Word: kevorkian
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...majority last year, making it the only state to legalize assisted suicide. California and Washington defeated "aid in dying" referendums in the early 1990s. And Michigan rejected an assisted-suicide initiative this year by a landslide of 71% to 29%. (No state allows the sort of mercy killing that Kevorkian aired last week.) Courts have largely bowed out of the issue. In 1990 the Supreme Court held that patients have a right to refuse medical treatment. But in a pair of 1997 cases it ruled that the Constitution takes no position on the thornier issue of physician-assisted suicide. There...
...Kevorkian, however, is the only one who has stepped forward to proclaim himself a mercy killer on national TV. A retired pathologist, he first came to prominence in 1990 when he helped a relatively healthy 54-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease kill herself with a suicide machine of his invention. Since then he has assisted in more than 130 suicides. "He's the Tom Paine or the Martin Luther King of our movement," says Girsh. "He's willing to break the law for the cause." But to his critics he is an unrepentant killer who harbors an unhealthy...
...Kevorkian taunted the prosecution into arresting him for Youk's death. "Do you have to dust for fingerprints?" he said on 60 Minutes. Even so, prosecutors waited until they had viewed the unedited video of Youk's death (not just the excerpts that 60 Minutes broadcast) before deciding to bring charges. Kevorkian, who at times smiled giddily at his arraignment, was released on a personal bond until the trial, which could take place in the spring. If the facts are as they appear in the video, Kevorkian could put together a fairly compelling case. He can invoke Youk's enfeebled...
...when the facts and law are damning. Still, juries are hard to predict. Last year a Louisiana man, David Rodriguez, rejected a plea bargain in the mercy killing of his Alzheimer's-ridden 90-year-old father. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Complicating matters for Kevorkian is that he seems intent on representing himself--a move his former attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, says could be disastrous...
...Kevorkian is acquitted, it will be a major p.r. victory for the right to die. If he loses, he has vowed to starve himself to death in jail. Either way, Death will get plenty of headlines--but his spin doctor will probably get even more...