LOS ANGELES — Jurors considering the case against Michael Jackson’s doctor ended their first day of deliberations Friday without reaching a verdict or asking any questions indicating how far along they have gotten in their discussions. The seven-man, five-woman panel was given highlighters and blank forms to request evidence after starting deliberations around 8:30 a.m. They recessed around 4 p.m. and were set to resume discussions Monday. The jury must reach a unanimous verdict to either convict or acquit Dr. Conrad Murray of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson’s June 2009 death. Jackson died from a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol; Murray has acknowledged giving Jackson propofol to help him sleep. The jury is not sequestered and will deliberate during the court’s regular hours. A verdict will be read the same day it is reached. During closing arguments of the six-week trial, attorneys for the Houston-based cardiologist attacked prosecutors and their witnesses, saying they had over time developed stories and theories that placed the blame for Jackson’s death squarely on Murray. Prosecutors countered that Murray was an opportunistic and inept doctor who left Jackson’s three children without a father. They said that Murray giving Jackson propofol as a sleep aid violated standards of care and amounted to a secret experiment in which the doctor kept no records. Media were stationed Friday outside the courthouse and in the courtroom where the jury’s decision will eventually be read. Attorneys handling the case will receive a two-hour notice when a verdict is reached. Murray waived the need for his presence if the panel asks any questions, but he must be present when a verdict is announced. Jurors heard from 49 witnesses and have more than 300 pieces of evidence to consider. They were given lengthy instructions by the judge about how to deliberate. If Murray is convicted, he faces a sentence ranging from probation to four years behind bars, and he would lose his medical license. The sentence will be decided by Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor after receiving input from attorneys for both sides and probation officials, if necessary. A recent change in California law means that Murray, 58, might serve any possible incarceration in a county jail rather than a state prison. A prison term could be shortened by overcrowding. If acquitted, Murray could still be pursued by medical licensing authorities in the states of California, Nevada and Texas. ___ AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report. ___ McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP See the original post: Jury In Conrad Murray Trial Ends First Day Of Deliberations Without Reaching Verdict
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Jury In Conrad Murray Trial Ends First Day Of Deliberations Without Reaching Verdict
Jackson’s Doctor Declines To Tell His Story To Jury
LOS ANGELES — Jurors hearing the involuntary manslaughter case against Michael Jackson’s doctor will not hear directly from the man whose fate they will soon be asked to decide. Instead the panel will have to choose whether to convict or acquit Dr. Conrad Murray of based on the testimony of 49 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence, including one lengthy police interview with the cardiologist. The seven-man, five-woman panel didn’t get to hear Murray announce his decision Tuesday, but were rather told by a judge after testimony from a pair of medical experts that there would be no more evidence presented to them. They were given Wednesday off, which prosecutors and defense attorneys will use to craft their closing arguments – the final words of the case before deliberations begin. Murray’s decision Tuesday came after 22 days of testimony and serious thought by the doctor, who told Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor the day before that he hadn’t ruled out taking the stand. In the moments before the announcement, with jurors still in the room and the judge huddling with attorneys at a sidebar conference, the doctor held his hands in front of his face, as if in prayer. Jurors were excused from the courtroom while Pastor advised Murray of his rights to testify or remain silent. Spectators, including Jackson’s mother, father, brother Randy and sister LaToya, watched from the audience as the judge asked Murray, “Have you made up your mind?” Murray paused, looked at all his lawyers, seemed to sigh and said, “My decision is I will not testify in this matter.” Pastor said Murray had properly weighed his options and added, “I certainly will respect that decision.” Murray, 58, has pleaded not guilty in connection with Jackson’s June 2009 death. He faces up to four years behind bars and the loss of his medical license if convicted. Prosecutors contend Murray gave Jackson a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol in the bedroom of the singer’s mansion. Defense attorneys claim Jackson gave himself the dose when Murray left the room. Jurors were presented with dueling scientific evidence to support each side’s theory, although even a defense expert noted he would not have given the pop singer propofol in his bedroom for any sum of money. Murray told police two days after Jackson’s death that he had been giving the singer the powerful anesthetic nightly for nearly two months. After the singer’s death, police found bags with basic medical equipment and vials of propofol, but not the advanced equipment prosecutors and experts say the doctor should have had to be administering propofol. Pastor and attorneys spent Tuesday afternoon finalizing jury instructions, which will give the panel its guidelines for how to view the case. Prosecutors are saying that while Murray was engaged in lawful practices during his treatment of Jackson, he was criminally negligent in many of his actions. The panel will be told that they can consider whether Murray should have known that Jackson’s death was a foreseeable consequence of his actions. Defense attorneys will be able to highlight the testimony of five character witnesses – which jurors will be told can be sufficient to create reasonable doubt – to illustrate seven traits they claim the doctor has displayed throughout his career: being attentive, informative, skillful, cautious, compassionate, loyal and knowledgeable. They can also consider whether the character witnesses demonstrated that Murray is selfless and not financially motivated. Prosecutors have cast him as greedy and eager to please Jackson, who had agreed to pay the physician $150,000 per month. The singer died before the contract was finalized. Although they won’t have any direct testimony from the Houston-based cardiologist to consider, the jury will be able to review the doctor’s lengthy police statement, in which he both detailed his treatments to Jackson and left out any references to his frequent phone use on the morning the singer died. It is just one of the more than 300 pieces of evidence that were presented during the trial, which so far has lasted six weeks. ___ AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report. ___ McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP More: Jackson’s Doctor Declines To Tell His Story To Jury
