Phil Spector's first trial for murder ended with a hung jury. After deliberating for 43 hours over 12 days in September 2007, the jury returned to tell the judge that it could not progress from a 10-2 majority in favour of a guilty verdict to unanimity. Judge Larry Fidler declared a mistrial, laying the ground for a second trial.
Spector's first trial offered an overview of the Los Angeles criminal justice system, a system steeped in celebrity and money.
Prosecutors, having learned the mistakes of the OJ Simpson murder trial, were happy to take their time and make sure they would not be surprised in court. It took four years from Lana Clarkson's death before her alleged killer was brought to trial.
Spector's defence, meanwhile, was in disarray. He chopped and changed expensive lawyers, eventually settling on a team of five who would represent him at trial, headed by the New York lawyer Bruce Cutler.
But Cutler was out of place in California, and disappeared from view soon after his disastrous opening statement. Yet despite his fumblings, the first trial ended with a hung jury.
While prosecutors had wanted to move quickly to a retrial, Spector had other plans. He changed legal teams, with his new lawyer telling the judge he would need six months to familiarise himself with the thousands of pages of paperwork attached to the case.
The wait dragged on, with Spector all the time free on bail, residing in his opulent mansion, making occasional forays into the public world and even receiving TV crews at his home.
Yet as time elapsed, so public interest in the trial waned. By the time the second trial finally got underway, it seemed that nobody cared. Attendance was light, it was not televised and the press largely stayed away. The job of chronicling the trial fell largely to bloggers, independent – and amateur – trial enthusiasts who found time to update their websites between doing the housework.
