JOIN USJackson doctor in tears during testimony
The final witnesses testifying for Dr Conrad Murray will be fellow doctors, one an expert in addiction and the other in the powerful anesthetic that the Houston-based cardiologist was giving Jackson as a sleep aid. Their testimony could make the difference in whether Murray is convicted or acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Jackson’s June 2009 death. Authorities contend Murray gave Jackson a fatal dose of propofol and botched resuscitation efforts.
Murray’s attorneys contend Jackson gave himself the fatal dose of propofol when his doctor left the room, but have not yet shown evidence about how that theory is even possible.
Several prosecution experts have said the self-administration defense was improbable and a key expert said he ruled it out completely, arguing the more likely scenario is that Murray gave Jackson a much higher dose than he has admitted.
The scientific testimony of Dr Robert Waldman and Dr Paul White comes a day after jurors heard from five of Murray’s one-time patients, who described the cardiologist as a caring physician who performed procedures for free and spent hours getting to know them. When Ruby Mosley described Murray’s work at a clinic he founded in a poor neighborhood in Houston in memory of his father, tears welled up in the eyes of the normally stoic doctor-turned-defendant.
While prosecutors have portrayed Murray, 58, as a reckless physician who repeatedly broke the rules by giving Jackson propofol as a sleep aid, jurors heard a different portrait of the doctor on Wednesday.
Several of the character witnesses called described Murray as the best doctor they had ever seen and highlighted his skills at repairing their hearts with stents and other procedures. “I’m alive today because of that man,” said Andrew Guest of Las Vegas, who looked at Murray.