SCIENCE: ‘The Most Powerful Weapon In The Courtroom Battle’
LOS ANGELES — While the defense was on the verge of its counter attack in the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor, the prosecution dramatically shifted the focus from personalities to science – its most powerful weapon in the courtroom battle.. Its star witness, a scientist with a reassuring witness box manner, had jurors on their feet straining for a better view of his show-and-tell demonstration. It was the closest they would come to seeing a purported re-enactment of how the King of Pop died. Dr. Conrad Murray, charged with causing Jackson’s death, watched intently as Dr. Steven Shafer closed the case against him holding a bottle of propofol, an IV bag and a tube carrying the milky white liquid downward. That was how it happened on June 25, 2009, said Shafer. He was certain. On Monday, a defense attorney will try to shake his testimony and later a fellow scientist billed as “the father of propofol,” will offer another theory. Whether Dr. Paul White can absolve Murray of blame for the singer’s death remains to be seen. But the defense is just beginning. “He will have to stand firm on the fact that reasonable minds can differ,” said Marcellus McRae, a former federal prosecutor and trial attorney who has been following the case closely. “He will have to change the landscape here and show some reasonable doubt. The question is will this be enough.” Murray, a Houston based cardiologist, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter. McRae said calling Shafer as the final prosecution witness was a master stroke. “Brick by evidentiary brick, Shafer has built a wall of scientific reasons for the jury to conclude that Dr. Murray was criminally negligent,” he said. “It allows the prosecution to tell the jury that their case is built on science rather than shifting theories.” In addition to making the science understandable, Shafer offered some colloquial phrases that may resonate with jurors including the words “crazy” and “clueless.” He called Murray’s unorthodox use of propofol as entering “a pharmacological never-never land “and said the doctor was “clueless” when it came to helping his dying patient. And he denounced a defense theory that Jackson could have awoken from sedation and given himself the drugs that killed him during a few minutes that he was left alone by Murray. “People don’t just wake up from anesthesia hell-bent to pick up a syringe and pump it into the IV,” Shafer said, reminding the jury that the procedure was complicated. “It’s a crazy scenario.” Shafer stood in the well of the courtroom with an IV pole, a bag of saline solution and a bottle of propofol, showing how the drug could have run quickly into Jackson’s veins while his doctor was out of the bedroom. He drew a scene in which Murray, lacking the proper equipment to measure doses, left Jackson on an IV drip of the powerful anesthetic flowing quickly under the pull of gravity into the sleeping singer. It was the explanation, he said, of how Jackson died of a propofol overdose with no one present to see that he had stopped breathing. “This fits all of the data in this case and I am not aware of a single piece of data that is inconsistent with this explanation,” Shafer said. In early cross-examination, defense attorney Ed Chernoff asked Shafer if that wasn’t “a bold statement.” “It’s an honest statement,” he replied. Shafer’s mathematical calculations projected on a large screen concluded that Murray had not given his patient the minimal 25 milligrams he claimed, but had started a vastly larger infusion of a 100 milliliter bottle, containing 1,000 milligrams of the drug. No, Shafer said, Jackson had not given himself an additional infusion of propofol. “He can’t give himself an injection if he’s asleep,” he said. Shafer was the prosecution’s closer. An anesthesiology professor and researcher at Columbia University Medical School, he wrote the package insert instructing doctors how to use propofol. He listed 17 “egregious” violations of the standard of care by Murray, chief among them leaving his anesthetized patient alone and failing to call 9-1-1 when he found Jackson not breathing. . Deputy District Attorney David Walgren concluded a key day of Shafer’s examination by asking: “Would it be your opinion that Conrad Murray is directly responsible for the death of Michael Jackson for his egregious violations and abandonment of Michael Jackson?” Shafer replied, “Absolutely.” Just giving Jackson the anesthetic as a sleep aid in a home setting was unconscionable, Shafer testified. It is intended for surgery in hospitals where resuscitation equipment is available. “We are in pharmacological never-never land here, something that was done to Michael Jackson and no one else in history to my knowledge,” he told jurors. Gray haired and amiable, Shafer entranced jurors with his easy manner, speaking directly to them as he made molecules understandable and led them through complicated graphs projected on a courtroom screen. When Chernoff accused him of trying to send a message to jurors, he responded calmly, “I’m trying to make it easy for the jury. These are complex graphs and I’m trying to explain to the jury a very complex pharmacology. There is no other agenda as you’re suggesting.” McRae gave Walgren and co-prosecutor Deborah Brazil high marks. “Good trial lawyers know that you have to persuade on the law, persuade on a factual level and then persuade on a moral and common sense level,” he said. “Even though you’re not going to hear an instruction about morality, the jury has to feel they’re making the right decision on a gut level.” “I think the prosecutors here have done a very effective job of hitting the human element, the moral element and now the factual element.” he said. A parade of 32 witnesses had testified before Shafer took the stand and stole the show. They included Jackson’s household personnel, security guards, paramedics and a business associate. Jurors heard about the legendary singer’s final day on earth — singing and dancing at a rehearsal for his comeback concert, reveling in the adulation of fans who showered him with gifts. And then a night of horror, chasing the most elusive treasure he craved — sleep. Most dramatic were two recordings — one of the heavily drugged singer dreaming aloud to his doctor about future triumphs and then the doctor himself being interviewed by police two days after the death that shook the world of pop culture. All of it told a compelling story structured by prosecutors Walgren and Brazil to prove that Murray, who had been hired by Jackson for $150,000 a month as his personal physician, was responsible for his famous patient’s death. With the trial winding down, they brought on the experts, a coroner and two doctors who evaluated Murray’s conduct for the California Medical Board. Dr. Nathan Kamangar, described Murray’s conduct as “unethical, disturbing and beyond comprehension.” Dr. Alon Steinberg enumerated deviations from the standard of care, and said, “If all of these deviations didn’t happen, Michael Jackson might have been alive.” See the original post: SCIENCE: ‘The Most Powerful Weapon In The Courtroom Battle’