Phil spector second trial attorney

Second-degree murder carries a penalty of 15 years to life in prison. She met Spector only hours earlier at her job as a nightclub hostess. Prosecutors argued Spector had a history of threatening women with guns when they tried to leave his presence. The tall blond actress, recently turned 40 and unable to find acting work, had taken a job as a hostess. Defense attorney Doron Weinberg disputed whether the chauffeur remembered the words accurately. In closing arguments, Weinberg listed 14 points of forensic evidence including blood spatter, gunshot residue and DNA, which he said were proof of a self-inflicted wound.

How do you say this could have been a homicide? They also contended blood spatter evidence proved that Clarkson could not have shot herself. As in the first trial, they presented testimony from five women who told of being threatened by a drunken Spector, even held hostage in his home, with a gun pointed at them and threats of death if they tried to leave.

He provided other staples of the Hollywood justice story: the tirade on the steps of the courthouse, the elaborate and downright weird hairdo, the rococo attire, the trophy wife, the phalanx of bodyguards. While the first trial was dominated by forensics and the finer points on how blood spatters, the rerun came down to an elaborate game of did he, didn't he, involving meditations on memory, suggestibility and English language proficiency.

At the centre of the dispute was Spector's stand-in chauffeur on the night of Clarkson's death, Adriano de Souza, a Brazilian student who proved an unflappable witness. Despite his occasional awkwardness with English, De Souza recounted how he had collected Spector for an evening out that had seen him visit a clutch of Hollywood haunts, Trader Vic's and Dan Tana's, imbibe a huge amount of alcohol — "navy grog", proof tequila — and share his evening with two dates before ending at the House of Blues.

There, Spector met Clarkson, an actor whose role, far removed from the showbusiness recognition she craved, was to guard the VIP area. Initially she took the freakishly coiffed Spector for a woman, before being corrected by the management and told to treat him "like gold".

After some persuasion she agreed to go home with Spector for a nightcap, watching Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in the back of the Mercedes S limousine driven by De Souza on the way to "Phil Spector's Pyrenees castle", a room turreted mansion perched on a hill in the unprepossessing Los Angeles suburb of Alhambra. Two hours later, she was dead. For the second trial, almost six years after Clarkson's death, Spector downsized.

Gone was the retinue of heavies that had marched into court with him every day the first time around. He was accompanied by just one bodyguard, and his young wife, Rachelle. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

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