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By ANTHONY McCARTNEY and LINDA DEUTSCH, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Jurors in the involuntary manslaughter case against Michael Jackson's personal physician were presented with two portraits of the pop superstar during the first day of testimony -- one of an entertainer motivated to succeed at his first concerts in nearly a dozen years and the other of a man too damaged at times to perform.
The panel that will determine Dr. Conrad Murray's fate also got a sense of Jackson's international stardom after one of the promoters testified that after the singer's 50 comeback shows planned for London sold out, there was still demand for 50 more.
Jackson would never return to the stage, dying unexpectedly in June 2009 at age 50. Prosecutors drove the point home early in opening statements Tuesday, showing jurors a picture of a lifeless Jackson laying on a hospital gurney.
Hours later they played four minutes of Jackson's final rehearsals of two songs. His mother, Katherine, dabbed her eyes with a tissue as video of her son singing "Earth Song" filled the courtroom.
Jackson's persona was present throughout the trial's opening day, although prosecutors are now moving their case toward the events that led to his death and their immediate aftermath. Testimony from Paul Gongaware, an executive with concert promoter AEG Live will continue Wednesday morning, and he will be followed by one of Jackson's bodyguards and a personal assistant.
Days before Jackson's "Earth Song" performance during a rehearsal at Staples Center, the superstar's health prompted friend and collaborator Kenny Ortega to question whether the singer needed serious help. He had just spent hours cradling the singer, trying to warm him from deep shivers that kept him from rehearsing.
"He was like a lost boy," Ortega wrote in an email to promoters five days before Jackson's death. "There may still be a chance he can rise to the occasion if we get him the help he needs."
The email drew a rebuke from Murray, who Ortega said told him not to try to play amateur doctor or psychologist. Five days later, the singer was dead.
Prosecutors allege Murray caused Jackson's death by providing him with a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol and other sedatives without the proper lifesaving equipment or skills. In opening statements, Deputy District Attorney David Walgren said Murray delayed summoning emergency crews and lied to doctors and medics when he failed to reveal that he had been giving Jackson the medications to try to help the entertainer sleep.
One of the day's most stunning moments came when Walgren played a recording of a conversation between Jackson and Murray in which the singer detailed what he wanted out of the shows. Jackson's voice, though recognizable, was slow and slurred.
"We have to be phenomenal," Jackson is heard saying in the recording, which investigators gleaned from Murray's phone after the singer's death. "When people leave this show, when people leave my show, I want them to say, `I've never seen nothing like this in my life. Go. Go. I've never seen nothing like this. Go. It's amazing. He's the greatest entertainer in the world.'"
Murray's lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff also noted Jackson's desire for success, but that the singer's ambition ultimately prompted him to give himself a fatal dose of medication.
He said Murray had been trying to wean Jackson off propofol, but that the entertainer kept requesting it on the day he died to help him sleep.
"Michael Jackson started begging," Chernoff said. "When Michael Jackson told Dr. Murray, `I have to sleep. They will cancel my performance,' he meant it."
He told jurors that Jackson swallowed enough of the sedative lorazepam to put six people to sleep before ingesting propofol. The combination, which Chernoff called a "perfect storm" of medications, killed Jackson so quickly that he didn't even have chance to close his eyes.
Prosecutors reject Murray's version and told jurors the Houston-based cardiologist also had a tremendous stake in Jackson appearing in the concerts.
The doctor had initially asked to be paid $5 million a year for working with Jackson, but Gongaware said he immediately rejected the proposal. Instead Murray accepted an offer to become Jackson's doctor for $150,000 a month -- a sum he was never paid because his contract hadn't been signed before Jackson's death.
Murray still has plenty to lose -- if convicted he faces up to four years in prison and will have to relinquish his medical license.
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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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Michael Jackson Bodyguard Describes Pop Star's Death
Michael Jackson Isn't on Trial
*He was not board certified in any specialty. Not trained to give propofol to anybody.
*He lied to the Pharmacist about a clinic in Santa Monica to buy propofol and store enough to fill a tub at his girlfriend's home.
*He gave propofol in a home without proper monitoring equipment & NO life-saving equipment.
*After giving his patient dangerous anesthetic that MUST be monitored, he left the room calling & texting everybody he knows, not on 1 phone but 2 phones. Abandonment.
*After he found his patient in distress, he did not call 911.
*He tried to hide & conceal evidence.
*He lied to paramedics & hospital staff.
*He lied to police investigators.
Murray took a Hippocratic Oath to do the following:
*I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan
*I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
*In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing.
