Another interview with Jury foreman
video link :
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/vide...reman-sits-down-with-cbs2kcal9s-andrea-fujii/
Question: Tell me the thought process behind question 2?
Jury foreman: We took an initial vote right away and it was 12 to 0 and then we started looking at the question and we realized that not everybody was on the same page what the question meant. so we started discussing it and as we discussed it people said "wow I got to change my vote on that" so they changed their vote and we started discussing it further and we got down to 8 to 4 type of thing and 8 to 4 would be hung jury and we did not want that, we wanted to discuss it further so we took the night off , came home and we went back this morning and some of the jurors asked questions and other jurors were able to interject things made us all understand it and all on the same page and what we thought was he was fit and competent to do the job for which he was hired which was to be a general practitioner to Michael Jackson. He was not hired to administer Propofol. If he had been hired to administer Propofol he would have been unfit or incompetent. He had a license, he was a doctor, he felt he was fit to be a general practitioner.
Question: let me understand this. so yesterday you voted and it could have gone the other way.
Jury foreman: no it would have gone the same way. It was 12 to 0 going the same way but then we start discussing and some people went the other way so it was back and forth that's what I'm saying.
Question: when did it start going back and forth?
Jury foreman: This morning when we came back in.
Question: so as of this morning it was a hung jury
Jury Foreman: I wouldn't say that because we had agreed to talk about it. I wouldn't say it was hung. We definitely wasn't at majority at that point.
question: talk about the outrage from some people wearing I love MJ tshirts. You said if the question were cut "if Murray was competent" you would answer a different way but you had to include the full question.
Jury Foreman: The big thing we felt was Murray was unethical. Had the word unethical were in there, it may have went the other way. He was definitely unethical. He did something that he and no doctor should ever done. That was the evidence that was presented abundantly for the 5 months. Nobody administers propofol by themselves outside a hospital. So that was incredibly unethical but again he wasn't hired to do that. He was hired to be a general practitioner because he had a licence, because he graduated from an accredited university, because he had no complaints against him, he had no malpractice lawsuits. He was fit at that time to be a general physician.
As far as the outrage to be honest, I haven't seen it and I hope I don't. I hope people .. we realize this is a verdict not everyone will agree with but we hope that people will understand how we reached that verdict.
Question : Some of the fans were calling you not smart, mean words were being said. How do you guys deal with that?
Jury foreman: I did not hear it to be honest but the way we dealt with it we knew it was going to happen in the jury room. After we announced we had a verdict, we almost had 2 hours to sit there , they did not let us leave or go anywhere and we talked and what we said we gotta realize there are people out there that will love us and there are people out there that will hate us. The problem is that the people that hate us will be the ones out here. They will be the most voiced ones but the 12 people in that room were very confident that we did the job we did and we were very comfortable with the verdict we came to.
Question : can you tell about question one?
Jury foreman: question number one we spent more time on that than we did on question number two because question number one was of course "did AEG hire Murray". My goodness you can go back and forth on that forever I think. We all kinda agreed that there was no written contract but there's also a verbal contract and implied in fact contract. Most of us felt that there was certainly one of those two between AEG and Murray. Myself I was kinda leaning toward it was a duo situation hiring, Michael and AEG hired him. The jury instructions said if you believe both hired him say yes so that's why I said yes on that. That one was a unanimous vote 12 to 0.
Question: Going back and thinking what is your thoughts on this whole experience?
Jury foreman: I really haven't, some of the lawyers have asked us that. To me it will be a matter of... I'm a very busy person, I'd like to stay busy.. so it will be a matter of having kind of step back maybe this weekend and look back at it. As far experience this was my first time. I have never been on a jury before. There were times it was very very interesting, there were times it was very very boring. but it's your duty, it's what you are asked to do ans we showed up and we did it. I don't think many of us knew, I know I did not know when I reported for jury duty I didn't know Michael Jackson issue was coming up. I did not know about it until I walked in and sat down. I am thankful for having the opportunity to do it. (skipping some parts) I won't say enjoyable. I'll say and the whole jury agreed on this there's no winners in this. for us to be there someone had to die. He was a father, he was a son and he was a brother to somebody. And for us to be there he had to die. so there's no winners. we did what we had to do.
Question: were you a Michael Jackson fan? Are you?
Jury Foreman: Going in the trial, no. Of course I knew who he was, I listened to his music, I thought he was a good singer. but a fan, no. I never went to any of his concerts, I probably wouldn't have crossed to street to see him, I would not have gone out of my way to see him. I have an album and I listen to it. If it came on the radio, I'll listen to it.
Coming out of the trial, I would say I am. Because there was so much we heard about him. I believe he was a humanitarian. He cared about people, he cared about earth. This is all evidence were given in court. I believe he was a tremendous person. I don't want to get too much into my own unprofessional opinion but he had a problem. A lot of people in the world have problems. It doesn't make them bad people. I truly believed that he had the best interest of most people around him in heart but he had the problem of the drugs , the painkillers I should say. He never took elicit drugs, that was very.. that was brought up in court. The other problem he had was the spending problem which I think a lot of people are focusing on drugs but he had a spending problem. and he probably wouldn't have to go back and tour if he did not have that problem. I am a Michael Jackson fan. I watched the videos now and I really wish I had seen him in concert.
Question: Do you wish that the jury instructions and questions were written in a different way so that you could have awarded something to the Jackson family?
Jury foreman: No. We were there to do the job and those instructions I believe came from , they were written by the two sides and the judge and it's not for me to question them.
Question: Of the testimony whose sticks out of your mind the most?
Jury foreman: oh my god. 60 people. who sticks out the most? Well there was a guy named Kenny Ortega. He was the show director. everybody loved Kenny Ortega. he was just totally honest, man did not have a mean bone in his body. Kenny Ortega was outstanding and awesome , entire jury agreed upon that. There was a detective from LAPD, Detective Martinez. He was incredibly up front and honest. As a jury you appreciate people you know to be upfront and honest. I honestly feel most - I won't say everyone - most people were I think trying to be honest on stand , you know there are tricky questions and things like that. I think for the most part , most people were trying to be honest. I really felt Debbie Rowe, his ex wife is another one. I kinda feel bad because I leave some people out I feel were honest. Debbie Rowe was very real and very honest and gave us insight.
