The defense for Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician charged in the death of Michael Jackson, confirmed to the judge today during a pretrial hearing that his team will argue that Jackson killed himself by administering a dose of the powerful sedative Propofol. The reason: Jackson couldn't cope with the huge debt he was facing at the time of his death.
"The crux of the defense is going to be that Michael Jackson engaged in a desperate act and took desperate measures that caused his death," Murray's lawyer Ed Chernoff told the court today, the AP reports. "We believe at the time Michael Jackson died he was a desperate man in relation to his financial affairs." Experts have assumed Murray's team would argue that Jackson, and not the physician, administered the fatal dose, but their motive behind Jackson's actions had not been revealed.
It was rumored the defense would argue that Jackson was under tremendous pressure due to his then-upcoming This Is It concerts in London or that he grew frustrated when Murray's initial sedative cocktail failed to put Jackson to sleep, but it appears the defense will go the financial route. The prosecution responded to the defense's claims by saying casting shadow on Jackson's financial matters was an "irrelevant sideshow" that attempts to "smear" Jackson and deflect Murray's role in the King of Pop's death.
In other Jackson news, the court was inching closer to finding a jury as a pool of 170 prospective jurors with no opinion about Michael Jackson were asked to complete a 29-page questionnaire, putting the trial back on pace for opening statements to begin May 9th.
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