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Blogging SpectorOur revels now are ended.

By Timothy Noah
Updated Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007, at 6:17 PM ET

(Continued from page 6)

Why the Purse Strap Is A Red Herring
May 30, 2007, 3:50 p.m.

As I predicted yesterday (see below), on cross-examination defense attorney Christopher Plourd went after Dr. Louis Pena, deputy coroner for Los Angeles County, about the the vagueness of Pena's assertions about when Lana Clarkson's hands, wrists, and forearm got bruised. It could have been up to two days before she died. And remember when Pena said that if Clarkson had killed herself, she likely would have found it physically awkward to do so with a purse hanging over her shoulder? Plourd asked Pena whether it wasn't equally likely that the purse strap would have slipped off Clarkson's shoulder during a struggle with Spector over the gun. Pena demurred, but it's actually a good point. Score one for Spector.

But (and here I depart from the trial transcript to debate myself) Clarkson was found slumped in a chair. If Clarkson was seated when the gun went off, then whatever struggle (and resultant bruising) that occurred would have involved comparatively little physical movement on her part. Score one, hypothetically, for the prosecution.

But following the same logic, it would be a lot easier to shoot yourself while a purse was slung over your shoulder if you were sitting rather than standing. Score one, hypothetically, for Spector.

But Pena said yesterday that the physical evidence suggested that someone (presumably Spector) wiped blood off the gun, an unlikely gesture from an innocent man. Wouldn't Spector, in tidying up the scene for the cops (and not, as we learned from earlier testimony, dialing 911) be just as likely to restore the purse strap to Clarkson's shoulder to minimize evidence of a struggle? Score one, hypothetically, for the prosecution.

Memo to Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson: Forget the purse strap. The purse strap is never going to prove anything. It isn't evidence. It's just ... a purse strap.

How Did Lana Clarkson Get Those Bruises?
May 29, 2007, 2:50 p.m. ET

Dr. Louis Pena performed the autopsy on Lana Clarkson for the Los Angeles County coroner's office. In his testimony today, he talked about bruises found on Clarkson's body. There were purple bruises on Clarkson's left hand, on both sides of her right wrist (indicative of its having been grabbed roughly), and on her right forearm. In autopsy photographs introduced as evidence, the bruises were very noticeable. Pena also said he found a bruise on Clarkson's tongue that would be consistent with "blunt force trauma."

Dead bodies don't bruise. If Clarkson's corpse was bruised, that suggests the gunshot was preceded by a physical struggle with Phil Spector, especially since Pena said the bruising appeared to have occurred shortly before Clarkson's death. His testimony on this last point, though, was a little vague. The defense will presumably attack this uncertainty and argue the bruises could have occurred well before Clarkson arrived at Spector's mansion. Conceivably the defense could argue that Spector tried to wrestle the gun away from Clarkson, but that would be inconsistent with its anticipated claim that Spector was not standing near Clarkson when the gun went off.

Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson asked Pena how he thought Clarkson died. "This was a homicide," Pena replied. (Duh.) But the evidence he cited wasn't based on the autopsy. Rather, he cited what Spector's chauffeur, Adriano DeSouza, recalled Spector saying after hearing the gunshot: "I think I killed somebody"; the fact that Clarkson died in the home of someone she'd never met before, an unlikely setting for a suicide; the fact that Clarkson's body was found with her purse slung over her shoulder, an awkward posture if you're putting a gun into your own mouth; the fact that the gun appeared to have had blood wiped off it; the fact that blood was found inside Spector's pants pocket, indicating he'd put a bloody hand into his pocket; and the fact that Clarkson "did not own a firearm." I don't know Pena's basis for concluding this last, but the other evidence Pena cites sounds pretty damning.

Judge Fidler Disses Henry Lee
May 23, 2007, 4 p.m. ET

The Nail Wars have ended, and the bloody corpse of celebrity forensic-evidence specialist Henry Lee (one-time star of Court TV's Trace Evidence) is being carried off the field. Not literally, of course. But Dr. Lee's successful career as an expert witness has been dealt a blow by Judge Larry Paul Fidler's ruling that Lee removed something—an acrylic thumbnail, a tooth, who knows?—from Phil Spector's foyer. The judge stopped short of citing Lee for contempt but ordered him to produce the damned thing "forthwith" if he's still got it. The prosecution will be permitted to call Sara Caplan, a lawyer who previously worked for Spector's defense, and celebrity lawyer Robert Shapiro, who also represented Spector but has since parted ways with him, as witnesses for the prosecution to discredit Lee's expert testimony. How weird is that? Caplan has said she saw Lee remove a white object. "If I have to choose between the two," Judge Fidler said, "I'm going to find that Miss Caplan is more credible than Dr. Lee."

Letting the jurors know that someone saw Lee remove an object from the alleged crime scene will not only damage whatever Lee has to say, it will also make Spector look guilty—not because there's any evidence Spector himself played a role in hiding any evidence, but simply because it suggests that Lee made the calculation that Spector's defense required that a certain piece of possible evidence be hidden. (Prosecutors claim the nail would show that Lana Clarkson's hand was in front of her face, not on the trigger, though how they could possibly know that is anybody's guess.) If I were Spector's lawyers, I'd be thinking right now that Dr. Lee should not take the stand. Presumably that would allow the court to sidestep the entire question of whether Dr. Lee is credible.

I am not a laywer. But 24 years ago I published an article in Harper's (registration required) arguing that this whole business of allowing expert witnesses to be paid by interested parties in a legal proceeding seemed inherently corrupting. I was referring not to the experts' behavior, but merely to their opinions. If Judge Fidler's accusation is correct, I didn't know the half of it.

Adriano DeSouza Has Left the Building
May 22, 2007, 6:50 p.m. ET

Prosecutors introduced into evidence a videotape of police interviewing chauffeur Adriano DeSouza immediately after the shooting. The prosecutors showed the full tape to the jury to counteract defense attorney Bradley Brunon's use of a partial transcript when cross-examining DeSouza. At one point in the police interview, DeSouza was asked whether he was sure Spector had said, "I think I killed somebody." DeSouza replied, "I think so. I think—I am not sure—it's my English." Brunon made much of that. By unspooling the taped interview in its entirety, prosecutors were able to establish that

1.) DeSouza told the police repeatedly that Spector had said, "I think I killed somebody."

2.) DeSouza was using these precise words well before prosecutors had a chance to prevail on immigration authorities to allow him to remain in the country.

The defense brandished a partial transcript of another police interview in which DeSouza had Spector saying, "I think I shot somebody." But deputy district attorney Alan Jackson was able to show that DeSouza used the word shot instead of killed only after a police officer phrased it that way to him. As for DeSouza's immigration status, DeSouza testified that he is permitted to remain in the United States only until the trial ends.

Here's a question it never occurred to me to ask: Why didn't Spector call 911? A dispatch supervisor for the California Highway Patrol testified today that the only call for help received the night of Lana Clarkson's murder came from Adriano DeSouza's cell phone. If Spector were innocent, wouldn't he have dialed 911 after Clarkson committed suicide in his foyer?

After that, various cops delivered testimony. None of it seemed terribly significant. I'm not sure DeSouza's testimony has left much else to discuss. Tomorrow morning: further testimony about the fake fingernail that may or may not be missing.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
Photograph of Phil Spector by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images.
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