Conrad Murray Trial - Day Twenty

[borndem]

Good night, good friends. Although I didn't see or hear one minute of the courtroom testimony today, all you folks painted a complete picture of what happened. A big THANK YOU to all.

And our giddiness was lotsa fun -- and all in good intentions -- we must have all needed a bit of lightness, considering the journey we are all taking together. And still the big lady hasn't sung, but she's back there doing some me-me-me-me's, 'cause I can hear her. I hope it will be a dirge for CM.

And so to bed...fftobed: .....(I love this little guy!)

((((hugs))))

 

[Talina]

Good night Borndem...sleep well.

 

[Plumeria5]

Halloween on Monday...a big day in court. Sorry this is so long but I was looking at the Thriller lyrics and some of the words seem to eerily describe Michael's last hours.

"It's close to midnight
Something evil's lurkin'in the dark
Under the moonlight
You see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream
But terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze
As horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night
And no one's gonna save you
From the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller
Thriller night
You're fighting for your life
Inside a killer
Thriller tonight, yeah

You hear the door slam
And realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand
And wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes
And hope that this is just imagination
But all the while
You hear a creature creepin' up behind
You're outta time

'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night
There ain't no second chance
Against the thing with the forty eyes, girl
Thriller
Thriller night
You're fighting for your life
Inside a killer
Thriller tonight

Night creatures callin'
The dead start to walk in their masquerade
There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time
(They're open wide)
This is the end of your life

They're out to get you
There's demons closing in on every side
They will possess you
Unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time
For you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night
I'll save you from the terror on the screen
I'll make you see

That this is thriller
Thriller night
'Cause I can thrill you more
Than any ghoul would ever dare try
(Thriller)
(Thriller night)
So let me hold you tight
And share a
(Killer, diller, chiller)
(Thriller here tonight)

'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more
Than any ghoul would ever dare try
(Thriller)
(Thriller night)
So let me hold you tight
And share a
(Killer, thriller)

I'm gonna thrill you tonight

[Rap]
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell

I'm gonna thrill you tonight
(Thriller, thriller)
I'm gonna thrill you tonight
(Thriller night, thriller))
I'm gonna thrill you tonight
Ooh, babe, I'm gonna thrill you tonight
Thriller night, babe

[Rap]
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller"

 

[CarolinaMoon]

Good morning everyone. I loved the SNL skit, send it off to NYC pronto! Youse guys (transplanted native New Yorker here) had me laughing this morning, a great way to work my way to consciousness.

Thundar:

The graph they are showing now shows + - certainty (50%). So that is pretty darn high. + - certainty is usually 3% to 5% in most statistics. Talk about making the statistics say what you want them to.

On my way to becoming a teacher, statistics were a biggie in our curriculum. We even had a project to show various graphs with the same data, different interpretations to show the results we wanted. LOL! I know White had someone do the calculations for him, but I can't fathom him allowing for such a deviation, as in either it's right or it's wrong.

Oceanblueeyes: What a fantastic bunch of questions!

One piece of information I would like to have is: Were ALL the empty propofol bottles spiked like the one we saw used in court from the evidence bag? For sure, if the last bottle of propofol was spiked, it was used for a drip infusion, not for a 25 mg bolus. How would MJ manage to use a syringe to give himself another shot? Surely it would have taken more than the notorious 2 minutes, which the defense has admitted could have been longer.

Another interesting thing for me was the question Dr. White was never permiitted to complete. Based on the context, he spoke with Dr. Murray before he would take the case. Is it possible that when he spoke to him, the good doctor bedazzled him with his outstanding personality and convinced him he was an innocent man? Now, Dr. White just may consider CM his "best friend" and is doing everything in his power to save him?

Or, has he tring to become the latest doctor for hire? We have enough forensic pathologists who qualify, why not an expert in anaesthesia? I'd love to know how much he is being paid. Is he doing it pro bono?

Not being up-to-date puts me at a loss here. Wasn't he on board before the prosecution bagged Shafer? If so, Shafer has a good reason (IMHO) to go up against his former mentor.

All the above MHO only.

 

[Talina]

Good morning Carolinamoon!

Glad you enjoyed our silliness last night. I think we were all just relieving some pent up anxiousness for Monday. I absolutely can not wait for this cross examination.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Good morning Carolinamoon!

Glad you enjoyed our silliness last night. I think we were all just relieving some pent up anxiousness for Monday. I absolutely can not wait for this cross examination.

Good morning Everyone!:seeya:

I enjoyed our little skit:great: and you are right we are all pumped up having to wait for Monday!

