Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 25, 1995 TAG: 9504250108
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
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, Mich., said Kevorkian would be prosecuted on the pending charges. ``We'll proceed and do our duty,'' he said. ``We always have to follow the law in this country.''
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. A 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, all in Michigan.
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 advertising 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.
by CNB