*I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
Doesn't matter if Michael could have gotten propofol from another Dr. This Dr is the one who gave it to him & killed him. Thus the
Autopsy states as far as drugs as concerned, there is no evidence of long-term drug abuse. Michael's organs were healthy, heart liver, kidneys, etc. (drug abuse causes liver and kidney damage).
The only drugs found in his body were the drugs that Murray & the paramedics gave him (to resuscitate) that day.
The autopsy report is online for anyone to read.
The patient's fingerprints were not found on any of the Propofol bottles. That takes care of the he did it himself defense.
The coroner’s office ruled that Michael's death was a homicide caused by “acute propofol intoxication” (this is where Murray comes in).
The law, its practise and its workings do not exist in some impenetrable vacuum. Like everything else, law exists and is influenced by the human politics that suffuses all our lives.
So when Dr Murray's defense puts forward patently ludicrous falsehoods about Mr Jackson -- not only in the court room but through highly visible interviews and statements to the press -- lets not pretend they do it with points of law and a respect for due process. To think so would be grossly naive.
Murray's defense is banking on over 20 years of false accusations, lies and skewed economics that gave rise to the brutalization that marked Jackson's life, and now overshadows his death.
Chernoff and co have been playing to the gallery for far longer than a week, throwing out theories like a scandal machine, hoping that in 5 weeks or so schadenfreude and 12 fractious jurors will come together to dispense a cosmetic decision. One hopes they won't.
The autopsy report of Jackson doesn't bear out the 'addict' theory. No liver damage at all means just that. Jackson died because of what was given to him by another.
It really is that simple.
Sorry. Couldn't help myself.
It was his job to know that Michael had addiction problems. At $150,000 a month it was his job to lock up the stuff that could kill his patient, that is one of the reasons he was hired. No drug dealer would ever let a $150,000 a month customer die of an overdose. So this doctor's cry of innocence is rings hollow like a scream in the grand canyon!
There are certain drugs that Michael could only get thru him. Michael died of an overdose of those controlled substances. This guy F'd up. If he couldn't keep his "stash" secured from the addict under his care, then he shouldn't have taken the job. And now he's blaming his patient for his negligence?!@
This useless, greedy, drug dealer posing as a physician needs to return his $150,000 a month salary AND do prison time.
Dr. Murray didn't introduce Mike to Propofol, it was already in huge quantities (and all the medical equipment set up to administer the drug) specifically for Mike's use at Mike's home when Dr. Murray was hired and I'll bet that those previous physicans who also adminstered the drug to Mike every nightly also got over 100K in annual salary.
You stated that "At $150,000 a month it was his job to lock up the stuff that could kill his patient, that is one of the reasons he was hired"....No it was his job to do exactly what his employer hired him to do and that was administer the drug upon Mike's request.
And I agree with you that Dr. Murray, a registered doctor who took the Hypocratic Oath that all physican's take, should have seen the signs, not be blinded by the money and quit.
Michael Jackson was negligent, the main culprit. He set this all up, knew all the risks,
played with his life everyday with this stuff and he died because of it. And for Dr. Murray, they need a "solution" and simply due to bad timing, he's it.
Mike was going to die anyway using this stuff whether it was Dr. Murray or not.
know what that is? A debilitating illness that destroys melanin (pigment) in the skin. Would you snicker at a person with diabetes or heart disease? How juvenile.
If it wasn't Dr. Murray it could have been Dr. Suess. It didn't matter. He was hooked Propofol.
Dr. Conrad Murray, deep in debt, paid 150K monthly to service Mike and ensure that he adminstered propofol to Jackson nightly or when he wanted it.
Dr. Conrad "wrong place, wrong time" Murray cared for a drug addict who knowingly played russian roulette with his life every day. Before Dr. Murray was his in-house physican, several doctors before him hired by Mike did the exact same thing and the real questions should be: Whose idea was it for Mike to start using this stuff? Was it Mike? His first physican he hired or was it a hospital physican who may have helped him acquire the drug?
Who in the medical community is responsible for Jackson having this drug that's not allowed outside of hospitals?
Who are they? How much were they paid by Mike to keep him well stocked, resupplied and silenced? How many hospitals in this propofol network kept him supplied?
I'll go out on a limb and say that his Propofol use was probably a result of all those surgeries that probably required Propofol before those many facial procedures.
Dr. Murray: classic scapegoat. A lot of people in hiding since Mike died praying that they don't get exposed.
This doctor was getting highly paid for his surveillance because Michael was going to get what Michael wanted with or without the doctor. The doctor should have protected himself more. Who takes 8 pills of anything at one time? What happened would have happened with or without the doctor.