4/06/07 (CA):
Spector Trial: Experts Fees To Be Disclosed
|
|
Prosecutors in the Phil Spector murder case filed a motion today asking that the defense team be ordered to disclose the fees that its expert witnesses are being paid before they take the stand in the music producer's trial.
In the nine-page motion, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson argues that Spector's defense team should be ordered to comply with the prosecution's request for documentation "reflecting monetary or other compensation" made to "13 designated experts."
Jackson initially made his request on Feb. 17 to Robert D. Blasier, an attorney for Spector, who is charged with murder in the Feb. 3, 2003, shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.
Jackson asked the lawyer for "fee schedules, billing schedules, invoices, canceled checks, cash payments, per diem payments, employment contracts and any other documentary or oral evidence of remuneration or compensation of any form made to each of your experts."
In an email dated March 15 that prosecutors attached to the motion, Blasier responded that the prosecution's request for financial records was "an appropriate one for cross-examination."
Prosecutors disagree, arguing that the evidence should be turned over sooner to expedite the trial.
"The defense position is wrong," Jackson wrote in his court papers. "If required to wait until these witnesses testify, the court will be subject to needless delays in the production of verifying documents to determine the credibility and/or bias of these witnesses, owing to the fact that all but one of the defense experts are from states other than California."
The 13 experts named in the motion include forensic consultants and medical examiners from across the country who are acting on Spector's behalf, though not all of them may be called to testify in his defense.
They include New York pathologist Michael Baden and forensic scientist Henry Lee of the University of New Haven's Forensic Science Program, both of whom testified in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial.
Baden, formerly the chief medical examiner of New York City, is now the chief forensic pathologist for New York State Police. He has been expert witness for prosecutors or defense attorneys in many high-profile cases, including the Christian Brando and Robert Blake murder cases.
Devra Robitaille alleges Spector pointed a gun at her head in the foyer of his home following a party in the 1970s and again in the mid-1980s.
According to prosecutors, the woman's account is "striking" in similarity to the death of Clarkson, whose body was found in the foyer of Spector's mansion with a shotgun wound to the head, Jackson said in court papers filed Tuesday.
Spector, a 1989 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, met the statuesque 40-year-old Clarkson hours earlier when he went to the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, where she was working as a VIP hostess.
Prosecutors also want to admit testimony from a retired New York City police officer who claims he heard Spector repeatedly make derogatory comments about women, including, "They all deserve to die. They all deserve a bullet in their (expletive) head," Jackson says in the court papers.
© X-Pro 2007
|
|
