"It's true that he has exhibited guns. It's true that he has waved guns, but he has never fired a gun at a living being," Weinberg said.
Clarkson, 40, died just three hours after meeting Spector at the House of Blues, the Sunset Strip music club where she worked as a hostess. The producer invited her to his palatial home for a nightcap, and DNA evidence indicates the pair shared several drinks and some intimate contact.
The prosecutor said Clarkson had her purse slung over her shoulder and "was ready to leave" when Spector shot her.
"This is how Phil Spector met Lana Clarkson," Jackson 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.
Jackson bolstered his address with a multimedia presentation that included videotaped testimony of a woman -- now dead -- who claims Spector held her at gunpoint on two occasions and a recording of a 911 call placed by Spector's chauffeur. The driver claims Spector emerged from the back door of his home moments after the shooting with blood on his hands and said, "I think I killed somebody."
Spector's attorney said Clarkson had pulled the trigger of the .38 Special pistol. Clarkson, he said, was depressed over her acting career, which had faltered after her starring role in the 1985 cult film "The Barbarian Queen." He said a man she loved had recently dumped her and she was abusing prescription pain-killers.
"As drunk as she was with the Vicodin to see a gun in that moment to do something impulsive and self-destructive is entirely consistent with where she was in her life," he said.
He maintained that the chauffeur, a Brazilian, misheard Spector's words because of a number of factors, including a loudly burbling fountain nearby and his difficulty understanding English.
Both sides maintain that forensic evidence supports their case. The prosecutor touted the conclusion of a criminalist who said bloodstains on Spector's jacket placed him within two to three feet of Clarkson at the time the gun went off.
Spector's attorney said their own medical experts would testify that "virtually all" gunshot wounds inside the mouth were self-inflicted and that "not a single piece of scientific evidence" contradicted their theory that Clarkson died at her own hand.
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harriet.ryan@latimes.com
