Michael Jackson's mother Katherine and his brother Jermaine have condemned Conrad Murray's four-year prison sentence as pitiful, insisting the punishment is not enough.
Earlier this month, the medic was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for administering the fatal dose of anaesthetic propofol which cost the King of Pop his life in 2009.
Murray returned to court in Los Angeles yesterday and Judge Michael Pastor sentenced him to the maximum punishment of four years behind bars.
However, Jackson family matriarch Katherine Jackson insisted the prison sentence was not long enough.
''Four years is not enough for someone's life. It won't bring him [Michael] back but at least he got the maximum,'' she said.
The Thriller singer's brother Jermaine was also angry about the ruling, telling Britain's The Sun he believed the physician should have faced a more severe second-degree murder charge.
''What happened yesterday was not justice,'' he said.
''True justice shouldn't feel as empty and pointless as this. Justice is not having some clown of a doctor act so criminally negligent with Michael's life that he ends up killing him ... then receives such a pitiful sentence. That's not natural justice.
''Dr Conrad Murray [should have been] charged with, and convicted of, second-degree murder and sent down for decades ... Judge Pastor's hands were tied and he gave him the maximum sentence, but four years feels woefully insufficient.''
Murray is expected to serve less than half of his four-year sentence in a Los Angeles County jail before being released.
''He most likely will serve about a year to a year-and-a-half,'' Sheriff Lee Baca said.
''We'll have to analyse how much time he can earn if he follows all our rules, which we expect him to do, and then how much time he can earn if he's being productive and part of the jail environment. That could result in a lot of days of credit for good behaviour that ultimately result in him not serving a full sentence.''
Murray sat stoically with his hands crossed yesterday as Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor repeatedly chastised him for what he called a violation of trust while caring for popstar Jackson.
Murray had ''absolutely no sense of fault, and is and remains dangerous'' to the community, Judge Pastor said as he delivered a tongue lashing in the Los Angeles court.
Judge Pastor said Murray sold out his profession for a promised fee of $US150,000 ($A150,000) a month and accused Murray of committing a ''horrific violation of trust'' when he agreed to give Jackson a powerful anaesthetic every night as an unorthodox cure for insomnia.
Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo said Murray would be put in segregated housing ''for his own safety''.
He added the cardiologist, who has no criminal history, could eventually be put to work while in jail, though not to practice medicine.
''We certainly wouldn't use him in a professional capacity,'' Mr Rhambo said.
Before October 1, an involuntary manslaughter conviction such as Murray's would have prompted a stint in state prison. But Governor Jerry Brown's public safety realignment plan now allows felons convicted of non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual offences - also known as N3 inmates - to be incarcerated in county jails instead.
New York Times
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