There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.Aristotle

The Jury Spoke

Conrad Murray has been found guilty. The media and others can now officially blame him for his actions in Michael Jackson’s death. We live in a system where when the jury speaks, that’s it. And yet we are increasingly aware that innocent people are in jails and on death row, people who were once found guilty by a jury. I didn’t follow the case so I can only go by what I’ve been reading since the conviction. There was, for example, a prejudicial interview Murray gave shortly after Michael Jackson’s death, there were rulings from the bench precluding certain type of evidence, for example evidence showing Jackson’s dependency on drugs. Some legal experts believe that these cast a shadow on his guilt. There was also the lengthy instruction to the jury, where they were charged with deliberating on a narrow aspect of his guilt, where finding against the doctor could be said to be a foregone conclusion. As a result of all this one thing I can say for sure is not that Dr. Conrad Murray is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but that a jury decided he was. He may well be guilty, if not of this, of stupidity, greed, overwhelm, mistakes, but under the circumstances, with him as with many defendants I read about, I am still uneasy about formally accepting his guilt.