Jurors failed to reach a verdict in the Phil Spector murder trial Wednesday, forcing a mistrial and further frustrating a district attorney's office still haunted by the murder acquittals of O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake.
Legal experts said the hung jury, coming after 5 1/2 months of trial and 12 days of deliberation, demonstrated the power of wealth, and to a lesser extent, celebrity, in California courts.
"Money makes a difference. This comes down much more to money than fame," Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson said.
The final vote was 10 to 2 in favor of conviction. Prosecutors said they would seek a retrial.
Three jurors, speaking at a news conference, said prosecutors had persuaded most of the panel that the 67-year-old Spector had shot Clarkson when she tried to leave his Pyrenees-style "castle" in Alhambra in the early hours of Feb. 3, 2003. Two of them said they voted for conviction.
"I voted guilty," said Ricardo Enriquez, a 54-year-old facilities manager at a law firm. "I thought it would be a done deal, in and out. It wasn't."
The foreman, a 32-year-old civil engineer who also spoke, declined to give his name or state how he voted. But Enriquez and several attorneys later said the man was one of the defense holdouts. The foreman told reporters that the "inability to reach a decision is controversial at the most, and even on the jury there was deep regret we were unable to reach a unanimous verdict."
"This country has a great judicial system," he added. "The prosecution's burden is to prove to jurors beyond a reasonable doubt the charges are correct."
Less than an hour after the jury was dismissed, Spector, who remains free on bail, stood in the driveway of his mansion and looked to the sky.
Grinning, he waved at a news helicopter, then held his fingers up in a "V" for victory sign. His wife, Rachelle, also beaming, stood at his side.
Though he kept quiet during the trial, Spector had earlier proclaimed his innocence pointedly and in public, once likening the district attorney to Hitler.
District attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said her office was "disappointed" by the outcome but would "begin immediately to prepare for a retrial." Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler asked Spector and the attorneys to return to court for a pretrial hearing Oct. 3 to determine the next step in the case.
