The last doctor of Michael
Jackson's life was convicted of
manslaughter by a California jury
because the law demanded it
and the facts supported it.
Dr Conrad Murray was at Jackson's
home when the pop star died,
sloppily administering medicine
that should only have been
administered in a hospital.
There are, I suspect, few jurors in
the world who would have gone
out of their way to search for a
more complex narrative in order to
spare the defendant a few years or
months in jail.
Throughout the trial, Murray's
lawyers tried gingerly to blame
Jackson himself for his own death,
a tactic which reflected both the
desperation of the defence case
and the nature of California's
involuntary manslaughter statute.
Team Murray hoped that if jurors
blamed the singer himself for an
overdose, they might mete out a
measure of sympathy for a doctor
who, like so many other doctors
who treat celebrities, thought he
had his patient under control when
he did not.
Bedside failings
California law, however, makes this
a very difficult proposition. It is not
enough to demonstrate, as
Murray's lawyers did, that the
victim of the crime contributed to
his own death.
Even if Jackson injected himself
with the drug that ultimately killed
him, prosecutors told jurors in
closing arguments, Murray should
have foreseen that this would occur
because he knew that Jackson liked
to "push" his own drugs.
Given this standard, what chance
did Murray ever really have?
The prosecution's theory resonated
with the jury because it was
founded on the language of the
statute as announced during jury
instructions. But when you stop
and think about it, it is truly an
extraordinary thing.
California is about to send a man to
prison - for a while anyway - even
though many reasonable people
would agree that Jackson played a
prominent role in his own death.
The law says that Murray should
have known better, even if Jackson
did not; that the doctor had a
responsibility to his patient even if
his patient were bent on pushing
past medically acceptable
standards.
You could say, as Murray's lawyers
implied, that the good doctor was
in the wrong place at the wrong
time. They acknowledged, as they
had to, that their client's
professional performance during
the fatal episode was not what any
of us would want from our own
bedside doctors.
But the defence lawyers tried to
take the mens rea element, the
criminal element, out of the case.
Murray may have been a quack,
they argued, but he had absolutely
no bad intent toward the richest
patient he or any private doctor
was ever likely to have.
Prison pending
Or you could say, as prosecutors
did, that any good doctor would
not have come anywhere near the
circus that was Jackson's
relationship with prescription
drugs.
Murray did not officially represent
the King of Pop for long. But like
everyone else in the world he
surely knew that he was taking on
a patient with a reputation for
using drugs to try to tune out the
demons which afflicted him.
The rest of world envisioned a
tragic end for Jackson along these
lines. After covering his 2005
molestation trial I certainly did.
Why didn't Murray?
The just-completed trial was a
good one, in which the lawyers
ably represented their causes and
the trial judge, Los Angeles Superior
Court Judge Michael Pastor, did a
laudable job keeping control of a
celebrity case.
On 29 November, during
sentencing, I believe that Judge
Pastor will show more mercy to
Murray than did his jurors.
Murray faces anywhere from
probation to four years, but it is
clear from the fact that he is now in
jail - the judge denied bail pending
sentencing - that Judge Pastor is
going to give him some prison
time.
My bet is that the sentence will be
towards the lower side.
California's prisons are notoriously
overcrowded. In fact, the state has
been forced by the United States
Supreme Court to reduce the prison
population to more manageable
levels.
Michael Jackson's billion or so fans
may argue that Conrad Murray
deserves the hardest time possible.
But the truth of the matter is that
the eternal law of economics is on
Murray's side.
He made terrible errors in
judgment, and he's paying the
price.
And none of that will ever bring
back Michael Jackson or tell us what
next might have happened had he
lived through that day.
Source: bbc.co.uk
