Michael Jackson may have passed away over seven months ago, but there’s still a criminal case and surely dozens of lawsuits involving his estate pending. Jackson’s live-in doctor, Conrad Murray, plead innocent to charges, leveled in court yesterday, of involuntary manslaughter. His bail was set at $75,000, which he met. Along with being officially charged in his famous patient’s death, Murray’s license was restricted and he is no longer able to prescribe or administer anesthetics. Jackson’s family, including his parents and brothers and sisters, attended the hearing.
Jackson died from an overdose of Propofol, a powerful anesthetic that is only intended for use in hospital settings. He was being given the drug at home without the use of monitoring devices, like an EKG, that could have saved his life.
The official coroner’s report on Jackson’s death was released yesterday. His death was ruled a homicide caused by Propofol. The reports also contained details of the scene at Jackson’s home, and it’s a sad reminder of all the stories we heard at the time about how the King of Pop lived out his last days.
There are a lot of sordid details, but the one that stuck out for me was that there wasn’t even basic safety equipment in place, like dosage monitoring and resuscitation equipment. I don’t want to recount everything else, and if you’d like to read it you can. (There’s more information, including the report, on TMZ.) It just makes me sad to think about how this world renowned entertainer died. His doctor should definitely be held culpable in his death.
May God forgive this killer doctor!!!Extremely sad to call him a doc-what?
Honestly – i LOVED Michael Jackson. He was totally awesome. However, i do not think that this poor Doctor needs so much flack for his death.
Shit happens. Michael was 50 years old – he was not a youngster and he had a history of skin diseases and pain etc etc.
Leave the doctor alone. I can imagine that having a celeb patient is hard enough because you have to try and keep the celeb happy too without over prescribing meds etc.
I think that this whole story has been blown out of proportion. People loved Micahel and now someone has to be blamed for his death – that is utter bullshit as far as i’m concerned.
F’ing idiot should get locked up for 10 years for being so stupid and never be able to practice ANY medicine again in his life. Also, he should have to pay (everything he’s got) as restitution to Michael Jackson’s kids.
You don’t think this Dr deserves flack for this death? Please. Shit doesn’t just happen, and it’s 2010, not 1900, so a 50 year old dying isn’t a normal occurance, especially one whose autopsy revealed he was in relatively good health contrary to media reports. Dr. Murray administered an ANESTHETIC to help someone sleep which is already unacceptable, nonetheless one that is supposed to be used in a hospital setting. Then instead of going through the proper monitoring procedures of a patient under anesthetic he decided to leave the room and make phone calls (propofol depresses heart rate and breathing and like any anesthetic needs non-stop monitoring), then he didn’t do CPR correctly, staged a scene for Michael’s son and the ambulance by having CPR constantly administered when he knew he was already dead, then he got rid of the evidence and shipped it to his ex and fled the scene. That is NOT a scapegoat or someone with zero responsibility, it’s a Dr who took a Hippocratic Oath and knew better who decided to break the laws of morality and human decency for blood money.
If this was any other celebrity people would feel the outrage. I urge people to push aside their biased opinions of this man and equate it to the death of any person who dies before their time and at the hands of an irresponsible professional. Michael Jackson, like any other human, deserved better.
@Lway – its not like he prescribed too many painkillers on accident – he gave a medication that’s used ONLY on ventilated patients. I’m an experienced ICU RN, & have used propofol quite a bit. There are meds we give to make people “sleepy” that we use on people not on vents, but we never, EVER use propofol on people who aren’t either about to be intubated or already on a ventilator. This isn’t just an “oops, too much meds were given”. Its entirely inappropriate it was ever given at all.
Refreshing website and worthwhile contribution. I love MJ’s music a lot. I have marked this to revisit later.
I agree with the manslaughter charge. The doctor was negligent in the way he prescribed and administered the medicines. He should not be allowed to practice medicine.
With that being said, I do think the Jackson family is dragging this out in order to get more media attention (Well, maybe just JOE Jackson). Last night I heard that Joe Jackson was arguing about the manslaughter charge and how it should have been murder instead, no justice, etc etc.
What the doctor did was manslaughter by definition of the law. He (I assume) wasn’t thinking, “Hey, I am going to give Michael Jackson so many drugs that he goes into cardiac arrest and dies!” It was unintentional, not premeditated. That’s manslaughter. I mean…why would he want to kill someone who pays him a crap ton of money to supply/administer drugs? Especially since he has almost half a million dollars in child support he hasn’t paid. He wouldn’t make anything from killing his patient. Oh well.
Interesting side note- in Kansas it’s considered manslaughter even if you kill premeditatively…as long as you did it because you were going to prevent pain and suffering of others. (Huge story about abortion activist stalking doctor, going to his church as a member etc, shoots him in head in the middle of church). Crazy, no?
@ polkasox : thanks for clearing that up 🙂 I’m in IT not medicines 🙂 (so i wouldn’t know any better). I just feel for this doctor. It’s like i can see the regret on his face 🙁