CA vs. Spector – The Evidence is Done – And So Is Cutler

 This morning court gets started off with a bang. Bruce Cutler, fresh from wrapping his reality TV show, is standing at the lectern addressing the judge. He is asking the judge to approve his written application, done with Spector’s agreement and acknowledgement, to be relieved of his duties in this case. Cutler says that he and Spector have had a difference of opinion in trial strategy. Cutler wants to do part of the non forensic summary in closing arguments, and Spector doesn’t want him to. Spector probably wants Rosen, who has like, actually *been* at the trial, and actually presented some of the witnesses, to deliver closing arguments on this material. Cutler tells the judge “I’ve stayed here all these months planning to sum up. If that’s not the case, there’s nothing else I can do for Mr. Spector.”

The judge asks Spector if he agrees with Cutler’s application and his desire to be relieved of his responsibilities, and Spector stands and addresses the court, saying “That’s correct, I don’t want Cutler to do the summation”

So the judge grants Cutler’s application and with that. Cutler says he would like to thank his friends in the press corps, his colleagues at the defense table, Mr. Spector and his noble adversaries to the left of him, and he picks up his toys and leaves the sandbox.

The judge then asks the defense about their two sur rebuttal witnesses Jennifer Hayes and Punkin Pie, and tells them that he has re-read the testimony of Pie, Jennifer and Nili Hudson, and he has come to his rulings regarding what the defense would like them to come back and re-address. The specific amount of time that the two had spent with Lana in the last months of her life is admissible, Punkin explaining her Christmas letter is proper rebuttal, but the testimony of the Franklin party is not, since that was covered before, and neither is the whole daytime friends/nighttime friends testimony, as that is a statement of fact, not a state of mind issue. The judge also says that they can’t ask further about Lana’s job at House of Blues, since that was testified to previously.

The judge also rules against asking about L.B. Moon, or “the cowboy”, one of Lana’s last relationships. He also rules against the whole cocaine. drug testimony, as this could have been brought up before and wasn’t, and now has no relevance, since Lana was shown to have no drugs in her system at the time of her death. The judge rules, though, that the defense can have Pie testify as to Lana’s obsession with knowing where her purse was.

With that being settled, the judge only wants to make sure that he is clear on how the defense wants to deal with Cutler’s absence in front of the jury. The defense says that they would prefer that no mention be made of Cutler’s absence and the judge agrees with this, he just wanted to make sure that this is what the defense wanted.

And really, do you think the jury is going to notice? He’s been gone most of the trial, anyway.

The defense then re calls, as their next sur rebuttal witness, Jennifer Hayes.

Jennifer begins by answering questions about the amount of time she spent with Lana in the months before Lana’s death, and despite having testified the first time that she “had bigger fish to fry” and had to keep her kids out of rehab, and therefore didn’t have a lot of contact with Lana just before her death, she now says that she saw Lana at least twice a week during the latter part of 2002 and the early part of 2003. And since most of the contact she says she had with Lana was at “clubs” and “parties”, one wonders where the fuck her teenage kids were – and doesn’t she have like an infant? I guess she won’t have to worry about attending that “Mother of the Year” ceremony.

She says that she saw Lana at different clubs like “Level One”, “The China Club”, “Barfly” and, of course, the Backstage Club, most every Tuesday and Wednesday night. They were always there “supporting Pie”, and I can’t help but wonder why she wasn’t at home “supporting” her kids that needed rehab. Kids live what they learn, you know, and well, when Mom seems to be out clubbing two or three times a week, well, it’s no wonder she had “bigger fish to fry.”

Testimony then focuses on the Franklin party and Jennifer says that although she wasn’t there, she *WAS* invited – she just wants to make sure everyone knows that – she WAS invited. She says that while Pie and Lana were at the party they called her, trying to talk her into going. She declined, saying she was in her pajamas, and Lana told her “Oh, come on! They got me out of *my* pajamas to come – you can come too!” Pie told her on the phone that Lana had flipped out because Lana ran into Michael Bay at the party and he didn’t recognize her, and Lana, was so upset that she said she wanted to end it. Jennifer says that Pie told her Lana had a conversation with Peter Dobson and calmed down. This call lasted just a couple of minutes.

Jennifer then testifies that she got another call from Lana and Pie when they were in the car on their way home after the party. They called from Pie’s phone and they were both talking – and laughing. They were going back and forth on the phone and Pie repeated the earlier story about the snub from Michael Bay.

Jennifer then says that Pie called her again the next morning sometime before dawn where she got “the extended version” of the Michael Bay snub.

