CONRAD MURRAY, M.D. DEFENDANT: WHATAYATHINK???

@OmSigDAVID,

If he was administering those drugs as a friend, I might agree with you; however, he was his DOCTOR, and as a DOCTOR, you have certain responsibilities, one of which is to maintain your patient's health, first and foremost. I think he forwent that for the money he was getting from MJ, putting that aside from his professional responsibilities. From what I heard, he was being paid $150K/month - that's $1.8 M a year. So, from a health care perspective, I feel he was, at the least, negligent, and at the worst, a contributing factor in MJ's death. He was guilty of something, I'm just not sure what.

Would you recommend him as a doctor to anyone?

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Michael Jackson was a child abusing scumbag. I hope the doctor doesn't pay too dearly for a the death of a man who had every resource in the world and insisted on harming himself and others.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

"Michael Jackson was a child abusing scumbag. "

That's one view, not held by everybody. But you're entitled to it. It shouldn't, however, have any impact on what the DOCTOR did - separate issues. Can you separate the two, max?

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I think somebody should shoot the son-of-a-bitch and save the taxpayers money . . .

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@Mame,

I did separate the two.

1) Michael Jackson was a child abusing scum bag.

2) He was acting in ways that was destructive to himself and others in spite of the fact he had access to every resource in the world (including paying money for multiple doctors who he could manipulate into getting whatever pain killer he wanted to abuse).

Given the self-destructive things that Michael Jackson did (and ignoring the children for the moment) the doctor shouldn't bear much of the responsibility. It this doctor hadn't provided the drugs Michael Jackson wanted, he would have simply found another doctor.

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@maxdancona,

So, if it wasn't Michael Jackson in this case, would it make a difference? Do you not think the DOCTOR has a responsibility in all this?

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@Mame,

The doctor doesn't have much responsibility. (Notice I am carefully not saying that the doctor has no responsibility). If a very wealthy person is crazy enough to buy doctors to give him dangerous drugs, I think the wealthy person bears most of the responsibility.

Michael Jackson had access to everything he wanted. If he wanted good medical care he would have had it. Instead he chose to pay for doctors that would give him the drugs he wanted.

He chose to live and die this way.

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@maxdancona,

Speaking about physicians only, he, of course, had major responsibilities here. He administered a drug in unsafe, not to mention unusual and illegal, circumstances, in dosages that were obviously fatal. How is that upholding the Hippocratic Oath? That doctor is guilty of forsaking his oaths and the whole reason his profession is in existence. He was a puppet of a drug addict.

Were I him, I would have left MJ years earlier, as soon as this problem arose. This guy, though, was lured by the almighty $ and was at odds with what his profession was supposed to be. He certainly IS guilty, and it's irrelevant whom he was treating.

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@Mame,

Sure Mame. You have a point. I am fine with this doctor losing his medical license. I just think any significant jail time for doing what the "patient" was asking and paying for would be an injustice.

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@maxdancona,

So you think a drug dealer should get a lighter sentence than the drug buyer? Is that what you're saying?

MJ paid with his death - there is no greater sentence than that.

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@Mame,

What sentence? Michael Jackson was acquitted. The real difference is that Michael Jackson's victims were innocent.

Michael Jackson should be given most of the responsibility for making the choices that led to his own death.

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@OmSigDAVID,

"Above all else, do no harm". Being the supermarket of MJ's drug cocktail has a responsibility that is governed by the Drs license. Hes guilty of depraved indifference at most, and of incompetence at least.
HE ALLOWED THIS TO HAPPEN. If he didnt know what MJ was becoming due to drugs that HE prescribed and often administered, he should, at least lose his license for incompetence if they cannot agree on a felony charge.

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@OmSigDAVID,

I don't know where you see reasonable doubt, David. It doesn't matter whether Murray gave Jackson the lethal dose of Propofol or Jackson self-administered it (which is not a likely or plausible scenario), the fault, and responsibility, is still with Murray for administering that anesthesia in a highly inappropriate and unsafe setting and then leaving Jackson unattended with the drug either dripping into his vein or available to him. Murray also displayed consciousness of guilt in failing to tell either the EMT's who came to the home, or the ER doctors who also tried to resusitate MJ, that Jackson had received Propofol prior to his respiratory arrest.

