Lawyers for Michael Jackson’s personal doctor will argue that Jackson killed himself with a drug overdose, prosecutors claimed ahead of a pre-trial hearing yesterday into the pop icon’s death.
The case centers on the role of Dr Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who faces charges of involuntary manslaughter over the June 25, 2009 death of the “King of Pop.” Jackson died at age 50 from drug-induced respiratory arrest.
At the preliminary hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor will decide whether there is enough evidence to try Murray, 57, on charges of involuntary manslaughter — essentially, a killing done without malice.
Murray is accused of administering a powerful cocktail of sedatives and painkillers to help Jackson sleep, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The demise of Jackson, the biggest pop star of his generation, shocked the entertainment world and triggered intense debate over the performer’s health in the run up to a series of comeback concerts in London.
A prosecutor claimed defense lawyers will say Jackson woke up that fateful night at his Beverly Hills mansion and injected himself with an overdose while Murray was out of the room.
“I do think it’s clear the defense is operating under the theory that the victim, Michael Jackson, killed himself,” Deputy District Attorney David Walgren said at a preliminary hearing last week.
“They don’t want to say it but that’s the direction in which they are going,” he added.
A defense lawyer declined to comment on any theories outside the court.
There is likely to be a strong emphasis in the hearing on Murray’s use of propofol, an anesthetic used in surgery, to treat Jackson’s insomnia. The powerful drug is not approved for home use or to treat sleep disorders.
A preliminary hearing is usually a routine procedure in which only one or two witnesses are called, but prosecutors are set to call as many as 35 witnesses, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Those summoned are expected to include medical experts and investigators as well as security guards and staff present in the days and hours leading up to Jackson’s death, it said.
A lawyer for Murray said he expects the judge to order a full trial.
“I don’t anticipate this is the type of case that the [district attorney] won’t have facts to support the couple of elements necessary for this charge,” Joseph Low said.
The pre-trial hearing, which could last up to two weeks, comes after Jackson’s father re-filed a wrongful death lawsuit in November against the late singer’s doctor.
The 24-page lawsuit claimed that Murray spent 47 minutes on the phone while Jackson was dying.
Joe Jackson is seeking unspecified damages from Murray and others, including a Las Vegas pharmacy said to have supplied the powerful sedative drug propofol administered to the singer before he died.
The legal papers also recount Jackson’s poor health in the run-up to his death, noting that, at the time the singer was suffering from “co-morbidities including anemia, chronic pneumonia, chronic bronchitis and brain swelling.”
Jackson’s father filed a suit with a federal US court on June 25, the anniversary of his son’s death, but it was dismissed because the court said the case was not within its jurisdiction.
Joe, a steelworker in the industrial city of Gary, Indiana, reared his nine children into musical sensations starting from the Jackson 5 to the phenomenal careers of Michael and younger sister Janet Jackson.
Weeks after the death, Joe Jackson slammed the grueling 50-date schedule drawn up for Michael’s comeback and said he had been worried about his son’s health.
Others close to the pop star voiced sharply conflicting opinions about Jackson’s physical condition as he prepared for the shows.
Jackson holds the all-time record for album sales for Thriller in 1982 and sold more than 750 million albums over his nearly four-decade career.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS