Movie producer Phil Spector has asked a California appeals court to overturn his murder conviction on the grounds the trial judge swayed the jury by pointing to blood spots at the hitmaker's home in a photo demonstration.
Spector is currently serving 19 years to life for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson but maintains his victim committed suicide at his Alhambra, California mansion.
Now his lawyer, Dennis Riordan, has urged a state appellate panel to reconsider the evidence and the actions of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who appeared in photographs pointing at the location of crucial blood evidence.
Prosecutors showed the photos in their closing arguments, insisting they proved the actress' death was not suicide or an accident.
On Tuesday (12Apr11), Riordan told the three-judge panel the photos were unprecedented, and helped sway the jury to a decision.
The attorney told the judges that Spector’s defence team had asked Fidler to tell jurors not to consider the photos as evidence and he had refused.
The appeals court judges have 90 days to issue a ruling.