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CA vs. Spector - Minor Players and the Mini Trial
Posted by thedarwinexception on May 23rd, 2007
Poor Adriano DeSouza, on the stand for a fourth day, finally finishes up his
testimony.
Court opened with prosecutors playing the rest of the videotape of DeSouza’s
interview at the police station about 5 hours after the shooting of Lana
Clarkson. Although it is apparent on the tape that DeSouza’s English has
improved in the intervening years, it is also apparent that he understood the
detectives and was able to answer their questions and understand the situation.
One interesting tidbit from the tape was the fear DeSouza felt and his
nervousness about becoming entangled in the case.
“You think I’m in danger because this guy is, is too rich?” Adriano DeSouza
asked during the interview.
Paul Fournier, the detective conducting the interview, told him he doubted he
was in any real danger, but warned him, “This is going to be a high-profile
case, no doubt about it.”
“Oh my God,” DeSouza replied.
In the interview, DeSouza also said that when he asked Spector what had happened
after Spector emerged from the house saying “I think I shot somebody”, Spector
responded with “a stupid face.”
Fournier asked if he meant an expression meaning “I don’t know,” and the driver
agreed.
On the videotape Fournier continuously asked De Souza whether he was sure about
what he heard, and whether those were Spector’s exact words.
“I think so,” De Souza answered hesitantly. “I think so. I’m not sure. It’s my
English.”
When defense attorney Bradley Brunon questioned him again about whether he may
have misheard Spector, using this portion of the tape to bolster his claim that
DeSouza was lacking in language skills, De Souza testified that he felt Fournier
was having trouble understanding him because of his heavily accented and
slightly broken English, and that’s why Fournier kept asking him to repeat
Spector’s alleged confession.
“I told him that because I thought he does not understand what I said,” De Souza
said.
DeSouza also says on the tape that the reason he didn’t call the police right
away was because he “didn’t know how to talk to the police.” He has since
testified that the reason he called Spector’s manager before calling police was
because he didn’t know the address of the house and hoped to get it from her.
To hammer his point home, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson again asked De
Souza about the validity of his testimony before allowing him to finally leave
the witness stand.
“Did you come here to tell the truth?” Jackson asked.
“Yes,” De Souza answered.
“Are you telling the truth?”
”Yes.”
“Are you mistaken about what you heard Mr. Spector say?”
“No.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
And then De Souza was free to go, after spending four days on the stand. Not
far, however, because his immigration status is still up in the air - a fact
that the defense used to suggest De Souza was testifying in exchange for the
D.A.’s help with his residency status.
With DeSouza finished, we then heard from some very minor players in the story.
But they are “minor” with design by the prosecution.
Alhambra police officer Sean Heckers testified about swabbing Spector’s hands
for gun residue and Alhambra paramedic Michael Brown testified about examining
Spector for injuries, since an officer shot him with a tazer gun at the time of
his arrest.
While
Heckers
testified that a small bit of residue was found on
Spector,
defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden suggested that the residue may have come
from the police station where
Spector was booked or the squad
car where he sat down.
Heckers, who admitted that it was his first time performing such a test in the
field, said that guns are not allowed in any Alhambra police station and that
the squad cars are routinely cleaned, inside and out.
Brown, who testified that he checked Spector over for bruises and didn’t find
any, also said that Spector didn’t receive any special treatment once he was at
the police station. Brown also said that Spector didn’t appear drunk. “I did not
find obvious signs of alcohol,” Brown said.
Near the end of his brief appearance on
the witness stand, Brown is also asked what he knew about the shooting
investigation when he examined
Spector in the Alhambra police
station. Absolutely nothing, he replies. “I had no prior knowledge of anything
going on,” he admits.
Heckers,
who proceeded him, similarly testified that he had no idea what was going on
when he was ordered to drive
Spector from his mansion to the
stationhouse.
So why is the jury hearing from these out of the loop, peripheral witnesses
instead of the officers who first arrived at
Spector’s
mansion or the detectives and policemen who actually ran the scene?
By prosecutorial design.
