Phil Spector Appeal Rejected by Supreme Court

Phil Spector listens to the judge during sentencing in Los Angeles Criminal Courts.

Jae C. Hong-Pool/Getty Images

The United States Supreme Court has declined to review the murder conviction of Phil Spector. The producer's attorneys argued that his constitutional due process rights were violated when prosecutors used the trial judge's comments about an expert's testimony, effectively making the judge a witness for the prosecution.

The court upheld Spector's second-degree murder conviction for the killing of actress Lana Clarkson, who was shot dead in Spector's suburban Los Angeles home in 2003. The justices did not offer any comment on the ruling by a California appeals court.

Spector's attorneys have been working to strike down his conviction with little success over the past two years. Most recently, the California Supreme Court denied a request to review the case over the same claim of due process rights violations.