Phil Spector And Defense Team Go Separate Ways After Realizing They Want Different Things
A fittingly anticlimactic coda to the Phil Spector mistrial came today, as the members of his defense team—who by now should have been sitting in adjoining hammocks in a tropical locale, clinking coconut cups over never having to deal with their mushroom-headed client again—have decided to move on from the case entirely:
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler told both sides he wanted the new trial to begin within four months and set another hearing in the case for October 23.
But Spector's lead attorney Roger Rosen, who is stepping down from the case along with Bradley Brunon and Linda Kenney-Baden, said that might be difficult because Spector's new lawyers would need time to prepare.
Rosen said he was leaving the case in part because, after the first five-month trial, he needed to turn his attention to other clients. He said Spector, 67, also wanted the "fresh perspective" of a new defense team.
These aren't the first lawyers to wipe their profiles from Team Spector's MySpace page—lead attorney Bruce Cutler left in late August to devote more time to his syndicated TV pursuits. Where that leaves Spector at this point is as difficult to predict as every other development in this quintessentially Hollywoodian legal morass, where the only known quantity is a guarantee of five more months of sassy wigs and witnesses named for popular spiced-latte flavorings.
