Michael Jackson Doctor Considers Testifying in His Own Defense

Defense Attorney J. Michael Flanagan and defense witness Dr. Paul White look at evidence during redirect examination during the final stage of Conrad Murray's defense

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

An expert called to the stand in the defense of Dr. Conrad Murray yesterday suggested that Michael Jackson could have risen from his bed, picked up a syringe left by the physician and injected himself with a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol. Unfortunately for Murray's defense, Dr. Paul White's testimony was ridiculed by the prosecution in an aggressive cross-examination that resulted in Dr. White acknowledging that he would have never agreed to give the drug to a patient suffering from insomnia, as Murray did. This use of propofol was "a complete off-label use of the drug," White told the jury.

As Murray's trial for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Jackson winds down, there is some question as to whether the doctor will testify in his own defense. "I will still need more time to talk to my counsel about it," Murray told Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor when asked if he understood his options to either testify or remain silent. Murray said that he will make a final decision sometime today.

Related
• Timeline: The Trial of Dr. Conrad Murray
• Photos: Michael Jackson Remembered
• Photos: Michael Jackson's Funeral

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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