It is believed he will appeal
Neither no faxing payday loans in El Cerrito nor an easy loan will help Phil Spector at this point. He has been sentenced in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. There will be no bail, but he will appeal.
Linda Deutsch reports for the Associated Press that the famous Motown music producer has received a 19-year prison sentence in the murder of “Barbarian Queen” star Clarkson. According to the sentencing Los Angeles judge, that will break down into 15 years to life for second-degree murder and four years for “personal use of a gun.” Restitution payments will also be in order.
Spector is 69 years old. Clarkson died in his Alhambra, California home in 2003. The 19-year sentence is effectively a life sentence for the frail, troubled man.
A celebrity who lost
Celebrity murder cases in California have not gone well for the prosecution. Just look at the infamous O.J. Simpson case and you know this to be true, or the Robert Blake case. But no glove or parrot sidekick could exonerate Phil Spector of charges. Perhaps it’s because Spector wasn’t a performer in the direct sense. He was a music producer who created a signature “wall of sound” technique that revolutionized popular music recording.
So he was famous, but not necessarily a celebrity. But he was also famous for his bizarre behavior which allegedly included pulling a firearm on John Lennon, the Ramones and possibly others on various occasions in and out of the recording studio. Now Spector may figure he can stick up the appeals process and get his way.
“He’s doing fairly well,” said lawyer Doron Weinberg. “He’s adjusting to the circumstances and settling down to wait out an appeal with high hopes. He feels he will win the appeal.”
A tale of two trials
Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler handed down the mandatory 15-years-to-life sentence. The additional four years for the gun charge were added at his discretion. The prosecution asked for four (versus the defense team’s request for three), and the prosecution got what they wanted.
This was actually the second trial for Spector, each with the same evidence. The opener back in 2007 was almost completely televised and interest from spectators was high, because people love morbid and celebrity more than they do chocolate and peanut butter. The results were less than satisfying for the voyeuristic public, as the jury deadlocked at the close of the five-month trial. Interestingly, Spector’s “dream team” of lawyers left after that first trial. Once the retrial came in 2008, cameras were off and only a handful of spectators and reporters were chasing.
Enter: retrial 2008
Now Spector had only a single defense lawyer, Doron Weinberg. There was a new prosecutor and a new jury. In was an emotionally charged trial; the forewoman is reported to have “wept after the guilty verdict,” but she “gave no hint of what tipped the scales on the panel’s decision except to say it was based on ‘all the evidence, all the testimony,’” writes Deutsch.
Not only did the new jury claim to have little knowledge of Phil Spector’s musical legacy, but Lana Clarkson didn’t either. The actress was introduced to him through a supervisor at her House of Blues job. The 40-year-old Clarkson had experienced a career lull, and Spector’s defense team claimed she was suicidal to the point that she (allegedly) shot herself. This is what Spector spent millions attempting to prove.
But exactly what happened inside Spector’s home was never made completely clear. However, the jury found enough evidence to convict him. After hearing a gunshot, Spector’s chauffeur says he saw Spector emerge from the room where Clarkson died. He says Spector then said to him : “I think I killed somebody.”
A bad history with women
Weinberg maintained evidence supported the theory that Lana Clarkson took her own life. But the prosecution made the case that this tragic interaction between Spector and the actress came too close to Spector’s confrontations with other women in his life, most of them involving alcohol. In their words, Spector became “a demonic maniac” when he drank.
The testimony of five women from Phil Spector’s past could have been what did him in. Weinberg said Spector’s appeal will focus on proving that the presiding judge was in error when he allowed the women to testify. Stay tuned for more. No faxing payday loans in El Cerrito and an easy loan won’t be what gets Spector out; only the hail mary appeal could possibly make a difference.
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