The doctor convicted of killing Michael Jackson was released from
jail Monday after serving nearly two years of a four-year sentence.
Conrad
Murray was released from a downtown Los Angeles jail at 12:01 a.m.,
according to the sheriff’s office. A change in California law allowed
his incarceration time to be significantly cut down.
The former
cardiologist was convicted in 2011 of causing Jackson’s death in June
2009 by providing the superstar with an overdose of the powerful
anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. Jackson was in the midst of
preparations for a series of comeback concerts and Murray was serving as
his personal physician.
Murray’s prospects are uncertain: At age
60 his license to practice medicine has been suspended or revoked in
three states and his face and name are well known due to his association
with Jackson and his highly-publicized involuntary manslaughter trial.
The
former doctor is appealing his conviction, although an appeals court
has questioned whether it needs to hear the case. His attorney Valerie
Wass has argued that the court should not dismiss the appeal because it
could alter his overall sentence and reduce some of the stigma his
conviction has caused.
Despite being jailed, Murray has not been
entirely silent. Audio recordings of his calls have been posted on
celebrity website TMZ and the ex-doctor told the Today show that he
cried tears of joy after a civil jury recently determined that the
promoters of Jackson’s comeback shows did not negligently hire Murray.
He did not, however, testify in the civil case or take the stand during his criminal trial.
Murray
previously maintained clinics in Houston and Las Vegas and frequently
complained about conditions in jail after his conviction. He was allowed
to serve his entire sentence in a Los Angeles jail rather than a state
prison due to a law aimed at easing overcrowding by shifting nonviolent
offenders to local lockups.
“Dr. Murray has not received any
special treatment in jail and in fact has many less privileges than most
inmates because of his notoriety,” Wass said in a statement earlier
this year. She said he “is very much looking forward to his release and
getting on with his life. However, the fact of his incarceration is
increasingly difficult for him.”
Jurors in a lawsuit filed by
Jackson’s mother against concert giant AEG Live LLC determined that the
doctor was not unfit or incompetent to serve as Jackson’s tour doctor
earlier this month. The panel heard testimony about Jackson and Murray’s
relationship throughout the five-month trial, but the panel said it did
not condone the physician’s conduct.
“That doesn’t mean we felt he was ethical,” jury foreman Gregg Barden said of Murray after the AEG Live verdict.
No
doctor or medical expert has condoned Murray’s treatments of Jackson
during either the ex-doctor’s criminal case or the civil litigation. The
former cardiologist told police he gave the superstar nightly doses of
propofol to help him sleep but lacked the proper medical or monitoring
equipment that’s required to administer anesthesia.
Although
widely used, propofol is intended only for surgical settings and experts
have noted that its effects are not actually sleep.
