Involuntary Manslaughter

Jurors at the trial of Michael Jackson's physician are expected Tuesday to hear the doctor recount the moments when the singer's children and mother learned of his death. The scene at the hospital after Jackson's death in 2009 is one of several topics Dr. Conrad Murray discussed two days later in a police interview. Prosecutors began playing the 2-1/2 hour recording at Murray's manslaughter trial Friday and are to conclude Tuesday morning. In the section jurors have yet to hear, Murray told detectives that he helped inform the singer's three children of his death.

The two veteran police officers charged in the July death of a homeless man in Fullerton will be placed on leave without pay effective Oct. 8, Fullerton officials said Thursday after a closed-door meeting. Officer Manuel Ramos and Cpl. Jay Cicinelli have been on paid administrative leave since early August, along with the other four officers involved in the July 5 incident that authorities say led to Kelly Thomas' death. Last week, the Orange County district attorney's office charged Ramos with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter and Cicinelli with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.

The voice that echoed through a packed courtroom was low and woozy, but the ambition in the slurred words was vintage Michael Jackson. "I want them to say, 'I've never seen nothing like this in my life,'" he mumbled. "He's the greatest entertainer of all time. " The grand vision to entertain millions died six weeks later with the singer. But it was resurrected Tuesday for an audience of 12: the jury in the manslaughter trial of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. The recording was the emotional peak in the dramatic opening day of legal proceedings anticipated since the singer's 2009 death.

Defense attorneys for the two Fullerton police officers charged in the death of Kelly Thomas on Monday described the homeless man as a violent and dangerous criminal who was combative with officers and provoked them to use force. The attorneys for Officer Manuel Ramos and Cpl. Jay Cicinelli pushed back Monday against the Orange County district attorney's detailed account of the events that led to Thomas' death, in which prosecutors portrayed Thomas as a defenseless victim of brutality.

Lawyers have finalized a jury to hear evidence against Michael Jackson's personal physician. The panel seated Friday afternoon in the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray includes one man who had a brief encounter with Jackson three decades ago. The juror said he was introduced to the singer in the early 1980s while they both were working on the Disney lot. Another panelist said she followed another recent high-profile case, the Casey Anthony murder...

Murder charges against on-duty police officers — such as the one announced by Orange County prosecutors in the Fullerton beating case — are rarely filed, and successful prosecutions in such cases are almost unheard of in California. Legal experts said jurors who are naturally sympathetic toward law enforcement are not easily persuaded that an officer has committed the ultimate crime, even after seeing video of the death. Ira Salzman, who has represented police officers, said defense attorneys in Orange County will have the added benefit of jurors who look favorably toward law enforcement and can make a forceful argument that police had the legal right to use force against a non-complying suspect.

Orange County prosecutors charged two veteran Fullerton police officers in the death of a mentally ill homeless man, accusing them of a callous cascade of violence against Kelly Thomas as he begged for his life. Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas on Wednesday said what began as routine questioning by police devolved into a "beating at the hands of an angry police officer," with other officers eventually joining in. He stressed that Thomas did not provoke the attack and that all of his movements were purely defensive.

As his trial in the death of Michael Jackson approached, Dr. Conrad Murray found himself with an unlikely new cardiology patient — his own attorney. A battery of tests determined that the chest pains Ed Chernoff was experiencing were symptoms of anxiety, a diagnosis that the patient, a medium-time Texas lawyer about to try the biggest-time of cases, could not dispute. "I chew through one of these an hour," Chernoff said one afternoon last spring, holding up an unlit cigar he had gnawed to a ragged nub. Piled before him were stacks of legal motions, witness statements and forensic reports, a small portion of the case file that monopolizes his days and haunts his dreams.

The jury in the murder trial of the driver of a runaway big rig that killed a 12-year-old girl and her father two years ago in La Cañada Flintridge reported Thursday that it had reached verdicts on the two counts of second-degree murder but was deadlocked on the lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter. The Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sent the jury back to deliberate on the involuntary manslaughter charges against the driver, Marcos Costa, 46. The verdicts on the second-degree murder charges were not announced.

The trial of Michael Jackson's personal physician will include two haunting but starkly different depictions of the pop star's last day — a video of him dancing and singing on stage and photos taken hours later of his lifeless body on a coroner's gurney, a judge ruled Thursday. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor cleared prosecutors to present the rehearsal footage and autopsy photos during a lengthy hearing that established evidentiary boundaries for next month's involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray.