A juror in the Phillip Spector murder retrial has been excused at his request for reasons of financial hardship after the juror told the court that he is now paying “out of pocket” for his salary during the 5 month old murder retrial. “Juror #5”—a Caucasian man was replaced today (February 23) with an Asian female.
There are now six men and six women on the jury 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.
The prosecution experts have testified that the medical-forensic evidence fails to explain whether the famed music producer took Clarkson’s life, or whether Clarkson took her own life.
The first trial ended in a hung jury, after an initial jurors’ vote of 4 for guilty and 8 jurors stating that they were either voting not guilty or were at that point unconvinced of Spector’s guilt.
When it became known that the jury was deadlocked, the trial judge engaged in the unprecedented act of changing the jury instruction on the elements of murder—going so far as to tell the jurors that the evidence supported Phil Spector ordering Clarkson to put the gun in her own mouth and to pull the trigger.
Even then, two jurors, including one woman, failed to convict—thereby resulting in the hung jury.
The trial judge gained additional notoriety after the hung jury when an HBO documentary on the Roman Polanski case concluded by asserting (with credible supporting witnesses) that the same trial judge as in the Spector case tried to make a secret deal with the exiled French movie director that he would be granted probation, but only if he agreed to appear at a televised sentencing hearing.
In a further unorthodox move, the same trial judge refused to allow an independent judge to rule on some 40 grounds of bias that Spector’s attorneys claim required his disqualification. Instead, the judge passed on the motion himself.
There are now six men and six women on the jury 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.
The prosecution experts have testified that the medical-forensic evidence fails to explain whether the famed music producer took Clarkson’s life, or whether Clarkson took her own life.
The first trial ended in a hung jury, after an initial jurors’ vote of 4 for guilty and 8 jurors stating that they were either voting not guilty or were at that point unconvinced of Spector’s guilt.
When it became known that the jury was deadlocked, the trial judge engaged in the unprecedented act of changing the jury instruction on the elements of murder—going so far as to tell the jurors that the evidence supported Phil Spector ordering Clarkson to put the gun in her own mouth and to pull the trigger.
Even then, two jurors, including one woman, failed to convict—thereby resulting in the hung jury.
The trial judge gained additional notoriety after the hung jury when an HBO documentary on the Roman Polanski case concluded by asserting (with credible supporting witnesses) that the same trial judge as in the Spector case tried to make a secret deal with the exiled French movie director that he would be granted probation, but only if he agreed to appear at a televised sentencing hearing.
In a further unorthodox move, the same trial judge refused to allow an independent judge to rule on some 40 grounds of bias that Spector’s attorneys claim required his disqualification. Instead, the judge passed on the motion himself.
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