Opposing attorneys agreed on little during Phil Spector's six-month murder retrial. But Tuesday, the day after the music producer's conviction, the lawyers reached the same conclusion about why the outcome was so different from the first trial: the jury.
Jurors in Spector's first trial in 2007 spent a dozen days in contentious deliberations before announcing that they were hopelessly deadlocked. Relying on mostly the same witnesses and exhibits, the jury in the retrial convicted him after nine days of deliberations apparently marked by little if any discord.
There was "nothing and everything" different in the trials, said a prosecutor who tried both cases.
"Nothing in that it was the same evidence presented to both juries, but everything because they were different people," Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson said.
Spector's attorney agreed.
"The principal difference this time was the jury," said Doron Weinberg.
Spector is jailed pending his May sentencing. A judge is expected to sentence him to a mandatory life sentence with the possibility of parole after at least 18 years.
The route the jurors followed to arrive at a conviction remains something of a mystery. Only the forewoman has spoken publicly, and her brief remarks at a news conference were vague. But those involved in the case say she may have revealed the most crucial difference between the panel and its predecessor when she broke down in tears while praising her fellow jurors' unity and dedication.
"I don't think these people were willing to fight each other," Weinberg said. "They wanted to come to a consensus."
The panel that convicted the 69-year-old Spector gelled, while the 2007 jury that hung fractured. The foreman in that case voted not guilty in the face of 10 colleagues who insisted that prosecutors had proved Spector guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the fatal shooting of actress Lana Clarkson. Another juror vacillated and ultimately voted with the foreman.
The hung jury was a searing defeat for prosecutors. Spector remained free on $1-million bail during the six years the case played out. He lived in his mansion and even got married. Although Spector's defense had argued for an acquittal, his attorney acknowledged Tuesday that a more realistic goal for the retrial was a second deadlock.
