ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 1996 TAG: 9603110089
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post NOTE: Above
A Michigan jury Friday acquitted Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist known as ``Dr. Death,'' of assisting in two suicides and violating a now-expired state law that outlawed the practice.
The jury's acquittal, the second for Kevorkian in two years, is certain to intensify the national debate over whether terminally ill people should be allowed to take their own lives with the help of a physician. It comes just two days after a federal appeals court in San Francisco overturned a Washington state law that made physician-assisted suicide a felony.
That ruling set the stage for what lawyers said is a likely battle on the emotional issue before the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the whole question of physician-assisted suicide and the state's role in permitting or banning it is becoming a focus of debate in state legislatures.
Since 1990, Kevorkian, 67, has been present at the deaths of 27 people as part of a personal crusade for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide that has created turmoil in Michigan's political, legal and medical establishments and made him a nationally known figure.
``I don't know if (the jurors) realize the magnitude of what they did,'' Kevorkian said following his acquittal. ``It's been a tremendous stroke in favor of rationality and human rights. You can't take this away. This is the essence of human existence that can never be taken away.''
But the intensity of the debate over physician-assisted suicide was also evident in a statement issued by the American Medical Association immediately after the verdict. The AMA said the jury's decision was ``a serious blow to quality, compassionate patient care. It sends a message that the dignity and value of human life at its end stages is irrelevant.''
Kevorkian was on trial in Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac, Mich., for his role in the 1993 deaths of Merian Frederick, 72, of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Ali Khalili, 61, a physician from suburban Chicago.
Frederick suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease and Khalili was afflicted with bone cancer when Kevorkian helped them breath carbon monoxide through a mask in his apartment in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, Mich. If convicted on both counts, Kevorkian would have faced a maximum prison term of eight years.
As in his first trial in 1994, the key issue in this case was whether Kevorkian intended that Frederick and Khalili die when he helped administer the deadly carbon monoxide.
A section of the Michigan law, which was enacted to stop Kevorkian but expired in 1994, said the law did not apply if the intention of the person was ``to relieve pain or discomfort and not to cause death, even if the medication or procedure may hasten or increase the risk of death.''
Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's defense lawyer, argued that his client's sole purpose was to relieve suffering. ``Do you think there is ever a law that could be passed forcing people to suffer?'' he told the jury. ``This is all about your right to determine how much suffering you can and must endure.''
Under cross-examination, Kevorkian had compared his role to that of an executioner's duty to ``implement justice,'' although he insisted that death was not his purpose. In his closing argument, Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor John Skrzynski seized on that word, telling the jury, ``The way he thinks of himself is as an executioner. That's because he is carrying out a sentence, the sentence that the patient imposes upon him or herself that causes the death.''
His words didn't fall on unsympathetic ears. The jury that freed Kevorkian was led by a Michigan bishop who is a strong supporter of assisted suicide and who has said he wished he could have helped his terminally ill father end his life.
By sheer coincidence, Bishop Donald Ott, who supervises Michigan's 200,000 United Methodists, was chosen to sit on the jury that decided Kevorkian's fate. Ott, who lives in Royal Oak, Mich., later was selected jury foreman.
Lawyers on both sides apparently were unaware of the depth of Ott's personal beliefs.
``I had never seen the man or heard of the man before,'' Fieger said. Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor John Skrzynski said he had only a limited number of juror challenges and believed Ott may not have fully made up his mind on the issue.
``I thought we had people who would listen to the evidence and follow the law in this case,'' Skrzynski said.
Ott, 56, has told church members that he wished he could have helped his father, Arthur Ott, end his life in March 1992.
When questioned about his attitudes during jury selection, Ott spoke frankly: ``It's my belief that there should reside with the individual the right to determine the end of life.'' But Ott also told the court that he could decide the case based on the law.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Dr. Jack Kevorkian talks with reporters in Oaklandby CNBCounty Circuit Court in Pontiac, Mich., after his acquittal. color.