This is all part of a carefully designed trial strategy by the prosecution to
control which of Spector’s statements the jury hears. The prosecutors
“sabotaged” the defense a month ago when they announced on the day of opening
statements that they did not plan to use
as evidence a single word of
Spector’s voluminous statements
to police. Instead, they would rely on his alleged confession to the chauffeur:
“I think I killed somebody.”
It was an astonishing decision because the DA’s office had fought like mad in
pretrial hearings for permission to introduce these bizarre statements by
Spector, which include vigorous denials of guilt along with profane attacks on
the victim’s character and an account of a suicide by Clarkson that is at odds
with the evidence. (He indicates she shot herself in the temple standing up. She
died in a chair from a shot inside the mouth.) The defense had shaped its
strategy around these statements. Now, they were prohibited from using them at
all, prompting Bruce Cutler, at the end of the prosecution’s opening remarks to
ask the judge for a recess and telling the judge that his defense was “cut off
at the knees”.
So, we have these witnesses who never spoke to Spector, didn’t know what was
going on, but introducing the few facts the prosecution needs introduced -
without the chance of them mentioning Spector’s words, which could open the door
to all of his statements, essentially wrecking their strategy.
So, we hear from Heckers and paramedic Brown. Heckers testifies that he arrived
at The Castle just before 6 a.m. and was almost immediately told by a supervisor
to drive Spector, who is already in the back of a police car, to the station.
Then paramedic Brown testifies he is called to the station at 6:17 a.m. to
provide medical attention to Spector, who he is told has been Tasered into
submission by arresting officers.
Neither of these guys have long talks with Spector or write important reports or
interview other witnesses, but with their short stints in the witness chair,
jurors find out what happened after the chauffeur called 911. The police came;
Spector behaved badly and had to be Tasered. They arrested him.
For prosecutors, it’s mission
accomplished without the risk of putting a witness on the stand who had
extensive conversations with
Spector and who might spill the
beans
We also hear from a 911 supervisor, who testifies that a call from DeSouza’s
cell phone was the only request for help at Spector’s estate the night of the
shooting. Prosecutors have said
Spector
spent 40 minutes alone in the house before police arrived and could have
called for assistance from any of the many phones in the 33-room mansion.
Sandra Hill, a supervisor for the California Highway Patrol’s emergency dispatch
center, says a records search shows there was only one call for help from the
Alhambra estate on Feb. 3, 2003, and it came from Adriano DeSouza’s cell phone.
In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson said Spector was
in the house alone for 40 minutes before police entered. “Forty minutes to call
for help,” the prosecutor observed.
Defense attorney Bruce Cutler countered that whether Spector had “14 or 1400
phones,” the only thing that mattered was where he was at the time of the
shooting.
There is no court today or tomorrow for the holiday weekend, and yesterday
afternoon was devoted to the “evidentiary hearings” involving the “tooth or
fingernail” and Dr. Henry Lee. Sarah Kaplan again takes the stand to refute
Lee’s testimony that she made an “honest mistake” and that she confused his
swabs and vials and didn’t know what she was talking about.
The judge rules on this issue after her testimony and arguments from both sides.
The Prosecution wants Fidler to instruct the jury that the defense withheld
evidence and that this should cast doubt in the juries mind regarding the crime
scene and witnesses testifying concerning it. The defense counters that since
the prosecution doesn’t know *what* was found if anything, that the judge
certainly can’t draw inferences that such a piece of evidence would hurt the
prosecution’s case in any way - the prosecution has a responsibility to show
that the defense substantially harmed their case, and without knowledge of the
what the item even is, that burden can’t be met.
Judge Fidler rules that Caplan is “credible”, that he questions Lee’s testimony,
and that he does believe Lee hid or destroyed evidence in the case, In his
ruling, Fidler indicated that he believed Lee had lied under oath. He
specifically cited the conflict between Lee’s testimony that he had never
collected the item in question and the account of Caplan, who said she saw him
place such an object in a clear vial.
The judge acknowledged that Lee was a “world-renowned expert,” but said he found
Caplan “very credible.”
“If I have to choose between the two, I am going to choose Ms. Caplan, who is
more credible than Dr. Lee,” he said, adding, “Dr. Lee has a lot to lose if this
turns out to be true.”
