Phil Spector Trial Opens

A Noir Opening to Phil Spector Murder Trial, Wash. Post, April 26, 2007:

Prosecutor [Alan] Jackson's presentation was as crisp as the part in his hair, and at times he employed the language and cadence of an L.A. noir novelist. "On February 3, 2003, a single gunshot cracked the silence of the normally very quiet community of Alhambra, California," he began, at the "almost palatial home" Spector lives in, a hilltop mansion he calls "the castle," where Clarkson died from a bullet to the head from a .38 Colt Cobra. "Lana Clarkson will have to tell her story from the grave," Jackson said.

The judge ruled that the prosecution may introduce testimony from four women about Spector's previous incidents of pointing a gun at the face of a date.

How would you have argued the motion in limine about the past incidents? See Spector's pas gun play admitted in trial, CourtTV, May 24, 2005.

Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler acknowledged that allowing the evidence was "a dangerous path to go down," but he concluded the incidents seemed to illustrate the state's theory in the case.

A prosecution motion filed in February said the incidents showed Spector had a "common plan" of using guns "to intimidate women into staying with him."

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Fidler refused to allow six other incidents to be introduced as evidence.

For way more about this celebrity trial, see CourtTV's page on the trial, which includes articles, pictures, and streaming video.