Guest Entry: C. Carroll Adams, Ph.D., on the Spector Trial, and becoming trial addicted

The almost daily Sprocket Blog is a total delight.

Constantly you provide us not just a transcript of testimony in CA v Phil Spector, but in addition the flavor and subtext of the events in and around the courtroom. Through your words we have come to know and love a whole new aspect of Dominick Dunne, a young man with a future as a wordsmith himself.

Some of us are comfortable discussing endlessly the difference between conventional bluing of steel in firearms and the finish treatment of aluminum in a Clot Cobra to make it appear to be fine steel. Some of us get pedantic when a defense expert witness who claims to know everything cannot answer a simple basic question from a defense attorney, such as the definition of a micron. Considering that is the basic measurement unit of optical microscopy you would think a forensic pathologist who started med school in 1946 would know a micron is 1 over 1,000 of a millimeter.

Okay, so you tell us about the different brands and styles of expensive women’s shoes. And just think, when “Sex and The City” stopped production I thought it safe to forget all about Milano Blahnik and Jimmy Choo. Before that when “Absolutely Fabulous” (AbFab) stopped I forgot all about YSL and Christen Lacroix. I guess as long as Phil Spector is married to Rachelle every day in court will be a fashion adventure.

Because you wrote about the comfort of getting to the court house using Metro busses and the Red Line, I was motivated to get out of my condo and spend a day or so at the trial. You offered to introduce me around, and I knew that Dini was flying in for a few days. That made me feel right at home, and soon I discovered I also had many long-time buddies working for either the DA or the LA Superior Court. First and foremost is Sandi Gibbons, lead spokesperson for the DA. We first came into contact long before the Manson trial which she covered so well.

Going to court is sort of addictive, but in a good way, and actually ethical as well as street legal. I can imagine a scene (say from “Reefer Madness: The Musical”) in which some disreputable fellow steps out of the shadows and offers an innocent young person a free all day Metro pass along with directions to the court house, knowing full-well that from then on that innocent person is hooked. A few claim they can stop attending court when they want, so are in denial about their addiction. Others freely admit Jonesing their next court day, although we will never admit Bogarting the best seats.

People say back about 1962 Phil Spector produced the music of their lives, which is as may be. I do know that even before this trial got a delayed start I was hearing “To Know, Know, Know Him is to Loath, Loath, Loath Him” and did not understand why.

Then when neither Werner Spitz nor VDM could remember passages from their own books, and admitted lifting parts from previous other author’s research, I could not help singing the Tom Lehrer song from circa 1955 “Lobachevsky” who claims the secret to success in science is to “Plagiarize, let no one else’s work evade your eyes!” VDM and later WS also got me to seriously thinking being a necrophiliac as a career path. VDM is the son of a former NYC Chief ME. WS is the father of a current Chief ME in Michigan, reminding us all about the “Young necrophiliac who achieved his boyhood ambition by being elected coroner” as Tom Lehrer says in the introduction to “My Home Town” on his 1960 album “Tom Lehrer Revisited.” Just think, had PS produced that album it might have sold even more copies. Silly Tom Lehrer, who produced and marketed it himself, the most successful such sales effort up to then in the field of comedy music.

Thank you, Sprocket, and Thank you, Mr. Sprocket, for loaning her to us all these many days!

C Carroll Adams PhD