LOS ANGELES — A surprise switch in prosecution trial strategy blindsided Phil Spector's defense Wednesday, leaving lawyers for the music legend scrambling to retool their case as the lead attorney scrapped his planned opening statement for a "from the hip" address.

"I feel like my pants are down and I am naked before the court," defense lawyer Bruce Cutler complained to Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler after the judge refused a request for a postponement and ordered the lawyer to go forward with his opening statement.

Just moments earlier, with the completion of a prosecutor's opening statement, Spector's legal team had learned that the government would not present as evidence extensive statements the record producer made to police after the Feb. 3, 2003, death of actress Lana Clarkson in his home.

The statements were the subject of a pretrial legal battle in 2005, with prosecutors fighting successfully for their admissibility.

In his carefully scripted opening, however, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson did not refer to the statements, and before Cutler rose to talk to the jury, another prosecutor reminded him that California law barred the defendant's admissions as hearsay unless they were introduced by prosecutors.

"I didn't know until just this moment that the prosecution team was not going to use the statements," an astonished Cutler said.

The attorney, who is based in New York and has special permission to try Spector's murder case, asked for a brief recess to huddle with the California lawyers on his team. The group of five attorneys could not produce any legal argument satisfactory to Fidler for allowing the defense to reference the statements or question witnesses about them.

"So [the police] are not going to testify about these things," Cutler clarified.

"That's correct," Fidler replied.

"It's one-sided, your honor. It's completely unfair," the lawyer grumbled.

"It's called the law," the judge said.

As Spector looked on from the defense table, his clasped hands noticeably shaking, Cutler said he had mapped his opening around the statements.

Spector was taken into custody about 40 minutes after Clarkson's fatal shooting. Officers recorded him over the next several hours. Much of what he had to say was a rant against the officers holding him and Clarkson, who he calls at one point "a piece of s---." But the lawyer suggested parts of the statement supported the defense theory that the actress took her own life.

"And I don't know what her f---ing problem was, but she certainly had no right to come to my f---ing castle, blow her f---ing head open," he told officers.

Among the things Cutler said he planned to tell the jurors was that all his client's statements the night of the murder were consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Now, he said, most of the statements will not come in.

The defense suggested they had been misled by prosecutors, but Deputy District Attorney Pat Dixon disputed that, saying they confirmed with the judge at the 2005 hearing that the statements were theirs to use or not use.

"I don't know if we need to telegraph our whole trial strategy to the defense," Dixon said.

The judge agreed, but said, "I can't say I am completely thrilled by the timing."

In the end, the opening statements the jurors heard could not have been more different in tone, style and substance.

Jackson told jurors Spector killed Clarkson in the foyer of his mansion because she wanted to leave.

"He put a loaded pistol in her mouth and shot her to death," he said, adding that prosecutors would present blood spatter evidence indicating Spector was within three feet of her at the time of her death.