The murder trial of music producer Phil Spector ended on Wednesday in a mistrial after the jury, leaning heavily to convict him, could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office said it planned to retry the case.
Spector, 67, charged with second-degree murder in the 2003 killing of Lana Clarkson in his home, stared blankly forward as Judge Larry Paul Fidler of Superior Court ended the proceedings after the jury foreman reported a 10-2 deadlock.
The impasse came after an earlier deadlock of 7-5, which jurors later said also tilted toward conviction, that led the judge to take the unusual step of sending jurors back to deliberate with new instructions, which angered the defense.
Three jurors, speaking to reporters afterward, said the two holdouts gave credence to a defense assertion that the death of Clarkson, a 40-year-old struggling actress, might have been a suicide rather than a murder.
They said the jurors had also been troubled by the lack of large amounts of blood on Spector and the poor English of a witness, Spector's driver, who said he heard Spector say, "I think I killed somebody."
Fidler kept gag orders in place preventing lawyers and parties in the case from speaking publicly. He set a hearing for Wednesday.
Spector, the mastermind behind hits like Da Doo Ron Ron and Be My Baby, escorted by his wife, lawyers and bodyguards, left after the verdict through an adjacent courtroom without saying a word, free on bail.
"We're disappointed the jury was unable to reach a verdict in this case, and we will immediately begin preparations for a retrial," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office at a news conference.
Spector was accused of killing Clarkson, whom he had met at a nightclub hours before she was found dead from a gunshot wound to her mouth in the foyer of his home.
Prosecutors said Spector shot Clarkson in an alcohol-fueled rage after she resisted his advances. They presented testimony from five other women who described similar threats by Spector.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS