At the luncheon recess in Superior Court today, Phil Spector said he decided against having Bruce Cutler spearhead the closing arguments in his murder trial. At the start of today's session, Cutler announced he was quitting.
Cutler's connection with jurors who would decide the music producer's fate had been harmed, Spector said.
"I didn't think it was in my best interest,'' Spector said of the lawyer whose bruising style has led to the term "Brucified" -- what happens to witnesses who come under his punishing style of cross examination.
The high-profile attorney brought in from New York to help defend Phil Spector against a murder charge abruptly quit the case as it wound to a close, over a disagreement about the closing statement to the jury.
Bruce Cutler issued a statement saying in part: "I do not agree with the strategy which will be employed in presenting the defense in this case to the jury on summation. I can no longer effectively represent my client under those conditions."
It began as an another typical legal dogfight as the Phil Spector murder trial this afternoon headed into its fifth month, but this one ended in an unexpected way.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson was pounding on Werner Spitz, the defense expert who said he believes a novel theory is possible -- that Lana Clarkson could have coughed blood onto Phil Spector. That fits in neatly with defense claims that Clarkson, not Spector, shot Clarkson.
When Spitz tried to expand on an answer, Jackson jumped, asking that the witness be admonished and the added words be stricken from the record. Defense attorney Roger Rosen leapt into the fray, complaining that Jackson was cutting off Spitz.
Solomon-like, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler said he needed to hear Spitz’s complete answer before he could rule.
"What I was going to say was of no consequence," Spitz responded, triggering general laughter in the courtroom.
At one point, Spitz felt he needed to emphasize to jurors how difficult it is to slice human lungs for microscopic examination, and how a special machine is needed to accomplish that purpose. To help jurors take his point, he compared the experience to a visit to a grocery store.
“Say that you go to a store and you buy a big sausage. And you want four ounces of the sausage, but you want it cut thin,” said Spitz, speaking in a heavy accent. The attendant “puts it into a machine that slices it.” Spitz said the machine used to cut lungs in autopsies produces slices much finer than what one could obtain in a butcher shop.
The grisly nature of defense pathologist Werner Spitz’s expertise was captured in a striking demonstration he provided for jurors to explain how the presence of air in lung cavities is detected at an autopsy.
“When you squeeze the lung -- you don’t squeeze it brutally -- it makes this sound. “
Spitz fixed jurors with a dull stare and slowly, deliberately crumpled an envelope.
The condition is call crepitus, and it shows that air was in the lung, which could only have been introduced by breathing, Spitz testified.
Spitz at one point acknowledged the gruesomeness of his work, referring to an examination of Clarkson lung slides as “a gory sight to see, and it’s a gory thing to describe."
Pathologist Werner Spitz, 81, returned to the witness stand this morning in Los Angeles to try to help save Phil Spector from murder charges.
Asked by defense lawyer Linda Kenney-Baden how many autopsies he had performed in his career, Spitz replied 55,000 or 60,000, “it is impossible to know.”
The aged expert was called on by the defense to rebut prosecution testimony yesterday that the bullet that struck Lana Clarkson in the mouth severed her spine.
Spitz said the bullet that killed Clarkson was not large enough in diameter to have necessarily cut the spinal cord. His testimony made more plausible earlier defense claims that Clarkson could have lingered after she was shot, coughing blood on Spector’s jacket.
Prosecutors contend the shot instantly immobilized Clarkson. Blood on Spector's jacket spattered when he fired the gun into Clarkson’s mouth, they say. Defense lawyers say Clarkson shot herself.
The state rested its rebuttal case in People v. Phil Spector at 2:14 pm. this afternoon. The announcement was made by Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson. But don’t expect a quick ending. The case immediately turned to plans by Spector's attorneys to refute testimony prosecutors presented over the past few weeks. The prosecution's last round, which was aimed at undermining the defense case, is known as rebuttal, hence the name of the defense phase that will supplant it: surrebuttal. Surrebuttal cannot concern wholly new subjects, but must zero in on attacking rebuttal testimony.
