Phil Spector's fate is in jury's hands

The fate of Phil Spector, who gained fame working with John Lennon, Tina Turner and other pop music stars in a recording studio, now rests in the hands of an East Los Angeles bus driver, a San Gabriel social worker, a Whittier postal clerk and nine other citizens. After listening to five months of testimony, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury began deliberating Spector's role in the fatal shooting of actress Lana Clarkson at his home six years ago. The panel is to decide what another jury two years ago could not: whether Clarkson's death was suicide, as the defense contends, or murder, as the prosecution alleges. A third choice unavailable to the panel in the first proceeding, involuntary manslaughter, is required by law, but embraced by neither side. [more]