Whether or not the case goes to trial, it could have a chastening effect on the doctors of celebrities who sometimes accede to their clients' request for prescription drugs, despite their own medical judgment. It will open to public scrutiny such legal issues as involuntary manslaughter, criminal negligence, and the tactic of using medical experts. It will shine the spotlight on the responsibilities of doctors to act in their patients' best interest, regardless of fame or profession.

"Because of the fame of Michael Jackson, this case will be scrutinized by medical licensing boards across the country and will help define the terms due diligence, gross negligence," says Pace University professor Elizabeth Fentiman, a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and a member of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. "It will also say to physicians, you need to be careful not just with the potent effects of these anesthetic drugs, but also with their interactive effects with other drugs."

That will, in turn, spotlight the medical procedures in determining the use of other drugs, the history of the patient in the use of such drugs, the databases that contain such information, and the interconnectivity of such databases.