I am not even an expert examiner but I saw several holes in Dr. White's opinion. He really seemed to base most of his opinion on Murray telling the truth. That is where I part ways with White and its garbage in and garbage out based on unsubstantiated facts.

Murray will lie in a heartbeat when it behooves him to do so so White's opinion is already tainted. He may be a good doctor but he certainly wouldnt make a great detective.

I feel the lawyers think if they didn't ask him any of the important questions about standard of care that Walgren will not be able to go beyond the tight scope but they are wrong. Since he is a doctor himself he will be asked those questions in a rapid pace for it goes to his credibility.

IMO

 

[Talina]

Good morning Everyone!:seeya:

I enjoyed our little skit:great: and you are right we are all pumped up having to wait for Monday!

I am not even an expert examiner but I saw several holes in Dr. White's opinion. He really seemed to base most of his opinion on Murray telling the truth. That is where I part ways with White and its garbage in and garbage out based on unsubstantiated facts.

Murray will lie in a heartbeat when it behooves him to do so so White's opinion is already tainted. He may be a good doctor but he certainly wouldnt make a great detective.

I feel the lawyers think if they didn't ask him any of the important questions about standard of care that Walgren will not be able to go beyond the tight scope but they are wrong. Since he is a doctor himself he will be asked those questions in a rapid pace for it goes to his credibility.

IMO

Beth Karas addressed this yesterday afternoon. She said that the DT didn't ask these questions at all but on cross they will not be able to hide behind the "goes beyond the scope of direct". She said it does not work that way with the expert witnesses and he is fair game to all the questions that the DT did not ask (for obvious reasons).

And I totally agree with you on garbage in, garbage out. He did say quite a few times that he based his opinion on Dr. Murray's interview and on top of that only on what was found as physical evidence at the "crime scene" as he said several times (IMO his subconscious speaking loud and clear that he knows this is a crime scene). Well what about the missing IV tube that would have been used on that slit IV bag with the propofol bottle in it? And NO ONE ever suggested that the IV bag neck portion was used to spike into the bottle. I have no idea where he came off with that.

It has always been the thought that the slit was utilized to give the prop for the propofol bottle and the opening to fit the spike with the tubing coming out of the bottle directly. However, to believe there is missing IV tubing then one has to also believe there was a drip. (which Dr. White claims to disagree with and his basis for disagreeing is that he just can't fathom how anyone would so crudely set up a propofol drip like that - oh please)

So moving on from that, we know for a fact that Dr. Murray gave other drugs via syringes, and those syringes were never found. Dr. White used those calculations in his models. He can't have it both ways. MJs fingerprints found on nothing. Either his theory is supported by the evidence found at the "crime scene" or it does not. Seems to me the good Dr. White wants to only look at the "crime scene" evidence that supports what he wants to opine to and just brush off the other things that don't support his theory, which by his own admission is a biased theory.


IMO

I hope Walgren nails him big time on Monday. I saw some tweets late last night where people that heard sidebars and/or out of jury presence discussions between the judge and the attorneys. Walgren reportedly told the court that he expects his cross of Dr. White to last all day on Monday.

Also, Judge Pastor reportedly told both sides no more surprises. He's had enough of them.

 

[outofstatelawyer]

I have frequent bouts of insomnia.
I sweat profusely when working out.
I get chills. Other times I'm very hot.
There are times I'm agitated (esp in traffic) and nervous.

According to Flanagan's question & Dr White's answer: I'm addicted to demerol.

(Despite I've never had it.)

Eggzacktly!!!!

(Those symptoms can be attributed to any number of things. I only watched the beginning of Waldman's testimony, but he gave me the creeps. Kinda like the gynecologist I went to once who wore a big floppy chain bracelet and had tinted glasses on so you couldn't see his eyes. I never went back! :crazy

 

[outofstatelawyer]

Beth Karas addressed this yesterday afternoon. She said that the DT didn't ask these questions at all but on cross they will not be able to hide behind the "goes beyond the scope of direct". She said it does not work that way with the expert witnesses and he is fair game to all the questions that the DT did not ask (for obvious reasons).

And I totally agree with you on garbage in, garbage out. He did say quite a few times that he based his opinion on Dr. Murray's interview and on top of that only on what was found as physical evidence at the "crime scene" as he said several times (IMO his subconscious speaking loud and clear that he knows this is a crime scene). Well what about the missing IV tube that would have been used on that slit IV bag with the propofol bottle in it? And NO ONE ever suggested that the IV bag neck portion was used to spike into the bottle. I have no idea where he came off with that.

