What to expect from opening statements
Posted: 08:29 AM ET
Opening statements are one of the most critical points of any trial. Think about it: It’s one of the first times the attorneys get to step in front of the jury and explain their point of view.
A lot of things matter: First of all, they want to be convincing in presenting those opening statements to the jury. They want that jury to like them. They want the jury to believe in what they are saying.
Secondly, this is all about setting up the road map of their case.
For prosecutors, they’re the ones with the burden. The goal is to show why Dr. Conrad Murray is guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The defense attorneys technically don’t have to put on a case. In fact, they don’t even have to present an opening statement if they don’t want to. For them, it’s all about creating reasonable doubt. I expect both sides to offer an opening statement, just because it lets them connect with the jury for the first time.
The prosecution’s opening statements will likely focus on Dr. Murray’s conduct. For the prosecuting attorneys, that’s what this trial is all about, not about Michael Jackson, his lifestyle or any interaction he had with drugs. It’s about Dr. Murray and his conduct. They want to show that Dr. Murray deviated from the accepted standard of care in the field, that Dr. Murray was reckless in doing so and, ultimately, it was that recklessness that caused Jackson’s death.
The key for the prosecution will be to limit its discussion to what happened the day Jackson died and Dr. Murray's conduct after Jackson's death. Keeping the time frame shorter helps keep the case focused on Dr. Murray. Anything that happened the day before Jackson died is irrelevant if it doesn’t relate to Dr. Murray’s conduct. The prosecution wants to do everything it can to take Jackson’s lifestyle out of this trial.
However, when you talk about the defense, that’s exactly what Dr. Murray's attorneys want the trial to be about: Jackson’s lifestyle, Jackson’s addition to drugs and Jackson’s conduct.
You see, for the defense it’s all about Jackson.
The judge in this case is trying to do everything he can to keep Jackson’s lifestyle out of it. He wants the discussion to begin with the day Jackson died. But for the defense, it’s about what happened before that day. They want to bring up Jackson’s history of addiction during opening statements.
The defense wants to, in a sense, show that Jackson was boxed in to perform in this concert series, and that he didn’t necessarily want to perform all of these concerts, but he had to, possibly due to financial stress.
They want to show that Jackson felt obligated to perform this concert series and may have given himself a dose of propofol in order to go to sleep, and they may contend that Jackson essentially killed himself
The defense’s position is that Jackson, who was suffering various maladies, ingested the propofol on his own.
There’s another theory the defense may offer: speculating that Dr. Conrad Murray didn’t know everything Jackson was taking, and that he was acting properly, giving Jackson what he thought was appropriate while not knowing the full extent of what Jackson was doing to himself.
The defense team doesn't have the burden to prove anything to the jury. Rather, it just to give alternate theories about what might have really happened that night. The defense hopes to establish that there might have been something else that happened, other than Dr. Murray failing to provide the proper standard of care.
Any way you look at this case, the opening statements will be critical. It will give the jury a chance to see what each side has in mind and throughout the case, the jurors will be thinking back to those opening statements, wondering if the state proved their side of the case or whether the defense raise reasonable doubt.
http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/27/what-to-expect-from-opening-statements/#more-11433
