PHIL SPECTOR JURY VISITS LANA CLARKSON DEATH SCENE

AP Photo/Richard Hartog, Pool, File

Blogonaut Via Associated Press and other sources.

A very curious jury of twelve and six alternate jurors swarmed over the foyer of Phil Spector’s 30 room mansion yesterday, also touring an adjacent powder room, the living room, and a courtyard and fountain located in the back of the residence.

The jury of seven men and five women—which includes a UCLA research scientist and social worker—are charged with determining whether Spector shot down-on-her-luck actress Lana Clarkson in the mansion’s foyer in the early morning hours of February 3, 2003 or whether a depressed and intoxicated Clarkson took her own life as the defense contends.

According to Linda Deutsch of the Associated Press:

“The 12 jurors, plus six alternates, arrived at the home to find a courtyard fountain splashing just like it was when Spector brought Clarkson home with him in a chauffeured limousine. A duplicate limo was parked outside.”

Prosecutor Alan Jackson had sought to have the fountain turned off for the visit, claiming that the fountain level had been manipulated by Spector’s prior defense team when the jury from the first Spector murder trial (which resulted in a hung jury) visited the residence. However, the defense was able to prove that the fountain pump has only one speed and could not be manipulated.

In a victory for the defense, the trial judge found there was no evidence that the fountain had been tampered with during the prior jury visit, and ruled that the fountain would be on.

This was crucial for Spector’s defense because it claims that Spector’s driver that night—who was waiting in Spector’s Mercedes near the fountain with the windows rolled up and the radio and heater on—could not have heard Spector clearly that morning over the noisy water feature when, as claimed by the driver, Spector emerged near the back of the residence and allegedly said “I think I just killed somebody”. The driver later told police investigators that due to his poor English, he was not sure what Spector said, but at trial stood by the alleged confession.

As with the last jury visit during the first trial, the jurors asked the trial judge for permission to sit in the Mercedes while someone stood at the door of the residence and talked conversationally, and again the jury was told “no”.

However, this time “several jurors stood outside by the car and had another juror talk on the steps of the home. They also measured the distance from the car to the door” the AP reported.

In addition, the jury has also asked the trial judge to specify the wattages of the interior wall sconces in the foyer and in the outdoor lighting fixtures, according to Linda Deutsch’s story.

In other Spector jury news, a blogger covering the retrial under the pseudonym Sprocket is reporting that in yesterdays afternoon session immediately following the Thursday morning site visit a unnamed male juror requested that the trial court release him from jury duty in the four month old trial, allegedly claiming that he is broke and is now caring for his elderly father. Sprocket reports that the Court will take up the juror’s request to bail from the murder trial on Monday, February 23, 2009. The juror's occupation was not immediately known, but he was identified as "Juror #5".

The defense case is expected to wrap up sometime in March, 2009.

While it is hard to know what any jury is thinking, the experiment performed at the scene yesterday morning combined with some of the questions posed by some jurors is hard to reconcile with a jury that has been altogether persuaded by the prosecution’s case on retrial—which ended in December of 2008.