Spector D.A.: You Know in Your Heart He's Responsible

Now that push has come to shove in the murder trial of famed record producer Phil Spector, prosecutor Alan Jackson has opted to get personal.

"If you could say one thing to Lana Clarkson in that parking lot, what would you say? You'd lean over and you'd whisper, 'Don't go. Don't go.' You'd simply say, 'Lana, don't go,'" the deputy district attorney, who has won praise for his handling of the high-profile case so far, told the jury during his day-long closing argument, which kicked off Wednesday. The first witness took the stand more than four months ago.

"The reason you would say that is bcause you know something she didn't know," Jackson continued. "You know the real Phil Spector…You know in your heart of hearts he's responsible for her death. He killed her."

Clarkson accompanied Spector to his home just hours after meeting him at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, where she worked as a hostess in the V.I.P.-area Foundation Room.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has maintained that Spector is guilty of second-degree murder, which doesn't necessarily mean Spector intended to kill Clarkson, but that he acted with reckless disregard for her life. The charge carries a prison sentence of 15 years to life.

"Lana Clarkson through the evidence in this case has suffered and endured something that no human being should have to endure—she's been murdered twice," Jackson said, accusing the defense of engaging in a smear campaign to try to convince the jury that the 40-year-old actress was so depressed in the weeks before her death that she ended up shooting herself in the foyer of Spector's Alhambra mansion.

"She was murdered once on Feb. 3, 2003, by Phillip Spector when he put a gun in her mouth and that gun went off," Jackson said. "And her character has been assassinated over the last four months through the presentation of the defense evidence, attempting to paint her in a way that simply isn't true."

While witnesses for the prosecution have opined that Clarkson was an upbeat, hopeful person who was excited about her career prospects, multiple defense witnesses, including several close friends of Clarkson's, testified that she was despondent over the state of her career and finances. The defense also introduced several emails Clarkson wrote in which she expressed her apparent frustrations and pondered whether to "chuck it all."

"There is a huge difference between suicidal ideation and the normal ups and downs," Jackson insisted, criticizing Clarkson's self-proclaimed best friend, Punkin Pie Laughlin, for not telling investigators that the actress was depressed but then being more than willing to testify to that effect.

Laughlin "without question has chased the limelight from the day Lana Clarkson died," he said.

Jackson also accused Spector's camp of presenting a "checkbook defense," exchanging hundreds of thousands of dollars for scientific testimony that supported its claims of accidental, seemingly spontaneous suicide.

"When the defense didn't like the way the science was going, they changed the science," the prosecutor said. Jackson also suggested that famed expert Dr. Henry Lee, who was dogged by accusations of evidence-tampering throughout the trial, never took the stand because he couldn’t get behind the defense's version of events.

After the prosecution had argued that Spector must have been standing only two or three feet away from Clarkson when the gun went off to account for the blood spatter on the white jacket he was wearing at the time and that Clarkson's spine was severed on impact, resulting in immediate death, the defense did its best to refute those claims.

Experts testified that Spector could have been standing at least six feet away and still been close enough to be hit by blood. Then, as the trial headed into its final days, Dr. Michael Baden, husband of lead defense attorney Linda Kenney-Baden, said that Clarkson may have lived for several moments after being shot and that she could have coughed blood onto Spector's jacket.

"If you pay someone enough money you can get them to wear a tutu in court," Jackson said.

During the court's lunch break Wednesday, the defense objected to Jackson's suggestion that they coached witnesses on what to say. L.A. Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler agreed that the statement was improper and said he would inform jurors on the point.

Fidler refused, however, to strike Jackson's opening remark about warning Clarkson not to get in Spector's car.

Jackson also reminded jurors of the five women who testified that Spector had threatened them with guns over the last 15 years, and of chauffeur Adriano De Souza's testimony. The Brazilian immigrant had driven Spector and Clarkson back to Alhambra that night and was the one who called 911 after purportedly hearing the gunshot.

"He said Phil Spector, seconds after the gunshot, literally had the smoking gun in his hand, in his right hand, across his waist," Jackson said. "He literally had Lana Clarkson's blood on his hand. He looked Adriano De Souza right in the face, they were standing four to six feet apart…and Phil Spector looks at him and says, 'I think I killed somebody.'"

"What if he had a tremor and the gun just went off? It just doesn't matter," Jackson said. "There could have been an earthquake and the gun goes off. It doesn't matter."

"Guns are dangerous. They're inherently dangerous. You don't point guns at anything you're unwilling to destroy."

Kenney-Baden is expected to give the defense's closing argument on Thursday.