Second Phil Spector trial begins
A prosecutor tells the jury that the famed music producer has 'a very rich history of violence' toward women, which led to the murder of Lana Clarkson.
Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
Thirteen months after a jury deadlocked over the guilt of legendary music producer Phil Spector in the death of an actress, a prosecutor rose before a second jury this morning and offered them the same promise he made to the first.
"You will be introduced to the real Phillip Spector," Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson told the Superior Court panel. That man, he said, has "a very rich history of violence" toward women that culminated with the murder of Lana Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion.
"This is how Phil Spector met Lana Clarkson," the prosecutor said as a glamorous head shot of the smiling blond actress appeared on a projection screen.
"This is how he left her," he said as a police photo appeared showing Clarkson sprawled dead in a chair with blood on her mouth and nose.
In the crowded spectators' gallery, there was a soft gasp.
Spector, whose snowy white tie and pocket square stood out against a long black suit jacket and black shirt, stared forward at the defense table, acknowledging neither the prosecutor nor photos that flashed on the screen above his head.
In his opening statement, Jackson said the fatal shooting of Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003, fit the legendary music producer's 30-year pattern of terrorizing women with guns when he was drunk and they wanted to leave his side.
"She was simply the last in a very long line of women who had suffered abuse at the hands of Phillip Spector over the years," Jackson said.
The 68-year-old, renowned for his work with artists including the Beatles, Tina Turner and the Ronettes, faces a minimum of 18 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. The jury at his first trial deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of his guilt.
The prosecutor is expected to conclude his remarks this afternoon and then an attorney for Spector is to address the jury. His defense contends that Clarkson was depressed and shot herself with Spector's .38 Special a few hours after they met at a Sunset Strip music club.
In his remarks, Jackson repeatedly returned to two disturbing statements he said witnesses will ascribe to Spector. In the first, made a decade before the shooting, Spector allegedly used a profanity to describe women and said, "They all deserve a bullet in their heads."
The second allegedly was made seconds after the shooting when, according to a chauffeur, Spector emerged from his palatial home with blood on his hands and said, "I think I killed somebody."
