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Prosecution Still Trying to Nail Spector Defense

Fri., May. 4, 2007 6:47 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

On with the show, says the judge presiding over Phil Spector's murder trial, whether both sides are ready or not.

The famed music producer's trial was postponed this week after defense attorney Bruce Cutler requested time off to resolve issues with his diabetes medication, and also to allow for an immigration rights march that affected traffic around the courthouse.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said that testimony will continue on Monday whether Cutler is in court or not, warning the defense that further delays might conflict with witness' availability.

"I'm letting you know there are other people's lives involved," he said.

On the third day of a jury-less hearing into whether Spector's defense team tampered with evidence found at the scene of Lana Clarkson's death, the forensics expert whose conduct is in question was ordered to turn over all of his original notes, negatives and photographs from the scene and try to present himself for questioning "at the soonest time."

The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has alleged that potential defense witness Henry Lee picked up a piece of broken fingernail in the hallway of Spector's home, which could indicate that a struggle took place, and that Spector's defense team failed to turn that literal bit of evidence over to the prosecution.

Lee, who also was a prominent defense witness in the O.J. Simpson murder case, is currently in China and may not be available to take the stand for at least two weeks, according to Spector's camp.

The scheduling snafu will likely prevent Fidler from issuing a prompt ruling as to whether the defense deliberately withheld evidence, a decision that probably won't lead to a mistrial but could result in sanctions against Spector's lawyers.

Prosecutors are contending that if a piece of Clarkson's nail snapped off during a tussle with Spector, it could poke a hole in the defense's claim that she accidentally shot herself. The D.A.'s Office has been trying to get to the root of that nail for some time now, having already filed a motion in 2004 requesting that the defense hand it over.

Lee said in 2004 that he had taken a piece of thread, but no fingernail, from the scene.

Two witnesses testified yesterday, however, that Lee removed a small white object from the scene of the alleged crime.

Stan White, a private investigator working with Spector's then-defense attorney Robert Shapiro (the Wall of Sound creator has gone through several), said on the stand that he saw Lee bend down, pick something up and say, "I think I've found some tissue."

But to him, White said, the object looked like a gunshot-stained nail. "I said it looked like a piece of fingernail," White recalled. "Lee told me I was crazy. I told him he needed glasses."

White, a retired sheriff's deputy, was the one who got the ball rolling on the nail back in 2004, telling a sheriff's homicide investigator about it during a barbecue.

"It looked like a defensive-wound fingernail," he testified Thursday.

Sara Caplan, an attorney working with Shapiro at the time of Clarkson's death in February 2003, also testified that she saw Lee put "a little white thing" in a vial and remove it from Spector's house.

She also said, however, that White never actually entered Spector's house, and instead was in charge of securing the perimeter of the estate.