Fidler also said that although this is his finding, he certainly won’t tell the
jury this, as it would be a finding of fact from him, which would be
inappropriate. He says that if Dr. Henry Lee testifies for the defense in front
of the jury, that the prosecution will then have the opportunity to discredit
whatever Lee says by bringing on the same witnesses and opening the same issues
in front of the jury. In other words, the prosecution will have the opportunity
to present a “trial within the trial”, with the mini trial focusing on the
credibility and reliability of Dr. Henry Lee.
It is still uncertain whether the defense will expose Dr. Henry Lee to this
scrutiny. Lee opined during the testimony given before the judge that his
reputation had been severely damaged by the allegations made towards him, and
one wonders if he is going to be open to having a mini trial conducted focusing
on these allegations.
One wonders if the defense will employ the same strategy as the prosecution, and
instead call some of Lee’s minions to testify about blood spatter and crime
scene reconstruction, thus avoiding questions about other evidence that may have
been found at the scene by Lee.
SHOCKING 'SPECTOR' 911 CALL
'MY BOSS KILLED SOMEBODY': DRIVER
By DAVID K. LI in Los Angeles and TODD VENEZIA in New York
Adriano DeSouza testifies yesterday about the death of Lana Clarkson.May 17,
2007 -- The horrified voice of Phil Spector's driver filled the courtroom at the
music mogul's murder trial yesterday, as jurors heard the chauffeur call cops
and say: "I'm Phil Spector's driver. I think my boss killed somebody."
Prosecutors played tapes of Adriano DeSouza's 911 call and a call to Spector's
manager, made in the frantic moments after actress Lana Clarkson was fatally
shot in the head in the early morning of Feb. 3, 2003.
"Hi. It's a, my name is Adriano," he nervously told the 911 operator. "I'm, uh,
Phil, Phil Spector driver. I think my boss killed somebody. Please can, can you
send the uh, uh, a car."
DeSouza had earlier testified that his night of horror began when Spector burst
from the back door of the mansion, "The Castle," with a gun and bloody hand and
declared that he had killed a woman.
The driver said he saw Clarkson on the
floor of Spector's
foyer, her legs splayed and blood surrounding her.
As Spector
vanished back into the house with the gun still in his hand,
DeSouza
got into his limo and fled.
"I was afraid he could shoot me," he said. "I tried to escape. I take the
driveway down to get off the property."
Called the Jewess Michelle Blaine
He said he decided to call cops, but he
first phoned Spector's
manager, Michelle Blaine, to get the address of the estate.
But he only got her answering machine, and left a message that was played for
jurors yesterday.
"Michelle. Michelle. It's Adriano," he was heard saying. "Michelle. Michelle, I
have to, you have to come to, to Mr. Phillip's house. I think he killed some - a
lady. Please call me. Call me back. I'm gonna call the police right now."
Spector's hands shook in court as he listened to the tapes. He is charged with
murder in the death of Clarkson, although he claims she shot herself.
After calling Blaine, DeSouza drove to the end of Spector's long driveway and
exited the estate through the front gate.
He said he got the home's address from a sign at the gate, and then called cops.
He was transferred to a local police operator
Spector Case: The Gory Details
by Josh Grossberg
Wed, 10 Dec 2003 11:10:00 AM PST
RECOMMENDED (0)
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Broken teeth scattered on the floor. A
blood-soaked cloth. A .38 Colt revolver. A dead actress slumped in a chair.
A famous music producer so unresponsive to police that he had to be
zapped by a taser.
Such was the scene at Phil Spector's mansion last February when investigators
arrived to find the body of B-movie starlet Lana Clarkson with a gunshot to her
mouth, as documented in newly released police reports.
At the behest of a true-crime author who's writing a book on the Spector case
and several media outlets, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carlos Uranga
on Tuesday unsealed search warrants and other affidavits related to the
investigation, in all their gory details.
"[Clarkson] had what appeared to be a single entry gunshot wound to the mouth,"
Detective Mark Lillienfeld said in a sworn affidavit.
"Broken teeth from the victim were
scattered about the foyer and an adjacent stairway."
