Judge Lets Dateliner on Spector Jury

LOCKS DOWN Spector

The media are often accused of acting as the judge and jury in high-profile trials, so maybe Judge Larry Paul Fidler decided to skip the speculation and just let a Dateline NBC producer sit on the jury in Phil Spector's murder trial, which starts today.

L.A.-based independent reporter Eric Longabardi reported on ERSNews.com Tuesday that Adam Gorfain, a 41-year-old senior producer who runs Dateline's Los Angeles office, will help decide Spector's fate. Longabardi suggests that Gorfain's role as a journalist involved in covering Spector's case prior to the trial could make him less than impartial. "According to Gorfain's own admission, he's been working on the Spector case for months," Longabardi writes. "In his juror questionnaire released by the court last Friday, the Dateline producer wrote that 'for several months, I have been assigned to this case for NBC News as a senior producer.'"