It has always been the thought that the slit was utilized to give the prop for the propofol bottle and the opening to fit the spike with the tubing coming out of the bottle directly. However, to believe there is missing IV tubing then one has to also believe there was a drip. (which Dr. White claims to disagree with and his basis for disagreeing is that he just can't fathom how anyone would so crudely set up a propofol drip like that - oh please)

So moving on from that, we know for a fact that Dr. Murray gave other drugs via syringes, and those syringes were never found. Dr. White used those calculations in his models. He can't have it both ways. MJs fingerprints found on nothing. Either his theory is supported by the evidence found at the "crime scene" or it does not. Seems to me the good Dr. White wants to only look at the "crime scene" evidence that supports what he wants to opine to and just brush off the other things that don't support his theory, which by his own admission is a biased theory.


IMO

I hope Walgren nails him big time on Monday. I saw some tweets late last night where people that heard sidebars and/or out of jury presence discussions between the judge and the attorneys. Walgren reportedly told the court that he expects his cross of Dr. White to last all day on Monday.

Also, Judge Pastor reportedly told both sides no more surprises. He's had enough of them.

1. Whose tweets are you following? I'd love to follow too;

2. The interesting thing is that the state's experts also based their opinions on Murray's interview with the cops. They purposely did that, I think, to lock him into that story. For example, Murray's claim that MJ had a pulse when he found him. I think it's pretty obvious that was a blatant lie, but it then allowed Dr. Steinberg to opine on all the stuff Murray could have done to save MJ's life. Ditto for Dr. Shafer. If that's not what happened, then Murray lied about the time he was away from the patient. So, he's cooked either way, IMO;

3. I wish Judge Pastor had cracked down on the DT's BS a bit more. There is always the concern about a Defendant getting a fair trial, but recall that the Judge in the Casey Anthony case (whose name totally escapes me now, gah!) did penalize the DT by allowing all those jailhouse conversations in because the DT failed to object to them by a pretrial deadline (not that it made any difference with that jury, grrr);

4. I think our boy Dave is going to do a great job. Hell, even the commenters at TMZ are anxiously awaiting his cross;

5. Speaking of comments at other sites, I know that Baez et al. were monitoring social media to assist them in "strategizing". I don't do Facebook, but looking at comments at other places on the web, the comments favorable to Murray seem to be few and far between, and the ones that do appear seem to be focused on "MJ the Addict". Has anyone else noticed comments elsewhere, and how are they running? Thanks!

 

[Isabelle]

DT can't go with the 'Michael injected himself with propofol'. There was no syringe large enough to give the level of propofol found in his system. Conrat can't claim MJ opened the roller clamp on the gravity flow propofol infusion, cause the DT claims there wasn't one. DT can't go with the MJ ate a bunch of Lorazepam when Conrat left the room because no one wakes up from propofol, lorazepam and midazolam as 'awake, alert and oriented'. If MJ did consume the Lorazepam at different time through the night/morning, then Conrat had to be out of the room more than once as he claims. Conrat you are between a mountain and a hard place.

I hope the PT reads here!

 

[Isabelle]

Why would Conrat order vented tubing, if not to spike an unvented container?
If Conrat gave Propofol via gravity flow with the vented tubing for 2 months, why would he change his mo?

 

[borndem]

In the midst of the confusion, up walks Dr. Shafer, cracks open some smelling salts, waves it under Dr. White's nose and says..calm down everyone. :blush:

Dr. Murray: :nevermind:

!

I love it!!!!:rocker::floorlaugh:

 

[borndem]

Halloween on Monday...a big day in court. Sorry this is so long but I was looking at the Thriller lyrics and some of the words seem to eerily describe Michael's last hours.

"It's close to midnight
Something evil's lurkin'in the dark
Under the moonlight
You see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream
But terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze
As horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night
And no one's gonna save you
From the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller
Thriller night
You're fighting for your life
Inside a killer
Thriller tonight, yeah

You hear the door slam
And realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand
And wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes
And hope that this is just imagination
But all the while
You hear a creature creepin' up behind
You're outta time

'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night
There ain't no second chance
Against the thing with the forty eyes, girl
Thriller
Thriller night
You're fighting for your life
Inside a killer
Thriller tonight

Night creatures callin'
The dead start to walk in their masquerade
There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time
(They're open wide)
This is the end of your life

They're out to get you
There's demons closing in on every side
They will possess you
Unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time
For you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night
I'll save you from the terror on the screen
I'll make you see

That this is thriller
Thriller night
'Cause I can thrill you more
Than any ghoul would ever dare try
(Thriller)
(Thriller night)
So let me hold you tight
And share a
(Killer, diller, chiller)
(Thriller here tonight)