I watched the trial and I see no reasonable doubt. I thought the prosecution nailed him.

Conrad Murray is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, just as charged.

His behavior was so negligent and egregious that it went way beyond malpractice--it was criminal--and he substantially caused the death of Michael Jackson by his actions.

Quote:

There is only one charge for the jury to consider in the Dr. Conrad Murray's trial: involuntary manslaughter.

There are no lesser-included charges. But there are two theories of involuntary manslaughter that the jurors will consider. They can find Murray guilty of one or both theories but they must be unanimous on whatever they decide.

What does involuntary manslaughter mean?

Involuntary manslaughter is an unintentional killing without malice. Malice is when someone does something with a conscious disregard for life.

This next part gets a little complicated, but keep reading, we're going to break it down for you.
Involuntary manslaughter is committed when a defendant commits a lawful act with criminal negligence, or fails to perform a legal duty and that failure is criminally negligent, and the defendant's acts or failure to perform a legal duty unlawfully caused the death of someone else.

Here are two theories of Involuntary Manslaughter that are relevant to the Murray trial:

1. the commission of a lawful act with criminal negligence
2. failure to perform a legal duty where such failure was criminally negligent

What is an lawful act?

A lawful act is something the defendant does that does not break any laws.
In this trial, the jury will be instructed that the commission of the lawful act with criminal negligence is that Murray, a licensed physician, administered propofol to Michael Jackson.

What does it mean to fail to perform a legal duty?

In most situations people are not required to act under circumstance.

For example, if you are a regular citizen walking down the street and see someone about to jump out a window of a tall building the law doesn't require you to try to save the jumper.

But the jury in this trial will be instructed that Murray, a physician who assumed the duty of care of Michael Jackson, had a legal obligation to care for him and that the failure to perform this legal duty was committed when Murray gave Jackson propofol then left him unattended.

The prosecution is expected to argue a host of ways in which Murray was negligent in the administration of propofol and failure to perform a legal duty of care. At the charge conference on Wednesday, Nov. 1, prosecutors listed seven acts under the "lawful act" theory and 15 acts under the "failure to perform a legal duty."
Those acts or failures include:

. no other medical personnel present
. inadequate monitoring equipment
. failure to constantly monitor Jackson
. ineffective resuscitative care
. failure to call 911 immediately
. administering propofol for insomnia

NOTE: The above list is not complete, because the prosecution did not read the entire list in open court.
What does causation mean?

A critical element of involuntary manslaughter is that the negligent act or failure to perform a legal duty caused someone's death.

The instruction to the jury in this trial will include the following language:

An act (or failure to perform a legal duty) causes death if the death is a direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act (or failure to perform a legal duty) and the death would not have happened without the act (or failure to perform a legal duty). A natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes. It's important to know that here may be more than one cause of death. An act causes death only if it is a substantial factor in causing the death. A substantial factor is more than a trivial or remote factor. However, it does not need to be the only factor that causes the death.
A special instruction to the jury, which the prosecution drafted, is expected to be read following the definition of causation. We do not have the exact language, but it deals with whether an intervening act could have been foreseen. If the intervening act (Jackson self-administering propofol) was foreseeable, then Murray can still be found guilty.

What does criminal negligence mean?

The jury instruction will include the following language:

Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention, or mistake in judgment. A person acts with criminal negligence when:

1. he acts in a reckless way that creates a high risk of death or great bodily injury; and
2. a reasonable person would have known that acting or failing to perform a legal duty in that way would create such a risk.

In other words, a person acts with criminal negligence when their behavior is so different from the way an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation, that his act (or failure to perform a legal duty) amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act (or failure to perform a legal duty).

The jury will be instructed that, in order to find Murray guilty, they must find that the prosecutors proved each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

Elements of Involuntary Manslaughter/Lawful Act Performed Negligently

1. Conrad Murray committed a lawful act but acted with criminal negligence; and
2. Conrad Murray's acts caused the death of Michael Jackson.

Elements of Involuntary Manslaughter/Failure to Perform a Legal Duty

1. Conrad Murray had a legal duty to Michael Jackson;
2. Conrad Murray failed to perform that legal duty;
3. Conrad Murray's failure was criminally negligent; and
4. Conrad Murray's failure caused the death of Michael Jackson.

