Monday, September 24, 2007

WORSE THAN O.J.

No surprise that we think O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson, after all, never met Ron Goldman -- but somehow Goldman's blood wound up in Simpson's Bronco. Strip away the theatrics (and the sheer genius of rhyming "fit" and "acquit") and there's still only one reasonable way to explain Goldman's blood in Simpson's SUV: The Juice did it.

And Phil Spector killed a woman. Sucks. Makes us sad because we grew up admiring Spector's amazing ear, his talent for creating some of the best songs in modern pop history. Never thought he'd kill someone. Just like O.J.

The physical evidence against Spector isn't nearly as strong as it was against Simpson. What damns Spector is his peculiar history of pulling guns on people -- especially women. Several women testified at trial about Spector holding them at gunpoint. It's not a leap -- or even a half-step -- to believe that Spector did the same to Lana Clarkson, only this time the trigger was pulled.

So news of a deadlocked jury in the Spector case is puzzling, and maybe that explains why Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler is making it even easier to convict Spector. As USA Today reports:
After the jury reported the impasse last week, the judge withdrew a so-called pinpoint instruction that several jurors indicated was giving them trouble.

That instruction said that in order to convict Spector the jury had to find that "the defendant must have committed an act that caused the death of Lana Clarkson," and it specified the act was pointing a gun at her, which resulted in the gun entering her mouth while in Spector's hand.

The judge decided that the instruction misstated the law by unduly limiting possibilities that the jury could consider. He gave a new instruction that included examples of inferences the jury could draw from the evidence, including the possibility that Spector forced Clarkson to place the gun in her own mouth and it went off.
If this doesn't work, maybe he'll tell jurors that if they didn't like Spector's hair, they could convict him. Anything to end this hell.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember reading in DEE DEE Ramone's autobiography about Spector threatening him with a pistol in 1980 0r 81 when he was producing the Ramones "End of the Century" LP.

Anonymous said...

The women who testified that he held guns to their heads is very damaging. Add to that the drivers testimoney. I can't believe the jury is still delbetating this. the man committed murder and was just a matter of time before this happened. he liked to abuse people with guns and this time he went too far and it went off and killed someone. I read he used to keep his ex wife Ronnie prisoner in that house, never liked anyone to leave him. he's one sick dude.

Anonymous said...

speak for yourself as far as admiring ps's music. he royally phucked up the let it be albumn imhfo.

one more example of friggin la celebrity justice.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, fry his ass.

Anonymous said...

the oj has been living with his current nicole lookalike for 10 years now without slicing and dicing her so he musta been 100% not guility.