Shafer conceded that it was possible that Jackson, not Murray, could have been the one to open the drip to a fatal pace, but prosecutors contend it would make no difference in Murray's guilt.
Dr. White is the Director of research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and has authored journals and textbooks on anesthesiology. He's been researching propofol since 1983, 6 years before it was approved. Dr. Shafer is editor-in-chief of the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia and a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University. Both received awards this month from the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Murray is charged with involuntary manslaughter. According to California jury instructions, available on Lexis, the jury has to find beyond a reasonable doubt that:
1. The defendant had a legal duty to Jackson
2. The defendant failed to perform that legal duty;
3. The defendant's failure was criminally negligent;
4. The defendant's failure caused Jackson's death.
To prove Dr. Murray's failure was criminally negligent, the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that Murray acted in a reckless way that created a high risk of death or great bodily injury and a reasonable person would have known that acting in that way would create such a risk.
Criminal negligence involves more than ordinary carelessness, inattention, or mistake in judgment.... In other words, a person acts with criminal negligence when the way he or she acts is so different from how an ordinarily careful person would act in the same situation that his or her act amounts to disregard for human life or indifference to the consequences of that act.
On cause of death for involuntary manslaughter:
An act causes death if the death is the direct, natural, and probable consequence of the act and the death would not have happened without the act. A natural and probable consequence is one that a reasonable person would know is likely to happen if nothing unusual intervenes. In deciding whether a consequence is natural and probable, consider all of the circumstances established by the evidence.
There may be more than one cause of death. An act causes death, only if it is a substantial factor in causing the death. A substantial factor is more than a trivial or remote factor. However, it does not need to be the only factor that causes the death.
The crime of involuntary manslaughter in Cal Pen Code § 192(b):
Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice.
Involuntary--in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony; or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection. This subdivision shall not apply to acts committed in the driving of a vehicle.
