Spector defense attacks prosecution in closing

The music producer's attorney asks the jury to seek the truth about who fired the gun that killed actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.

By Michael Muskal
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

12:01 PM PDT, September 6, 2007

The defense in the Phil Spector murder trial came out swinging this morning as attorney Linda Kenney Baden asked the jury to seek the truth about who fired the gun that killed Lana Clarkson.

The trial, which began in earnest in April, is in its second day of closing arguments. The prosecution took all Wednesday to portray Spector as the man who shot actress Lana Clarkson through the mouth in the early hours of Feb. 3, 2003, and dismissed the defense as the best science money could buy.

Isn't it interesting, Kenney Baden said of the shooting, that the prosecution in its closing "never told you exactly how this could have happened."

"Who put the gun in Lana Clarkson's mouth and who pulled the trigger" are the questions you will decide, Kenney Baden told the nine men and three women jurors, urging them to be investigators seeking the truth.

As Kenney Baden began this morning, she faced two tasks: to resurrect the defense's scientific testimony and to break some of the momentum the prosecution had built up in a dramatic closing.

The jury could begin deliberations as soon as Friday.

The defense has argued throughout the trial that Clarkson, 40, accidentally shot herself hours after meeting Spector at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, where she worked as a hostess in the VIP area. Her body was found in the foyer of Spector's Alhambra mansion.

"Lana Clarkson held the gun and pulled the trigger," Kenney Baden insisted.

"We want you to walk through the evidence to see for yourselves what happened that night," Kenney Baden said and launched into a closing that is expected to last at least through today.

The jury will weigh second-degree murder charges against Spector. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Reasonable doubt was a phrase that Kenney Baden used frequently. She even displayed a slide that labeled her key points with "reasonable doubt" in bright red letters.

"The burden of truth in this case" is on the prosecution, Kenney Baden said. "They must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt."

.In her opening in April, Kenney Baden argued that science would work for the defense and offered 10 points that she said proved that Spector could not have shot Clarkson.

In her comments before court broke for lunch, Kenny Baden returned to the central role that science will play in proving Spector could not have shot Clarkson.

In keeping with that agenda, Kenney Baden was almost professorial in her presentation, generally addressing the jury from notes at the podium as she recounted scientific details and jargon. By contrast, Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson was fiery and frequently in motion during his dramatic closing on Wednesday.

Kenney Baden discussed the white jacket Spector was wearing and the limited amount of blood spatter. Spector could not have shot Clarkson without there being more blood spatter, Kenney Baden said.

She also cited the absence of blood on Spector's coat cuffs and said that defense experts testified that almost all intra-oral gunshot wounds are self-inflicted.

"Inches count in this case," she said, arguing that the science showed that Clarkson's blood could have traveled as far as six feet, too far away for Spector to have held the gun in Clarkson's mouth. The prosecution argued Spector was within three feet.

"Every inch back from that 2 ½ feet is an inch of doubt," Kenney Baden said. "Here, ladies and gentlemen, there are feet of doubt."

On Wednesday, Jackson dismissed the defense's 10 scientific points, arguing they were inaccurate and failed to show what the defense wanted. Jackson said it was a "checkbook" defense, based on paid experts who were willing to say whatever they were told.

Before the jury was seated this morning, the defense made another motion for a mistrial to Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler.

Defense attorney Dennis Riordan argued that the prosecution's closing cast aspersions on the defense as assassins of Clarkson's character. Riordan noted that all of the evidence about Clarkson's drinking and lifestyle had been allowed by Fidler.

Fidler denied the mistrial motion but accepted the point and admonished the jury that it was fair for the defense to present the material about Clarkson. The judge also cleaned up several points that the defense objected to in Jackson's closing, including the use of the word "murder" to describe Clarkson's death.