Four women were lined up outside the Los Angeles courtroom ready to testify for the defense. In the lead was Punkin Pie Laughlin, the entrepreneur who earlier claimed that her good friend Lana Clarkson was deeply depressed before her death.
The prosecution began presenting evidence April 30.
Jurors were denied a second slice of Punkin Pie Laughlin this afternoon as the proceedings dissolved into intense legal combat over issues on the far periphery of the murder trial, including defense efforts to establish a history of drinking and depression by actress Lana Clarkson.
Laughlin, who testified she was Clarkson’s best friend, may return to the witness stand tomorrow to testify about Clarkson's state of mind and habits.
A selection of quotes from pathologist John Andrews this morning describing eminent defense expert Dr. Michael Baden’s theory that Lana Clarkson may have lingered, coughing blood onto Phil
Spector's jacket, after a bullet transected her spine.
The duel between neuropathologists heated up this morning in the Phil Spector murder trial.
John Andrews, called by prosecutors, said actress Lana Clarkson most likely was instantly incapacitated when the fatal shot to her mouth cut her spine.
“There would have been no movement, no spontaneous reflex movement?” Asked prosecutor Alan Jackson.
“No,” Andrews responded, saying reflexes were “abolished.”
Andrews flatly contradicted Dr. Michael Baden, a defense expert who testified last week that after studying the case for 4 ½ years, he recently had an “Aha” moment, and decided that Clarkson did not die immediately. The eleventh-hour theory supports the defense position that Clarkson coughed up blood on to Spector's jacket after she was shot. Prosecutors contend the blood sprayed on his jacket when Spector shot Clarkson. Prosecutors say Spector killed the 40-year-old actress when she tried to leave his Alhambra mansion; the defense says she shot herself.
The guillotine, redux: Andrews also contradicted Baden on another point. Baden had testified that accounts of the deaths of persons guillotined during the French Revolution indicated that their bodies moved reflexively hours after their decapitation. But Andrews said those 18th Century accounts were based on contraction of muscles after death that takes place when a portion of the body is struck.
Andrews agreed with Baden that decapitated chickens can “run around for a time until they bleed to death” after decapitation. But for humans, when a spinal cord is severed, motion ceases almost immediately, he said.
Robitaille said Spector threatened her a second time with a shotgun, at another party, in 1986. She acknowledged she was paid to tell her story to a London newspaper last March. When asked by Dixon if she was afraid when Spector pointed the shotgun at her head, Robitaille responded:
"In all honesty, I have to say no."
Plan your fall calendar: Representatives for both sides said that closing arguments won't begin until after Labor Day, Sept. 3.
Phil Spector lover and employee Devra Robitaille became this morning the fifth woman to testify that the producer threatened her with a gun, when she tried to leave his home in Beverly Hills after a party in the late 1970s.
"He said ‘no,’ and he locked the door. I remember standing in the lobby with the door in front of me, and as I turned, there was a gun pointed at my temple. Actually touching my temple."
It was a shotgun and Spector held it with both hands; it felt cold, she said.
"He said, ' If you leave I’ll blow your ... head off,'" Robitaille testified, "He was screaming at me at that point."
Spector was unusually animated during her testimony. When prosecutor Pat Dixon introduced the topic, Spector took a deep breath and rolled his eyes heavenward. He repeatedly stared down, shaking his head.
Robitaille called Spector "absolutely charming and intelligent. He was my best friend."
Prosecutors began the trial in April with four women who told jurors that Spector had threatened them with guns. He is on trial on charges that he fatally shot actress Lana Clarkson.
In a mild surprise, the Phil Spector defense rested this morning without the recording legend taking the witness stand.
“We will rest conditionally,” said lawyer Roger Rosen.
The only issue remaining for the defense concerns their effort to obtain medical records for Lana Clarkson, who Spector is accused of fatally shooting.
Judge Fidler took the occasion to address Spector directly.
“If your counsel told you, 'We don’t want you to testify', if you want to testify, that would control," Fidler told Spector.
