• R. Kelly has avoided arrest by making it back to Chicago in time for a court appearance. Kelly missed court yesterday after getting stuck in Utah snowstorm. As a result of his tardiness, the judge will decide tomorrow whether to disallow Kelly’s special permission to tour while facing child-pornography charges, as well as consider revoking R.’s bail. In addition, a court date for the much-delayed start of Kelly’s trial is anticipated tomorrow.

• Starting January 1st, 2009, Ticketmaster will have a new competitor, as Live Nation will officially throw their multi-corporation hat into the ticket biz. Live Nation’s ticket program will use Eventim, deemed “most technologically sophisticated ticketing platform in the world.”

• Death Cab for Cutie will release their new album sometime in May 2008, according to a video montage from the studio on the band’s Web site. The group’s last album, Plans, came out in 2005.

• Record producer Phil Spector, who narrowly escaped a prison sentence for murder thanks to a mistrial, is suing his ex-lawyer Robert Shapiro to reclaim the $1 million fee he paid Shapiro to briefly represent him. Spector claims Shapiro inadequately prepared the trial and may have been responsible for the prosecution filing charges in the first place.

• The Wu-Tang Clan is coming to your town … if you can recruit 1,499 of your closest friends to “demand” them. Working with the service Eventful Demand, the Wu promise to visit any town/city/grotto that can get 1,500 people to log in and demand their town be played. Couer d’ Alene, Idaho, it’s your move now.

• Four years after releasing an album as their secret side project the Network, Green Day appear to be at it again. This time, the American Idiot trio is reportedly operating under the pseudonym the Foxboro Hot Tubs, a fake Sixties garage-rock band who just this weekend launched their own Web site with a free six-song EP to download. Are the Sixties-tinged Hot Tubs actually Green Day in disguise? Listen to the song “Ruby Room” and it seems pretty evident that Billie Joe Armstrong is handling the singing duties.
• German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, an electronic-music pioneer who was also featured on the cover collage of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s, has died at age seventy-nine. Artists as diverse as Björk, Kraftwerk and Miles Davis cited Stockhausen as an influence.
• Record producer Phil Spector has hired a new lawyer, Doron Weinberg, to lead his legal team after Spector’s previous murder trial ended in mistrial. Weinberg told the court that he requires at least five months to properly prepare himself and read through over 10,000 pages of trial transcripts, meaning the Spector retrial will likely begin in autumn 2008.
• Members of rapper Fabolous’ Street Family Entertainment are being investigated for a string of robberies of professional athletes, according to the New York Police Department. Among the victims are former New York Giant Frank Walker, basketball player Sebastian Telfair and boxer Zab Judah, who was allegedly robbed by the Street Family twice.
• The late Joe Strummer’s wife has discovered drawings, lyrics and recordings by the Clash frontman, and is planning on releasing a book/CD combo of unearthed Strummer material.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
After the first match of Spector vs. California ended in a mistrial, Team Spector made some roster moves before the rematch begins. Out is defense lawyer Roger Rosen and rumored to be out is Bradley Brunon, as Spector felt a mistrial by the final tally of 10-2 was way too close to a guilty verdict. Taking over at lead counsel will be San Francisco legal giant Dennis Riordan, who cameoed at the first trial to help Spector’s squad during the tedious jury instructions process. Christopher Plourd and Spector consigliere Linda Kenney-Baden will still defend Spector, for now. Even though the lawyer firing shows Spector was disappointed that he was only sparred from jail by two acquitting jurors, that didn’t prevent Spector and his trouble-making wife Rachelle from doing a victory dance (and hump — see above) upon returning to their faux-mansion in Alhambra, as Phil celebrated being (for now, at least) a free man.

