Justice for Michael Jackson

 Finally, the pop star’s doctor suffers for his professional wrong

Michael Jackson, the pop icon who died of drug overdose on June 25, 2009, finally had justice on November 7 when a Los Angeles court jury convicted Conrad Robert Murray, the late Jackson’s physician, of involuntary manslaughter.  He was convicted of pumping his patient, who suffered from acute insomnia, full of Propofol, an anaesthesia only permitted for use in surgical chambers.

Katherine, the late Jackson’s mother,  grunted, “I feel better now” as she emerged from the courtroom, amid loud celebration by the pop icon’s fans outside. Dr. Murray sat stoic and expressionless as the jury pronounced the guilty verdict. He was led away in handcuffs even as he watched his daughter weep.

The facts that emerged from the trial proved beyond any reasonable doubt that Dr. Murray professionally erred in his relationship with the late Jackson.  For one, he was, as the Americans would say, in the hole for some US $780, 000 in sundry debts: court judgments against his medical practice in Las Vegas, outstanding mortgage payments and child support for some of his seven children, that he had by six women.  The causes of the debt alone, particularly court fines and alimonies, established a trend of loose living and professional remiss that further, ab initio, damned the doctor, even if his innocence was presumed.

Being in such financial hole would therefore appear to have made him desperate to cling to the job; and therefore left him rather helpless to resist the rather suicidal demand by Michael Jackson, hankering after dangerous, if not lethal sedatives, just to combat his insomnia.  

Well, Dr. Murray got his due dessert, is bound for jail for a maximum of four years and may have his doctor’s licence revoked, which is like a life sentence in poverty.  Still, below the societal rage and ululation of conviction, Dr. Murray is at best a fall guy for being the final trigger of Michael Jackson’s death.

Right from the cradle, Jackson was abused through and through.  Joe Jackson, his father, spared no effort, including plain cruelty, to forge his poor son into a money-spinning machine.  Joe’s legendary iron discipline, which bordered on cruelty, was a subject of domestic tiff within the Jackson family, with the Jackson siblings, who morphed into the famous Jackson 5 and later The Jacksons, eventually backing their mum against their all-mighty dad.  

By setting his mind on the commercial success for his sons, the elder Jackson effectively robbed his musical genius son of his childhood.  That mercantilist spirit effectively turned Jackson into a mega-buck machine, which commercial interests exploited to the full.  Though he sparkled and dazzled, and his music and lyrics showed a tender soul that craved love and compassion for humanity, Black, White or Yellow, those he cared for so much only craved for the fortune they could get from that music machine with a wondrous voice and magical dance feet.  

So, Dr. Murray might have been complicit in fatally mistreating Jackson’s insomnia.  But those who drove him into that condition are even guiltier than the fall guy.  Still, even in death, Jackson remains a cash cow, at least to old Joe.  His father has brushed his grief aside to sue Dr. Murray in a wrongful death suit, from which he claims unspecified damages! 

The prompt trial of Dr. Murray is a lesson to the Nigerian criminal-justice system.  In six weeks, the society has got justices – and transparently so.  Such speed and impersonal rigour is highly recommended for these climes, where justice is almost always denied because it is almost always delayed.