FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 21, 2011 file photo, Michael Jackson's former doctor Conrad Murray sits in a courtroom during his involuntary manslaughter trial in Los Angeles. A California appeals court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2014, unanimously affirmed the involuntary manslaughter conviction of Murray. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, Pool, File)
January 15, 2014 - 2:23 PM
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - An appellate court unanimously upheld the involuntary manslaughter conviction of Michael Jackson's doctor, determining that there was "substantial evidence" of his guilt presented at trial.
The ruling by the California 2nd District Court of Appeal comes less than three months after former cardiologist Conrad Murray was released after serving two years in jail for causing Jackson's 2009 death.
The 68-page ruling includes lengthy recitations of the evidence against Murray, who was convicted of giving Jackson a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol in June 2009. The superstar was in preparations for a series of comeback concerts titled "This Is It."
Murray appealed his conviction, arguing that the judge who oversaw the case improperly excluded jurors from hearing key evidence and should have sequestered jurors.
The appellate court disagreed and said it found no errors in the judge's rulings.
"We have not found any errors in the conduct of the trial, and in the few instances where we have assumed error for purposes of discussion, we have not found prejudice or, indeed, any significant adverse impact," the opinion states.
Murray's attorney Valerie Wass said she had not read the entire opinion yet and could not comment on the ruling. A phone message left for Supervising Deputy Attorney General Victoria Wilson was not immediately returned.
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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
News from © The Associated Press, 2014