Dixon then gets up to cross examine the witness, and he points out that Hayes had testified that the first call from the party was after 11 pm at night, and that the second call was even later than that, since Pie and Lana were on their way home, and that the third call was before dawn. The witness agrees that this is correct.

Dixon then asks Jennifer “Well, gee, weren’t you a little irritated that they kept calling you at such a late hour? I mean, didn’t you have kids at home – and a new baby?”

Hayes says, oh no, this didn’t bother her in the least  – that she was quite used to late night calls and that it wasn’t unusual at all for her to be getting calls so late at night – or early in the morning.

Dixon then asks the witness to confirm her earlier testimony that the second call included a laughing, much calmer Lana and she says yes, it did, but that she wasn’t calm or laughing about the Michael Bay incident, that she was laughing over other things.

Dixon asks if the calls were made to her cell phone or house phone and if all the calls were on the same phone, but the witness can remember none of these details.

Dixon then asks if she still characterized Lana as a “dear friend” and the witness says “Absolutely”. Which, juxtaposed with her testimony, really does seem rather strange.

Dixon then points up again that Hayes sure seemed to be spending a lot of time “clubbing” for someone with a new baby – and Hayes points out that she had a live in nanny. Which makes it all OK. I guess.

On redirect the witness is asked again about the late night calls and why they didn’t bother her – the witness says that she *always* gets late night calls – she has kids that are out late (answering the mystery as to why they are in rehab), and she has friends that live in other countries (who apparently don’t understand the concept of “time zones”) and that Pie and Lana often went to after hour parties that she did not attend (on the nanny’s night off?) and that they would often call her to tell her what she was missing.

She is then asked about the second phone call and the laughing Lana and she again says that Lana was not laughing about the Bay incident – that they were talking about Hayes, in fact.

Hayes then testifies that she misses her friend, that Lana loved her kids, that they shared their lives and she was an amazing person and that Hayes still has difficulty dealing with the loss of her drunk, high, depressed, suicidal, broke, addict friend.

And thankfully this bitch leaves. Probably to go see her kids in rehab and wonder how the fuck they got there.

When we come back from break Brunon again is whining to the judge. This time he is complaining that when Spitz was on the stand the court made a comment that his answers were non responsive and that Spitz was giving narrative answers, and that Rosen, who had made an objection to some questioning by Alan Jackson, should not blame Jackson for the witnesses rambling, because that’s what the witness was doing.

The judge says that he did not mean this as a diss to Spitz, that all the expert witnesses had a tendency to answer as doctors, not as witnesses, and that the state’s witnesses were prone to this as well. Brunon wants the judge to tell the jury this, that he wasn’t complaining about Spitz in particular, and the judge says that he will.

The jury is brought back in and we are treated to the third appearance of Richard Tomlin on the stand. This guy has got to be thinking “what the fucking Fuck?”

Brunon asks the witness if there was music playing at the Castle when he responded to the call on February 3, 2003, and the witness says that yes, there was opera music playing and that it continued to play as the scene was processed. Eventually someone figured out how to turn the music off and did so. Tomlin says he didn’t see any speakers but that the music was being piped all throughout the house. He doesn’t remember if the music was still playing at the time of the sound test the next day.

Alan Jackson crosses the witness and asks if he would refer to this as loud, blaring music or gentle, soft background music, and the witness says it was the latter. Tomlin says that they were holding normal conversations, had no trouble hearing each other and didn’t have to raise their voices above normal speaking tones.

Then the witness we have been waiting for comes into the courtroom – the flaky, crusty Pie herself. She states her name as “Punkin Laughlin” and actually doesn’t look half bad – she and Jennifer Hayes must have been to the same “put it in a bun like a schoolmarm” hairdresser this morning, since this is the style they both have chosen, but at least Pie has a shirt on under her jacket today.

Rosen asks the Pie if, at the behest of Rosen, she prepared a summary from her date book of the events and dates that she had been with Lana from the end of 2001 through 2003.

The witness says that yes, she did prepare such a list.

She starts with an event at the end of 2001 – Pie and Lana went to a party given by Michael Damien at his studio home in the valley on the 23rd or 24th of the month.

And this catches my attention, and I’m wondering if this is Michael Damien – the guy from Young and the Restless that played the rock star Danny something that was married to Cricket something who was later married to Paul the lawyer and got caught in bed with Danny when he came back to her after having the kid with the Phyllis girl only it wasn’t really his kid she drugged him and only said they had sex when they really didn’t. You know – that guy.

