THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 25, 1995 TAG: 9504250268
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
The Supreme Court opened the way Monday for Michigan to prosecute Dr. Jack Kevorkian for aiding the suicides of terminally ill patients, turning down his argument that there is a constitutional right to assisted suicide.
Kevorkian was charged with murder in the deaths of two people and assisted suicide in three other cases. The retired pathologist has aided or witnessed 21 suicides since 1990.
The high court made no comment in rejecting Kevorkian's appeal of a Michigan Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution creates no right to assisted suicide.
The justices turned down a separate challenge to Michigan's ban on assisted suicide, a suit filed by two terminally ill cancer patients and two medical professionals.
Although Monday's actions were not rulings on the merits of the Michigan ban, they were a setback for those who support legalizing assisted suicide.
``It's our position no one has to give us permission to control our own bodies,'' said Kevorkian's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger.
Lawrence Bunting, an assistant prosecutor in Oakland County, said Kevorkian would be prosecuted on the pending charges.
Kevorkian refers to assisted suicides as ``medicides.'' He began providing carbon monoxide poisoning to patients after a court barred the use of a device he invented that intravenously administered lethal doses of drugs.
Kevorkian was charged with murder in the deaths of Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller in 1991, and with assisting the 1993 suicides of Donald O'Keefe, Merian Frederick and Ali Khalili.
Reacting to the controversy over Kevorkian's actions, Michigan lawmakers enacted a ban on assisted suicides that took effect in February 1993 and expired last November.
Kevorkian sought dismissal of the charges against him. The separate challenge to the assisted-suicide law was brought by cancer patients Teresa Hobbins and Kenneth A. Shapiro, both of Lansing; pharmacist William Drake of New Baltimore and psychiatrist Elliot D. Luby of Farmington Hills.
Hobbins and Shapiro said that when their illnesses reach the final stages, they want the right to end their pain by committing suicide with doctor-prescribed drugs.
Michigan trial judges threw out the charges against Kevorkian, saying the ban on assisted suicide violated the constitutional right to due process.
Another trial judge ruled for Hobbins and Shapiro, citing similar constitutional grounds.
But the Michigan Supreme Court ruled last December that the Constitution does not guarantee the right to assisted suicide.
Aiding a suicide can be prosecuted under the state's common law, it said. ILLUSTRATION: OTHER SUPREME COURT CASES
In other actions, the justices:
Left intact an environmental ruling involving the Wallowa-Whitman
and Umatilla forests in Oregon that federal officials said could
disrupt land-management efforts in nine Western states.
Agreed in an Iowa case to clarify when failed companies can
cancel health insurance and other benefits for their former
employees.
Let stand a ruling that requires the maker of the anti-baldness
product ``Helsinki Formula'' to stop making many of its ad claims
and to refund money to consumers.
Refused to second-guess how Florida elects its state and local
judges. The court let stand a ruling that makes it more difficult
for federal courts to change state judicial-election systems that
dilute the political clout of racial minorities.
KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT ASSISTED SUICIDE by CNB