Phil Spector murder trial set to enter forensic evidence phase

FIVE weeks into the Phil Spector murder trial, it is time for the prosecution to change course, moving the courtroom drama from personal stories into the critical phase of forensic evidence.

Fans of television’s CSI are likely to be riveted.

Now there will be discussions of blood spatter, fibres, gunshot residue, DNA and the path a bullet took when it killed actress Lana Clarkson.

A coroner and crime lab technicians are due on the witness stand today to explain how such evidence can offer insight into what happened at Spector’s mansion on February 3, 2003.

“The prosecution has to show that the forensic evidence is consistent with their theory that Spector pulled the trigger or forced her to pull the trigger,” said Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson.

“This is a critical stage because this is where the defence has their focus,” she said. “They have to anticipate what the defencse is going to do.”

In opening statements defence attorney Linda Kenney-Baden said that science would be the silent witness.

“We have one unimpeachable witness who has no motive to lie, no memory problems, no language problems and that witness is science,” she said.

Her husband, Michael Baden, a renowned forensic pathologist, is expected to testify for the defence.

But first the prosecution will present an array of its own experts, mostly the staff of the police crime lab and coroner’s office.

Prosecutors will call no outside experts although they could have some waiting to testify in the rebuttal case if necessary.

“Lana Clarkson will have to tell her story through the evidence and from the grave,” prosecutor Alan Jackson said in his opening statement.

Kenney-Baden responded, “The science will tell you who did what and what happened here. The science will tell you Phil Spector did not shoot Lana Clarkson, did not hold the gun and did not pull the trigger.”

Clarkson’s body, with a gunshot wound through the mouth, was found seated in the foyer of Spector’s suburban Alhambra mansion.

She had met Spector at the House of Blues, where she was a hostess, and agreed to accompany him on a chauffeur-driven ride to his home.

Jurors have seen gory photographs of her bloody face. Her mother and sister have been present for every day of testimony. The women have averted their eyes when gruesome pictures of Clarkson are on screen.

Spector, 67, rose to fame in the 1960s and ‘70s, changing rock music with what became known as the “Wall of Sound” recording technique. Clarkson was best known for a 1980s role in Roger Corman’s Barbarian Queen.