Michael Jackson's family asks for new AEG trial

U.S. singer Michael Jackson's family filed for a new trial in the wrongful-death lawsuit against concert promoter AEG, which was acquitted two months ago. The singer's mother, Katharine Jackson and his three children filed the motion Thursday in Superior Court based on sworn statements from four jurors who said their verdict form was confusing, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. On the form, the 12 jurors had to answer "yes" to five questions about the trail in order to find AEG liable for Jackson's death June 25, 2009. The Jackson family sued entertainment giant Anschutz Entertainment Group in 2010, a year after the pop singer's death, arguing the concert promoter negligently hired and controlled Dr. Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who gave Jackson a fatal overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. The Jackson family's attorney said one of the questions only allowed jurors to focus on Murray's fitness as a doctor when he was first hired to tend to the singer, not "during the course of the relationship" with the pop star. "There is no question in my mind that AEG Live was liable," one juror said in a declaration filed with the motion. "I believed that Mrs. Jackson had proven her case against AEG Live. Despite this fact, I had no way of voting in favor of the plaintiffs because of the way the verdict form was worded," another juror said. A third juror wrote, "some of the jurors were stunned and upset after learning that we had to stop deliberations after answering `no' to Question 2."