Yesterday in the Phil Spector murder trial, Phil Spector's defence took the opportunity to use its closing arguments as a last-ditch effort to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by claiming that nobody could jolly well prove anything.
Even though the Phil Spector murder trial defence could have only gone worse if Phil Spector had actually shot a female courtroom clerk in the mouth right in front of anyone and then splashed about in the blood like a toddler in a puddle, yesterday was the time for it to put things right. Phil Spector's new lead attorney Linda Kenney-Baden did this by noting the lack of any evidence whatsoever to convict Phil Spector with, the way that the case of the prosecution was mostly anecdotal and by making one crack about a bazooka that made us involuntarily go "ugh." However, commentators are bemoaning Linda Kenney-Baden's lack of references to Phil Spector's lesbian haircut in her closing argument – not because it's important, just because it's funny.
Later today or early next week the judge in the Phil Spector trial will send the jury out for deliberation – which means these next few days will be extremely important for Phil Spector's defence because, let's face it, it's had a nightmare. All Phil Spector's defence needed to do was prove that Lana Clarkson was so depressed on the day she died that she shot herself in the mouth out of desperation. Instead it managed to pull out a computer file about ghosts, confusingly bring Michael Bay into the equation, point out that Phil Spector isn't very big and have a lengthy discussion about the French Revolution that genuinely nobody on Earth was interested in. Way to go.
And if that wasn't enough, the Phil Spector defence also managed to embroiled in an argument about evidence tampering, see its head lawyer first fall ill and then bugger off entirely and also opportunistically scream the word 'mistrial' whenever possible. Meanwhile, the prosecution brought out witnesses to say that Phil Spector had pulled a gun on them, that Phil Spector was a pottymouthed death-wishing woman-hater and that Phil Spector told his driver he killed someone. Double way to go.
On Wednesday the prosecution gave its closing argument by whispering "Don't go, Lana. Don't go" like some kind of terrifying psychic, and yesterday the defence got a shot at a rebuttal. A good thing really because, according to lead attorney Linda Kenney-Baden, there apparently isn't a shred of evidence to convict him with. AFP reports:
"They made up their institutional mind on day one that this must be a murder despite the clear scientific evidence that it was not," Kenney-Baden said. "They wanted this to be the first celebrity notch on their belt." Kenney-Baden said the absence of gun-shot residue and blood spatter tissue from the sleeves of a jacket worn by Spector on the night of the killing showed he could not have shot Clarkson. "Those sleeves by themselves prove Phillip is innocent," she said. Blood and tissue had sprayed out of Clarkson's mouth "like a bazooka," Kenney-Baden added, saying Spector's jacket would have been covered with evidence had he been standing anywhere near Clarkson.
Ugh, see? Later today the defence's closing arguments will draw to a conclusion, followed by a rebuttal by the prosecution, and then it's over to the jury, who will need to decide if Phil Spector is a murderer or not. The deliberation in itself is expected to go on for some time because not only will the jury have to consider that lack of incriminating evidence against Phil Spector, but there's also a chance that someone will bring up Phil Spector's wonderfully silky hair – and we for one know that we could talk about that alone for days.
Read more:
No Scientific Evidence Linking Spector To Murder, Jurors Told – AFP