Working at Cross Purposes on the Spector Trial

While one of Phil Spector's former defense attorneys is reluctant to testify against her client, even under pain of contempt, another, Bruce Cutler, is only too happy to talk to the press during the trial about his fellow attorneys' defense strategy.

Now, Mr. Cutler is a successful trial attorney, and he's been at it a lot longer than I have. So he presumably has a reason for revealing confidential conversations with his client's defense team, and seemingly undercutting their efforts in the court of public opinion. He also presumably has reason to believe a savage cross-examination of a woman relating an experience where a gun was thrust in her face -- a cross-examination which draws a rebuke from the trial judge -- will not only win over an LA jury, but is so essential to his client's defense that he must be allowed to "Brucify," as he has put it, other witnesses.

My experience is that LA juries don't like to see sympathetic witnesses treated roughly on the stand. Perhaps New York juries are different.