Spector told the judge it was his decision not to testify.
Prosecutors then called Devra Robitaille, who has claimed Spector menaced her with a gun. Four other women told similar stories earlier in the trial.
Fidler told jurors that testimony might end this week.
Judge Fidler took the bench at 9:55. He noted the “two lost lambs who have returned to the flock,” welcoming Spector attorneys Linda Kenney Baden and Bruce Cutler back to the proceedings
Linda Kenney Baden was in court this morning, reappearing after a long illness. She's the lawyer without whom Phil Spector said he feels naked. "I'm feeling much better," she said.
Bruce Cutler, one-time John Gotti lawyer, also returned to the Spector trial this morning. The rock music legend, on trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, embraced Cutler warmly.
In a transfixing moment, Spector stood in court this afternoon and held out his arm, finger projecting like the barrel of a gun. His lawyer had asked him to demonstrate the position.
He stood for about 20 seconds. He held his arm steadily. He did not blink.
Shortly thereafter, Baden reiterated his key conclusion:
“To a reasonable degree of medical, certainty there is no evidence that Mr. Spector’s finger was on the trigger when the gun discharged intraorally in her (Lana Clarkson’s) mouth.”
For good measure, Baden added that to a reasonable degree of certainty, Clarkson shot herself.
Three small buttons on the left sleeve of the coat Lana Clarkson wore the night she died is bedeviling the Phil Spector murder trial, now in its 5th month.
Lawyers are trying to show the buttons, spattered with blood and tissue, can establish whether Clarkson, as the defense contends, or Spector, as prosecutors argue, was holding the gun when the fatal shot rang out. Whether the sleeve was twisted or not has become a bone of contention.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson tried to demonstrate the position of the sleeve as he questioned Dr. Michael Baden this afternoon.
“Where are my buttons?” Jackson asked.
“It doesn’t matter where your buttons are,” Baden shot back.
Adding to the confusion was the fact that the downtown Los Angeles courtroom was briefly darkened to produce a clearer view of a projected slide.
“I can’t see where your buttons are,” Baden protested.
Phil Spector’s lawyers began the day this morning on the defensive, and stayed that way.
At issue was Dr. Michael Baden’s “epiphany” - also known as his “Aha!” moment -- when he realized last Sunday, after 4 1/2 years of study, that victim Lana Clarkson might have lived for several minutes after she was shot and coughed blood onto Spector’s jacket. The prosecution says Spector was sprayed with blood when he shot the 40-year-old actress. The defense suggests she shot herself.
Judge Larry Paul Fidler earlier found that the defense deliberately sprang the surprise testimony on the prosecution and that sanctions are warranted, although he has not decided what.
The brouhaha led today to some of the sharpest exchanges in the trial to date.
Defense attorney Bradley Brunon insisted that he knew nothing of the new evidence until Baden testified under questioning by another defense lawyer, Christopher Plourd. Roger Rosen then told Fidler he wasn’t aware of the new opinion, either.
When Brunon suggested that Fidler should avoid penalizing Spector for any sins committed by his lawyers, the judge exploded.
“That is really offensive,” Fidler said to Brunon. “You better withdraw that comment. You better withdraw that comment.”
Brunon also argued that the defense's 24-hour delay in disclosing Baden’s new theory did not hurt prosecutors, and asked tht Fidler not consider excluding the testimony.
“Exclusion is a possible remedy,” Fidler insisted. “I haven’t determined that it’s the appropriate remedy.”
Brunon pointed out that anything Fidler does to punish the lawyer will inevitably hurt Spector.
Fidler noted that all defense attorneys “look for a way to get around” state law that both sides disclose relevant new evidence to their opponents.
“I have no doubt, let me say that as clearly as I can, that this was done to gain tactical advantage,” Fidler said.
In the end, Fidler decided to let the testimony stand, but to direct jurors to take the defense's lapse into consideration when weighing Baden's believability.
Faced with heavy cross-examination of his key witness, Roger Rosen, defense attorney for Phil Spector, yelled at his adversary, prosecutor Alan Jackson, today.
