Word: kevorkian
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Last Saturday afternoon, several hundred Kevorkian supporters, including friends and family members of the people he had helped commit suicide, held a protest meeting outside the jail. Not all of them understood why he had decided on a hunger strike, but they were prepared to back...
...Kevorkian did not have to go to jail at all; he could have put up a $2,000 bond payment and walked out of court. In fact, anyone can post the money and secure his release, but his lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, urged supporters not to do so. It was typical of Kevorkian's defiant, publicity-conscious campaign that he chose a cell and a hunger strike. His objective is to attract attention and change minds. He argues that Michigan's law against assisted suicides, which was enacted specifically to halt his activities, is "immoral" and must be struck down...
...Though Kevorkian has often played videotapes and given press conferences after helping gravely ill men and women kill themselves, last week's legal confrontation was his most dramatic gesture yet. He had been ordered to stand trial for assisting in the suicide three months ago of a man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. Kevorkian was free on a personal bond as long as he did not help with any more such deaths -- a provision he may have violated in September when he attended the suicide of a 73-year-old man suffering from bone cancer. Last month a woman...
Michigan prosecutors responded with a request that Kevorkian's bond be increased from $10,000 to $20,000 and that he put up 10% of it in cash. In court Judge Thomas Jackson granted the increase, telling Kevorkian sharply that he had been in "utter contempt and flagrant violation" of the state law. Kevorkian's thin frame slumped, and he said, "I won't move...
...news conference, Fieger compared his client's crusade with those of civil rights heroes Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and India's Mahatma Gandhi. Kevorkian "does not wish to die," Fieger says, but he will continue his fast "unless he is released or the law is struck down." The legislation was overturned once in a county court earlier this year. But the state challenged the decision, and the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed to review it, meanwhile reinstating the law until a ruling comes, probably early next year. The waiting period will sternly test Kevorkian's resolve...