Spector Faces the Music

Sixties icon Phil Spector was supposedly drunk, depressed, and on prescription medication when he brought B-movie actor Lana Clarkson home from a club four years ago, and shot her-—accidentally, he claims. With his televised trial opening today, Dan Glaister walks readers through what is known of events and gives insight into what might unfold in the courtroom.

Spector is the kind of loose-cannon client that gives attorneys nightmares. In an email written shortly after the shooting, he called Clarkson's an "accidental suicide," and in Esquire he claimed: "She kissed the gun." But, Glaister notes, count on heavy-hitter Bruce Cutler to have some legal tricks up his sleeve. (More Phil Spector stories.)