“Excuse me, Mr. Rosen,” said Judge Larry Paul Fidler. “Don’t raise your voice like that. Just make an objection and I’ll take care of it.”
Jackson was grilling pathologist Michael Baden about his expert opinion that Lana Clarkson's shooting death was self-inflicted. Baden rocked the court yesterday by testifying that Clarkson lived for minutes after the fatal shot. The defense says the dying Clarkson may have coughed up blood as Spector tried to help her, explaining the stains on the music producer's white jacket. Prosecutors say the blood sprayed on to Spector when he shot the 40-year-old actress.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson seemed to gather momentum with each concession from forensic expert Michael Baden as they battled this morning over conflict of interest. Baden yesterday offered eleventh-hour testimony that could help Phil Spector's defense team, which includes his wife, attorney Linda Kenney Baden.
Jackson hammered on Baden, suggesting the expert had a better understanding of the concept of conflict of interest than he acknowledged in court.
“Isn’t the definition of a conflict of interest an interest that has a conflict?”
“No, no,” Baden responded.
Baden did concede that his wife would never have considered questioning him in court, because of the possibility of a conflict.
But Baden stood firm on his basic position, that regardless of appearances, he had engaged in no conflict of interest in working for Phil Spector. The only issue, Baden said, looking directly at Jackson, was “because somebody like you would make it look dirty.”
Prosecutor Alan Jackson said that if forensic expert Michael Baden came to conclusions contrary to the defense his wife was presenting on Phil Spector's behalf, “you’d probably be sleeping on the couch for several months, right?”
The courtroom dissolved into laughter.
Defense lawyer Roger Rosen objected.
“Sustained, it calls for speculation,” Judge Fidler deadpanned.
The laughter rose to deafening proportions.
Dr. Michael Baden, the key defense expert, exploded this morning after prosecutor Alan Jackson asked him a series of questions about professional conflicts of interest.
Jackson pointed out that Baden’s wife, Linda Kenney Baden, is one of Spector’s defense attorneys, posing a potential conflict undercutting his own testimony.
Baden, a nationally reknowned expert, said he could not define the idea of conflict because he’s “not a lawyer.”
Jackson pounced.
He quoted ethical guidelines by the American Medical Association which states physicians should not treat members of their own families “because professional objectivity may be compromised.”
“Then I’m guilty. Mea culpa,” Baden thundered.
Jackson would not relent, insisting that Baden had a personal and a financial interest in the outcome of the case.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson asked Fidler to dim the courtroom lights during testimony today so that a slide of Clarkson’s jacket could be more easily seen.
Fidler complied, saying, “I’m sure thousands of Court TV viewers are wdonering why their screens just went black.”
As the courtroom erupted in laughter, Fidler said the situation was “like the last episode of the Sopranos.”
Los Angeles' current heat wave was reflected in the Spector murder trial today.
Judge Larry Paul Fidler first pounced on Christopher Plourd after the defense attorney elicited Dr. Michael Baden’s surprise testimony that Lana Clarkson had lived for several minutes after she was fatally shot.
Fidler seemed annoyed and pounced again when Plourd asked Baden about reports that Clarkson had discussed hearing voices.
“I’ve ruled on this. Don’t go where I’ve ruled,” the judge said sternly. “The jury is admonished to disregard. Mr. Plourd, that’s two in a row. I don’t want to go there a third time. “
Lana Clarkson did not die at the hand of music producer Phil Spector, an expert called by the defense said this afternoon.
“It was a self-inflicted wound,” said Dr. Michael Baden.
Baden, serving up the key testimony for the defense, said he could not determine whether the shot was intentional or accidental.
Baden, a world-renowned crime expert, cited the fact that Clarkson’s fingernail was broken, and the fatal wound was in her mouth to support his conclusion.
“An injury in the mouth is almost always self-inflicted,” Baden said. “And the injury to the acrylic on the thumbnail is consistent with other injuries to thumbs in persons I have seen who use the thumb to discharge a weapon.”