'Cause this is thriller
Thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more
Than any ghoul would ever dare try
(Thriller)
(Thriller night)
So let me hold you tight
And share a
(Killer, thriller)

I'm gonna thrill you tonight

[Rap]
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse's shell

I'm gonna thrill you tonight
(Thriller, thriller)
I'm gonna thrill you tonight
(Thriller night, thriller))
I'm gonna thrill you tonight
Ooh, babe, I'm gonna thrill you tonight
Thriller night, babe

[Rap]
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller"

Oh my, Plum -- That gives me the shivers....and it's just plain sad. it was released by Epic Records on November 30, 1982. Prescient. <shiver>

He was all alone -- that sweet child-like, trusting man. And his "good friend," health guardian, life-monitor, and 24-hr physician deserted him when he needed his help most.

Standards of care, my toenail! Grrrrrr.

 

[peace9274]

DT can't go with the 'Michael injected himself with propofol'. There was no syringe large enough to give the level of propofol found in his system. Conrat can't claim MJ opened the roller clamp on the gravity flow propofol infusion, cause the DT claims there wasn't one. DT can't go with the MJ ate a bunch of Lorazepam when Conrat left the room because no one wakes up from propofol, lorazepam and midazolam as 'awake, alert and oriented'. If MJ did consume the Lorazepam at different time through the night/morning, then Conrat had to be out of the room more than once as he claims. Conrat you are between a mountain and a hard place.

I hope the PT reads here!

There wasn't an electric digitalized pump machine that monitores the drip and regulates how much a patient gets per minute.

The syringe of propofol is placed and clamped onto the pump and it's pushed slowly (by the pump) at the set rate of drops per minute.

With most other meds/fluids that are given IV, just the IV tubing is placed in the machine and the rate/min is set on the machine.

All IV tubings do have the roller clamp, to monitor the drip manually.

So if the DT claims there wasn't one, they're mistaken.

It's almost impossible that MJ woke up during the slow propofol drip, that CM started, to open the manually regulated roller clamp.

 

[Thundar]

Thank you, one and all. Such an interesting read this morning.

I was going over, ok trying to go over yesterday's testimony and realized that I can't go over it. The questions Flannegan asked and the order he asked them was like trying to follow a jerky moving car down the highway in the dark. Not really thinking about anything but following the tail lights in front of you and then you realize you are swerving from ditch to center line, stop yourself and think, boy someone must be drunk in front of me. Then you back off and try not to get caught up in any accident they might cause. That was Flannegan's questioning.

I would think that a lawyer would make an outline of questions with possible answers with the next questions after each posssible answer. But Flannegan was just all over the place.

Anyway those were my thoughts on yesterday's testimony. Not half as fun as you guy's thoughts, but I will own them.

 

[borndem]

Good morning everyone. I loved the SNL skit, send it off to NYC pronto! Youse guys (transplanted native New Yorker here) had me laughing this morning, a great way to work my way to consciousness.

Thundar:

The graph they are showing now shows + - certainty (50%). So that is pretty darn high. + - certainty is usually 3% to 5% in most statistics. Talk about making the statistics say what you want them to.

On my way to becoming a teacher, statistics were a biggie in our curriculum. We even had a project to show various graphs with the same data, different interpretations to show the results we wanted. LOL! I know White had someone do the calculations for him, but I can't fathom him allowing for such a deviation, as in either it's right or it's wrong.

Oceanblueeyes: What a fantastic bunch of questions!

One piece of information I would like to have is: Were ALL the empty propofol bottles spiked like the one we saw used in court from the evidence bag? For sure, if the last bottle of propofol was spiked, it was used for a drip infusion, not for a 25 mg bolus. How would MJ manage to use a syringe to give himself another shot? Surely it would have taken more than the notorious 2 minutes, which the defense has admitted could have been longer.

Another interesting thing for me was the question Dr. White was never permiitted to complete. Based on the context, he spoke with Dr. Murray before he would take the case. Is it possible that when he spoke to him, the good doctor bedazzled him with his outstanding personality and convinced him he was an innocent man? Now, Dr. White just may consider CM his "best friend" and is doing everything in his power to save him?

Or, has he tring to become the latest doctor for hire? We have enough forensic pathologists who qualify, why not an expert in anaesthesia? I'd love to know how much he is being paid. Is he doing it pro bono?

Not being up-to-date puts me at a loss here. Wasn't he on board before the prosecution bagged Shafer? If so, Shafer has a good reason (IMHO) to go up against his former mentor.

All the above MHO only.

