Spector retrial moves toward jury selection

A WITNESS at Phil Spector’s murder retrial will be allowed to testify that the record producer used incendiary language about women and once stated they should be shot, a judge has ruled.

Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler has rejected a defence motion to exclude the testimony, but said he would consider censoring a specific obscene word the witness says Spector used in describing women in the early 1990s.

Spector is charged with second-degree murder in the 2003 death of actress Lana Clarkson, 40, at his Alhambra mansion. She died of a gunshot through the mouth while seated in a foyer. Spector’s first trial ended a year ago when jurors deadlocked 10-2, with the majority in favour of conviction.

Lawyers are expected to begin questioning prospective jurors on Monday for the retrial.

The defence sought to exclude testimony by Vincent Tannazzo, a retired New York city policeman who testified at the first trial that Spector was ousted from two parties at Joan Rivers’ house and on both occasions he heard Spector say women “deserve a bullet in their (obscenity) heads” and he should have shot the woman who invited him.

“In both cases, he says the exact same thing. This is not an off-the-cuff remark,” prosecutor Alan Jackson told the judge. “It shows his state of mind regarding women.”

In the first trial, the defence suggested that Clarkson took a gun from a drawer in the foyer and shot herself.