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| Affiliation | No Party Affiliation |
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2000-01-01 |
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| Name | Jack Kevorkian |
| Address |
Royal Oak, Michigan , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
May 26, 1928
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| Died | June 03, 2011
(83 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Mr. Matt
May 26, 2021 02:47pm |
| Tags |
Caucasian - Single - Convicted - Imprisoned - Atheist - Straight -
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| Info | Jack Kevorkian (born on May 26, 1928) is a controversial American pathologist. He is most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient's right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He famously said that "dying is not a crime."
Between 1999 and 2007, Kevorkian served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder. He was released on June 1, 2007, on parole due to good behavior.
Kevorkian was born in Pontiac, Michigan to Armenian-American parents. He graduated from Pontiac Central High School with honors in 1945, at the age of 17. He then enrolled at the University of Michigan Medical School, from which he graduated in 1952.
In the 1980s, Kevorkian wrote a series of articles for the German journal Medicine and Law that laid out his thinking on the ethics of euthanasia.
Kevorkian started advertising in Detroit newspapers in 1987 as a physician consultant for "death counseling." In 1991 the State of Michigan revoked Jack Kevorkian's medical license and made it clear that given his actions, he was no longer permitted to practice medicine or to work with patients. Between 1990 and 1998, Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of nearly one hundred terminally ill people, according to his lawyer Geoffrey Fieger. His son, Zachary Kevorkian, had this to say about his father: "I don't like to think of him as the 'Doctor of Death', I think of him as a liberator." In each of the above mentioned cases, the individuals themselves allegedly took the final action which resulted in their own deaths. Kevorkian allegedly assisted only by attaching the individual to a device that he had made. The individual then pushed a button which released the drugs or chemicals that would end his or her own life. Two deaths were assisted by means of a device which delivered the euthanizing drugs mechanically through an IV. Kevorkian called it a "Thanatron" (death machine). Other people were assisted by a device which employed a gas mask fed by a canister of carbon monoxide which was called "Mercitron" (mercy machine). This became necessary because Kevorkian's medical license had been revoked after the first two deaths, and he could no longer have legal access to the substances required for the "Thanatron".
Kevorkian was tried numerous times over the years for assisting in suicides. Many of these trials took place in Oakland County, Michigan. In every instance prior to the Thomas Youk case, Kevorkian was beginning to gain some public support for his cause, as is evidenced by the defeat of Oakland County prosecutor Richard Thompson to David Gorcyca in the Republican primary. The result of the political election was attributed, in part, to the declining public support for the prosecution of Kevorkian and its associated legal expenses. Kevorkian also demonstrated a flair for dramatic publicity stunts at this time, showing up at one trial in a powdered wig. He protested an incarceration pursuant to another trial by staging a hunger strike and wore a placard challenging the Oakland County prosecutor to bring him to trial for the death of Youk.
On the November 23, 1998 broadcast of 60 Minutes, Kevorkian allowed the airing of a videotape he had made on September 17, 1998, which depicted the voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, an adult male with full decisional capacity who was in the final stages of ALS. After Youk provided his fully-informed consent on September 17, 1998, Kevorkian himself administered a lethal injection. This was novel, as all of his earlier clients had reportedly completed the process themselves. During the videotape, Kevorkian dared the authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out assisted suicides. This incited the district attorney to bring murder charges against Kevorkian, claiming he had single-handedly caused the death.
On March 26, 1999, Kevorkian was charged with second-degree homicide and the delivery of a controlled substance (administering a lethal injection to Thomas Youk). Kevorkian's license to practice medicine had been revoked eight years previously; thus he was not legally allowed to possess the controlled substance. As homicide law is relatively fixed and routine, this trial was markedly different from earlier ones that involved an area of law in flux (assisted suicide). Kevorkian, however, discharged his attorneys and proceeded through the trial pro se (representing himself). The judge ordered a criminal defense attorney to remain available at trial for information and advice. Inexperienced in law and persisting in his efforts to appear pro se, Kevorkian encountered great difficulty in presenting his evidence and arguments.
The Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide. It was proven that he had directly killed a person because Thomas Youk was not physically able to kill himself. The judge sentenced Kevorkian to serve a 10-25 year prison sentence and told him: "You were on bond to another judge when you committed this offense, you were not licensed to practice medicine when you committed this offense and you hadn't been licensed for eight years. And you had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you. Well, sir, consider yourself stopped." Kevorkian was sent to prison in Coldwater, Michigan.
In the course of the various proceedings, Kevorkian made statements under oath and to the press that he considered it his duty to assist persons in their death. He also indicated under oath that because he thought laws to the contrary were archaic and unjust, he would persist in civil disobedience, even under threat of criminal punishment. Future intent to commit crimes is an element parole boards may consider in deciding whether to grant a convicted person relief. After his conviction (and subsequent losses on appeal) Kevorkian was denied parole repeatedly.
In an MSNBC interview aired on September 29, 2005, Kevorkian said that if he were granted parole, he would not resume directly helping people die and would restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed. On December 22, 2005, Kevorkian was denied parole by a board on the count of 7-2 recommending not to give parole.
Terminally ill with Hepatitis C, which he contracted while doing research on blood transfusions in Vietnam, Kevorkian was expected to die within a year in May 2006. After applying for a pardon, parole, or commutation by the parole board and Governor Jennifer Granholm, he was paroled on June 1, 2007 due to good behavior.
"Kevorkian will be on parole for two years, and one of the conditions he must meet is that he cannot help anyone else die. He is also prohibited from providing care for anyone who is older than 62 or is disabled. He could go back to prison if he violates his parole." Kevorkian said he would abstain from assisting any more terminal patients with death, and his role in the matter would strictly be to persuade states to change their laws on assisted suicide.
On June 4, 2007, Kevorkian appeared on CNN's Larry King Live to discuss his time in prison and his future plans. At the time of Kevorkian's release, the only state in the United States that had legalized doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill people was Oregon.
On January 15, 2008, Kevorkian gave his largest public lecture since his release from prison, speaking to a crowd of 4,867 people at the University of Florida. He was supposed to have visited the school in October 2007, but the speech was postponed after a student was tasered by the university's police force during a speech by Sen. John Kerry. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Kevorkian expressed a desire for assisted suicide to be "a medical service" for willing patients. "My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death," the paper quoted him as saying. "My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized."
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