Jurors in the Phil Spector trial will resume deliberations today, two weeks after they first began considering whether the famous music producer murdered actress Lana Clarkson, and four days after the judge launched an extraordinary effort to break a jury deadlock.| That's one gawd-awful wig. |
| That is a wig isn't it? |
| If it isn't I say give him the insanity defense. |
Friday was the jury's first full day of deliberations since the panel announced an impasse Tuesday, spurring Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to issue new jury instructions that legal experts said may have created more problems than they solved.
After seven days of deliberations, jurors said they were split 7-5 and did not think they could move past their differences. Fidler told the jurors not to reveal whether the majority favored guilt or innocence, but asked if they thought anything could help them resolve their deadlock. Several jurors said they found confusing an instruction stating that in order to convict Spector, they had to conclude that he had held the gun that went off in Clarkson's mouth.
After three days of discussion between the judge and the attorneys -- and over the intense objections of the defense -- Fidler told jurors to disregard the instruction, and in its place consider one that introduced several scenarios of how Spector might have shot Clarkson.