Spector is on trial for murder for allegedly shooting Clarkson, an actress at his Alhambra home who died four years ago. The two had met at the House of Blues, where she worked as a hostess in the VIP room, and returned to his home for a drink. Prosecutors say Spector killed her when she tried to leave.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson has been unflappable for more than four months of sharing a courtroom with murder suspect Phil Spector. Today, the prosecutor was rendered speechless, albeit briefly, after surprise testimony from a defense expert that Lana Clarkson did not immediately die when she was shot in the mouth.
Jackson was visibly perturbed by the last-minute defense testimony from Dr. Michael Baden, an eminent pathologist, who sought to explain how Clarkson’s blood came to spot Spector’s jacket. Baden said he had concluded Sunday that Clarkson did not die immediately from the gunshot, but lived for several minutes in the foyer of Spector’s Alhambra mansion before succumbing to her wound.
“Now they’ve brought Lana Clarkson back to life to explain this testimony,” Jackson fumed, arguing that the testimony should be stricken. “They want Lana Clarkson in that chair coughing (blood) on Phil Spector.”
Jackson has argued Clarkson's blood on Spector's white jacket shows he shot the 40-year-old actress. The defense says she committed suicide, and contend that blood spatter volume and pattern proves he was not close enough to have held the gun, which went off inside her mouth.
The judge took the prosecution's request for defense sanctions for what they described as an ambush under submission.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson this morning was questioning James Plex, a defense expert, about blood analysis in the Phil Spector murder case. Its not as easy, Jackson suggested, as what people see on television.
“That’s why I don’t watch CSI,” Pex stated, to laughter.
“I suppose you don’t watch Perry Mason, either,” Pex told the prosecutor, topping himself, and generating more chuckles.
Judge Fidler used an example that cut close to home when defense lawyer Roger Rosen sought this morning to introduce an unannounced witness.
Rosen asked to call Dr. Mary Goldenson, a psychologist who he said Clarkson had consulted in the year before her death Feb. 3, 2003. Clarkson had a single conversation over the phone with the psychologist before learning that her Screen Actor’s Guild health insurance would not cover treatment.
California law protects most communications between patients and psychotherapists from disclosure. But Rosen said that conversation was not covered by the privilege.
Fidler, questioning Rosen's position, analogized the consultation to Rosen's own legal practice.
“Say a client comes to you and says, ‘I want to hire you,’" Fidler said. "He says, ‘I committed a robbery.’ You quote him your very high fee. The client says he can’t afford that, he will find another lawyer. The conversation with you when he was in the process of hiring you is not privileged?”
Rosen mildly protested the reference to his fees, and acknowledged that conversation would be privileged. He then asked for more time to research the legal question.
The Phil Spector murder trial entered its last leg this morning, with both sides nearing the end of a proceeding which began April 25.
Spector, on trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson four years ago, was without two of his lawyers - Bruce Cutler and Linda Kenney Baden -- this morning. Cutler took time off to work on a television series, and Kenney Baden, who was off last week as well, remains ill.
Prosecutors are expected to call a fifth woman who will testify that Spector threatened her with a gun.
During the tour, several jurors also sat in a car that was parked in the courtyard to replicate the limo where Spector’s chauffeur was seated when he said he heard a loud noise, followed by the legendary music producer emerging from a door and saying, “I think I killed somebody.”
The chauffeur’s statements have been attacked by the defense, which contends he could not have clearly heard what Spector said because of the noise from the adjacent fountain. Defense lawyers also questioned how much drvie Adriano DeSouza could have heard, seated in the car with the doors and windows closed and the air conditioning on. DeSouza testified he got out of the car when he saw Spector.
The sign at the entry to Phil Spector's driveway has been changed. At the time of the Clarkson's shooting, it read “Pyrenees Castle, 1700 Grand View.”
This morning it read “Phil Spector’s Pyrenees Castle.”