Good observations, C'Moon!

White comes across as an "Aw, shucks" kind of guy -- not sure it I buy it.

He was Shafer's senior all through their professional relationships, and probably feels now that he is no longer "senior" in the brains dept. Life at big, teaching universities is extremely competitive (my DH at Duke Univ. knows all about it & so does my father-in-law, a dept. head and full professor at NC State). And huge pressure to publish & add more prestige to yourself and the university. It never stops, especially with these "young turks" coming in with their swagger and new techniques.

I think it's obvious and also self-admitted to White that he has been surpassed by his brilliant and altruistic former associate. Ergo, the little subtle jabs and innuendo. Very human, yes, and very obvious...

ETA: And your question about the other milk vials having spike marks is a very good one. IMWTKnow! Hmmmmm.

Thanks for putting those "progress notes" out there for us!

 

[borndem]

Beth Karas addressed this yesterday afternoon. She said that the DT didn't ask these questions at all but on cross they will not be able to hide behind the "goes beyond the scope of direct". She said it does not work that way with the expert witnesses and he is fair game to all the questions that the DT did not ask (for obvious reasons).

And I totally agree with you on garbage in, garbage out. He did say quite a few times that he based his opinion on Dr. Murray's interview and on top of that only on what was found as physical evidence at the "crime scene" as he said several times (IMO his subconscious speaking loud and clear that he knows this is a crime scene). Well what about the missing IV tube that would have been used on that slit IV bag with the propofol bottle in it? And NO ONE ever suggested that the IV bag neck portion was used to spike into the bottle. I have no idea where he came off with that.

It has always been the thought that the slit was utilized to give the prop for the propofol bottle and the opening to fit the spike with the tubing coming out of the bottle directly. However, to believe there is missing IV tubing then one has to also believe there was a drip. (which Dr. White claims to disagree with and his basis for disagreeing is that he just can't fathom how anyone would so crudely set up a propofol drip like that - oh please)

So moving on from that, we know for a fact that Dr. Murray gave other drugs via syringes, and those syringes were never found. Dr. White used those calculations in his models. He can't have it both ways. MJs fingerprints found on nothing. Either his theory is supported by the evidence found at the "crime scene" or it does not. Seems to me the good Dr. White wants to only look at the "crime scene" evidence that supports what he wants to opine to and just brush off the other things that don't support his theory, which by his own admission is a biased theory.


IMO

I hope Walgren nails him big time on Monday. I saw some tweets late last night where people that heard sidebars and/or out of jury presence discussions between the judge and the attorneys. Walgren reportedly told the court that he expects his cross of Dr. White to last all day on Monday.

Also, Judge Pastor reportedly told both sides no more surprises. He's had enough of them.

Double-Wow on this one, Talina! Goooooood tidbits. I was thinking the cross would take all day Monday as well -- and I had forgotten the special allowance for x-exam on experts. But I think the door to that was ajar anyway, but at least now we won't have to listen to defense objections to this after the expected first one....

There are some mighty smart and not-miss-a-trick folks on this board! I'm getting mighty spoiled as well as humbled by these Sleuthers! Oh, this is a good group of people!!!
:websleuther: :toastred: :websleuther: To Monday!!!!





:fireworks: inocchio:
.................:fireworks2:

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Why would Conrat order vented tubing, if not to spike an unvented container?
If Conrat gave Propofol via gravity flow with the vented tubing for 2 months, why would he change his mo?

And what other purpose would there be for him to hang a slit saline bag?

It will all come down to common sense.

IMO

 

[borndem]

Thank you, one and all. Such an interesting read this morning.

I was going over, ok trying to go over yesterday's testimony and realized that I can't go over it. The questions Flannegan asked and the order he asked them was like trying to follow a jerky moving car down the highway in the dark. Not really thinking about anything but following the tail lights in front of you and then you realize you are swerving from ditch to center line, stop yourself and think, boy someone must be drunk in front of me. Then you back off and try not to get caught up in any accident they might cause. That was Flannegan's questioning.

I would think that a lawyer would make an outline of questions with possible answers with the next questions after each posssible answer. But Flannegan was just all over the place.

Anyway those were my thoughts on yesterday's testimony. Not half as fun as you guy's thoughts, but I will own them.

Thanks, Thurndar -- This description of yours gives me an ever better picture of what I missed yesterday! And been there, done that on following behind a probably drunk driver. <shaking my head> A good (bad) visual.

What a day!

 

[Isabelle]

And what other purpose would there be for him to hang a slit saline bag?

It will all come down to common sense.

IMO

And Conrat probably used that same slit saline bag from the get go!