Spector Juror: It Was Very Close
While prosecutors in Los Angeles are scrambling to find a way to put Phil Spector back on trial after their first attempt collapsed in a mistrial, juror No. 9, Ricardo Enriquez, says the jury was close to convicting him.
"One of the jurors said that she would vote guilty under protest," he said. "And at that point, a couple of the jurors said, no, we want you to vote it with your conscience, without protest. And then at that point, the -- one of the other jurors started defending his point in terms of not guilty and then she went back to not guilty."
Spector, the famed music producer who created the "wall of sound" technique, stayed silent, showing no emotion after his marathon trial ended in a hung jury. Ten of the 12 jurors voted to convict him for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. They deliberated for 40 hours before announcing that they were deadlocked.
Despite the defense's contention that Clarkson could have killed herself, Enriquez thought Spector was guilty from the beginning.Photos: The Spector Trial
"I thought it was a forgone conclusion that he was guilty and I was really surprised after the first ballot we were split," he told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "First of all, it was four of us that were for guilt. There were five who were not guilty. And three who were undecided."
Enriquez said juror No. 11 had a problem with the amount of blood the experts said should have been on Spector's hand. But his peers kept reminding him that they were not the authority on forensics.
"There is no blood means there is no blood," Enriquez said. "There was enough blood to put him close to her, because it was on the side of his coat and on -- to the end of her dress."
But celebrity wasn't a factor in their decision, Enriquez said.
"I didn't know who this man was," he said. "And it didn't play any part in -- I didn't know people who were even following this case as much as I've discovered they have, or they are."