THE JURORS SPEAK:
A day after Juror nine expressed his regret that the jury couldn’t find Spector unanimously guilty, Juror ten, who was also the jury foreman, was ambushed into an interview with Court TV to explain to the viewers at home why he voted that Spector be acquitted. (more…)

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
Phil Spector avoided a lengthy jail sentence … for now. By the final score of 10-2, guilty votes almost convicted Spector for the murder of Lana Clarkson, but thankfully for Phil, a unanimous decision could not be reached, so we’re back to square one. Three of the twelve jurors spoke to the media following the mistrial, including the jury foreman, who only made a brief statement to explain what went down during the twelve-day deliberations. All three men said they think Spector is guilty, and noted the two non-guilty votes stemmed from jurors who felt there wasn’t enough reasonable doubt to prove that Lana Clarkson didn’t commit suicide that night in Spector’s mansion. An in-depth psychological report on Clarkson would have helped sway the two renegade jury members, said their fellow juror.

The same juror lambasted Team Spector for putting on a “fake” defense that created scientific theories, paid for high-priced witnesses, and even employed the forensic scientist husband of one of its lawyers. He also criticized the defense for character-assassinating Lana Clarkson. In fact, the juror was pretty unable to mask his disappointment that two of his peers allowed Spector to slip away. As for the prosecution, strip away all female witnesses that claimed Spector pointed a gun at them and the missing evidence, and it’s still evident that Spector was the murderer, the juror remarked. Both jurors, however, said that if the charge was manslaughter, and not second degree murder, that Spector might be wearing an orange jumpsuit in San Quentin by now. Manslaughter is the key word as the prosecution seeks to rebound from this mistrial.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Judge Fidler will meet with the prosecution and defense sometime next week to discuss how the State of California will proceed. District Attorney spokeswoman Sandy Gibbons made it abundantly clear that Spector will face a retrial “immediately.” For the time being, both sides will likely cue up their TiVos, study the hours and hours of Court TV trial footage, and figure out what they need to do to win. So while Spector might have been donning his party wig last night as he celebrated in his faux-mansion, he better make sure all his flamboyant suits are pressed and cleaned, as the curtain will rise on Act Two of this trial in the near future.

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?
Round one in the Phil Spector murder trial is over. At roughly 2:30 PM EST today, the jury passed a note to Judge Fidler saying that they are still unable to come to a unanimous decision. A hearing was scheduled for 4:30pm EST, giving both Phil Spector and the family of Lana Clarkson adequate time to come to the courthouse. Once there, Juror Ten, the jury foreman, informed the judge that the jury could not come to a verdict. After six cast ballots, the final split was 10-2 (post-show speculation has the ten being for conviction). Judge Fidler then polled each individual juror to see whether or not any of them felt a unanimous decision was at all possible. Each and every juror responded, “No, your honor.” After hearing that, the judge declared a mistrial, and the jury was dismissed. It’s on the prosecution now to decide what the next steps are.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
Phil Spector will likely have a huge celebratory bash for his defense team tonight.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
With Day eleven of deliberations slowly going down in the jury room, drama in the Phil Spector murder trial traveled out of the courtroom and into the realm of MySpace. It was discovered that on Sunday night, someone posing as Rachelle Spector, Phil’s twenty-six-year-old wife, posted a comment on Rachelle Spector’s actual MySpace page (the page has since been deleted) that read:

I love Phil Spector——-!!!!!
The Evil Judge Should DIE!!!!

xoxo
Chelle

The picture of the faux-Rachelle who left the comment was the same “Team Spector” shirt-wearing photo that previously appeared on Rachelle’s MySpace page. Team Spector defense lawyer Christopher Plourd was quick to inform the media that Rachelle “denies” posting the comment herself. The sheriff’s department responded quickly as well, and is currently investigating the incident as a possible threat against the judge. Judge Fidler, who already had a raised-voice run-in with Rachelle earlier this month, didn’t comment on the incident when he briefly took the bench to listen to arguments from Lana Clarkson’s family’s lawyers before the inevitable civil trial starts up.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
Good, as Phil Spector couldn’t buy this much publicity for his wife. While the MySpace message might result in another admonishment from the judge, Rachelle Spector is showing that she harbors some major reality-TV potential. We can definitely see her Dancing With the Stars when this trial finally ends.