Spector's chauffeur testified earlier that after Lana Clarkson's shooting, he telephoned the address into police, reading it off the sign. The driver made the call after Spector came out of his house, carrying a gun, and said, “I think I killed somebody,” he testified.
Jurors walked through music producer Phil Spector’s home this morning, with four sitting in a chair positioned where Lana Clarkson was found after he allegedly murdered her four years ago.
The four tried to recreate “the position in which she was found,” said Linda Deutsch, the pool reporter.
The tour of the crime scene was the penultimate act of the trial that began April 25. This afternoon, back in a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, jurors will hear a final witness for the prosecution.
Jurors also drew up a list of ten questions they presented to Judge Larry Fidler and lawyers.
Spector welcomed jurors to his home in casual attire, a long-sleeved blue T-shirt, sweat pants and sandals.
A quiet Alhambra neighborhood was overrun this morning with media, including buzzing helicopters, as jurors toured Phil Spector’s "Pyrenees Castle", where the record producer is accused of fatally shooting actress Lana Clarkson.
Authorities set up barricades on streets surrounding Spector’s hilltop mansion, diverting traffic to provide security for a field session of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where Spector is being tried for murder. The defense contends the actress shot herself in Spector’s foyer four years ago.
“It sure disrupts things early in the morning,” said Monique Choi, a resident out on a morning walk.
Long time resident Robert Miranda said he was given no notice of the road closures.
“That’s the least they could have done,” he said, picking his way around a dozen television vans.
Jurors will view Spector's Alhambra home this morning, then return to the courtroom in the afternoon to hear testimony from a fifth woman who claims Spector threatened her at gunpoint. The jury visit to Phil Spector's Pyrenees Castle (as named on a sign in front) was requested by the defense. Spector's team believes jurors who see the foyer where Clarkson was found dead will be better able to decide if Spector held the gun in Clarkson's mouth that killed her, or if he was an innocent bystander several feet away.
Richard Gabriel, the defense's jury consultant, said one of the things jurors might discern is whether there are signs of a struggle in the small space -- such as furniture or rugs knocked out of position (apparently not).
The jury visit could close the defense's case in chief, but Judge Larry Paul Fidler and the attorneys are meeting today to discuss how many witnesses remain, after which the judge said he will have a better idea when the trial will end.
Testimony this morning moved from videos of suicides to autopsies of people guillotined during the French Revolution as Leestma was grilled intensely by prosecutor Alan Jackson.
At issue was how long it would take after spinal cord severance for a victim like Clarkson to suffer extensive ridigity of her arms and legs.
“You’re providing memories I don’t have,” Leestma protested at one point.
When Jackson asked if a dying person could exhale blood as long as five seconds after suffering a fatal shot, Leestma said, “On TV maybe, in the slow-motion cuts…but not in reality.”
Jackson asked Leetsma to cite published medical authorities supporting his position.
He cited physicians who studied the bodies of people guillotined during the French Revolution, who reported observing some spasms hours after decapitation.
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At one juncture, Jackson panted very rapidly and shallowly to make a point.
It was necessary to describe his demonstration for the record being prepared by a court stenographer.
Judge Fidler likened it to “an exhausted Chihuahua,” to the delight of the jury.
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Hollywood strikes again in the Phil Spector murder trial.
The grey-haired man identified only as juror No. 6 took a seat by himself this morning in the jury box, as Spector and his defense team looked on.
Judge Larry Paul Fidler asked the man whether his employer, a film company, “may not have some financial connection” with Michael Bay, the director of Transformers who testified Monday for the prosecution.
“Yes we have two of Mr. Bay’s projects," the juror replied. "He’s the producer of 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre', our remake from 2001, and another 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre',” the juror said. “I do not personally know Mr. Bay. But our company has worked on two of his projects.”
Fidler asked if the connection would [revent him from being impartial in evaluating Bay's testimony.
Absolutely not your honor,” the juror responded.
Fidler then allowed the man to remain on the jury.
Film director Michael Bay today disputed defense testimony that he had snubbed Lana Clarkson shortly before her death.
