Michael Jackson's doctor goes on trial for manslaughter

Trial: Dr Murray at an earlier hearing
12 April 2012

The trial of Dr Conrad Murray, 58, who denies a charge of involuntary manslaughter over Michael Jackson's death, was opening in Los Angeles today to a worldwide audience.

Jackson's family are set to attend and dozens of reporters are covering the five-week proceedings, which will be broadcast on TV and online. The singer died at 50 in 2009, having had a lethal dose of an anaesthetic drug.

Dr Murray's trial is expected to be the first time that the public hears his account of what happened in the bedroom of Jackson's rented home.

Prosecutors plan to call Jackson's friend and choreographer, Kenny Ortega, as their first witness.

They will rely on Ortega and other witnesses to detail Jackson's final days and hours and explain to a jury of seven men and five women exactly how Jackson died. Defence attorneys for Dr Murray, who faces four years in prison and the loss of his medical licence if convicted of involuntary manslaughter, hope to present jurors with their theory that the singer was culpable for his own death.

Mr Ortega testified at a hearing this year that Dr Murray warned him not to try to act as Jackson's physician or psychiatrist after Mr Ortega sent the singer home from rehearsals for his final concerts.

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