Says Who Live

Spector jury locked in 7-5 impasse

The judge in Phil Spector’s murder trial said he is considering giving jurors the option of finding the record producer guilty of a lesser charge than second degree murder after the panelists reported a 7-5 impasse following seven days of deliberations.

Spector’s defense team was expected Wednesday to vigorously oppose Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler’s expected proposal to help jurors break their deadlock, while legal scholars said a conviction on lesser charges could be vulnerable to appeal.

Spector, 67, a music legend, is charged with murdering actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra mansion on Feb. 3, 2003, a few hours after she met him at her job as a nightclub hostess and went home with him.

The defense maintains Clarkson, 40, was depressed and shot herself in the mouth either on purpose or by accident.

The jury foreman, a 32-year-old civil engineer, told the judge that he saw little hope of resolving the impasse and indicated jurors were in disagreement about facts in the case, not about the law.

“I believe it comes down to the individual jurors’ conclusions that are drawn from the facts,” said the foreman. “At this time I don’t believe that anything else will change the positions of the jurors, based on the facts that are in evidence.”

He said the panel had taken four votes before reporting the deadlock.

The judge, clearly troubled by the prospect of a hung jury after five months of trial, told jurors he might give them some new instructions, or even have attorneys reargue part of the case.

Legal experts said Fidler would be risking appellate disapproval if a conviction was obtained after adding involuntary manslaughter as an option.

“He’s certainly taking a gamble that the defense won’t be able to make a plausible argument on appeal,” said Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California.