Judge: No Lesser Charge in Spector Case

Phil Spector arrives at court with his wife, Rachelle Spector Tuesday Sept. 18, 2007 in Los Angeles. The seventh day of deliberations in the Phil Spector trial came to a temporary halt Tuesday when jurors indicated they had a question. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) (Nick Ut - AP)

LOS ANGELES -- The judge in record producer Phil Spector's murder trial decided Wednesday not to allow the deadlocked jury to consider a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

But Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler called jurors in and asked them how the court might help them break the impasse _ a 7-5 split, according to the foreman, who has not said in which direction the panel is leaning.

After their comments, the judge withdrew one instruction to jurors dealing with the concept of reasonable doubt.

Spector, 67, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra mansion on Feb. 3, 2003, a few hours after she met him at her job as a nightclub hostess and went home with him. The defense maintains that Clarkson, 40, was depressed and shot herself either on purpose or by accident.

"We'd all like this case to get resolved and have the jury arrive at a result," said Fidler, citing the five-month ordeal for jurors, the defendant and Clarkson's family.

"But at a certain point in deliberations after the jury has arrived at an impasse, to give them a new offense ... is essentially saying to them, 'If you can't find him guilty with what you have, try this,'" he said.

"It would be inappropriate to instruct the jury at this time on a lesser offense of manslaughter," he said.

Fidler rejected strenuous arguments from prosecutor Alan Jackson urging the judge to allow consideration of manslaughter and accepted equally vigorous statements by defense attorney Bradley Brunon, who noted that the prosecution had never asked for instructions on involuntary manslaughter and would be changing its theory of the case in midstream.

Jackson said he wasn't changing his theory, which could be applied to manslaughter, as well as murder.

Fidler threw defense lawyers into a panic Tuesday when jurors reported the deadlock, and he suggested that earlier legal cases might support giving an instruction on a lesser offense. But overnight, he said, he did further research that changed his mind. A new jury instruction on manslaughter would be perceived as telling the panelists to do, he said.

"It's indicating to the jury that the other option is not acquittal; it's convicting on a lesser offense," he said. "It's instructing them what they should find."

After the judge asked jurors Wednesday what the court could do to help break the impasse, some cited the panelists' differences of opinion on the evidence and on the concept of reasonable doubt.