Bad Hair, Harmonious Jury Helped Tip Scales of Justice Against Phil Spector
Now that the dust is settling on Phil Spector’s second-degree murder conviction this week, experts are pondering why a celebrity defendant whose initial trial ended in a deadlocked jury in 2007 didn’t beat the rap this time around.
No less an authority than the London Times may have part of the answer: Spector’s hair. While he never testified, “his wigs, however, told you pretty much everything you needed to know: at times they were so implausibly massive that the man’s head appeared to be encircled by its very own weather system,” the newspaper writes.
The legendary 69-year-old music producer can afford to pay for a top legal talent, yet, as discussed in previous ABAJournal.com posts, his defense team, too, was sometimes a bit bizarre, at least during the first trial. At one point, lead lawyer Bruce Cutler told reporters that underlings would be handling trial proceedings while he filmed a new reality television program during the daytime. Until shortly before the closing arguments, it wasn’t clear who was going to present the defense case.
That, however, was at the first trial, in which the jury reportedly deadlocked 10-2 for conviction. A blistering closing may have helped tip the balance toward the prosecution the second time around.
And a harmonious jury this time around may have made the critical difference in convicting Spector, both Weinberg and the prosecution say in a Los Angeles Times article published today.
Prosecutors, who vowed this time around to avoid “persnickety” jurors who might get too focused on individual facts to see the big picture, of course are pleased, according to the Times. The cohesion was an added plus, helping jurors to focus on “the forest and not the trees,” says Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson.
Several reporters who have written extensively about Spector describe an admittedly troubled man who was not necessarily one to put his best foot forward even among his friends and admirers. “As one Hollywood insider put it to me, nobody who knew him, or had heard the stories about him, was surprised that a dead woman had been found in Spector’s house,” writes Mick Brown in the Telegraph. “More astonishing was that Spector should have ended up living far from Beverly Hills in the unprepossessing suburb of Alhambra.”
Defending himself through two second-degree murder trials is estimated to have cost Spector millions. He was represented by at least 11 lawyers, and his tab for expert evidence alone was some $500,000, the Los Angeles Times reported in an article written before the guilty verdict.
“I doubt there is one-tenth of 1 percent of people in this country who can afford what Mr. Spector has had to put together so far for his defense,” attorney Doron Weinberg, who has been serving as Spector’s current lead lawyer, told the Times.
And, despite the Monday verdict, the overall case is nowhere near over yet: At least one wrongful death claim against Spector, filed by the mother of the Lana Clarkson, will now move toward trial, and appeals, of course, may also be filed on the criminal side. He is scheduled to be sentenced for Clarkson’s killing at the end of May.
Additional coverage:
Associated Press: “LA jury convicts Phil Spector in murder of actress”
ABAJournal.com (2007): “Mistrial as Phil Spector Jury Deadlocks”
ABAJournal.com (2007): “Money Mattered in Spector Trial”
Corrected at 9:55 p.m. on April 16 to reflect that jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting Spector; link to AP article also added at this time.
Correction
Corrected on April 16 to reflect that jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting Spector. The ABA Journal regrets the error.