[Photo: Bouys/Afp/Getty]

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
Exactly two weeks after they began deliberating in the murder trial of Phil Spector, the jury still failed to come to a unanimous verdict. There was some action in the courtroom, however. The defense filed a motion, on the heels of last week’s banished “Special Instruction 3,” that Judge Fidler include a new jury instruction that dictated Spector must be acquitted if the jury “thinks the defendant assisted Lana Clarkson’s suicide.” It was a rather odd request because the defense team hinted at a grim, bizarre situation in which Spector provided the gun to Clarkson, then verbally coaxed the drunken actress into shooting herself. But Spector’s defense team wants to ensure their client does not get convicted of assisting a suicide (as well as reinforce the defense’s suicide theory to the jury).

While the prosecution and defense discussed this matter in the judge’s quarters, the jury bell rang twice. A quick summary of what the jury bell represents: When the bell rings once, it’s time for the jury to go on a bathroom/snack/lunch break. Two times, the jury has a question, wants to see a piece of evidence or needs to speak to the judge. Three rings, the jury has come to a verdict. The last time the jury rang the bell twice was last Tuesday, when they told the judge they were deadlocked, so when the bell toll twice yesterday, nerves were on edge. The jury passed a note to a court officer who informed the court that the jury … requested a VCR. The jury was given a DVD/VCR (to prevent future requests for a more modern video player), and deliberations continued silently throughout the remainder of the day.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
Probably not good. The only VHS tape reportedly in evidence is Spector chauffeur Adriano de Souza’s police interview the day after his boss told him “I think I killed somebody” the night of Clarkson’s death. The fact that the jury is focusing on the most vital prosecution witness might be a bad sign for Phil. Spector’s team got a boost, however, when the judge told them he’ll tell the jury about the defense’s “assisted suicide = acquittal” claim if the jury comes to another verdict-less standstill.

Photo: AFP/Getty

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
Deliberations, that’s what happened. Granted, there were only forty minutes of deliberations, but after forty-eight hours of being at a standstill, the jury finally reconvened to try to arrive at a unanimous verdict in the Phil Spector murder trial. The majority of the day involved Judge Fidler, the prosecution and Spector’s all-star defense team trying to come to terms with the termination of “Special Instruction 3.” Despite the defense’s arguments that it should remain (it made the burden of proof more difficult for the prosecution), Judge Fidler ultimately decided to banish the instruction in an effort to get the jury back to deliberations. “Treat it as if you had never heard of it,” Fidler told the jury, before simplifying their decision-making by saying to convict if you think “the defendant committed an act with a firearm that caused the death of Lana Clarkson.” By the time all this jargon got ironed out, it was 3:15 PM LA time, and by 4, the day was done.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
While the possibility of a hung jury is still a reality, this new instruction makes things easier for the prosecution’s case. Out is the murky, paradoxical language of Special Instruction 3, in is the “Convict if you think he killed her” order. It also doesn’t help Spector that, according to an unsubstantiated report in a New York newspaper, the 7-5 split leaned towards “Guilty.”

Photo: AFP/Getty

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
One day after his jury expressed that they were deadlocked 7 to 5, Judge Fidler sat down with the twelve jurors in the Phil Spector murder trial to determine whether or not they could un-hang themselves. Before that, though, Judge Fidler wrestled with the idea of perhaps reintroducing involuntary manslaughter as a possible alternative charge for the jury to consider. Fidler cited a 1999 trial, as well as something Latin called sua sponte, when considering whether the lesser charge could be added as a somewhat less serious option than second-degree murder. Defense lawyer Dennis Riordan reasoned, via speakerphone, that there was no legal precedent for allowing additional charges seven days into deliberation, and Fidler conceded that Riordan was right, and that second-degree murder would continue to be the sole charge. That means no second act for the closing arguments, and less grounds for the defense to ask for an appeal if Spector is convicted.

