LAWFUEL – The most dramatic exchanges in the Phil Spector murder trial Thursday occurred away from the jury, as defense lawyers pushed to allow jurors to hear statements Spector made to police after his arrest, as well as what was written on Lana Clarkson’s computer suggesting she was despondent shortly before her death, the LA Times reported.
Spector told police in the hours after Clarkson was found shot in his home the morning of Feb. 3, 2003, that she had shot herself while singing “Da Doo Ron Ron” and other Spector-produced songs. That statement and others he made insisting that the 40-year-old actress killed herself have thus far not been allowed in his trial.
During a break in the otherwise clinical cross-examination of Deputy Medical Examiner Louis Pena, Spector’s attorneys asked Judge Larry Paul Fidler to allow the statements in court. Pena said he ruled Clarkson’s death a homicide partly because Spector allegedly told his driver “I think I killed somebody.”
Spector attorneys Christopher J. Plourd and Bruce Cutler said it was important to ask Pena if he had considered Spector’s remarks to police that Clarkson shot herself.
Fidler did not bite. Spector could have concocted those statements to cover himself, Fidler said, and if they were to be repeated, prosecutors would have to be allowed to cross-examine him. “His statements are out, and if he wants those statements in, he may testify,” Fidler said.
It is doubtful whether attorneys for Spector, 67, will allow him to take the stand.
Spector’s attorneys also asked to present writings from Clarkson’s home computer in which she described heavy drug and alcohol use and hearing voices. “They indicate in a nutshell she was depressed,” Plourd said. “In the most significant ones, she talks about delusions, hearing things, seeing things.”
