LOS ANGELES — Thirteen months after a jury deadlocked over the guilt of legendary music producer Phil Spector in the death of an actress, a prosecutor rose before a second jury Wednesday morning and offered them the same promise he made to the first.
“You will be introduced to the real Phillip Spector,” Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson told the Superior Court panel. That man, he said, has “a very rich history of violence” toward women that culminated with the murder of Lana Clarkson in the foyer of his Alhambra, Calif., mansion.
“This is how Phil Spector met Lana Clarkson,” the prosecutor said as a glamorous head shot of the smiling blond actress appeared on a projection screen.
“This is how he left her,” he said as a police photo appeared showing Clarkson sprawled dead in a chair with blood on her mouth and nose.
In the crowded spectators’ gallery, there was a soft gasp.
Spector stared forward at the defense table, acknowledging neither the prosecutor nor photos that flashed on the screen above his head.
In his opening statement, Jackson said the fatal shooting of Clarkson on Feb. 3, 2003, fit the legendary music producer’s 30-year pattern of terrorizing women with guns when he was drunk and they wanted to leave his side.
The 68-year-old, renowned for his work with artists including the Beatles, Tina Turner and the Ronettes, faces a minimum of 18 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. The jury at his first trial deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of his guilt.
His defense contends that Clarkson, 40, was depressed and shot herself with Spector’s .38 Special a few hours after they met at a music club.
The prosecutor spent an hour describing in detail incidents stretching back to the 1970s in which Spector is alleged to have menaced five different women with guns.
Outside the jury’s presence, Spector’s attorney objected to the prosecutor’s repeated use of the word “pattern” when discussing the women.Defense attorney Doron Weinberg said that the prosecutor went beyond what the court allowed and was suggesting Spector was guilty of murder because of bad behavior in the past.
“It’s trying Mr. Spector’s character,” Weinberg complained.
The judge instructed the prosecutor to stop using the word.
