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Jurors' Rapport Swung Spector Conviction: Lawyers

Lack of 'persnickety' people helped retrial avoid second deadlock

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 15, 2009 10:20 AM CDT

(Newser) – Twelve agreeable jurors made all the difference between Phil Spector's two murder trials, lawyers from both sides tell the Los Angeles Times. The jurors who this week voted unanimously to convict heard the same evidence as the jury that deadlocked in 2007, prosecutors and the music legend's lawyer say, but they bonded over the course of the case, avoiding the discord that plagued the first panel.

Prosecutors aimed to avoid "persnickety" people after the last foreman got so hung up on details he missed the big picture, according to a jury consultant. But Spector's lawyer criticized the second group's principles: "The visceral parts of this case are really too strong to allow an acquittal, so it's really a case that should end in a hung jury," he said.

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Phil Spector smiles during a hearing in his murder retrial, in Los Angeles County Superior Court early this year. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, file)

Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson makes his final rebuttal to the jury in Phil Spector's murder retrial, Thursday, March 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Al Seib, Pool)

Phil Spector arrives with his wife, Rachelle, at court Friday Oct. 3, 2008 in Los Angeles for jury selection. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

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I don't think these people were willing to fight each other. They wanted to come to a consensus.
- Doron Weinberg, Phil Spector's attorney

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Jurors' Rapport Swung Spector Conviction: Lawyers