The case of the flying blood droplets has resumed.

Contradicting one of the prosecution's main scientific arguments, defense witness James Pex testified Wednesday during Phil Spector's murder trial that blood spatter can travel more than three feet, depending on the circumstances.

Prosecutors are contending that, based on bloodstains found on a jacket Spector was wearing the night Lana Clarkson died of a gunshot wound to the face, the famed music producer not only must have been standing within three feet of the actress, but was also the one who pulled the trigger.

Spector's defense team is arguing that Clarkson accidentally shot herself and that Spector was more like six feet away from her when she died, rather than two to three feet as Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department criminalist Lynne Herold testified last month.

Pex, a retired Oregon state trooper who ran the state's police crime lab for 12 years, suggested today that Sheriff's Department criminalist Steve Renteria did a sloppy job investigating the death scene in the foyer of Spector's Alhambra home.

"There are so many people in this crime scene," Pex said, referring to a photograph blown up for the jury to see. "Liquid blood dries and when you walk on it you are going to transport it."

"The best technique is to excise that carpet, take it to the laboratory and look at it under a microscope," or use a field microscope to look for microscopic blood spatter, he said.

Renteria testified earlier in the trial that no blood spatter was found outside the area of the chair where Clarkson's body was found, slumped, with her purse over her shoulder.

"Did you see any indication in this case that this was done?" defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden asked Pex.

"No," he replied. He also said that Renteria's use of Luminol—the CSI-familiar chemical that highlights otherwise-invisible blood stains—may have erased some of the microscopic spatter on the carpet.

"Is it generally accepted principle in the scientific community that back spatter only travels three feet?" Baden asked.

"No, it just depends on the circumstances," he said.

Under cross-examination, however, Pex testified that the blood on Spector's jacket, primarily on the garment's top left side and on the cuff, was consistent with him being about three feet away from Clarkson when the gun went off.

"The closer I get, the tighter the pattern gets, correct?" Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson asked Pex.

"In theory, yes," the witness replied. But he also said that blood could have ended up on Spector's cuff via a smudge, and not necessarily from the actual shooting.

Outside the presence of the jury Wednesday, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler instructed convicted pimp Jody "Babydol' Gibson to refrain from talking to the media about the Spector case, although she is allowed to speak to the press to promote her memoir, Secrets of a Hollywood Super Madam.

"You may not in any way, shape, form, touch upon, come close to, or talk about Lana Clarkson or anything dealing with the Phil Spector case," Fidler said, threatening to hold her in contempt if she slipped up. "Other than that you're free to talk about what you want."

"Especially because your testimony at this point is inadmissible, it would be nothing but an attempt in my view to influence the jury," he continued. "Even though they are under an order not to read articles, the possibility exists that they do."

"My intent was never to disrespect the court," Gibson told Fidler today. She also denied the prosecution's allegation that her so-called "trick book" was doctored to include Clarkson's name (as an employee). The book has been in police custody since 1999, she said.

The judge ruled Tuesday that Gibson would not be allowed to testify, calling her potential testimony "inadmissible and irrelevant," unless Spector chooses to take the stand in his own defense.

Court is set to resume Monday. There will be no session Thursday to allow defense attorney Roger Rosen time to attend an out-of-town wedding.