So with the jury back in their box, Fidler asked if there was anything in the language of the jury instructions that prevented them from coming to a unanimous decision. Some jurors had difficulty understanding the term “reasonable doubt,” but the majority had an issue with “Special Instruction 3,” which reads “It is the prosecution’s contention that the act committed by the defendant that caused the death of Ms. Clarkson was to point a gun at her, which resulted in that gun entering Ms. Clarkson’s mouth while in Mr. Spector’s hand … If you do not find that the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed that act, you must return a verdict of not guilty.” The jury was unclear if reasonable doubt had to disprove all of that, or some of that, and if there’s a difference between “doubt” and “reasonable doubt.” By the end of the day, Fidler decided the jury will resume their deliberations Thursday, and the incomprehensible “Special Instruction 3” would be omitted.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
Good. Every day this jury is deadlocked, Spector moves closer to either a retrial with lesser charges, a mistrial or a complete dismissal of charges. The eradication of “Special Instruction 3” might push some of the jurors still sitting on the fence from one side to the other, but a unanimous verdict looks less likely with each passing hour of deliberation.

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY?
After deliberations that stretched for more than thirty hours over the course of seven days, Phil Spector and his defense, as well as the prosecution were all called to court because the jurors had come to a decision: They’re hung. In a note they passed to the judge, the jury indicated they have “reached an impasse. We do not feel we can reach an unanimous [verdict].” The judge then began questioning each juror individually to figure out whether this jury can eventually come to a guilty or non-guilty verdict, or if this stonewall is permanent. To try to help matters, Judge Fidler is wrestling with the idea of reopening summations to reintroduce a possible manslaughter charge. Currently, the jurors are split 7-5, but which side has majority was not revealed.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
Good. It’s hard to believe anyone in Camp Spector actually believed the jury would find their client unanimously innocent, so the jury’s impasse comes as a relief to the defense. The hung jury/possible manslaughter charge ensures Spector will either drag the State of California through another lengthy court battle (and correct the errors his team made in this trial), or face lesser charges.  Unfortunately for the defense, Judge Filder denied a motion for an immediate mistrial.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
Jury deliberations finally began in the Phil Spector murder trial. After one day, the jury still had not come to a decision, but that doesn’t mean the day was without drama. This weekend, an article in the U.K.’s The Mail featured recent quotes from Spector, who was supposed to be under a gag order for the duration of the trial. In his comments, Spector said that the presiding Judge Fidler “doesn’t like me,” and likened the members of the jury to “twelve people who voted for George Bush.” Ouch. That interview, as well as a Court TV interview by Spector’s outspoken twenty-six-year-old wife Rachelle, forced Judge Fidler to implore that no one involved in this case speak to the media until the trial ends. After that announcement, Rachelle Spector jumped from her seat in the audience and yelled at the judge “But I’m not a witness.” Rachelle then had the audacity to talk over Fidler as he was explaining his stance, which caused Fidler get tomato red and threaten to kick Rachelle out of court and hold her for contempt. Spector’s lawyers quickly turned to their client’s wife and whispered, sternly, something along the lines of “Shut the eff up.”

There was some court business to attend to before the jury could deliberate. (more…)

WHAT HAPPENED FRIDAY?
After three days of closing arguments from the prosecution and defense, the jury in the Phil Spector murder trial will finally begin deliberations today in Los Angeles. Friday began with the finale of the defense’s closing argument. After using the entire Thursday session, Spector lawyer Linda Kenney-Baden needed another three hours to try to convince the jurors that there’s reasonable doubt in this case. But while Kenney-Baden was stealthily effective the previous day, Friday found her lethargic and dull. She was at the point of overkill, as jurors started nodding off less than two hours into Kenney-Baden’s monologue, and the foreman cut her off mid-sentence to tell the judge they needed their mid-morning break.

To make matters worse, the defense’s PowerPoint program continued to malfunction. Kenney-Baden’s slow verbal gait hit the brakes for a good four minutes as the defense team struggled to find a list of potential female witnesses the prosecution did not call to the stand. Once the list was found and Kenney-Baden’s point was made, the prosecution leaped up to object, saying the list of potential female witnesses were all witnesses the prosecution wanted to call to the stand but weren’t allowed, and thus the defense had given the jury misinformation. Judge Fidler lambasted the defense, and we continued on our molasses pace.

The highlights of day two of the defense’s closing arguments: (more…)

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
Following what seemed to be a case-crippling closing argument by prosecutor Alan Jackson, Phil Spector defense lawyer Linda Kenney-Baden had the arduous task of presenting the defense’s closing arguments. Kenney-Baden had one task: not to prove innocent, but to prove reasonable doubt. Employing a similar PowerPoint technique as the prosecution, Kenney-Baden started off her argument with a focus on science. It is science, and only science, that could convict Spector in this case, and in this case, science “proves” Lana Clarkson took her own life at Spector’s castle.

