Spector Jury Gets New Instructions

Music producer Phil Spector, right, is seen with his attorney Roger Rosen during his murder trial at the Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2007. The judge in Phil Spector's trial retracted his idea of giving the deadlocked jury a new instruction Wednesday on a lesser charge than second-degree murder, saying it would be tantamount to telling them to convict the record producer of involuntary manslaughter. (AP Photo/Pool, Gabriel Bouys) (Gabriel Bouys - AP)

LOS ANGELES -- The judge in Phil Spector's murder trial on Thursday gave the deadlocked jury new instructions with several scenarios as to how the record producer might have killed actress Lana Clarkson.

Among the scenarios was that Spector forced her to put a gun in her own mouth and it went off.

Spector's attorneys had vehemently objected outside the jury's presence that Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler was turning the defense against itself at the last minute.

They said they had presented scientific evidence that the 40-year-old Clarkson had probably pulled the trigger herself, either by accident or in a suicide.

The prosecution supported the judge's move on grounds there was "a plethora of evidence" that would support such a scenario, and the judge commented, "It's a reasonable inference that can be drawn."

The jury, which got the case Sept. 10, was sent back into deliberations after also receiving instructions including suggestions such as reverse role-playing in which jurors argue opposing jurors' views.

The panel talked for less than an hour before recessing for the night.

Spector, 67, is charged with killing Clarkson in the foyer of 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 new instructions came two days after the panel reported a 7-5 impasse on the implied-malice, second-degree murder charge against Spector.

Several jurors told the judge they were having trouble with one so-called pinpoint instruction concerning the prosecution's theory of how the shooting occurred.

That instruction said that in order to convict Spector of second-degree murder the jury had to find that "the defendant must have committed an act that caused the death of Lana Clarkson." It went on to specify the act was pointing a gun at her, which resulted in the gun entering her mouth while in Spector's hand.

After the impasse was reported, the judge decided to retract the instruction on grounds that it misstated the law. When the jury was summoned, he told them to no longer use that instruction and issued a new one.