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Murray comments again as Jacksons v AEG Live case approaches kick off

By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 29 April 2013

With opening statements in the grand Jacksons v AEG Live court case due to begin later today, the doctor convicted for causing Michael Jackson’s death through negligence, Conrad Murray, has given yet another interview from jail. And again he has declared his innocence, announcing that he is determined to win his medical licence back.

As previously reported, the Jackson family is claiming that AEG Live, promoters of Michael Jackson’s ill-fated This Is It show, should be held liable for the late king of pop’s death, because it hired Murray. AEG counters that while it paid Murray’s bills, Jackson himself recruited the medic, and managed him on a day-to-day basis.

That Murray’s negligence caused Jackson’s demise will be taken as read in the civil case, but the former doctor is trying to appeal his 2011 conviction. And in a new interview with America’s Today Show, Murray said: “I hope the court will see that an injustice has occurred on this occasion. If that is the case, I will have my [medical] licence back and I will continue to practice medicine”.

Asked if he accepted any responsibility for Jackson’s death, he added: “Not any responsibility that relates to his death. I am sorry that I have lost Michael as a friend and as a patient… It’s a tremendous loss… It’s going to remain with me for the rest of my life, but I am not going to accept responsibility for anything I did not do. [He] caused his own demise”.

Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for negligently administering Jackson with the surgical anaesthetic propofol in a domestic environment as a treatment for insomnia, and for failing to monitor his patient after administering the drug.

Murray claimed that the amount of propofol he administered couldn’t have killed Jackson, with his legal team proposing the patient had himself added to the dosage. The doctor also insisted that he was trying to wean the singer off propofol, adding that other medics who had helped get Jackson hooked onto both the anaesthetic and other prescription medications should also be held liable for the pop star’s untimely demise.

But the prosecution successfully argued that Murray’s theory that Jackson had increased his own dosage of propofol was fanciful and, even if it was true, that the doctor was still negligent for allowing his patient access to the drug. Meanwhile the judge in the criminal case said that Jackson’s alleged dependency on prescription painkillers was irrelevant, because they weren’t in the singer’s system when he died.

Those aspects of Jackson’s life, though, could be debated in more detail in the civil case that kicks off today, and which could last for up to three months.