Things started off shaky for Kenney-Baden. From the get-go, it was easy to see her argument would be devoid of the charisma and grandiloquence that Alan Jackson packed into the prosecution’s summary. The PowerPoint presentation, Jackson’s MVP yesterday, had the complete opposite effect yesterday. When Kenney-Baden used the program to show the jury a video of how blood spatter spreads, it suddenly froze, halting the momentum. Later, evidence photos were incorrectly ordered, causing the defense to scramble to find the appropriate slide. Plus, the graphics and font were aesthetically cheesy, like the lawyers put junior high schoolers in charge of the design.

Still, she is effective, commanding the jury to take the facts of the case into the deliberation room with them and leave all the assumptions behind. The facts, Kenney-Baden told the jury, are that nothing scientific proves Spector pulled the trigger, in fact they prove the complete opposite. We heard the terms “blood spatter” and “gunshot residue” repeated over and over again, ingraining into the jurors’ minds that both terms support Clarkson shooting herself, and not Spector shooting Clarkson. In fact, Spector would “have to be a contortionist” to have killed Clarkson. Before going on the much-needed lunch break, Kenney-Baden hammers home theories of police and government ineptitude in handling the case, from conduct at the crime scene to mishandling evidence to autopsy procedural errors that all distorted proof that Spector was innocent. (more…)

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
Finally, after four and a half months of testimony, closing arguments began in the murder trial of famed producer Phil Spector. First up: the prosecution. Deputy DA Alan Jackson started things off by hypothetically putting the jurors in the House of Blues parking lot the night Spector coaxed Lana Clarkson to come back to his castle in Alhambra. With a CCTV video still of Clarkson and Spector in the parking lot on the projection screen, Jackson asked the jury what they would tell Clarkson if they were there, in that parking lot, on that night. Jackson speaks unanimously on behalf of the jury when he cups his hands around his mouth and whispers, “Don’t go.” These are the heartstrings that Jackson would play with throughout his closing argument, which lasted the entire day and left no defense rock unturned. With the help of a perfectly synched PowerPoint presentation, Jackson broke down the Spector defense team step by step, calling Spector’s collection of high-powered lawyers and big time witnesses “a checkbook defense.”

At the onset, a jaw-dropping moment: Jackson played the call chauffeur Adriano de Souza made to police after Spector came stumbling out his house, gun in right hand, and proclaimed, “I think I shot somebody.” That phrase is repeated often throughout the series of phone calls that the police fielded that night, all while Spector was back in his mansion washing his hands, tidying up the crime scene, dabbing Clarkson’s face with toilet water, and positioning the gun just so that it looks like a suicide, he argued. (more…)

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?
With testimony in the trial officially over, the prosecution and defense huddled up with Judge Fidler to discuss what evidence was fair game to discuss in the closing arguments. It’s the portion of the trial called “jury instructions,” and to mark the occasion, Phil Spector’s defense team introduced a new lawyer, Dennis Riordan, to replace the exiled Bruce Cutler. Riordan is a specialist in the arbitration aspects of jury instruction, and marked his territory instantly by getting Judge Fidler to agree that the prosecution could not paint Spector as a villain just because he owns a gun. Riordan was less successful when he tried to get Spector’s chauffeur Adriano de Souza’s claim that Spector admitted “I think I killed somebody” thrown out, as Fidler allowed that testimony to remain. Something that the prosecution and defense did compromise on, however: Spector will face a single count of second-degree murder, and not an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter.

IS THIS GOOD OR BAD FOR SPECTOR?
Good. The sole charge of second-degree murder means that the jury must decide whether Spector knowingly/accidentally murdered Lana Clarkson, or Lana Clarkson killed herself. Avoiding an involuntary manslaughter charge is always a good thing. Plus, the addition of Riordan and his legal eagle eyes for jury instruction will help ensure that the prosecution stays within the guidelines during closing arguments.