Bay said it would have been "a huge event" if he had seen Clarkson so close to her death, and he would have remembered it.
"She was funny, she was saucy, she had no qualms coming right up to someone," Bay testified. He said if he had ignored her, she probably would have slapped him on the face.
Bay, who made this year's "Transformers" film, said he cast Clarkson for a commercial he made for Mercedes Benz. She came in for many auditions, and he saw her at parties "over the years." He said she was one of the few actresses who would send him presents at Christmas.
"You would recognize Lana because she was funny, she was vivacious," Bay said. "She was hard to miss."
Punkin Pie Laughlin, a nightclub promoter who said Clarkson was her closest friend, testified earlier this month that the 40-year-old cult actress was so fragile she broke into tears when Bay did not recognize her at a party days before her death. The defense has tried to show Clarkson, despondent over a flagging acting career, shot herself at Phil Spector's Alhambra mansion.
Bay directed movies "Bad Boys", "Armageddon" and "Pearl Harbor."
At one point, Lana Clarkson's agent, Nick Terzian, was explaining how he needed to relay to her times for her fittings for costumes on a modeling assignment. He said he tried to call her "early" in the morning.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson asked for specifics.
"What is early for an agent in Hollywood?" Jackson said. "Don’t blush."
Was Lana Clarkson successful?
Her long time agent, Nick Terzian, told jurors in Spector’s trial for Clarkson’s murder today that she was a “money maker.” Roger Rosen, Spector’s lawyer, pressed him, suggesting Clarkson wasn’t among his most successful clients.
“I wouldn’t have said she was a Julia Roberts or a Meryl Streep, no,” Terzian conceded.
Clarkson’s acting is a centerpiece of the trial, with the defense suggesting she committed suicide in part because of a failing career. Terzian, however, said Clarkson was an aggressive, talented, thoughtful client.
This morning, lawyers walked through Spector's Alhambra mansion, where he allegedly shot and killed actress Lana Clarkson four years ago. Jurors in the murder trial of the record producer, which began in April, are scheduled to tour the site Thursday.
Director Michael Bay is expected on the witness stand this afternoon. The "Transformers" helmsman is expected to deny testimony from Clarkson's friend, Punkin Pie Laughlin, that he shunned her at a party, deepening her despair over her halting acting career.
The trial will be dark tomorrow for Spector to visit the doctor. Spector may be suffering from pain in his throat, according to sources.
Lana Clarkson's state of mind, as recalled by her friends, is a matter of dispute. Nili Hudson disagreed with Punkin Pie Laughlin's earlier testimony that Clarkson was despondent.
Under cross-examination by Bradley Brunon, Hudson acknowledged in response to a question what she thought of Spector, "My point of view is absolutely he is guilty."
Nili Hudson, described as Lana Clarkson's close friend, testified the actress wasn't depressed in the months leading up to her shooting death at Phil Spector's Alhambra mansion in 2003.
When Clarkson returned in October 2002 after a serious injury that temporarily sidelined her career, "She was excited she was happy, she was like she'd always been: hard-working, tenacious, a self-starter," Hudson told the jury.
Any suggestion Clarkson was suicidal is "absurd, absolutely absurd," said Hudson, who testified they spoke the day before she died. Clarkson told her she was going shopping for shoes less punishing to her feet when she worked as hostess at House of Blues, Hudson said.
In a 30-minute video rolled in court today, Clarkson played a talking Barbie doll, a rock music groupie, a Little Richard impersonator, a Las Vegas showgirl and a lonely woman on a succession of bad dates.
The video, “Lana Unleashed,” was made in the months before she was shot to death in February, 2003, to promote her acting career. As the scenes flickered in the courtroom this morning, several spectators wept at the larger-than-life images of the slain actress.
Bruce Cutler, who began the trial as Spector's lead attorney, is out of the courtroom shooting a television reality series in which he acts as a judge.
Now, word comes that the defense's key witness, famed criminalist Henry Lee, may also opt out of the trial to fulfill his own television committment.
