Music producer Phil Spector was given a sentence of 19 years to life in prison today for the murder of a Hollywood actress in 2003.
Spector (69) who revolutionised pop music in the 1960s with his layered "Wall of Sound" production technique, was convicted in April of second-degree murder by a Los Angeles jury after a second trial. Lana Clarkson (40) died of a shot to the mouth, fired from Spector's gun in the foyer of his home outside Los Angeles on February 3rd, 2003.
Two successive juries heard testimony from Spector's driver claiming Spector emerged from the house brandishing a gun and saying: "I think I killed someone."
But his lawyers maintained Clarkson committed suicide. In an magazine interview, Spector said she “kissed the gun” before pulling the trigger herself.
The first trial was ended in 2007 after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision required under law. They were stuck at 10 to two in favour of a conviction.
In the retrial, jurors were offered the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, but opted against it.
They sided with prosecution lawyers, who painted Spector as a violent man with a gun obsession.
During the retrial they brought forward a string of women who claimed they had been threatened by Spector.
Clarkson was a B-film actress, best known for her part in the 1985 cult film Barbarian Queen.
Deputy district attorney Alan Jackson said after the conviction: “It could have happened years earlier with any of the other women but she got the bullet.”
Before today’s sentence hearing, Spector’s lawyer Doron Weinberg filed a court document in which he maintained his client did not kill Clarkson and was not responsible for her death.
Mr Weinberg added that the prosecution’s account of the woman’s death was “based on conjecture, not facts”.
PA, Reuters