Los Angeles – The judge in record producer Phil Spector’s murder trial decided Wednesday not to allow the deadlocked jury to consider a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
“It’s not so much the words, it’s basically the timing when they’ve reached an impasse,” Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler told attorneys. He said the jury might take being offered such an option at this point to mean they should find Spector guilty of manslaughter.
He asked the attorneys outside the jury’s presence for arguments on how the current jury instructions might be restated to aid the panel in deliberations, which were suspended after the impasse was announced Tuesday.
Fidler ruled earlier in the trial that the jury would only consider the charge of second-degree murder and not any lesser offenses.
Spector, 67, is charged with murdering actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra mansion on Feb. 3, 2003, a few hours after she met up with him at her job as a nightclub hostess and went home with him.
The defense maintains Clarkson, 40, was depressed and shot herself in the mouth either on purpose or by accident.
When the 7-5 impasse was reported, Fidler told the lawyers that he had found a precedent in a California Supreme Court ruling that might require him to give the jury the option of considering a lesser offense.
Ultimately, he said, “I do accept that it would be inappropriate at this time to instruct the jury with a new offense, that being the lesser offense of manslaughter, because I believe it’s basically directing them, if at all possible, that’s what they should find. And that is inappropriate.”