Not that I watched the show – my aunt watched it and it was on in the afternoon when I was there and helping her after her accident.

But he was really cute. And I can’t imagine why he would have Pie at one of his parties. She seems a little…..used…..compared to him.

She then goes through about 15 dates that she and Lana were together – including things like a “Bad Company” and an “Allman Brothers” concert, Jennifer Hayes baby shower – surprised she didn’t just have her nanny do that event for her so she could go clubbing – a bunch of parties and birthday parties and Christmas parties and club dates – and she says that these events are in addition to their regular “clubbing” events on Tuesday and Wednesday nights when they would be together.

Rosen then asks the Pie about the Christmas letter. He quotes her the line that was read to the jury by Nili Hudson that says “My Lana, my best friend, my right hand and my inseparable sister, was violently and abruptly taken from me at the hands of Phil Spector.” Rosen asks Pie what she meant by this statement.

Pie then comes out with one of  the most insensible, rambling, lamest ass excuses I’ve ever heard in my life – and I had three kids who were forever giving me lame ass excuses. None of them came close to this pile of shit – and this bitch is an adult who should fucking know better.

Pie says that she included this line because she has friends “all over the world from all different walks of life” and she was explaining to them why they hadn’t heard from her, or gotten their cards and letters that she was normally so good at sending. Which you know, would explain why she would say “Well, Lana, my best friend and my soul sister and my right hand and my inseparable sidekick  – DIED or PASSED AWAY or KICKED THE BUCKET” – that doesn’t explain why she would include the editorialization of “At the hands of Phil Spector!” I mean, does it? Does that explain it? No – I don’t think so.

Then she tells us “I wanted to BROADLY explain why they hadn’t heard from me…:” BROADLY??? Who the fuck does this bitch think she’s fooling? Broadly would be “my friend died” – that’s broadly. NAMING THE PERP is not BROADLY.

I can’t even believe Rosen is believing this pile of shit. Even he has to realize this is NOT an explanation for what she said – it makes no fucking sense.

She continues (believe it or not), and says “The reason I put it that way was because I was trying not to describe it one way or another as to what happened – because no one knows what happened” (Ummmm….Pie, Phil Spector knows, now doesn’t he?), and some people would know about it and some had no idea. I was trying to be politically correct by not saying too much – I was trying to keep it simple.”

Which is completely and utterly diametrically opposed to what she put it in her Christmas letter – she wasn’t “simple”, she wasn’t “not describing it one way or another” she says Lana died at the hands of another – that’s not “not describing it one way or another.” I think that’s making a pretty clear fucking stand on what you think happened, right?

Who the fuck prepared this witness and agreed to let her get on the stand and say this shit? It makes her look like a fucking moron. And it’s insulting to the jury that she thinks this is a reasonable explanation. If *I* was her – I would have said something halfway fucking credible like “Oh, at this point I was still going through the stages of grief, and when I wrote this letter I was up to “blame” and I was blaming Phil Spector, and wrote this. Of course, as I moved through the stages I realized that this was just my grief speaking, and he wasn’t the only one I blamed during that period – I blamed myself, I blamed her mother, I blamed her other friends – it was just where I was at emotionally, at that time. I no longer blame him and realize that Lana had her own demons and that as hard as it is to accept, that she took her own life, and Mr. Spector had nothing to do with it. But that was then and this is now…”

Anything other than this incredible unbelievable poo she’s slinging from the stand. “Oh I said “Lana died at violently and abruptly at the hands of Phil Spector” – because I was just trying to keep it broad and vague out of respect for the family, because they were recipients of the letter, too. You know, not saying anything one way or the other, mind you. Just keeping it all ginger like and conscious of the family and our mutual friends.” What the fuck?

I swear to God, if any of my friend’s ever commits suicide, I’m going to send out a Christmas letter, and just out of respect for the family, and to keep it really BROAD and not inject my opinion into it anywhere, I’m just going to say in my letter “My friend was violently and abruptly taken from me at the hands of Tom Hanks.” I mean, you can’t really read anything into that, right – it doesn’t really MEAN anything, just that I’m being vague – since no one knows what happened.

She’s a fucking maroon if I’ve ever seen one.

Dixon gets up to cross examine and he points out that one of the dates in Pie’s date book says that Lana was with her on 1/17/2002 at the Cat Club – just three weeks after her injury to her wrists. He asks if Lana went out partying with that medical apparatus thing on her injuries – the “halo” appliance, and Pie seems to think “Sure! Not a problem”. 

