What Can We Learn From the Conviction of Phil Spector

So just what can we learn from the conviction of Phil Spector for murdering actress Lana Clarkson?

The verdict was a victory for Los Angeles prosecutors who have endured high-profile defeats in celebrity murder trials, including the acquittals of O. J. Simpson and the actor Robert Blake. Alan Jackson, a deputy district attorney who rose to national prominence as the Phil Spector case played out on Court TV, now called truTV, was the prosecutor in both trials.

Just as in the Simpson case, the Clarkson family is pursuing a wrongful-death civil suit against Phil Spector. This has been pending while the criminal case proceeded. Lana Clarkson had some small success in the movie industry as she starred in a 1985 cult hit, "Barbarian Queen," and also had a bit part in the film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" in 1982.

She was working as a hostess at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip when Phil Spector visited, struck up a conversation and took her out drinking.

They finished the night at his mansion, known as the Castle, but, when she spurned his advances and tried to leave, he shoved a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger, prosecutors said.

The prosecutors argued that this fitted a behaviour pattern of Mr. Spector's drinking and threatening women with guns over decades. His conviction is heralded as a victory for justice and common sense in a world gone crazy.

Source: New York Times

Edwyn Prose
Phil Spector Guilty