Jackson doctor's defense calls last witness

Testimony for the defense in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's personal doctor could wrap up as early as Friday.

The defense of cardiologist Conrad Murray entered its fifth day Thursday.cheap jerseys free shipping Paul White, an anesthesiologist and a noted researcher on the surgical anesthetic that caused Jackson's death, took the stand as Murray's 16th and last announced witness.
Jackson died at his home at age 50 on June 25, 2009. Prosecutors say Murray negligently administered an overdose of propofol and a sedative, criminally violating medical standards by using propofol to treat Jackson's insomnia. The prosecution focused on Murray's actionscheap football jerseys during his two months of treating Jackson. The state presented four doctors who said Murray "egregiously" breached ethical guidelines.
The defense, led by Houston lawyer Ed Chernoff, shifted the focus to Jackson. "Our main defense," Chernoff told Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor on Tuesday, "is that Michael Jackson took action with his own hand out of a desperate desire to get to sleep." Murray's team contendscheap baseball jerseys that Jackson self-administered propofol and swallowed eight tablets of the sedative lorazepam while Murray was away from the pop star's bedroom.
Murray's lawyers placed nearly equal blame on Arnold Klein of Beverly Hills, Jackson's longtime dermatologist. The defense says Klein caused Jackson's insomnia. Dr. Robert Waldman, a Los Angeles addiction specialist, used Klein's medical records and what Waldman termed Jackson's "NHL Jerseys Cheappublic behavior" since the 1980s as the basis for his testimony that Jackson "probably was addicted" to the painkiller Demerol after repeated injections by Klein. A side effect of withdrawal from Demerol is insomnia, Waldman said.
White, who continues testifying today, was retained to counter anesthesiology expert Steven Shafer on propofol's effects. Shafer spent more than four days testifying that the likely means of Jackson's death was a steady, three-hour intravenous drip of 1,000 micrograms of propofol bycheap nfl jerseys an inattentive Murray. Chernoff said in his opening statement to jurors on Sept. 27 that White will prove that Murray could not have administered the fatal dose of propofol.
Two other health care professionals gave testimony supporting defense arguments that Jackson could have been so addicted to propofol and so desperate to get it that he accidentally killed himself.
The defense has suffered some setbacks. The judge blocked defense attempts to argue that financial desperation motivated Jackson's self-dosing. And toxicology evidence showed a tiny amount of lorazepam in Jackson's stomach at autopsy, damaging defense arguments that swallowing lorazepam contributed to the death.
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