He also points out that Pie has no actual recollection of any of these events – can’t remember the venues or the dates or the events other than from reading her notes in her date book. She can’t remember where, exactly, the Bad Company concert was, for instance, just that it was “somewhere in Orange County”.

Dixon then asks when she sent out these Christmas letters, and how many people received them, and she says that she assumes they were sent sometime in December, but that sometimes she didn’t get around to it until January or even March, and that because of everything going on, she was late that year getting the letters out, but it was probably sometime around the New Year. She says that she sends them to like 100 of her closest friends.

Dixon then gets specifically to the last line of the letter, and says “OK – you described this as you being political correct?” Yes. “As not describing one way or another how you felt?” Yes. “as not giving an opinion?” Yes. “But you say that Lana was violently and abruptly taken from you at the hands of Phil Spector! Isn’t that a distinct opinion?”

“No, that was just my way of saying what the situation was.”

“But you could have said that she simply passed away – or even that she passed away at his house…:”

“Yeah, I could have…”:

“Yet you say that she was abruptly taken away at the hands of Phil Spector – that’s an opinion, isn’t it?”

“That was my way of describing the situation.”

“You denied seeing Rick Brody at Ann Marie’s wedding and telling him that you hoped that they would “fry the bastard” when talking about Phil Spector – you said that that was something you would never say, because you didn’t believe it, but isn’t that basically what you said here – that in your opinion, she died at the hands of Phil Spector – and isn’t that what you told to 100 of your closest friends and acquaintances in your Christmas letter?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, isn’t that what you believed in December of 2003, that your best friend died at the hands of Phil Spector?”

“No, I didn’t believe that.”

“And when you talked to Officer Tomlin, the day that she died, you said that she was never suicidal and never depressed you told him the truth, didn’t you?”

“Because someone told me to say that.”

“Well, who told you to say this in the letter?’

“I didn’t want to hurt people”.

“Who? Was Phil Spector on your mailing list?”

I laughed really hard at that, by the way.

Rosen gets up to redirect and really, he can’t do anything  to make anything Pie says sound any more believable, because no one is buying the shit she is trying to sell. It’s just not a saleable product. And all the “Oh, you were trying to encompass the whole situation weren’t you?” “You were trying to be sensitive to the family, right?” that Rosen tries to polish the turd with just makes it sound all the more fucking stupid.

She is finally excused. But she isn’t excused from making me have to listen to her lame ass excuse. My kids really were coming up with better ones than that when they were 10.

Rosen then has an interminable amount of “newly discovered” emails he wants to publish to the jury. He puts them on the ELMO one by one and allows the jury to read them. These are all the emails that say things like “I hurt myself with tequila”, “I’m having major withdrawals from Pain Pills”, “I’m falling in and out of love”, “I’m having money problems”, and they are all out of context and they are all dated 1904 so you don’t know when they were or who half of them were written to or why or in response to what.

These are the kinds of emails you don’t want people going through after you die – so let this be a lesson to us all – clean out your “sent” and “received’ folders once a week. I mean, I write shit to people too – you know, have you ever begged off being with someone you didn’t like by saying  “Oh, I would so love to go with you this weekend, but fuck, we just can’t afford it right now.” or “Oh, I’d love to go with you this weekend, but damn, I’m so pissed off about work and it’s stressing me out so much, I just can’t get away right now!” Or how about “I’d love to, but you know, I have *GOT* to get to the hairdressers – 40 is coming quick and I look like Hell – I’m so GRAY!” And none of this means anything – you just don’t want to spend a whole weekend with the writer of the email. Well, guess what? The next thing you know, someone is going to kill you and then these emails will be up on an ELMO somewhere proving you were broke, a failure in your career and over the fucking hill.  So clean out your email folders. I shit you not.

When we come back from break, the judge tells the assemblage that Beth Karas poisoned the court and the staff. The Court TV remote reporter brought cookies for Judge Fidler and his staff and three of them came down with food poisoning . She brought him another treat again today and he wouldn’t eat it, asking her “Are you kidding me?”

The prosecution then stands and tells the court that they would like to enter the Passport of Melissa Grosvenor into evidence. It seems that when her sister, Angela Pileggi, testified that Melissa was in Atlanta stealing a plaque during the Masters Tournament in 2005, she was sorely mistaken. Miss Grosvenor was actually in Spain on somebody’s private yacht.

