Defense calls first witnesses in trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor

Los Angeles (CNN) — The involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor entered what could be its last week Monday morning as the defense called two police officers as its first witnesses.
Defense lawyers will use the next three or four days to challenge the prosecution’s contention that Dr. Conrad Murray’s reckless use of the surgical anesthesia propofol to help Jackson sleep makes him criminally responsible for the pop icon’s death.
Closing arguments could come as soon as Friday, depending on the length of the defense’s case and the prosecution’s rebuttal, but it could be pushed to next Monday, based on comments by lawyers and the judge.
Janet Jackson canceled shows in Australia to be with her family in Los Angeles for the final days of Murray’s trial, but she did not arrive home in time to attend Monday morning’s session.
She sat with her parents and several siblings during the first five days of the trial, but she has not been at court in nearly three weeks.
« After talking with my family last night, I decided we must be together right now, » she said in a statement posted Sunday on her website, announcing that three shows this week in Melbourne are canceled.
The concert promoter told Jackson fans it was « important that Janet is with her family at this critical point in the hearing. »
Katherine Jackson will travel to London next weekend to fulfill a commitment to attend the premiere of « Michael Jackson: Life of an Icon, » a documentary about her son, an aide to Jackson said Monday. She agreed to the trip before it was known the trial could last into next week, Trent Jackson said.
A Beverly Hills police officer, the first defense witness, testified that a 911 call routed through her department at 12:20 p.m. on June 25, 2009, asked for help at Jackson’s Holmby Hills estate.
A Los Angeles police officer testified next about retrieving seven minutes of video from a security camera at Jackson’s home. The video, shown to the jury, captured Jackson’s arrival home from his last rehearsal just before 1 a.m. on the morning he died.
Murray’s lawyers have said they plan to call about 15 witnesses, including three medical experts and several of Murray’s patients from his clinics in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Houston.
Randy Phillips, the head of AEG Live, is expected to be among the first witnesses the defense calls.
Murray’s lawyers have argued that Jackson was pressured by Phillips, whose company was promoting his comeback concerts in London, to show up healthy and on time for rehearsals or else the tour might be canceled.
Murray told detectives Jackson begged for his « milk, » his nickname for propofol, after a sleepless night and just hours before he died from what the coroner said was an overdose of the surgical anesthetic.
Murray, in a police interview, said he was using sedatives to wean Jackson from propofol, which he had used almost every night for two months to fight his insomnia. But after a long, restless night and morning, the lorazepam and midazolam had no effect, Murray said.
« I’ve got to sleep, Dr. Conrad, » Murray said Jackson pleaded to him. « I have these rehearsals to perform. I must be ready for the show in England. Tomorrow, I will have to cancel my performance, because you know I cannot function if I don’t get to sleep. »
Murray said he gave in to Jackson’s pleas and gave him an injection of 25 milligrams of propofol around 10:40 a.m.
The testimony of anesthesiologist expert Dr. Steven Shafer, concluded Monday morning, 11 days after he took the stand as the prosecution’s 33rd, but perhaps most important, witness.
Defense lawyer Ed Chernoff’s cross-examination of Shafer grew so heated and personal Friday that the judge called lawyers for a sidebar and ordered them to « cut it out! »
Shafer testified last week that there was no way Jackson got only the amount of propofol Murray said he did, based on the high level of the drug found in blood taken during his autopsy.
The « only scenario » to explain Jackson’s death was that he overdosed on propofol infused through an IV drip set up by Murray, Shafer said.
The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that Jackson’s death was a homicide, the result of « acute propofol intoxication » in combination with sedatives.
The defense contends Jackson self-administered the fatal dose, along with sedatives, without Murray knowing.
Shafer said the level of propofol in Jackson’s blood taken during his autopsy could not have been from either Murray or Jackson injecting the drug, but only from an IV system that was still flowing when his heart stopped.
Prosecutors, however, opened the door for one scenario in which Jackson, not Murray, could have triggered the overdose.
« Can you rule out the possibility that Michael Jackson manipulated something to cause it to flow? » Deputy District Attorney David Walgren asked Friday.
« That’s a possibility, » Shafer said. But that is assuming Murray set up the drip and left Jackson’s side, he said.
Would Shafer’s opinion that Murray was responsible for Jackson’s death change if he knew Jackson turned the drip on?
« No, if Michael Jackson had reached up, seen the roller clamp and opened it himself, this is a foreseeable consequence of setting up an essentially dangerous way of giving drugs, » Shafer said. « It doesn’t change things at all. It would still be considered abandonment. »
Defense lawyer Ed Chernoff cross-examined Shafer about the assumptions he used to reconstruct an IV drip system he believed Murray set up next to Jackson’s bed. Shafer demonstrated the system in his testimony Thursday.
Jackson died because Murray failed to notice that his patient had stopped breathing while he was hooked up to the IV drip of propofol, Shafer testified. The doctor should have realized Jackson had stopped breathing, he said.
« When you’re there, you see it, you know it, » Shafer said.
Phone records and testimony showed that Murray was on the phone with one of his clinics, a patient, and then a girlfriend about the time that Shafer calculated the oxygen in Jackson’s lungs became depleted, causing his heart to stop beating.
« Had Conrad Murray been with Michael Jackson during this period of time, he would have seen the slowed breathing and the compromise in the flow of air into Michael Jackson’s lungs, and he could have easily turned off the propofol infusion, » Shafer said.
Toxicology studies of drugs in Jackson’s blood and computer models Shafer used to analyze how the singer died were overshadowed Friday when Chernoff focused on the personal and professional rivalry between Shafer and Dr. Paul White, the defense anesthesiology expert.
The experts first met in 1978 when White was an assistant professor at Stanford University and Shafer was a medical student. They became friends and co-authored research papers, but this trial appears to have changed their friendship.
Chernoff accused Shafer of wanting to « shove it down his (White’s) professional throat » in a question stricken from the record by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor.
White, who has been sitting in the courtroom listening to Shafer’s testimony, was lectured by Pastor about comments about Shafer attributed to him in an online blog.
White admitted Friday that he told a reporter that he had changed his opinion of Shafer after hearing his testimony Thursday. « The truth will come out. It always does, » E! News Online quoted White as saying.
White denied calling Shafer « a scumbag, » as the website quoted him as saying.
White was not in the courtroom in his usual seat near the defense Monday morning.
Pastor, who imposed a gag order on all parties in the trial, set a contempt of court hearing for White next month.