Musician Phil Spector Found Guilty, Sentenced
Monday June 1, 2009
Musician and music producer Phil Spector, who has battled bipolar disorder all his life, was found guilty in April of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a woman at his estate.Now the judge has sentenced him to a few years more than the mandatory minimum for that conviction - 19 years to life. This means Spector will not be eligible for parole until he is 88.
It's a sad end to a bitter chapter in the brilliant but tortured life of a rock legend.
Comments
Is phil’s sentence fair considering that he has bipolar disorder?
With a musical talent like his he almost certainly had undiagnosed and untreated ADHD misdiagnosed as bipolar.
I suffered with depression as a small child, which lead to a diagnosis of BPD as a young adult. Bipolar or not … MURDER is MURDER! Just because we suffer with dysfunctions within our own minds does not mean that we are incapable of emotion and/or a moral/conscience sense of right and wrong.
“…had injuries consistent with a gun being placed in her mouth and fired.”
Spector allegedly said, “I think I killed somebody.”
oh and….
“By the mid-’70s Spector was a deeply disturbed control freak, pulling guns on studio engineers, incarcerating artists in various style mansions. At different times he has terrified the wits out of people as different as John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, the Ramones, and Michael Jackson’s sister LaToya. Not to mention Veronica “Ronnie” Spector, the singer he married and kept virtually imprisoned for years. “I put up with him for that long because I was fearful and I didn’t know any different,” Ronnie told me in 1991. “I didn’t know how to say, ‘I don’t want to watch Citizen Kane tonight.’ ”
I hope he dies a lonely, painful death in prison!
I believe Spector got what he deserved. Just because he has bipolar disorder doesn’t mean he can get away with murder. There has to be some sort of responsibility for your actions. The illness is not an excuse for his demeanor.
We are responsible (legally and Morally) for our actions. I’m Bi Polar. It is my choice not to have firearms available to me. As a veteran I know how to use them. As a Bi Polar I’m not sure that I’d use them in a responsible manner, particularly when manic. There are no firearms in my home. If I decied to shoot someone it takes three days to get a firearm. By then I’m over it. Brilliant he is, dangerous he is also. Prison is where he belongs.
Society should pay more attention to the early diagnosis and treatment of manic/depressive disorder. Spector was by all accounts a very difficult case, but counseling and meds could have prevented the death of a lovely young woman just beginning her career, and the warehousing of a major music talent whose contributions will now end. Another bipolar tragedy.
I have had BP for most of my life. I still know right from wrong and I have never killed anyone nor have I continuously threatened others on numerous occasions with guns.