Jurors must keep all that in mind and then the must be unanimous on one or both theories:

1. lawful act committed with criminal negligence or
2. failure to perform a legal duty and such failure was with criminal negligence.

If the jurors cannot reach a unanimous decision, then they are considered deadlocked, also called a hung jury. Judges encourage juries to work toward a decision, but if they absolutely can't agree, then the judge declares a mistrial. That means the case could be retried and we start all over.
http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/03/law-101-what-the-jury-will-have-to-decide/

Dr. Conrad Murray was motivated by greed, and he was so anxious to stay in the good graces of his employer, it caused him to so significantly depart from accepted standards of medical practice that he caused the death of his patient by egregious and criminal acts of negligence.

I can feel some sympathy for Dr. Murray, a man with a lot of child support debts, who must have thought he won the lottery when he got this highly lucrative job with MJ. And that was the problem--it was an employer/employee relationship, and not a doctor/patient relationship. No reputable and conscientious and ethical doctor would have agreed to giving MJ nightly infusions of anesthesia--Propofol--in his bedroom to treat insomnia--and every expert medical witness who testified in this case--including the chief witness for the defense--said that. What Dr. Murray did by giving Jackson Propofol, in that kind of setting, was unheard of--the drug is never used that way, to treat insomnia, let alone used in someone's home--it's powerful anesthesia used for surgery in a hospital setting. He had risked killing Jackson every night he gave him those Propofol infusions because the drug depresses respiration, particularly when used in combination with the benzodiasepines he was also giving MJ, and these drugs were given by Dr. Murray in a setting without adequate monitoring or resusitation equipment, and, on the day Jackson died, Murray had left him alone, unattended and unobserved, for about 45 minutes before Murray realized he wasn't breathing, because Murray had been outside the room on his cell phone talking with his girlfriends, checking his e-mail, and sending test messages. And then he failed to call 911 for about 20 minutes. And then he told no one who tried to resusitate Jackson that he had been given Propofol.

How much more reckless and negligent could he have been?

I'll be amazed if the verdict isn't guilty.

He certainly should lose his medical licenses, and I think he should do jail time as well. His inexcusable and criminally negligent actions caused the death of another person.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

If he was administering those drugs as a friend, I might agree with you; however, he was his DOCTOR, and as a DOCTOR, you have certain responsibilities, one of which is to maintain your patient's health, first and foremost. I think he forwent that for the money he was getting from MJ, putting that aside from his professional responsibilities. From what I heard, he was being paid $150K/month - that's $1.8 M a year. So, from a health care perspective, I feel he was, at the least, negligent, and at the worst, a contributing factor in MJ's death. He was guilty of something, I'm just not sure what.

Would you recommend him as a doctor to anyone?

Yes: to someone who wanted an M.D. to take a libertarian philosophy toward the applicable rules.
It is not at all likely that the citizens who created the government of California
endowed it with jurisdiction to defend them from their own poor judgment.
If a person is sufficiently DESPERATE,
he may desire relief even above risks to his life; e.g., being desperate to sleep.

My friend, Donald, married a medical dr. from Red China in the 1980s.
She told of the commies torturing her grandfather, to rob him of his gold.
After several days of resistance, he coud not tolerate remaining awake any longer.
The communists woud not let him fall asleep.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Dr Murray could have had sleep studies performed on Jackson, in his own home, to determine the pattern, and possible causes, of his insomnia. He didn't do that.

Dr Murray could have told Jackson he had to purchase all necessary monitoring and resusitation equipment, to be kept in the bedroom, in order to be able to administer Propofol to him, and as a condition of administering Propofol to him. He didn't do that.

Dr Murray gave Jackson IV anesthesia that is not intended for the treatment of insomnia--without proper monitoring and resusitation equipment--in an inappropriate setting. He then left his patient alone and unattended. And the Propofol caused Jackson to stop breathing.

The cause of death was acute Propofol intoxication.

Over the course of the 2 or 3 months he worked for Jackson, Dr. Murray had ordered 4 gallons of Propofol. That is an incredible amount. It was all ordered to be used on Jackson.

