The Undoing of the Phil Spector Case

I really haven't paid that much attention to L.A.'s current celebrity trial - the Phil Spector murder case. Spector may be an extremely talented music producer, but he's also one weird dude. Anyone watching him in the TV coverage of the case would be hard pressed to feel a lot of sympathy for him, and given his past proclivity to pull guns on young women who reject his charms (and his astonishing poor choices in hairstyles), it seemed pretty much a sure thing that he pulled the trigger on Lana Clarkson and killed the struggling actress. It may have been accidental in the sense that he didn't intend to shoot her, but when you're waving guns in other people's faces, accidents can happen.

For those folks who have been following the case, LA Weekly posted some trial information that will probably end up being this case's "if it doesn't fit, you must aquit" moment, and the deceased herself may be the undoing of the case:

The week’s most dubious highlight came when the defense played Lana Unleashed, Clarkson’s portfolio video designed to showcase her comedic talents. Prosecutors Alan Jackson and Pat Dixon begged Fidler to block the screening but the judge ignored their pleas. The video quickly made clear why Clarkson did not have her own Comedy Central show. Her self-written sketches, intended to demonstrate Clarkson’s range of characterizations and dialects, appeared desperately unfunny on the courtroom screen. She was dying up there — all over again.

It also became obvious why Spector’s lawyers fought to have the video shown. In one segment Clarkson performs a black-face impersonation of singer Little Richard selling a line of African-American cosmetics on TV. The sketch was nothing more than a coon show and seemed to drag on for hours as reporters kept an eye on the jury’s three black members, who watched with frozen expressions. (“Little Richard’s” cosmetic kit — called “Makeup Kit for Dummies” — included minibar bottles of liquor and plastic pieces of a black man’s face.)

Getting Lana Unleashed shown in open court was a stroke of sadistic genius on the part of attorney Roger Rosen, who, after winning Fidler’s approval to play the video, smiled that satisfied Rosen smile we’ve all come to know, as though he’d just dropped the dime on Anne Frank. Reviews of Rosen’s gambit, though, were mixed — Clarkson’s sister Fawn wept through the entire viewing.

Again and again one is struck by the level of self-delusion and manic optimism expressed about Hollywood and life in general — not only by Clarkson but by everyone in her world. The belief of Clarkson’s friends and associates, articulated in three and a half months of testimony, is a thoroughly Southern California credo that equates talent with self-esteem, eating right, exercising and becoming spiritual.

There wouldn't be any good reason for Spector to expect a particular level of sympathy from black jurors...until now. All it takes is one person to hang the jury and months of work and money go down the drain.