Rep: Jackson doctor to surrender Friday

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Michael Jackson's doctor planned to seek his day in court Friday — whether or not he's been charged in the singer's death.

After waiting all week to face a likely charge of involuntary manslaughter, Dr. Conrad Murray planned to surrender at a Los Angeles courthouse, accompanied by his frustrated legal team.

Lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff spoke Thursday with prosecutor David Walgren and was told to be at an airport-area courthouse at 1:30 p.m. PST, only to have the county sheriff's department, which handles court security, publicly say hours later that it was called off, defense team spokeswoman Miranda Sevcik said Friday.

"What does it take to surrender in L.A.?" Sevcik said. "I feel like Ed should show up in the courthouse with a big white flag."

Walgren declined to comment Friday.

Sevcik cautioned that the situation could change, but Murray still planned to go to the courthouse at 1:30 p.m. regardless of whether a charge had been filed. If he's not booked or arraigned, he would go back to Texas, where he has a clinic in Houston.

In Dept. 144 of the courthouse, where Murray was supposed to be arraigned, Judge Keith L. Schwartz handled routine cases throughout the morning on Friday as a media throng gathered outside in the rain.

The legal gamesmanship over Murray's surrender followed several days of negotiations in which his lawyers tried to arrange with prosecutors for the doctor to surrender for booking and arraignment.

Those plans were derailed by haggling between prosecutors and law enforcement officials over whether the physician should be arrested or allowed to turn himself in.

Whether posturing by Murray's team forces prosecutors to file a criminal complaint or not, it pushes the legal case into the center ring of the circus that followed Jackson's life.

"It seems ridiculous to us that it's been dragging on this long," Sevcik said. "We've been here all week long, for God's sake. What's the holdup? To us this is showmanship and we are just done."

In the seven months since Jackson's sudden death at 50 while rehearsing for a major comeback concert series, Murray has largely stayed out of view. His lawyers have spoken very little. And prosecutors and investigators have been tightlipped.

The district attorney's office has declined to comment on when or if Murray would be charged, but Sevcik said prosecutors told Murray on Thursday he'd face one count of involuntary manslaughter.

Murray became the focus of the probe into Jackson's death shortly after he called 911 on June 25 to report that the singer wasn't breathing. Murray told police he gave the Jackson a powerful anesthetic and other sedatives that were blamed on his death.

The doctor maintains nothing he gave Jackson should have killed him but sees a charge as inevitable, Sevcik said.

"We know he's going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter and we are ready with a counter argument," Sevcik said. "He's not guilty — that's our argument."

Various factors weighed into the desire of the Los Angeles Police Department to arrest Murray, including the possibility he might flee before arraignment, just as O.J. Simpson did, a law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press.

Top brass at the LAPD, which spent the past seven months investigating Murray, were unhappy with the idea of him surrendering because it could appear Murray was being given special treatment, according to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

The official said the district attorney's office opposed an early plan for detectives to make the arrest Friday morning.

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Associated Press writers Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.