Spector Defense Gets Its CSI On

CSI aired a few hours early in a Los Angeles courtroom Thursday.

As opening arguments resumed in the Phil Spector murder trial, the music producer's defense team got its Gil Grissom on, arguing that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer could not have possibly fired the bullet that killed B-movie actress Lana Clarkson.

"Science—we embrace it, it's our friend," attorney Bruce Cutler told the court.

Later, fellow defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden, a forensics specialist whose husband, pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, is expected to testify for Team Spector, prodded the 12 jurors to likewise embrace the branch of knowledge: "Through science, you will bring truth to justice, and you will bring justice to truth."

Spector, 67, is accused of placing a gun in Clarkson's mouth, and pulling the trigger, killing the Barbarian Queen star in the foyer of his castle-style Alhambra, California, home on Feb. 3, 2003.

According to the defense, its forensics evidence and experts will show: Clarkson's DNA, not Spector's, was on the alleged murder weapon; Spector wasn't standing close enough to do the damage that was done to Clarkson; and, Spector made no attempt to clean up the shooting scene as, it insinuated, a guilty man would.

"Lana Clarkson was holding the gun, and tragically shot herself," Baden said, a near word-for-word retort of the prosecution's version of events.

The CSI turn was in contrast to the trial's first day, where Cutler used no small amount of time to try to establish that Spector is a very famous and very nice man who has had a lot of very famous friends.

Cutler didn't entirely dispense with the personal touch Thursday. "Phillip says to me every day...'I'm not guilty. I did not fire that gun.' " the attorney said in between prosecution objections.

And the defense didn't entirely change its tune, either, with both Cutler and Baden hammering again on the women whom the prosecution will call in to try to show that the producer has a history of pulling guns on female acquaintances.

Baden preemptively referred to the testimony as "old stories of the past." Cutler predicted his beloved science would rule the day, and that prosecutors "can't change that by bringing in tall tales from other girls."

As timing had it, Dorothy Melvin, one of the so-called "other girls," took the stand, and delivered the trial's first testimony.

A prosecution witness, Melvin is a former manager of Joan Rivers and former lady friend of Spector, who, as billed, told jurors that the "He's a Rebel" producer pulled a gun on her in 1993.

"I was terrified," Melvin said.

As Melvin described it, the Spector attack was unprovoked and bizarre: She'd been sleeping on a couch in house, woke up, went to go look for Spector, and found him outside, pointing a gun at her car.

When Melvin got angry at Spector, the woman testified, he got angry at her, striking her with his gun hand, and ordering her to "get the F  back in the house."

Under questioning by the prosecution, Melvin said she declined to press charges because "I didn't want it to become a National Enquirer cover."

Under questioning by the defense, Melvin confirmed that she'd kept in touch with Spector, trading jokey emails with him over the years.

The defense seemed to score bonus points when Melvin voluntarily offered, more than once, that Spector was a "very funny," "very brilliant and charming man."

The defense braved dangerous territory, however, when it asked Melvin to define one of her terms: "Phil mode."

According to Melvin, "Phil mode" is when Spector is his charming, brilliant self, as opposed to, she said, when he's been drinking, and "turns on a dime, and becomes a lunatic."

Defense attorney Roger Rosen got more useful testimony from Melvin when he prodded her to acknowledge that Spector never placed his gun in her mouth, as prosecutors allege his client did with Clarkson.

Spector, currently free on $1 million bail, has pleaded innocent. For those tracking the Grammy winner's courtroom fashions, his Thursday suit was dark; his Thursday hair was still blond.