The Phil Spector murder trial is all set to begin today, which means that we're well on the way to discovering if Phil Spector shot that woman's mouth off or if it's all been a silly misunderstanding – and the decision is down to some blokes.
Well, mostly some blokes anyway. The jury for the Phil Spector murder trial has been revealed, and the group of 12 contains just three women peppering the group of nine men. Quite what the reason behind installing a mostly male jury is beyond us, although we suspect that they were picked because they'll see Phil Spector standing trial in his frock coat and lesbo-wig, assume that the defendant is a beautiful woman and deliberately find him not guilty so they can get him drunk and try to bed him after the verdict is delivered, before quickly realising that they made a terrible terrible error of judgement.
After more delays than you could possibly imagine and an equal amount of eye-popping hairstyles, the Phil Spector murder trial is due to kick off today, and it's set to be the biggest court case since a cancer victim said Michael Jackson wanked him off. Over the course of the next two or three months the televised trial will get to the bottom of the 2003 death of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson, who died of a gunshot wound to the mouth at Phil Spector's pretend castle in LA.
Before the trial could start, a suitable jury had to be selected – a task which was surprisingly long-winded, especially since most of the jurors seemed to think that Phil Spector did it in the first place. It goes without saying that the jury's decision is an important one – Phil Spector faces life in prison if he's found guilty of murder – so the very best possible jury needed to be picked. And that apparently means having as few women as possible cluttering up the place with their so-called 'opinions' and 'emotions', as the San Jose Mercury reports:
A legal expert said it was not surprising that the defense might try to limit the number of women on the jury. "Women are more likely to identify with the victim in this case," said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor. "And it's not just the victim. It's the fact that the prosecution plans to put on other women as witnesses who claim they had problems with Spector."
Yes, of course – the testimonies of all the women who claim that Phil Spector also held guns to their heads might seem more important to women than men. A female jury would hear these claims and instantly see Phil Spector as some kind of gun-toting monster, while a male jury would retain only the facts and whether they thought the witnesses were wearing bras or not.
This mostly-male Phil Spector murder trial jury has caused a bit of a stir among critics, who claim that defence lawyers systematically weeded out women with their jury questionnaire that was handed out last month. But that's probably poppycock, since the questions they were asked, like "Do you hate all women?" and "She probably deserved it anyway, right?" can't really be seen as anything but entirely even-handed.
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Predominantly Male Jury Will Decide If Spector Murdered Actress – San Jose Mercury
kpo says
Can’t we just decide this by a coin flip? It would be so much more efficient.
Heads, guilty; tails, not guilty and her family gets to bring a civil suit.