Investigators also said they found
Clarkson's blood smeared on the wood railing of a nearby stairway and the back
of a door handle, as well as a blood-soaked hand towel in a bathroom near the
foyer. A dead-bolt lock lever was found amid the teeth.
The grisly revelations come less than a month after prosecutors charged the
63-year-old Spector with murdering Clarkson on the night of February 3 following
a chance encounter with the 40-year-old Barbarian Queen actress at the House of
Blues on the Sunset Strip. Clarkson, who worked at the club as a hostess, agreed
to go home with Spector for a "sexual encounter," according to the documents.
Investigators interviewed Spector's driver, Adriano Desouza, who told police he
had taken the reclusive producer to four bars that night and he had drinks at
all four. At the last locale, court papers showed Spector in a generous mood,
leaving a $450 tip on a $13.50 tab.
3:30
The driver said he dropped off
Clarkson and Spector
at 3:30 a.m. at the producer's castle-like compound in the surburban Los
Angeles town of Alhambra. Desouza said he left and returned about 5 a.m., when
he heard a single shot. He got out of his car and ran into a dazed Spector.
"Mr. Desouza said he could see that Mr. Spector had a gun in his hands. Mr.
Spector then said, 'I think I just shot her,'" Detective Danny R. Smith said in
a probable-cause affidavit.
When officers arrived, Spector refused to take his hands out of his pockets as
requested, forcing police to use a stun gun to subdue him, after which they
placed him under arrest.
An avid firearms collector, the rock pioneer famed for his Wall of Sound
recording techniques remains free on $1 million bail and has pleaded innocent.
In his only public comment, he told Esquire magazine that the actress committed
suicide.
Spector's
attorney, Robert Shapiro, said that a thorough study of the crime scene
by his team of forensic experts has found evidence to support the suicide claim
and a jury will eventually agree and exonerate his client.
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"The scientific evidence clearly and unequivocally is consistent with a
self-inflicted wound that was not the result of any action on the part of Phil
Spector," Shapiro said in a statement.
A coroner's report also noted that gunshot residue was found on Clarkson's
hands. "Therefore the decedent may have discharged a firearm or had… hands
otherwise in an environment of gunshot residue," the report said.
Ultimately, though, a medical examiner ruled her death a homicide after
receiving police reports that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer may have handled
the murder weapon--which had been kept in a drawer in house--when it discharged.
Clarkson also had no history of emotional trouble and failed to leave a note.
Investigators said that blood smears
throughout the house, including on a white coat found in an upstairs dressing
room, suggest Spector
may have tried to wipe the scene clean of evidence.
At the time of her death, according to the documents, Clarkson wore a "black
nylon slip/dress, black nylons and black shoes. A leopard print purse, with a
black strap, was slung over her right shoulder, with the purse hanging down on
her right side by her right arm."
On a chair next to her was a brown briefcase containing Spector's wallet and
other papers. Candles were still alight on the fireplace mantle. A half-full
glass of brandy, a bottle of tequila, and a partial can of Canada Dry were on a
coffee table.
The alleged murder weapon, a Colt two-inch blue steel .38 caliber six-shot
revolver, was discovered under the actress' left leg. The firearm, one of 10
guns police seized from Spector's home, reportedly had one spent cartridge and
five live cartridges in the cylinder and was splattered with blood.
Among the other items police confiscated during their search of Spector's home
were a desktop computer, a camcorder, gun holsters and ammunition.
Meanwhile, the producer's ex-wife, Ronnie Spector Greenfield of the 1960s girl
group the Ronettes, told reporters on Monday that she was "devastated" after
hearing Spector charged with murder.
Turning up at Manhattan courthouse where she and the other members of the
Ronettes are continuing to pursue legal action seeking to recover royalties from
Spector, Greenfield stood by her former hubby.
"I had never seen him violent like that, with a gun or anything," she said.
While Greenfield, 60, admitted that Spector often threatened her and once warned
her he'd send a hit man after her, she said she didn't think "he would do
anything like this."
If convicted on the murder count, Spector faces a possible life sentence.
His manager is at police
station
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