Due to the new California law, the personal physician of Michael Jackson will only serve half of his sentence because he has no criminal history and it's considered 'non-violent' crime.
- November 30, 2011
AceShowbiz -
After three weeks of conviction, Dr. Conrad Murray has been sentenced to maximum prison for involuntary manslaughter in the death of pop star Michael Jackson. The physician is sentenced to "the high term of four years imprisonment" but he may serve only half of it and via "home confinement" due to jail overcrowding.
During the sentencing, Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor was angry particularly because Murray put the blame on Jackson on his MSNBC documentary. "Dr. Murray engaged in a recurring, continuous pattern of deceit and lies," the judge said. The doctor insisted in the documentary that Jackson injected a lethal dose of Propofol to himself while he was away from the room.
In his statement, Pastor revisited the definition of "criminal negligence" and the totality of circumstances in the case. "It's important to emphasize the standard of criminal negligence, found by this jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Because some may feel this was a medical malpractice case. It wasn't. It was and is a criminal homicide case. And this jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, with criminal negligence, caused the death of Michael Jackson," Pastor said.
"... A person acts with criminal negligence when the way he or she acts is so different from the way an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her act amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act. The fact is that Michael Jackson died because of the actions of, and the failures to perform legal duties on the part of, Dr. Murray ... he died because of a totality of circumstances which are directly attributable to Dr. Murray."
"Not some mistake or some accident in the early morning hours of June 25, 2009. But because of a series of decisions that Dr. Murray made, which jeopardized his patient, which violated his obligations to his patient and the essence of his Hippocratic oath. Those violations overcome the other aspects of Dr. Murray's treatment of other patients and the good deeds he may have done before that time."
Murray also has to pay almost $1,000 in fines and fees for his conviction in addition to $100 million in restitution for Jackson's three kids and a fair amount for the $1.8 million funeral. However, it is unlikely they will see any money because Murray was already in debt when he began working for Jackson.
