Spector jury selection is a high-stakes battle of wits

The Phil Spector murder trial began in earnest Monday with defense lawyers trying to identify jurors who have not been swayed by years of news coverage of the 2003 shooting of actress Lana Clarkson.

In the first day of jury selection, Spector attorney Bruce Cutler told the pool of prospective panelists that the publicity included “deleterious and dangerous rumors,” and said jurors must not presume that Spector murdered Clarkson just because she was found dead in his home.

The defense contends that her shooting was either suicide or an accident. Prosecutors said Spector shot her when she tried to leave his Alhambra mansion.

One prospective juror, who identified himself as an NBC network producer, said he knew a lot about the case but thought he could be fair. The challenge, he said, would be to separate what he already knows from what he hears at trial.

Prosecutors are expected to begin their questioning today. Several flare-ups Monday offered a glimmer of the showmanship likely to emerge when the trial goes live on television, as early as next week.

Prosecutors repeatedly objected to Cutler’s comments, saying he was arguing when he should be questioning. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler sustained most of the objections.

At one point, Cutler upbraided Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Jackson for his repeated objections, which prompted Jackson to ask the judge to keep Cutler in line.

Furious, Cutler said Jackson was “smirking and giggling like a girl. If he has something to say, he should say it to me.” Cutler again called Jackson’s behavior “girly,” a phrase he defended as “not sexist. I’m quoting the governor of California.”

Although no jurors were eliminated, the first hours of the questioning brought into focus a high-stakes battle of wits and means, much of it planned well in advance of the court session.

Prosecutors and the defense have both retained high-priced jury consultants -- among them social scientists and former attorneys -- to help them pinpoint likely sympathizers, but more important jurors who might stand in their way.

“I put them into categories -- those I do not want, those I want off if I can, those I’ll live with if I have to,” said veteran Dallas jury consultant Robert Hirschhorn, who is not working on the Spector case

Hirschhorn said the makeup of the panel will largely decide the outcome of the trial. Jurors probably will have formed opinions, and Hirschhorn’s research shows that opening arguments by lawyers tend to seal their judgments. “This trial will be over before one shred of evidence is presented,” he said.

Spector’s jury consultant, Richard Gabriel, disagreed.

“Jurors are dynamic in their decision-making, and trials are very dynamic in how they are presented,” he said.

Both sides probably have spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on preparation, including focus groups and mock trials to gauge public opinion on the case and test their arguments, other consultants said.

For the defense, “this is basically a death penalty case. If Spector is convicted, he will die in prison,” Hirschhorn said. If the prosecutors “lose, it will beg the question: Can the L.A. [County] district attorney’s office win big cases?”

Prosecutors would not discuss their jury selection strategy, but their consultant, Howard Varinsky, sat with them Monday.

During the question-and-answer selection process, known as voir dire, attorneys will look for grounds to disqualify jurors for legal cause, such as clear bias.

The defense and prosecution also will have up to 20 “peremptory challenges” that can be exercised for strategic reasons, within the limits of the law. (Jurors cannot be excused merely based on their race.)

The 18-page questionnaire that each of the 300 prospective jurors filled out not only gives lawyers information, it can be used to subtly shape jurors’ views, Hirschhorn said.

He highlighted question 30, which asks, “Over the past several years, what publicized court cases have you followed or paid attention to (e.g. O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, Michael Jackson, etc.).

“Look at those three: acquittal, acquittal, acquittal,” he said. “I’m surprised the prosecution’s consultant let it slip by; it is conditioning jurors to the aspect of this case that in L.A. celebrities have been acquitted.”

The ideal juror for the defense would be someone “enamored by the celebrity aspect of the case” who does not resent Spector’s fame and ability to spend millions on his defense, Hirschhorn said.

The defense also wants educated people open to scientific arguments, Hirschhorn said. On Monday, Cutler read jurors a dictionary definition of the word “forensics.”

Some of the defense experts are minor celebrities themselves. They include Connecticut criminalist Henry Lee, who was a key defense witness in the Simpson murder trial; Michael Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and star of the HBO documentary series “Autopsy”; and Vincent DiMaio, a Texas medical examiner who has served as an expert witness in numerous high-profile cases. Baden is also married to one of Spector’s attorneys, Linda Kenney.

“The stars of this show will be the medical people,” Hirschhorn said. “It’s a who’s who list that is quite impressive to a jury.”

Those experts will have even more influence in this case, he said, because “there are only two people who know what happened that night.

“One cannot talk, the other won’t,” said Hirschhorn, who doubts that Spector will take the stand.

But Art Patterson, a former Pennsylvania State University psychology professor who has been a jury consultant for 25 years, thinks better-educated jurors could be skeptical of the famous forensic experts.

“Anyone intelligent enough to understand the science will be intelligent enough to understand what the defense is trying to do,” he said. “The defense needs jurors they could lead.”

Hirschhorn said prosecutors will seek people willing to connect past allegations that Spector pulled guns on women to Clarkson’s shooting death at the music producer’s mansion.

Patterson said prosecutors also want well-educated jurors who are relatively conservative. “They need to worry about people who think stars can do no wrong,” he said.

Jurors not awed by celebrity will focus on the basic facts, which Patterson said will benefit prosecutors. “She meets him in a bar, goes to his house and gets shot,” he said. “How much spin can you put on that to an intelligent human being?”

peter.hong@latimes.com

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The jury questionnaire can be viewed at latimes.com.