Prosecutors investigating Michael Jackson’s death plan to file a criminal complaint charging the singer’s doctor with involuntary manslaughter rather than seek a grand jury indictment, The Associated Press learned on Tuesday, a strategy shift that will give an eager public an earlier look at evidence.
While there is no public timetable for charges to be filed against Dr Conrad Murray, there are strong indications the move is imminent. Murray and lawyer Edward Chernoff have traveled to Los Angeles from Houston, where Murray practices, and the attorney said his client is prepared to turn himself in.
“If they tell him to surrender in 10 minutes, he’ll go surrender,” said Chernoff, who spent several hours meeting with other members of Murray’s defense team on Tuesday. “He’s never hidden, he’s always been available.”
David Walgren, the deputy Los Angeles County district attorney handling the case, declined to comment.
Jackson, 50, hired Murray to be his personal physician as he prepared for a strenuous series of comeback performances in London.
His stunning death on June 25 in Los Angeles came after Murray, tending to Jackson in the star’s rented mansion, administered the powerful anesthetic propofol and two other sedatives to get the chronic insomniac to sleep,said the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which ruled the death a homicide.
Propofol is only supposed to be administered by an anesthesia professional in a medical setting. The patient requires constant monitoring because the drug depresses breathing and heart rate while also lowering blood pressure, a potentially deadly combination.
Murray has maintained from the outset that nothing he gave the singer should have killed him. It wasn’t illegal for him to administer propofol to Jackson, though whether he followed proper procedures while Jackson was under the influence of the drugs is a key part of the case.
To bring a manslaughter charge, prosecutors must show there was a reckless action that created a risk of death or great bodily injury.
If a doctor is aware of the risk, there might also be an issue of whether the patient knew that risk and decided to take it.
Los Angeles Police Department investigators spent months gathering evidence, with detectives talking to numerous medical experts to determine whether Murray’s behavior, which included talking on his cellphone and leaving Jackson’s bedside, fell outside the bounds of reasonable medical practice.
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