Michael Jackson's doctor sentenced to four years

Updated on: 30 November,2011 07:54 AM IST |
Agencies |

Dr Conrad Murray was sentenced yesterday to four years in jail -- the maximum sentence allowed under the law -- in the death of Michael Jackson

Dr Conrad Murray was sentenced yesterday to four years in jailu00a0-- the maximum sentence allowed under the lawu00a0-- in the death of Michael Jackson.

Behind bars: The judge gave a sentencing of four years to Dr Murray
which is the maximum punishment. File pic

Judge Michael Pastor, in a lengthy statement delivered before sentencing Murray for involuntary manslaughter, said he felt a significant responsibility to determine the appropriate sentence, utilising his "sense of fairness and decency." "There are those who feel Dr Murray is a saint," he said. "There are those who feel
Dr Murray is the devil. He's neither. He's a human being. He stands convicted of the death of another human being."

"Regrettably, as far as Dr Murray is concerned, the most significant chapter, as it relates to this case, is the chapter involving the treatment, or lack of treatment, of Michael Jackson." Jackson died "not because of an isolated one-off occurrence or incident," Pastor said. "He died because of a totality of circumstances which are directly attributable to Dr Murray... because of a series of decisions that Dr Murray made."

As the sentencing hearing began a family friend of the Jackson family, lawyer Brian Panish, read a statement.
Expressing their sense of loss for their "son, husband, brother and father", the statement said, "We respectfully request that you impose a sentence that demonstrates that physicians cannot sell their services to the highest bidder and lose sight of their Hippocratic oath," Panish read.