Michael Jackson's Doctor Trial

[Stephen Thomas]

I watched the opening statements by the Prosecution and Defence today and it seems to me that this fellow is likely to be found guilty as charged.

But one never knows, does one?

[Heinrich]

The whole thing smacks of a malicious prosecution to me.
The doctor is an easy target because Jackson appears to have been a drug addict who was living dangerously and his doctor was attempting to control the daily drug doses - a disaster waiting to happen.
The jury will now be expected to have a crash course from the lawyers on pharmacology and drug interaction with conflicting expert testimony.
The trial is designed to clear Jackson's reputation, something millions was spent on when he was alive and it is not about to stop just because he is dead. His tribal family and millions of fans will find a scapegoat.
It is bizarre.

[Errata]

I'm surprised this whole thing even came to trial. Clearly his doctor had no business giving him anesthesia for insomnia. It's dangerous, and it doesn't work, as it doesn't allow the body to go through all three stages of the sleep cycle. It is considered a valid treatment in emergency situations, but it is ALWAYS administered in a hospital.

Bad doctor. Bad bad doctor.

But clearly he was going to be fired if he didn't, and if Jackson attempted to administer the drugs himself, he was clearly going to die. And there is absolutely no way on god's green earth that the doctor administered the other drugs in Jackson's system. Nor would he ever administer the anesthesia knowing those drugs were in his system unless he was trying to kill Jackson.

The prosecution states that Jackson was given a lethal dose of Propofol. He was not. The doctor injected him with a fairly standard dose. However, Jackson had two benzodiazepines in his system, Xanax and Valium. Xanax and Valium alone could have killed him. Benzos are an extremely stupid thing to play around with. They suppress the respiratory system. Add Propofol on top of that, and of course the man died. It would not have mattered if the Doctor was two inches from Jackson's face the entire time, he would have died. Benzos act as potentiators for Propofol, they make it work faster, more efficiently, and also ramp up the chances of respiratory failure. The dose of Propofol was not fatal. The combination with benzos was.

Conrad should not have given him the anesthetic. Bad doctor. But Jackson should not have been taking two kinds of benzos, and should have told the doctor they were in his system. Bad patient. It wasn't murder, it wasn't manslaughter. Jackson could have walked into any hospital and gotten them to administer the anesthetic. It's what happens to addicts who aren't truthful about their drug behavior. No different that someone in the ER lying about having amphetamines in their system and stroking out from a routine treatment. It's unfortunate, but that's why you never ever conceal from your doctor.

Sorry if I'm all preachy, but I've been through this. And a friend of mine was high on coke when he was in a terrible accident, went in unconscious, and they gave him a routine stimulant to keep his lungs going and it killed him. They asked his girlfriend if he was on anything, and she got scared and lied. And it killed him. So I am SO done with lying addict patients. I was one and I don't blame the doctors I conned. Take Conrad's license away for administering an anesthetic at home and be done with it.

[Limehouse]

Michael Jackson was an extremely disturbed and tragic individual. How on earth he convinced doctors to keep carving bits of his face up and bleaching his skin heaven only knows. In his disturbed state (he obviously had some sort of body dysmorphia) the doctors, and to some extent his family, should have taken some responsibility and refused to do anything more to disfigure him.

I agree with Errata that the doctor should not have administered such powerful drugs to someone in their home and he should also have shown some awareness of the possibility that Jackson had self medicated prior to requesting more drugs.

[brummie]

The whole trial is about trying to maintain the Jackson 'legend' by finding someone else to blame. Jacksons biggest problem was surrounding himself with too many sicophantic yes men,people only to happy (as long as the money kept flowing) to tell him how wonderful he was and what a genius.As soon as you start to believe your own hype and publicity you are in trouble. What he needed was some true friends or family to once in a while tell him he was being a complete idiot. Like when someone should have said at some stage " look Michael, however innocent it may be it just looks bad for a middle aged man to share a bedroom with a young boy, and you're just leaving tourself wide open to any opportunist who sees the chance of a quick buck',likewise did no one mention doing so many shows in such a harsh schedule with an already weakened body was not such a good idea?

[Heinrich]

Give me Crown Court any day.

[Errata]

I agree with Errata that the doctor should not have administered such powerful drugs to someone in their home and he should also have shown some awareness of the possibility that Jackson had self medicated prior to requesting more drugs.

He should have been aware of the possibility of self medication, but he did what most private physicians do when they take over a patient. He consolidated all of his patients prescriptions under his name. Meaning he would be the only one writing prescriptions, thus keeping track of all of the various possible interactions. As best I can tell, he did write a prescription for Xanax at the beginning, perhaps to taper him off of the benzos. It's a reasonable move, and again, as best I can tell, he did not continue writing that prescription. He did not write a prescription for Valium. So either Jackson was still doctor shopping, or he such a stockpile of pills that it lasted for a couple of years. I lean towards the former, but it could go either way. Conrad was an idiot and gathered up all of the drugs he knew about before the police got there. But the cops still walked out with a fair quantity of pills (including the Valium and possibly the Xanax), which sort of implies that Conrad did not know about them.

It is entirely plausible that doctors are stupid enough to kill their own patients with drugs. My surgeon almost killed me a month ago, and I'm still super pissed about it. Of course, he had a list of my medications, and had he known anything about the painkiller he prescribed, he would never have given it to me. I'm lucky I recognized that something was terribly wrong and stopped taking the medication until I could research it further. He gave me something he knew nothing about. And I almost died. So it happens.

And Conrad may have been dumb enough to administer an anesthetic knowing that Jackson had medication already on board. But he would not have been dumb enough to do that, and then leave the room. He would have known he was taking an insane risk, and he would have known that he would be universally reviled as the guy who killed the King of Pop. If he was going to take that risk, he would have had intubation prepped and ready, and he would have had a resuscitation kit sitting on Jackson's chest while he slept. You learn in med school that anesthesia is dangerous under the best of circumstances. You can't even have water in your stomach when you go under, because it can easily cause stomach acid to spill over into your lungs, killing you. Anesthesia is literally treated with more respect than experimental drugs, or even used hypodermics are. It would not surprise me at all if Conrad would have been willing to to overlook the Xanax, but would not be willing to put him under because of the swig of water Jackson would have taken to wash the pills down.

It isn't murder. There was no intent. It could have been manslaughter, but that would require knowingly taking a dangerous risk, and I don't see that. He tried to cover it up, which was dumb, but Michael Jackson had just died under his care, and I'm surprised he didn't actually flee the country.

[Adam Went]

I turned the TV on the other day and saw that they were showing "The Michael Jackson Trial" - thought i'd woken up in a time warp from a few years back! But soon enough they were talking about Dr. Murray....

IMO it's a pretty clear cut case of a worldwide superstar who had been spiralling downhill for some time and had become more and more reliant on unhealthy habits, who was aided in this by certain individuals around him - then when he dies under the circumstances he did, somebody has to take the fall for it.

In this case, Dr. Murray was the one with him at the time so he finds himself on trial. I am a fan of Michael Jackson, and I do feel a little sorry for Dr. Murray who has copped the rough end of the stick for actions which had been going on for some time and involving more people than just himself, but at the end of the day he was at the wrong place at the wrong time and probably didn't behave as he should have been in his role as a Doctor, and so now he is the one taking the consequences.

Cheers,
Adam.