FROM CNN WIRE STAFF: Editor’s note: Conrad Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of pop icon Michael Jackson. Prosecutors contend that Murray’s reckless conduct in using the surgical anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid led to Jackson’s death. If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Murray could spend four years in a California prison and lose his medical license. [Updated at 1:29 p.m. ET] Prosecutor David Walgren said that during the course of trial jurors will hear not only that Conrad Murray “acted with gross negligence” but also that he was the “cause of Michael Jackson’s death.”
“Conrad Murray’s actions, Conrad Murray’s ommissions to act directly caused the death of Michael Jackson,” he said.
Walgren asked the jury to listen to all of the evidence during the case and return a guilty verdict.
[Updated at 1:27 p.m. ET] Prosecutor David Walgren said that after emergency personnel were called on the day Jackson died, Murray told neither medics nor emergency room doctors caring for Jackson that Murray had administered propofol.
[Updated at 1:24 p.m. ET] After giving Michael Jackson several substances including propofol in an effort to help him sleep, Dr. Conrad Murray told investigators he left him alone for about two minutes, prosecutor David Walgren told jurors in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial. That action constitutes “medical abandonment,” Walgren alleged.
[Updated at 1:18 p.m. ET] Prosecutors are now focusing on the uses and settings for which propofol should be used.
Prosecutor David Walgren noted that propofol is an “improper treatment of insomnia.”
Walgren is now talking about the setup of the equipment – and the lack of proper equipment that are required when propofol is being used.
[Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET] CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin offered a summary of the prosecution’s theory, and how he believes the defense will counter it:
“The prosecution’s theory is pretty straightforward: He was fine when Conrad Murray started treating him; Conrad Murray only got involved in treating Michael Jackson out of enormous greed; and (Murray) was incompetent and he gave him this drug, Propofol, which under no circumstances should be given outside of a hospital setting; and thus he killed Michael Jackson,” Toobin said.
The prosecution is making a case that although Murray is a medical doctor, he wasn’t an expert on Propofol, Toobin said. He said the defense can ask a lot of questions about the prosecution’s theory:
“Who told (Murray) to use Propofol? What was the background? What drugs had Michael Jackson been using previously?” Toobin said. “It think for starters, (the defense is) going to give background on Michael Jackson’s history of drug use, including, perhaps – again, we don’t know the facts here – his use of this drug.
“What the prosecution is trying to do is narrow this case down to one single exchange of drugs between Dr. Murray and Michael Jackson in the hours that (Jackson) died. That’s all the prosecution wants this case to be about. The defense is going to want to bring in the whole story of Michael Jackson’s health, his history of drug use, what might have killed him, how he had interacted with physicians in the past.”
[Updated at 1:10 p.m. ET] Dr. Conrad Murray did not mention the drug propofol to emergency room doctors at UCLA Medical Center when asked what pop star Michael Jackson had been given, prosecutor David Walgren told jurors in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial on Tuesday.
[Updated at 12:58 p.m. ET] Prosecutors are now talking about the phone calls Conrad Murray made on the morning that Michael Jackson was found dead.
Prosecutors say that Murray made a slew of phone calls between 10:20 and 11:51 a.m. that morning. Dr. Conrad Murray is believed to have discovered pop star Michael Jackson unconscious at about 11:56 a.m. on June 25, 2009, but he did not tell anyone to call 911 until 12:20 p.m., prosecutor David Walgren told jurors in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial Tuesday.
During a phone call at 11:51 a.m. with a cocktail waitress that Murray regarding as his girlfriend, Murray became silent and the phone went dead, Walgren said.
“This is likely the time Conrad Murray first noticed Michael Jackson’s lifeless body,” prosecutor David Walgren said.
Walgren said that the cocktail waitress on the phone noticed that Murray stopped responding to her on the phone and then five minutes later the call went dead.
