Conrad Murray (58), physician to the ‘King of Pop' Michael Jackson, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after a six-week trial over the celebrity singer's death. The Texas doctor now faces anywhere between four years in prison, the maximum sentence, to probation, the minimum. He is also likely to lose his medical licence.
In retrospect
A twelve-person jury returned the guilty verdict after nine hours of deliberation over two days. Dr. Murray sat stone-faced in court as a juror read out the verdict and he was later handcuffed and remanded to custody by court bailiffs.
On June 25, 2009 Jackson, 50 years old at the time, died of cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles, following acute intoxication by propofol, a short-acting, intravenously administered anaesthetic. He was in the midst of a gruelling schedule of rehearsals for the ironically named ‘This Is It' tour, set to begin a few weeks later at the O2 Arena in London.
At the time Dr. Murray said that he had found Jackson in his room and he was not breathing. The iconic star was pronounced dead a few hours later at a nearby hospital.
While defence attorneys focused their case on Jackson's alleged addiction to a propofol and argued that the he had self-administered anaesthetic along with two other sedatives, prosecutors argued that it was Dr. Murray who committed several “egregious medical missteps,” including inadequate monitoring of propofol administration, failure to resuscitate the patient and patchy record-keeping.
Jurors heard defence arguments that Dr. Murray had placed orders for 15.5 litres of propofol during the last few months of Mr. Jackson's life, suggesting that the star was using the drug regularly as a sleep aid. Expert witnesses testified that propofol however had no known application for sleep aid, despite Mr. Jackson allegedly referring to the anaesthetic as his “milk.”
The most stinging indictment of Dr. Murray's competence came from renowned anaesthesiologist and propofol expert Steven Shafer, who testified that Dr. Murray “probably left an intravenous drip of the anaesthetic propofol running in Jackson's veins after the singer's heart stopped,” reports said.
Jackson family members, who arrived in court after the verdict, wept quietly after the proceedings. Jackson's sister La Toya said she was “overjoyed” at the outcome of the case adding, “Michael was looking over us.” Jackson's mother, Katherine, said she was confident this would be the outcome of the trial, his father only said one word to reporters as he entered: “Justice.”
