Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994                   TAG: 9401280117
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PONTIAC, MICH.                                LENGTH: Medium

3RD MICH. JUDGE FREES KEVORKIAN

Oakland County Circuit Judge Jessica Cooper was the third judge to reject the ban, put in effect about a year ago to stop Kevorkian.

She dismissed assisted-suicide charges in the Oakland County deaths of a 72-year-old woman with Lou Gehrig's disease and a 61-year-old man with bone cancer. Both died in Kevorkian's apartment building last fall.

One charge, over the death of a man with Lou Gehrig's disease, is pending against Kevorkian in neighboring Wayne County.

Like Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Stephens before her, Cooper ruled the state Legislature violated the state constitution when it passed the assisted-suicide ban because it tacked a felony provision onto a bill intended to set up a commission to study death and dying.

Cooper declined to overturn the law on more fundamental grounds sought by Kevorkian's lawyers.

"This court recognizes that the concept of aiding and assisting a suicide is fraught with potential danger and abuse," she wrote. "The state has an obligation to ensure that the terminally ill person is not merely overcome by depression, family or financial pressure to end existence."

The previous rulings striking down the law in Wayne County are being appealed. Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Errol Shifman said his office would appeal Cooper's ruling.

A circuit judge's ruling doesn't have statewide effect, so the law remains valid.

"I would hope [Kevorkian] will be arrested in every county," Shifman said.

"This is not about the right to commit suicide. It's about the right of someone in pain to go out and end that suffering," Kevorkian's attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, said after the ruling.