Spector murder trial interrupted for 2 days

Jurors in the Phil Spector murder trial were sent home without hearing testimony Monday because of a medical problem suffered by defense attorney Bruce Cutler.

Reached by phone, Cutler said he had problems with his diabetes medications and was awaiting test results due today. He said he hoped to return to court Wednesday.

“Superman has to get some kryptonite taken out of his system,” Cutler said. “I want to get through this so I can keep lifting the world the way I want to.”

Cutler is one of six attorneys defending Spector, 67, against charges that he shot actress Lana Clarkson to death at his Alhambra mansion in February 2003.

The courtroom is dark today because of an immigrant rights’ march that is expected to snarl traffic, meaning that the trial will not start up again until Wednesday, although the legal battle continued to thump along.

On Monday, prosecutors filed a motion asking Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler to sanction Spector’s attorneys for withholding test results discussed by their forensic scientist, Henry Lee, in an April 25 appearance on Court TV. Prosecutors said failing to turn over Lee’s findings violated California law.

Lee told interviewer Catherine Crier that Clarkson’s blood spatter traveled six feet. Spector attorney Linda Kenney Baden cited Lee’s conclusion in her opening statement to say that her client had been too far away from Clarkson to shoot her.

Kenney Baden said “there’s nothing to” the prosecution claims and promised a defense response would be filed today.

Fidler did not immediately rule on the motion. After dismissing jurors Monday, however, Fidler told the lawyers he was upset that Lee and another defense forensic scientist, Cyril Wecht, may have discussed the case during TV appearances. He ordered both sides to avoid such interviews in the future, warning that the case must be “tried in the courtroom, not in the media, and not in that manner.”

Spector has pleaded not guilty and has been free on $1-million bail. Prosecutors say the legendary music producer, who worked with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Ike and Tina Turner and many other icons of the 1960s, shot Clarkson in the mouth when she tried to leave his home.

His lawyers say the shooting was an “accidental suicide.”

Prosecutors had planned to present testimony Monday from Stephanie Jennings, a Philadelphia photographer who maintains that Spector threatened her with a gun in New York in 1995. The district attorney’s office says Spector had a pattern of threatening women at gunpoint when they rejected his advances.

peter.hong@latimes.com