Robert Blake - Acquittal
All below from L.A. Times, 3/16/05
Circumstantial Evidence
Prosecutors "couldn't put the gun in his hand," said jury foreman Thomas Nicholson. "I felt the primary thing from what I saw was that the circumstantial evidence was flimsy."
The jurors, who ranged in age from 24 to 78, included an air-conditioning technician, a legal secretary, a retired librarian and a postal worker. They cited concerns about the circumstantial nature of the case against Blake, in which prosecutors were never able to link him to the murder weapon or produce a witness who could place him at the scene at the time of the murder.
In the absence of direct evidence, jurors were asked to believe testimony from the stuntmen [Hambleton and McLarty], who testified that Blake had asked them to kill Bakley two months before she was slain. But Blake's attorney, M. Gerald Schwartzbach, was able to undermine their credibility by presenting evidence that their admitted use of cocaine and methamphetamine could have caused them to be delusional.
"I didn't believe either one of them," said Charles Safko, a 50-year-old truck driver from Winnetka. "I thought they were both so full of it, it was unbelievable."
During the trial, prosecutors focused on records from a prepaid phone card documenting 56 calls from Blake's house to Hambleton and three to McLarty between March 2001 and the May 2001 slaying, confirming the actor's contact with them.
One witness testified that when Blake learned that Bakley, whom he had not yet married, was pregnant, he threatened to "whack her" if she refused to get an abortion. He schemed to get her probation revoked on an Arkansas fraud case and tried to have her arrested for alleged crimes relating to her mail-order pornography business, prosecution witnesses said.
Physical Evidence
One defense expert testified that whoever shot Bakley would have had significantly more gunshot residue on his hands than the few lead particles police found on Blake in the 2 1/2 hours after his wife's shooting. Several jurors cited that testimony as important in the acquittal.
Schwartzbach [defense attorney] also emphasized repeatedly the lack of eyewitnesses, fingerprints or other forensic evidence linking Blake to the murder weapon, a Walther P-38 handgun.
Prosecutor's Reaction
Deputy Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Shellie Samuels, a career prosecutor who had won 48 of 49 murder cases before this one, said she was "blown away" by the verdict. She wondered what effect Blake's celebrity had on the case.
"I can't believe a jury would not convict on this," Samuels said.
On 3/24/05 the Los Angeles Times reported that, according to L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley, prosecuting celebrities in Los Angeles is very difficult. Cooley called the Blake jury "incredibly stupid". "Quite frankly, based on my review of the evidence, [Blake] is as guilty as sin. He is a miserable human being" Cooley said.
Cooley said that his office would face similar challenges in the next celebrity murder trial, of record producer Phil Spector. Cooley pointed to shows such as "CSI" as being part of the problem, as they raise "false expectations" about the evidence that can be presented.