Michael Jackson Doctor Claimed "He Took All Precautions"

Recording of Conrad Murray's interview with police two days after Jackson's death was played in court Friday (October 7)

After a day in which the defense attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray went on the offensive against a key prosecution witness in the physician's involuntary manslaughter trial, the focus on Friday (October 7) turned to a recording of the doctor's account of his actions while tending to Michael Jackson on the day the pop icon died.

During Thursday's proceedings, attorney Ed Chernoff accused lead coroner's office investigator Elissa Fleak of sloppy work in her investigation of Jackson's death. Chernoff suggested that Fleak made a number of mistakes, including leaving her fingerprint on a syringe found on Jackson's nightstand. In a sometimes heated exchange, Chernoff hammered Fleak about changes she made earlier this year to her report on Jackson's death, suggesting that they were intended to corroborate the testimony of key prosecution witness Alberto Alvarez, who has claimed that he helped Murray gather up medical evidence at the crime scene.

Toxicologist Dan Anderson also noted that trace amounts equal to a few drops of the surgical anesthetic Propofol were found in Jackson's stomach. Murray's defense team has been trying to bolster their theory that Jackson fatally injected or ingested propofol himself.

Friday's highlights included:
More testimony from Anderson, who sparred with Murray's lawyer over whether the trace amount of the sedative Lorazepam in Jackson's stomach was proof he'd swallowed the drug. According to the Los Angeles Times, defense attorney J. Michael Flanagan repeatedly suggested that there was no other explanation for how the drug ended up in Jackson's stomach, even as Anderson said there might be a reason, but that he was not qualified to explain it. Murray has acknowledged giving Jackson two injections of the drug, but the defense team has argued that the pop singer swallowed a handful of the pills on his own without Murray's knowledge.