He ordered the drug, he gave it to Jackson via an IV, and then he left him unattended.

You don't give IV anesthesia outside of an appropriate setting without necessary safeguards.

That's not a "libertarian philosophy"--it's criminal negligence.

Did you watch the trial?

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Michael Jackson was a child abusing scumbag.

Max u show yourself to be fundamentally a very unfair, person.
MJ was accused twice of child abuse.
As to the first accusation, he settled for $20,000,000 (if I recall accurately).
After MJ's death, the boy (now in his 3Os) publicly announced
that his father had made him lie to rip off a rich person
and that MJ was innocent of any improper contact with him.

Years later, MJ was brought to trial, criminally, for child abuse.
His accuser and his mother were caught in sufficient lies against him
that the jury found MJ innocent of anything and everything,
but u know better than thay do. In your mind, to be accused is to be GUILTY,
if the charge is sufficiently dastardly.

O, I forgot an additional accusation,
that he had molested Macaulay Culkin, who testified under oath
that MJ was innocent of doing anything to him.

I 'm pretty sure that MJ was crazy, for other reasons,
but not that he harmed anyone of any age.

maxdancona wrote:

I hope the doctor doesn't pay too dearly for a the death of a man
who had every resource in the world and insisted on harming himself and others.

There was no showing that MJ harmed anyone other than himself.
Anyone is within his natural rights to harm himself.
I hope that he will be acquited.

David

0 Replies

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

Dr Murray could have had sleep studies performed on Jackson,
in his own home, to determine the pattern, and possible causes,
of his insomnia. He didn't do that.

That woud have been good, but not related to homicide.

firefly wrote:

Dr Murray could have told Jackson he had to purchase all necessary monitoring and resusitation equipment,
to be kept in the bedroom, in order to be able to administer Propofol to him, and as a condition of administering Propofol to him.
He didn't do that.

Yes, that does not amount to homicide.

firefly wrote:

Dr Murray gave Jackson IV anesthesia that is not intended for the treatment of insomnia--without proper monitoring and resusitation equipment--in an inappropriate setting. He then left his patient alone and unattended. And the Propofol caused Jackson to stop breathing.

The cause of death was acute Propofol intoxication.

In my opinion, it was more likely than not
that decedent self administered the Propofol, in a successful effort
to defeat the Dr.'s reluctance n caution.

firefly wrote:

Over the course of the 2 or 3 months he worked for Jackson, Dr. Murray had ordered 4 gallons of Propofol.
That is an incredible amount. It was all ordered to be used on Jackson.

He ordered the drug, he gave it to Jackson via an IV, and then he left him unattended.

He needed to go to the bathroom.
When u gotta go, u gotta go.

firefly wrote:

You don't give IV anesthesia outside of an appropriate setting without necessary safeguards.

If MJ self administered the drug, which seems likely,
that 's all that counts. Everyone is within his moral rights
to commit suicide, if that 's what he wants to do.

firefly wrote:

That's not a "libertarian philosophy"--it's criminal negligence.

I deem it improbable that the government
of California was ever granted jurisdiction to prevent people
from hurting themselves. I doubt that the citizens who created it
said: "if we are too stupid in our personal choices, then u come
and break in on us and make us do things YOUR way."

It is likely that any such alleged jurisdiction results from USURPATION and is void.
I doubt that any government in America was ever granted jurisdiction
to control us in what we can voluntarily ingest.
Admittedly, I am no expert on the details of California constitutional history.

firefly wrote:

Did you watch the trial?

No.

No good will come from tormenting him
with years of incarceration.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

In my opinion, it was more likely than not
that decedent self administered the Propofol, in a successful effort
to defeat the Dr.'s reluctance n caution.

Are you aware that MJ was hooked up to an IV and also had a condom catheter bag on his penis? It would not have been easy for him to get up and move about the room. The scenario of self-administration was not likely. This was anesthesia that Murray gave him by IV. If Jackson had been awake, and needed more Propofol, Murray would likely have given it to him. The doctor in this case was not showing either reluctance or caution--he had been giving MJ nightly infusions of Propofol--without proper safeguards.

