One thing that may be educational about the Spector trial, or at least worthy of discussion is this: We who sometimes follow trials from afar via news coverage often see a very different trial than the jurors in the courtroom. Logically, we know this, of course. The jurors sit there every day for six or seven hours a day, sometimes for months. The collective time I spent following the Spector trial probably comes to less than two hours and a lot of that was reading reporters' descriptions of what was said, not seeing and hearing the actual witnesses.
Still, we like to think that's enough; that we can formulate an opinion that is almost as valid as the jurors'…and I'm not saying we can't. Juries can be wrong, which is why verdicts are sometimes overturned on appeal or proven erroneous by DNA testing. The two juries that sat in judgment of O.J. Simpson obviously saw very different trials with different witnesses, different rules of evidence, different lawyers arguing, different standards of proof, etc. On the larger issue of whether Simpson hacked two people to death, one jury got it as wrong as wrong can be.
The Spector jury's deadlocked 7-5. We don't know which way but even if it's seven for conviction, it's stunning that nearly half of the jury thinks he didn't do it.
Or do they? Is it maybe that they think he did point the gun at her but that its discharge was enough of an accident that it doesn't rise to the level of second-degree murder? Perhaps they'd have voted to convict on a slightly-lesser charge…and perhaps, based on what the judge seemed to be saying a few minutes ago, they'll get that chance.
Or did at least five jurors buy into the idea, absurd as it may sound to us, that Lana Clarkson decided a visit to a stranger's home in the wee, small hours of the morn was a dandy opportunity for suicide? Seems absurd to me but so does a deadlocked jury in this case.
I'm not expecting anyone to answer any of this, and I supposed we'll know soon exactly what this deadlock is all about. Still, it and some other surprising verdicts we've seen, have to make you wonder. Maybe we don't know as much about these cases as we think we know. Or maybe it's the juries that don't know.