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Legal
Team Spector file appeal claim
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 15 March 2010
Phil Spector’s legal team have asked a US appeals court to throw out the legendary producer’s second-degree murder conviction on two grounds: judicial error and prosecutorial misconduct. Basically they don’t think the producer got a fair trail, and have written a 148 page report on why that is, which they then submitted to the California Second District Court Of Appeal last week.
As much much much previously reported, Spector was found guilty of murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his Beverly Hills home back in 2003. He was accused of shooting Clarkson dead, probably accidentally while negligently playing with one of his guns. He always claims she shot herself.
At his first murder trial the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on whether he was guilty or innocent, but second time round a guilty verdict was delivered quite quickly. He is currently serving a life sentence, with no chance of release for nineteen years, which realistically probably means the 70 year old is set to die behind bars.
As you’ll remember, key to the prosecution’s case was the testimony of five women who claimed they too had had late night run-ins with the producer during which he had suddenly turned violent, and often threatened them with a gun. The argument was that Clarkson had died during one such late night run-in, and that one of these altercations was bound to end in tragedy eventually.
But Spector’s defence team said the prosecution used these testimonies inappropriately so to secure a conviction “based on his bad character and evil propensities”. Such an approach is not allowed by Californian criminal law, the defence attorneys now argue.
The appeal document also says that judge Larry Fidler was wrong to show the jury in the second trial a video of him discussing key forensic evidence with a witness at a periphery session during the first trial. The defence team say this involved Fidler giving an opinion on the forensics that favoured the prosecution, and that no such opinion should be shared with the jury because the defence have no facility to cross-examine the judge about his viewpoint.
The State Attorney General’s Office will now file a reply brief on behalf of the prosecution sometime next month, before the Appeals Court considers its position on the case.