Lee is in China, and Spector's attorneys have cited his out-of-country status as the reason he has not testified. Precisely what Lee has been doing in China has not been discussed. But according to the Chinese Daily News, Lee is working on the early stages of a mini-series based on his life. The paper reports Lee and the show's producers are auditioning actors to portray the criminalist as a child and adolescent (Lee was born in China, but moved to Taiwan when he was young). Lee will narrate the show and portray himself on camera in recreations of his high-profile criminal cases, including the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the paper said.
Lee has repeatedly ignored e-mails and phone calls from the Times. But it looks like for now in the televised trial, two of its biggest stars are busy with other star turns.
For the first time in his four-month murder trial, Spector has spoken more than one sentence at a time to the court. He pleaded with Judge Larry Paul Fidler to postpone the trial because one of his attorneys, Linda Kenney Baden, is too sick to appear in court.
“She is my point lady,” Spector told Fidler, “I feel naked when she is not by my side.”
Spector said it is Kenney Baden he speaks to daily to review the case. “She strategically handles the whole defense. She is the only one I can’t do without,” he said.
Fidler denied Spector's request, citing the defense’s “rather large team” of lawyers. The judge noted Kenney Baden has often left the courtroom and has not been present during the entire trial. He said it is Roger J. Rosen who has “taken over the burden of examining most witnesses” since Bruce Cutler’s role was diminished in May.
Lana Clarkson's agent, Nick Terzian, was called by prosecutors to refute defense witnesses who characterized Clarkson as an over-the-hill actor. Terzian said Clarkson was a succesful working actor, if not an A-lister. "She was beautiful, outgoing and talented. And she was a comedic actor," he said. Terzian will return Thursday.
The trial courtroom has had plenty of open seats for the last couple of months, but this afternoon, spectators filled the spectator benches. The crowd may be anticipating the arrival of a possible prosecution rebuttal witness of note -- "Transformers" film director Michael Bay.
Bolstering the Spector team's argument that Lana Clarkson had been despondent and possibly suicidal, a defense witness had testified earlier that Bay failed to recognize the actress at a party days before her death, bringing her to tears.
When Bay learned of the testimony, he posted a blog item denying the story, and alter told the Times he remembered Clarkson from their work together on two commercials, and would no doubt have recognized her at a party. Furthermore, Bay said, he would have remembered such an incident if it happened so close to Clarkson's death. He said he recognized Clarkson immediately when he saw news reports of the shooting at Spector's house.
The sudden acceleration of the Spector trial led to some confusion this morning.
After announcing yesterday they were near the end of their case, defense attorneys arrived today and complained to Judge Larry Paul Fidler that they had not been given an opportunity to interview a prosecution expert they planned to call as a defense witness.
The expert, Daniel Haste, was a computer consultant hired by the prosecution to go through Clarkson's hard drive for emails and files, some of which catalogued depression, disappointment and despondency over her shrinking acting career and money issues. The defense complained Haste refused to share documents with them unless judge ordered him to do so.
"Bring him in," said Fidler. "Some parts of this job are enjoyable."
When Haste arrived, Fidler directed him to share with defense "whatever documents you have."
"We haven't seen those either," said the prosecutor, Alan Jackson.
"My dad's right-handed," Nicole Spector, 24, told jurors this morning in what may have been the last witness in the defense's case in chief.
Spector was impassive as his diminutive, brown-haired daughter took the stand for five minutes of testimony as part of a defense effort to show the record producer did not shoot Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra mansion.
Spector, according to testimony, was standing with his left side close to Clarkson when the fatal shot went off. The bullet was fired inside her mouth, placing the shooter at no more than arm's length from the actress. The defense has suggested that blood spatter on Spector's jacket shows he was too far away to have been the shooter. The suggestion Spector would have fired with his right hand added another layer to the defense theory.
Nicole Spector also slipped in to her testimony a cozy image of life with dad, saying that when she was in junior high and high school, Spector would drive her home from school, her mom would make dinner and they would watch All in the Family on television. But the judge cut that testimony short.
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