The Phil Spector murder trial jury has now had 15 long days of deliberating Phil Spector's guilt, all to no avail – and 15 days is evidently long enough for the jurors to forget stuff that happened in the actual trial they were jurors on.
With Judge Larry Paul Fidler doing all he can to push Phil Spector's hung jury into making a decision – mostly by widening the goalposts so much that soon Phil Spector will be able to be found guilty of murder just because 'Phil Spector' is an anagram of 'Richest Plop' – the Phil Spector jury has requested a video player so it can watch a police interview with Adriano De Souza, the chauffeur who claims that Phil Spector confessed the murder to him, in the desperate hope that it'll reveal something new to help reach a unanimous verdict at long last. Also, when the jury is through watching Adriano De Souza's interview – Caddyshack!
You know what's more boring than the Phil Spector murder trial spending five months dwelling on differing blood spatter theories and complicated evidence-tampering technicalities? The Phil Spector murder trial jury spending 15 days arguing about whether Phil Spector is guilty or not and still not being able to come up with a unanimous verdict. Although it's important to remember that the Phil Spector jury had five months of testimonies to sift through – and that's a lot of of testimonies, even when 97% of them were by women who'd been held at gunpoint by Phil Spector – it's clear that the jury is now well and truly hung, and it's going to take something big to force some of the jurors out of their deeply-entrenched opinion.
The judge in the Phil Spector case has already attempted to do this. Although Phil Spector's charge won't be reduced to manslaughter to help conclude the trial, Judge Larry Paul Fidler has effectively told the jury that Phil Spector didn't need to be holding the gun that killed Lana Clarkson to be found guilty of murder – presumably Spector just saying the word 'gun' or thinking about a gun or even a word that rhymed with 'gun' like 'bun' could get him sent down now – but the jury feels it needs to revisit the biggest moment of the Phil Spector trial so far. No, not when they got to slump in a replica chair and pretend to be dead – when Phil Spector's driver claimed that Spector confessed the murder to him. BBC News reports:
The jury in the Phil Spector murder trial has asked for a video player to help them in their continuing deliberations to reach a verdict. The key video they were shown during the trial was of the music producer's chauffeur being interviewed by police. Adriano De Souza said he witnessed Mr Spector emerging from his mansion after actress Lana Clarkson's death allegedly saying: "I think I killed someone."
Although De Souza's testimony is probably the most important of the Phil Spector murder trial, Spector's defence did a good job of trying to undermine him, noting that English isn't his first language – prompting this bit of Skinner & The Superintendent-style cross examining from dear departed Bruce Cutler, who called Adriano De Souza:
"a substitute driver with a language problem, who was full of snacks and cookies and water and sound asleep, sitting in a closed car, with the heat on, and the radio on, and the fountain going."
Of course, while there's every chance that Adriano De Souza's videotape interview will prompt the Phil Spector jury into reaching a unanimous decision, we just can't see it happening any time soon. Needless to say, this is all good for Phil Spector – every day that the jury can't make up its mind is a day closer to his death, thus handily shortening the life sentence he'd possibly get if he was found guilty. The lucky sod.
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