personable when he wants to be, at other times he is an unhinged man with a "a rich history" of violence against women. The evidence Jackson will present, the DA claims, will "paint a picture of a man, who on 3 February 2003, put a loaded pistol in Lana Clarkson's mouth - inside her mouth - and shot her to death". More importantly actress Clarkson was, he claims, "simply the last in a long line of women who fell victim to Philip Spector over the years".
Jackson's bid to prove that Spector was capable of shooting Clarkson in February 2003 will include the calling of five women who are expected to all testify that Spector brandished guns while in their company on a number of occasions between 1988 and 1995. Spector's lawyers had argued that those women should not be allowed to testify, and that their testimonies would be irrelevant to the case before the jury, but Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler disagreed, a decision which commentators reckon will really hinder the defence's case.
Jackson argued that there were recurring themes in Spector's relationships with many of these women, things often coming to a head once they were alone, when a drunk Spector would reach for his gun when the woman in question said she was leaving. He claims that the same thing happened with Clarkson, who reluctantly agreed to go back to "his castle" for just one drink after meeting him in the Foundation Room at the Sunset Strip branch of the House Of Blues, where she was working at the time. Jackson cites Spector's then driver, Adriano DeSouza, who was sitting in the producer's car outside the LA mansion where Clarkson had joined Spector, and who claims that two hours after the couple had entered the house the producer appeared at a back door, holding a gun in blood stained hands, and proclaiming "I think I killed somebody".
Jackson's opening gambit was followed by the opening address from the defence, courtesy of Spector's lawyer Bruce Cutler. That address was reportedly affected considerably by another decision made by Judge Fidler which favoured the prosecution.
Ever since the killing the media have reported police allegations that Spector essentially admitted to shooting Clarkson, albeit by accident, as he was arrested, but some reports suggest those remarks were taken out of context. Cutler was reportedly planning on quoting a transcript of police tapes of the arrest in his opening remarks, which would have apparently shown that what Spector actually said was not an admission of guilt - something along the lines of: "I'm sorry this happened. I don't know how it happened, but it happened... the gun went off accidentally. This is the most devastating thing I've ever seen in my life ... she had no right to come to my house and blow her head off". But for reasons I don't quite understand, the prosecution argued that Cutler could not quote the transcript in his opening address, because they hadn't mentioned the tapes in theirs. Apparently those are the rules, and Fidler agreed, even though Cutler argued that his whole opening address revolved around that evidence.
With that decision made, Cutler set about using what other resources he had at his disposal to [a] dismiss Jackson's description of sinister Spector as an exaggeration and [b] to suggest that the police had assumed murder before their investigation had even begun, and that that had clouded and biased their investigation. On DeSouza's evidence, he claimed the driver had a poor grasp of the English language, and had been woken from a deep sleep when Spector appeared at his back door, and that therefore he could easily have misheard the producer saying "I think somebody was killed".
As for the other women due to testify, he claimed their testimonies were the thing of tabloid magazines, and that the idea that these women feared Spector didn't add up, because many of them had stayed in touch with the producer, even since Clarkson's death.
As for Clarkson, he claims she agreed to go to Spector's home not reluctantly, but because she was down on her luck and saw a friendship with the producer as potentially of value. Moreover, he says forensic evidence will show she fired the gun that killed her - probably by mistake but, he observed, "a self-inflicted gunshot wound can be accidental suicide and that's what it was".
The prosecution raised a number of objections to Cutler's address, but Judge Fidler generally sustained their objections, ruling that the defence lawyer was presenting argument not statements of fact, and therefore his opinionating could stand. Continuing to opinionate, Cutler said the prosecution's entire case would depend on the testimonies of DeSouza and the five women, all of whom, he said, were telling "tall stories".
With that Fidler called the proceedings to a close. Cutler's opening address will continue later today.