The judge asks how they are going to enter the Passport with no foundation, and Jackson offers that a passport is a government document and can be entered under the evidence code of “official records’. Brunon objects as says “no, these stamps on the passport aren’t official US documents”. Jackson argues that it’s the passport itself that is what he is asking the court to recognize, not the stamps, the stamps the jury can decide on, they only add to the weight of the evidence, they aren’t the evidence themselves.

The judge rules that the passport can’t be authenticated by simply being a “government document” – that the government doesn’t keep a copy, that maybe a blank passport is an official document, but one that has been stamped isn’t. He tells the prosecution that if they want to get Grosvenor here to testify and authenticate the document, that this would be proper rebuttal, but they need to have her here by tomorrow.

Alan Jackson says he has a “last ditch” attempt to convince the judge – he says that this *is* an official government document because a person can’t burn it, or throw it away, or sell it, that it belongs to the government and is really only “on loan” to the individual named on it.

The judge says “Sorry, nice try, but I still think it’s not an official government document”.

Rosen then wants a stipulation regarding the dates and events in Pie’s date book, and Dixon says “No way”, since he went over Lana’s day planner and none of the dates or events match up with those on Pie’s list. Rosen counters that the ones that don’t match are clearly events that Lana would have been attending with Pie – such as “Level One” events, which is a club Pie was promoting at the time. Dixon says no, he won’t stipulate to this list. The judge allows the defense to move the entire date book into evidence, to be pared down later when exhibits are vetted.

The prosecution does agree to a stipulation that the transcript of the interview in St. Pete with Devra Robiltaille says “he came and put a gun to my head, and said if you leave I will pull the trigger. I wasn’t trying to leave – it wasn’t violent or anything – he never hit me or tried to get me to take drugs – he wasn’t on drugs and he wasn’t drinking or anything – he wasn’t violent he never hit me or shoved me – he just quietly said if you leave I will pull the trigger.”

This passage isn’t offered for the truth or to verify that this is a correct transcription of the tape – just that the transcript says this.

And the defense rests – subject to the exhibit conference and those other remaining issues.

The prosecution wants a little time to work on the Melissa Grosvenor issue and the court takes another break.

The prosecution also has a pending motion to admit the telephone records between Lana and Jennifer Hayes – and the defense has an outstanding motion regarding the “outrageous government conduct” charge, which concerns the whole Bill Pavelic email and charges.

When court resumes, the prosecution says that they don’t have any more witnesses – so they must have given up on getting Grosvenor here to testify about the passport, and the judge tells the jury that the evidence portion of this case is finished. He tells them that they need a couple of days to go over jury instructions, and that closing arguments will begin on September 5th. He anticipates that these will take 2 days, and that from here on out, they should anticipate being here on Fridays. He then tells them he will expect them all back on 9 am on the 5th.

After the jury is excused for a long needed rest, the judge asks Mr. Plourd and the defense about the whole “outrageous government conduct” motion, and whether or not they are ready to proceed with this. Plourd tells the court that they were unable to obtain an affidavit from Mr. Pavelic. The judge tells the defense that while it’s nice to make allegations, it’s even nicer when you have evidence to back up such allegations, and that everything he has received about this issue has been hearsay.

Linda Kenney Baden then tells the court that the specific allegations they are concerned about concern two robbery/homicide policemen who were sent to interview Gregory Diamond in this case before the judge had appointed the special master, which the judge had to do because the interview dealt with matters that were privileged. The officers went to Mr. Diamond falsely stating that they were there representing Judge Fidler himself. The defense would like a hearing on this issue.

As they were investigating this issue, that is when Bill Pavelic came forward alleging that Mr. White was a government informant, and sending emails to all parties involved in this case saying the same thing.

Plourd says that there is an audiotape of the interview between the two officers and Diamond, but the judge points out that even if everything the defense is saying were true, there is no basis for any misconduct, since the prosecution has never hear this audiotape, that it was sealed and never turned over to them.

Plourd says the basis is that one of the detectives is married to a Deputy DA who works in the DA’s office.

Fidler still wants to know what the specific allegations are – and asks if they are prepared to offer evidence and witnesses – the judge says that if all of this is just allegations, that he’s not interested. He points out that this motion was filed two months ago and they still don’t have anything to present, not even an affidavit from Pavelic – and that he may have gone on TV with his allegations, but apparently he isn’t prepared to repeat them in court under oath.

So this may be a dead issue, but tomorrow we have the boring issue of jury instructions. I have to get out my 1600 page CALJIC book and study up so I can follow along tomorrow. Let’s see if we can make jury instructions FUN!