At 12:12 p.m. prosecutors said Murray called Michael Jackson’s personal assistant Michael Williams and left a message saying ““Call me right away, please. Please call me right away. Thank you.” Williams promptly called Murray back and he was told “Get here right away Mr. Jackson had a bad reaction, he had a bad reaction,” according to prosecutors.
Prosectuors noted that when Murray said Jackson had a bad reaction he had yet to call authorities. Williams, who was not close to Jackson’s home, summoned security guard Albert Alvarez to go inside the house.
When he gets inside Jackson’s room, Murray is giving CPR while Jackson lies on the bed, Walgren said.
Walgren said Murray instructed the security guard to grab a bag and Murray begins grabbing vials and a saline bag hanging from the IV stand to put inside the bag.
That bag was later found inside Jackson’s home.
[Updated at 12:54 p.m. ET] Near the start of the prosecution’s opening statements, prosecutors displayed what appeared to be image of Jackson dead, lying on a gurney, several times during a slide presentation highlighting the prosecution’s points.
At one point, a slide showed the image of Jackson’s body next to a picture of Jackson alive. Prosecutor David Walgren indicated that the second photo showed Jackson rehearsing at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on June 24, 2009 – the day before Jackson died. The photo of the body was dated June 25, 2009.
“The question became what occurred between June 24, 2009, when Michael Jackson, shown in this picture, performing at the Staples Center, singing “Earth Song,” – what happened between that time and approximately 12 hours later when Michael Jackson is dead?” Walgren said.
[Updated at 12:52 p.m. ET] Prosecutors are now talking about the days leading up to Michael Jackson’s death.
On June 19 “Michael showed up for his rehearsal and he was not in good shape, he was not in good shape at all,” prosecutor David Walgren said.
“He had chills, he was trembling … he was rambling,” Walgren added.
He went home early that evening and didn’t rehearse because of his physical condition. The next day, prosecutors said, there was a meeting called about Jackson’s health. A few days later he was able to practice in much better condition, Walgren said.
[Updated at 12:50p.m. ET] Between April 6, 2009, and the time of Michael Jackson’s death on June 25, Dr. Conrad Murray ordered enough propofol to give Jackson 1,937 milligrams a day, prosecutor David Walgren told jurors in his opening statement in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial Tuesday.
[Updated at 12:48 p.m. ET] Prosecutors in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, doctor to the late pop star Michael Jackson, played part of a recording of Jackson made on Murray’s iPhone on May 10, 2009. The recording appears to feature a drugged Jackson, slurring his words as he says he wants people to leave his show saying, “He’s the greatest entertainer in the world.”
The recording said:
“We have to be phenomenal. When people leave this show, when people leave my show, I want them to say, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.
“Go. Go. I’ve never seen nothing like this. Go. It’s amazing. He’s the greatest entertainer in the world. I’m taking that money, a million children, children’s hospital, the biggest in the world, Michael Jackson’s Children’s Hospital.”
The point of playing the recording, prosecutor David Walgren said, was to demonstrate Murray’s “knowledge of what he is doing to Michael Jackson on May 10, 2009, over a month and a half before Michael Jackson dies as a result of this very treatment.”
[Updated at 12:41 p.m. ET] Propofol, the drug that caused pop star Michael Jackson’s death, “is a wonderful drug, if used by someone who knows what they’re doing,” prosecutor David Walgren told jurors Tuesday at the start of the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad.
[Updated at 12:38 p.m. ET] At the time Michael Jackson died, Dr. Conrad Murray was not board-certified in any medical specialty, prosecutor David Walgren told jurors Tuesday in his opening statement in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter trial.
[Updated at 12:28 p.m. ET] Dr. Conrad Murray “repeatedly acted with gross negligence, repeatedly denied care, appropriate care, to his patient, Michael Jackson, and it was Dr. Murray’s repeated incompetent and unskilled acts that led to Michael Jackson’s death,” prosecutor David Walgren told jurors during his opening statement in Murray’s trial Tuesday.
NEWS SOURCE: ARTICLE BY CNN SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
0 Comments
Posts
