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In yet another discouraging development for accused murderer/avowed bitch-hater Phil Spector, lead defense attorney Bruce Cutler—who so famously got things started with a bang by hammering the phrase "murder on their minds" approximately 17,000 times into the jurors' skulls, then became a rarer and rarer courtroom presence as he attended to his daytime-TV-starring commitments—has officially stepped down from the case as of today. From the AP report:

Phil Spector's often-absent lead lawyer, Bruce Cutler, announced Monday that he is leaving the music producer's murder case because of "a difference of opinion between Mr. Spector and me on strategy."

Cutler had been absent from the trial for many weeks so he could appear on a syndicated TV show. He told Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler that he was prepared to return and do the closing arguments for Spector, but now, Cutler said, "there's nothing I can do for Mr. Spector. I can no longer effectively represent him."

Cutler made the announcement as the trial resumed for what was expected to be the last day of testimony. It wasn't immediately clear if he quit or if Spector fired him.

The judge asked Spector if everything that Cutler said was accurate.

"That is correct," Spector answered in a raspy voice.

We can only imagine the kinds of heated, closed-door arguments held between counsel and increasingly-fucked client that led to this public and permanent parting of the ways. Certainly, by the time witness #5 testified about the time Spector pressed a gun to her face and threatened to splatter her lady-brains against the fireplace if she didn't accept his generous invitation to join him for an evening of s'mores and rare, videotaped episodes of James at 15, we imagine Cutler had all but lost patience, and stormed out of the meeting mumbling to an aide, "Fuck this crackpot. I got a syndicated strip on the front burner that'll make me Judge Joe Brown money."