Phil Noir: A Spectator at the Spector Trial

Tell it to the judge: Bruce Cutler's California adventure

Comments (0) By Steven Mikulan Friday, Apr 27 2007

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Whether or not Cutler’s attacks (which were echoed the second day by co-counsel Linda Kenney Baden) will backfire is uncertain. The jurors listened to Cutler attentively, some taking notes in the steno pads they’re all provided. These are similar to those used by many of the press that crowded in the court that first day, although none had notebooks like Dominick Dunne’s, whose face is screened onto each page. (When ribbed by some of his colleagues, the Vanity Fair correspondent said they were a swag item produced by Court TV for his Power, Privilege and Justice show, and that he was a little embarrassed by them.)

Although Day One produced courtroom waiting lists for media members and public looky-loos alike, the next afternoon saw a falloff in interest, except for the usual old men in Members Only jackets who prowl courthouse hallways looking for interesting cases to occupy their time. They had a special interest in Spector though, for despite his money and fame, age made him one of them. Like Robert Blake, accused of murdering his wife in 2001, and octogenarian George Weller, who stood trial for plowing his car into a Santa Monica farmers market and killing 10 people in 2003, Spector was a man who should have been enjoying the dignity of retirement. Instead, his trial placed him in the overlit diorama of public spectacle — one whose ultimate indignity may well be the ebbing interest in it.