LAWFUEL- The Legal Newswire – The judge in record producer Phil Spector’s murder trial decided Wednesday not to allow the deadlocked jury to consider a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.
“It’s not so much the words, it’s basically the timing when they’ve reached an impasse,” Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler told attorneys. He said the jury might take being offered such an option at this point to mean they should find Spector guilty of manslaughter.
He asked the attorneys outside the jury’s presence for arguments on how the current jury instructions might be restated to aid the panel in deliberations, which were suspended after the impasse was announced Tuesday.
Fidler ruled earlier in the trial that the jury would only consider the charge of second-degree murder and not any lesser offenses.
