The house was not the crime scene. Michael's body is the crime scene since it is the one that holds all the drugs he was given and the amount. It does not matter what was in that house that day as long as they know what was in his body.
They also secure the house almost as soon as Michael was announce dead and didn't release it until that night. They only went back to get Murray's doctor bag, which he hid.
Also, it does not matter if they contacting witnesses right away. In a standard investigation, you can go up to a year before some people are interview. Since no one had fled the country, it does not matter if they talk to these people the day of Michael's death or 10 months.
You also don't know the DA's case, so you can't say they don't have evident. They obviously had enough for manslaughter and don't have to go to a grand jury. They never plan to charge him with second degree murder. It was always manslaughter, so it is not like they somehow fail to get a higher charge because they were not going for it to begin with. If they had no evident like you have claim then they could only charge with him negligence.
That's what I said - they have no evidence, which legally means they cannot place more serious charges, which is logical.
I also wrote that they didn't secure the house as a
possible crime scene in the first place. Just to exclude the possibility that somehting more, than involountary manslaughter took place, even if they believed that it was not the case. This is the frequent procedure, when people die unexpectedly. I believe, there were already discussions about the unsatosfactory quality of the work that LAPD did just directly after Michael's death.
I am also not sure about the witnesses - if there are some "obvious" witnesses (that are immediately present at the place) - it is important to record their immediate memories, impressions, as they tend to fade with time.
in consequence - whether that was a crime scene or not, we didn't really have a chance to know, as this possibility was practically not excluded after some kind of examination of the place, but
ex ante, ie by
assumption or
opinion that that was NOT a crime scene.
As a result, there is no evidence. I'm not saying that something more happened, I'm saying that due to mishandling of the case by LAPD during the first hours or days after Michael's death, something
could have been missed.
Hence, the only scenario that can be called facts and that is supported by existing evidence does not allow for charging Murray with anything more than involountary manslaughter.