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MJhasSpoken

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Michael Jackson: on trial yet again
January 09, 2011, 03:35:54 AM
Michael Jackson: on trial yet again

As Michael Jackson's private doctor appears in court, the focus of the trial is on the King of Pop and his drug addiction, reports Nick Allen from Los Angeles



On the ninth floor of a brutalist concrete tower block in grimy downtown Los Angeles, the opening salvos in America’s celebrity “trial of the century” are being launched. In this less than glamorous setting, sharp-suited lawyers, soon to be household names, are dissecting the final hours and days of the King of Pop in painstaking – some would say macabre – detail.
There are no television cameras in Court 107 for the case of the People v Conrad Robert Murray, and only a lucky few are allowed in to sit on plastic chairs in the faded, wood-panelled room. Inside, all eyes are on the tall, unsmiling defendant, who denies a charge of involuntary manslaughter over Michael Jackson’s death.
Dr Murray, 57, who was the singer’s personal physician, sits taking notes on a yellow pad, and watches, his face an emotionless mask, as the evidence against him is projected on a 10ft by 6ft screen a few feet to his left. It includes paramedic reports, a stark photograph of the rumpled bed in which Jackson died, and references to a bewildering array of painkilling drugs, some of which Dr Murray allegedly failed to tell paramedics he had administered.
Occasionally, Dr Murray turns his head and looks towards the second row of public benches, where the still-grieving family of his alleged victim huddle together, 20 feet away. The Jackson clan gasp sporadically as new details of the singer’s death emerge, and his 80-year-old mother Katherine is occasionally comforted by his sister La Toya.
Other members of the family harrumph disdainfully when it is suggested that his death was not Murray’s fault, but their responses are muted. Having placed their faith in the US justice system, the Jacksons, for all their fame and designer clothes, are careful to show respect to the court.
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Proceedings are being overseen by Judge Michael Pastor, a tough and commanding presence in the courtroom who shows no signs of being swayed by celebrity. This being California, one of his previous cases involved a $3 million (£1.95 million) extortion plot against the Hollywood star Cameron Diaz over topless pictures. He has already barred television cameras, and at the end of the current preliminary hearing it is he who will decide whether there is enough evidence for Dr Murray to face a full trial.
For Jackson’s parents, Katherine and Joe, what is becoming painfully clear from the opening legal exchanges is that the defence will attempt to make that trial as much about their son and his use of prescription drugs as about Dr Murray’s actions. The headline revelations from the case so far have centred on how Dr Murray failed to call emergency services for 21 minutes, and how Jackson’s daughter Paris wept as she saw the singer lying dead. But the defence approach has been to suggest that Jackson was the author of his own misfortune, thanks to self-inflicted and prolonged drug abuse that left him seriously ill.
Murray’s lawyers hinted on Friday that they will argue Jackson himself injected the fatal dose of propofol, a surgical anaesthetic which he used as a sleeping aid. Coroner’s investigator Elissa Fleak said she found an empty bottle of the drug and a box of hypodermic needles near the bed. The defence lawyer J Michael Flanagan seized on that and suggested that a man of Jackson’s height, lying in the bed, would have been able to reach the drug and needles. This, however, was dismissed as “speculation” by the judge.
Much has been made of the fact that Richard Senneff, a paramedic called to the scene, did not even realise who the man on the bed was. Senneff said the person looked like a “terminal cancer patient towards the end, or a terminal Aids patient. That person looked really sick, really thin. My initial impression was that he was possibly a hospice patient.”
That kind of evidence will be used in an attempt to persuade a jury that it was Jackson, rather than Dr Murray, who was responsible for what happened.
The tactic of putting Jackson himself on trial will mean portraying him as a doomed drug addict and delving into his long history of prescription drug abuse. And it will include looking at the sheer number of drugs found in his system – including Midazolam, Diazepam and Lidocaine – when he died at his rented mansion in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009.
As well as being painful for his relatives, the less-than-flattering portrayal of Jackson’s final days could damage the earning power of his estate, which made $275 million (£180 million) last year. A tide of public goodwill following his death has led to huge record sales, as well as income from his This Is It concert movie, licensing rights and a Cirque du Soleil stage show in Las Vegas.
The singer’s death has also led to a wider debate in the US about the abuse of prescription drugs, which some argue is bordering on an epidemic. In Hollywood, painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin are regularly prescribed to wealthy clients by amenable doctors, while across the country more people abuse prescription drugs than cocaine, heroin and ecstasy combined. In 2005, 33,000 people died from prescription drug overdoses, a 60 per cent increase from 1999.
Dr Murray, a cardiologist with practices in Houston and Las Vegas, had been hired on a salary of $150,000 (£97,000) a month to oversee Jackson’s health as the singer prepared for a series of 50 concerts at the O2 Arena in London. An even more extensive media circus than would have greeted that comeback tour is now in full swing outside the Los Angeles court. The singer’s parents and siblings, including La Toya, Janet, Jermaine, Randy, Jackie and Rebbie, are engulfed daily in a feeding frenzy of TV cameras and photographers.
Amid the popping flashbulbs, there are cries of “We miss Michael” from his die-hard fans. When asked his opinion of court proceedings, the family patriarch Joe Jackson, who believes the charge should be more serious than involuntary manslaughter, stopped briefly, shook his head and said: “We need a better investigation.”
After the family leave, it is the turn of the few fans who are allowed into court each day to take the spotlight and passionately denounce Dr Murray to hundreds of waiting journalists. One of them, Geraldine Hughes, who has written a book about Jackson, shouted repeatedly into microphones: “We need a federal investigation.”
As with his life, perceptions of Jackson’s death differ. An hour after the paramedic testified that he looked like a terminal cancer patient, an actor who worked with him claimed that he had seemed perfectly healthy. Speaking outside court, John Tobin, 49, who appeared as Humphrey Bogart in the This Is It movie, told The Sunday Telegraph: “I worked with him just before he died. I saw him dance Smooth Criminal 11 times in a row. He seemed in good shape. He was very focused.”
For Dr Murray, who is on bail, the circus continues even after the court closes, with journalists following him on an evening shopping trip to buy a new shirt. He now faces the kind of spotlight that Jackson lived with for almost his entire life. The superstar may be gone, but the hysteria and hullabaloo that accompanied his every move continues.


Also on another note Janet looks good here compared to the other day. :)
Also it strikes me of the heading, like explained before on another thread it's really MJ on trial, comparing it to the trial in 2005.
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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MJhasSpoken

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Re: Michael Jackson: on trial yet again
January 09, 2011, 04:06:07 AM
Sorry forgot to post the link, here it is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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Re: Michael Jackson: on trial yet again
January 10, 2011, 06:34:26 AM
So, has Janet changed her hair again or is it a wig :?   The other day when she went to court she had very short hair, was was dressed in a black suit and looked like MJ "dangerous" :?   Very weird.


 :?
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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MJhasSpoken

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Re: Michael Jackson: on trial yet again
January 11, 2011, 03:40:16 AM
Quote from: "Ijustcantstoplovingu"
So, has Janet changed her hair again or is it a wig :?   The other day when she went to court she had very short hair, was was dressed in a black suit and looked like MJ "dangerous" :?   Very weird.


 :?

That's what I was trying to find out.
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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Re: Michael Jackson: on trial yet again
January 11, 2011, 12:22:20 PM
this is Janet pic. from April. but I remember I saw her with same outfit and hair in another preliminary hearing,
Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Guest
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I LOVE YOU MICHAEL,PLEASE COME BACK \":(\"

 

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