Juries
Spector Judge Does About-Face
Posted Sep 20, 2007, 08:34 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The judge in the murder trial of music producer Phil Spector has agreed to revoke a jury instruction requiring prosecutors to prove the record producer held the gun that fired while in actress Lana Clarkson’s mouth.
Deadlocked jurors had told Judge Larry Paul Fidler that they found the instruction confusing, the Los Angeles Times reports. Fidler concluded the instruction “misstates the law.”
The instruction said jurors could not find Spector guilty unless they found he pointed a gun at Clarkson, "which resulted in that gun entering Ms. Clarkson's mouth while in Mr. Spector's hand."
Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson told the newspaper that Fidler's decision is "a huge favor to the prosecution." She said it is "a not-so-subtle message to the jury that there may be more ways to find Spector guilty than they have been thinking of."