In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson
said Spector had a history of threatening women with guns when
he was drunk. Jackson demonstrated how Spector allegedly pressed
the barrel of a gun to the face of Dianne Ogden when she tried
to leave his home after a 1988 dinner date.
Defense attorney Bruce Cutler told jurors in his opening
statement that authorities rushed to judgment of Spector.
"They had
murder on their minds," he said.
Spector listened to court proceedings April 26, 2007, the first
day of testimony in his trial. He faces 15 years to life in
prison if convicted of murder.
The first witness, Dorothy Melvin, a former manager for comedian
Joan Rivers, testified that Spector menaced her with a
snub-nosed handgun in 1993 when they were dating. Melvin said
during the same incident, he confronted her with a shotgun.
The trial was suspended April 30, 2007, after lead defense
attorney Bruce Cutler became ill. His co-counsel Roger Rosen,
seen here with Spector and lawyer Linda Kenney-Baden, said
Cutler's illness was diabetes-related.
Dr. Henry Lee's interview with Court TV the day after the trial
began prompted prosecutors to allege the noted criminalist had
held back experiment results. In the interview, Lee said tests
showed that blood spatter could travel 72 inches, 3 feet longer
than prosecutors contend. The defense later said Lee had not
performed new experiments and was referring to general research
in the blood spatter field.
Former attorney for Spector, Leslie Abramson, attended a hearing
concerning the possible concealing of crime scene evidence by
the defense team. Abramson, pictured here with current defense
team member Bradley Brunon, was replaced as Spector's attorney
in 2004.
Former law clerk Gregory Diamond testified at a special hearing
that he saw defense pathologist Dr. Michael Baden recover a
small white piece of evidence during a defense search of
Spector's foyer.
Diamond said
Baden called the object a tooth fragment.
Dr. Michael Baden denied that he had ever picked up a small
white fragment in Spector's home and said he would not have been
able to identify it as a tooth if he had.
Onetime defense investigator Bill Pavelic testified at a May 3,
2007 hearing that he never saw anyone on Spector's legal team
recover evidence during a search of Spector's home.
Attorney Sara Caplan, who worked on Spector's defense in 2003,
said at the hearing that she saw Lee use tweezers to place a
small white piece of evidence the size of a fingernail in a
clear vial. She said she did not know what became of the item.
Defense investigator Stanley White said at the hearing that Lee
found something that resembled a fingernail in the foyer. He
said Lee initially believed it was a piece of human tissue.
Dianne Ogden, who dated Spector in the 1980s, demonstrated to
jurors how Spector pressed a handgun to her face during a 1989
incident.
Ogden said
Spector tried to rape her at gunpoint.
Lead defense attorney Bruce Cutler became loud and animated
during his May 7, 2007 cross-examination of Ogden.
Judge Larry Fidler reprimanded Cutler, sternly warning him twice
to "lower his tone."
Dr. Lynne Herold, a criminalist for the sheriff's department,
said she searched for the missing piece of nail in all the
evidence brought to the crime lab, but came up empty. She said
the nail could be significant in determining if Clarkson took
her own life.
Stephanie Jennings, who dated Spector in the mid-1990s, told
jurors that Spector held her in a hotel room in Manhattan at
gunpoint after she refused his order to join him in his suite.
Spector's high school friend Rommie Davis said that she sensed
"something was terribly wrong" when she dined with him the night
Clarkson died. She said Spector brushed off her warning that
mixing his medication with alcohol was "a lethal combination."
Another woman who spent time with Spector that evening, Kathy
Sullivan, testified that he was in fine spirits, but sent her
home in his chauffeured Mercedes after she refused to order
another drink.
Spector's back-up chauffeur, Adriano DeSouza, demonstrates how
his boss held a small black handgun on Feb. 3, 2003. The driver
said Spector emerged from the rear door of his mansion with the
weapon and said, "I think I killed somebody."
Dr. Henry Lee testifies at a special hearing May 16, 2007,
addressing allegations that he hid or destroyed evidence from
the death scene. At the close of the six-day hearing on May 23,
2007, Judge Fidler ruled that Lee had recovered a small white
piece of evidence from Spector's foyer and that the evidence was
never turned over to prosecutors, as required by law.