If MJ self administered the final dose of Propofol, while Murray was out of the room, Murray would still be guilty of manslaughter under California law, because he should have foreseen that possibility and not left Jackson alone with access to that dangerous drug--that was his legal responsibility as a physician.

Murray didn't just leave the room for two minutes to go the bathroom--that was a lie. He spent about 45 minutes on his cell phone talking to his girl friends, checking his e-mail, and sending text messages--the phone records were part of the evidence in the trial. He was talking to one of his girlfriends when he apparently finally become aware that MJ wasn't breathing. He should have been watching, and monitoring, Jackson during those 45 minutes--he had given him anesthesia. That's the reason this drug is always given in a hospital or surgical suite setting, with more than one medical person in attendance--you can't walk out and leave the patient alone, let alone for 45 minutes while you are busy doing other things.

Since you didn't watch the trial, or hear all of the evidence, I can't understand how you could reach the conclusion that Conrad Murray is not guilty.

We aren't talking about a physician who recklessly prescribes drugs to someone who then abuses them and possibly kills himself.

We are talking about a physician who departed from all known standards of medical care by administering surgical anesthesia, by IV, in someone's bedroom for the treatment of insomnia, for which that anesthesia is not used or considered medically appropriate, and he did so without having the essential monitoring and resusitation equipment which is necessary to prevent death from that drug. And that's why his patient died. Propofol often causes cessation of breathing--that's why anesthesiologists must carefully monitor a patient receiving it for surgery, so they can reverse that effect immediately.

The fact that Murray gave Jackson Propofol, at all, including the day he died, was criminal negligence for a physician in that setting. And, to leave a patient unattended, at all, with either an IV Propofol drip, or Propofol easily available in the room for the person to self inject, is criminal negligence for a physician under California law. To delay, by about 20 minutes, calling 911, to get proper resusitation equipment for a patient who isn't breathing, is criminal negligence for a physician. To omit telling all of the medical people, both the EMT workers, and the ER doctors, that Jackson had received Propofol, was criminal negligence by a physician because it affected how those medical workers evaluated and tried to resusitate Jackson.

Conrad Murray did not commit one act of criminal negligence--he commited many. And, were it not for those acts, Jackson would not have died that day. That does make Dr, Murray guilty of involuntary manslaughter under California law. He is substantially responsible for Jackson's death.

Murray was so criminally negligent that they really could have charged him with second degree murder under California law, which does not require intent to kill. But, since this is such a high profile case, they probably decided to go with the lesser charge of manslaughter in order to get an easier conviction.

If you had watched the trial, I think you would understand the evidence, and this case, much better than you appear to. Jackson died as a direct result of Conrad Murray's actions--and the prosecution presented a case which really did not allow for much doubt on that score, and the defense really had little to work with to raise reasonable doubt--even the defense experts could not justify or excuse Murray's actions. Trying to blame Jackson for his own death really won't get Murray off the hook, if the jurors really follow the law, because even if Jackson self administered a last dose of Propofol (which is very unlikely), Murray left it available for him, and Murray should have been in the room with him. Murray did a lot of lying in the very long interview he had with the police 2 or 3 days after Jackson's death--and that taped interview was played at trial as part of the evidence the prosecution used to discredit him. Jackson had no reason, at all, to want to kill himself, he'd hired a doctor, Murray, to be sure he'd be given drugs safely, but Murray had lots of reasons to lie when he spoke with the police, he was trying to cover his own tracks and conceal his own criminally negligent behavior--he knew he had caused Jackson's death.

2 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

Jackson died as a direct result of Conrad Murray's actions--and the prosecution presented a case which really did not allow for much doubt on that score, and the defense really had little to work with to raise reasonable doubt--even the defense experts could not justify or excuse Murray's actions. Trying to blame Jackson for his own death really won't get Murray off the hook, if the jurors really follow the law, because even if Jackson self administered a last dose of Propofol (which is very unlikely), Murray left it available for him, and Murray should have been in the room with him.

True, but I have no confidence that the jury will convict. Jackson was a freak, they may well let this go under the heading "there is no way for us to know what that freak did or wanted"....most likely the state went with light charging because they feel they will have difficulty getting any conviction at all.

1 Reply

CONRAD MURRAY, M.D. DEFENDANT: WHATAYATHINK???

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