Murder of Lana Clarkson

In the early hours of February 3, 2003, American actress Lana Clarkson met record producer and songwriter Phil Spector while she was working at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. The two were driven in Spector's limousine to his mansion, known as the Pyrenees Castle, in Alhambra, California, and went inside while Spector's driver waited in the car.

Later that morning, Clarkson was found dead inside the mansion. Her body was slumped in a chair with a single gunshot wound to her mouth, and broken teeth were scattered on the carpet. Spector's driver said Spector emerged from the house holding a gun and told him, "I think I killed someone." Spector's fingerprints were not found on the gun alleged to be the murder weapon. Prosecutors argued that Spector had previously pointed a gun at four other women after drinking and growing angry when each spurned his romantic interest; the trial judge ruled that their testimony could be introduced to show "lack of accident or mistake."

Spector remained free on $1 million bail before his first trial began on March 19, 2007, in Los Angeles Superior Court before Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who allowed the proceedings to be televised. Defense attorney Bruce Cutler, who represented Spector through most of the trial, withdrew on August 27, 2007, citing "a difference of opinion" over strategy, and attorney Linda Kenney Baden delivered the defense's closing argument. On September 26, 2007, Fidler declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked ten to two in favor of conviction.

A retrial on a charge of second-degree murder began on October 20, 2008, again before Judge Fidler but without television cameras. The case went to the jury on March 26, 2009, and on April 13, 2009, jurors found Spector guilty of murdering Clarkson and of a related firearm-use enhancement. On May 29, 2009, Spector was sentenced to 19 years to life in the California state prison system.

Spector's conviction was affirmed by the California Second District Court of Appeal in May 2011, and the California Supreme Court declined further review on August 17, 2011. In December 2011, Spector's attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that his due-process rights had been violated; the petition was denied in February 2012. Later federal habeas corpus proceedings also failed: in June 2015 a federal magistrate judge recommended denial of the petition, and a district judge ordered its dismissal the following month while denying a certificate of appealability to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A 2013 television dramatization of the case was criticized by Clarkson's family and friends for giving more credence than they felt it deserved to a suicide defense raised at Spector's trial. Spector died on January 16, 2021, from complications of COVID-19 while serving his sentence at the California Health Care Facility at the California State Prison in Stockton, California; he would have been eligible for parole in 2024.