Phil Spector's murder defense began three months ago with a vow by attorney Linda Kenney Baden to produce an "unimpeachable witness" with "no motive to lie for or against any person."
The witness would have "no memory problems ... no language problems," she told the jury.
"That witness," she said, "is called science."
But now, with the defense case all but completed, its science experts have proved as open to attack as any other witnesses. They have been fiercely questioned about their motives, objectivity and competence. They have disclosed their pay -- $5,000 a day in one case -- and, in describing their scientific findings, illustrated the subjectivity underlying their judgments.
Spector is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Lana Clarkson at his Alhambra mansion on Feb. 3, 2003. Spector's defense team says the 40-year-old actress, distressed by her waning career, her judgment impaired by alcohol and drug use, made a spontaneous decision to shoot herself while in his home.
By staking their case on forensic science, Spector's defense team has added an intriguing subplot to the first televised celebrity murder trial since the 1995 O.J. Simpson case. The defense has gathered a "dream team" of experts, two of whom have had their own television programs. In an era in which audiences are transfixed by "CSI" television shows and teenagers attend criminalist summer camps, forensic science and some of its most famous practitioners, in a sense, are also on trial.
The Spector case is unfolding against a backdrop of growing national scrutiny of forensic science. With hundreds of convictions nationwide overturned in recent years by DNA evidence, the reliability of forensic science is the subject of studies and conferences by bodies including the National Academy of Sciences and the recently formed California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
"What you don't see" in forensic science are "the kinds of standards you see in university science. That became really obvious once we started using DNA," said Case Western University law professor Paul C. Giannelli, an evidence specialist.
"There is a need for elevating the standard of practice," said Bruce A. Goldberger, president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and a professor at the University of Florida medical school. Funding shortfalls and variations in training are among the problems hampering forensic labs, he said.
