LOS ANGELES – The jury in the upcoming trial of Michael Jackson’s personal doctor will be allowed to see autopsy photographs of the “King of Pop”, a Los Angeles judge has ruled.
Jackson (50) is fully clothed in one of photographs and naked in the other one. Prosecutors in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr Conrad Murray want to show the pictures to demonstrate the singer was healthy at the time of his death.
Dr Murray’s defence team had objected to jurors seeing the autopsy pictures, which they called “gruesome” and bound to produce emotional reactions.
“They’re not gruesome. They’re not graphic. They’re not inflammatory,” Los Angeles superior court judge Michael Pastor said of the autopsy photographs.
Thursday’s ruling came two weeks before opening statements, due on May 9th, in the trial.
Dr Murray has denied he caused Jackson’s death on June 25th, 2009, by giving him the anaesthetic propofol as a sleep aid combined with sedatives.
Judge Pastor also ruled in favour of a prosecution request to play video clips from the last two days of Jackson’s stage rehearsals.
The clips show Jackson rehearsing T he Way You Make Me Feeland Earth Song. He said the footage was relevant to Jackson's demeanour. Dr Murray's attorneys had argued that it was edited and misleading. Jackson at the time was days away from beginning a series of comeback concerts in London.
The judge said he would also allow testimony from women with whom prosecutors say Dr Murray had a “personal and social relationship”, but he did not want jurors to hear about Dr Murray meeting two of the women at strip clubs.
Judge Pastor also ruled against a defence request to delve into Jackson’s troubled finances and numerous lawsuits against him. He said he did not want the trial to become a “salacious analysis of personal financial issues”.
Dr Murray faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted. – (Reuters)