Jacksons v AEG Timeline Legal

A slight delay: Murray trial update

By | Published on Monday 17 October 2011

Conrad Murray

The trial of Conrad Murray, the doctor accused of causing Michael Jackson’s premature demise, will be delayed slightly because of the death of the father of the prosecution’s final witness.

As it was, the trial broke early for the weekend last week because Dr Steven Shafer, who began his testimony on Thursday, had to go to a medical convention. However, he never made it to the conference because of a death in his family. Court officials said yesterday they weren’t certain when the trial would resume, but it’s thought it won’t be before tomorrow.

Shafer is an anaesthesiology expert who will discuss in more detail the effect propofol – the drug that killed Jackson – has on the body. Murray, of course, is accused of negligently administering the surgical anaesthetic as a cure for insomnia in a domestic setting. He is expected to concur with previous medical experts called to the witness stand by the prosecution who have said that administering propofol in the way that Murray did with Jackson is sufficiently negligent for the doctor to be guilty of manslaughter.

Despite the setback, it is thought the defence, who will start to present their arguments once Shafer has testified, will take little more than a week to call all of their witnesses, meaning the jury could be deliberating by the middle of next week, actually ahead of the original expected schedule.



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