Judge delays ruling on access to the "This is it" footage

A Los Angeles judge has delayed ruling on a request by Murray's attorneys for raw footage not used in the "This is It" movie citing confusion about exactly what the defense wants to see.

Lawyers for Sony Pictures filed on Thursday more arguments on the issue saying the defense request had "changed radically" in recent days and the entertainment company wanted more time to research the matter and file additional legal briefs.

Sony attorney Gary Bostwick said the subpoena for raw footage has now changed to a request for film from two of Jackson's personal video cameras. 

Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor said he was sensitive to whether the request is merely a fishing expedition. He said the release of any footage would come with restrictions to prevent it from being disseminated on the Internet and elsewhere.

"If Michael Jackson materials are just out there, there could be amazing consequences for Sony and the Jackson estate", the judge said. "I'm not inclined to order that they just turn them over".

However, the judge said that since Sony was under a contractual obligation with the estate to not use anything that showed Jackson in "a negative light", the unused video may be helpful to the defense, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor said.

Sony was ordered by Judge Mitchell Beckloff to make a movie that wouldn't have had to be offensive or slanderous, doing so will void.

Sony lawyer said the public release of the raw video could hurt the studio's plans to use it in other productions, such as an anniversary edition of the documentary. "We will continue to be very concerned that anything shown in court leaks out and if they become part of the public record as an exhibit, we have a whole different problem. That would immediately become viral on TMZ or some other website".

The judge gave Sony a week to work out technical details with the defense for a way they can view the raw video without the risk of it leaking.

Prosecutors plan to use clips from the "This Is It" movie to show jurors in Murray's trial that Jackson was in good health just before he died, as confirmed by the coroner in the autopsy report.

The defense wants instead to show otherwise. Those lawyers contend scenes showing Jackson in frail health during rehearsals may have been edited out of the movie.

Lawyers have said there are more than 100 hours of footage from which the movie was culled.

Murray lawyer Ed Chernoff said he learned recently that footage was recorded by Jackson's personal camera crew operating two cameras. "If it's more than those two cameras, yes, we are asking for all the footage", he said.

Defense lawyers were ordered to narrow their subpoena request for the video, which Pastor called "remarkably over-broad".

Murray is charged with manslaughter for the administration of a powerful anesthetic (Propofol) in high dose and the mixing of it with other medicines, among which, the benzodiazepines, that should never be administered in concomitance with Propofol, due to the occurence of lethal effects, as results by the autopsy report.

Meanwhile, is said Murray to have intention to write a tell-all book in the aim to exculpate himself, as X17online reported.

The next hearing is set for June 24.

MJFS