ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 11, 1996 TAG: 9606110052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Supreme Court is letting authorities in Washington state outlaw doctor-assisted suicide while the authorities challenge a ruling that struck down the ban.
The justices are expected to say by this fall whether they will resolve the issue for all states. If they agree to hear arguments in the Washington case, doctor-assisted suicide will remain illegal in that state until the court rules - perhaps not until mid-1997.
Monday, the justices extended an order by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor blocking the effect of a federal appeals court ruling that declared the law unconstitutional.
The March 6 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first such assisted-suicide decision by any federal appeals court. The following month, another federal appeals court threw out New York's ban on doctor-assisted suicide.
The Washington assisted-suicide law is part of a ban on promoting or assisting suicide first enacted by the territorial government in 1854. It was challenged in recent years by three terminally ill patients, a group of doctors and an organization called Compassion in Dying.
The three patients have since died.
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld the law last year, saying the ban on doctor-assisted suicide protected the poor, handicapped and elderly and prevented doctors from becoming ``killers of their patients.''
But an 11-member 9th Circuit panel reversed that ruling in March and said the law violates mentally competent, terminally ill patients' constitutional right to die.
``A competent, terminally ill adult, having lived nearly the full measure of his life, has a strong liberty interest in choosing a dignified and humane death rather than being reduced at the end of his existence to a childlike state of helplessness, diapered, sedated, incompetent,'' Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the 9th Circuit.
Another federal appeals court cited different grounds when it struck down two New York state laws banning doctor-assisted suicide in April.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it would be discriminatory to allow some people to end their lives by disconnecting life-support systems, but bar others from committing suicide by taking prescribed drugs.
In urging the high court to continue blocking the 9th Circuit's ruling, lawyers for Washington state said the public interest would be served by maintaining the status quo until the justices decide whether to hear the case.
But attorneys for the doctors who challenged the law said such action would ``deny mentally competent, terminally ill patients the choice to die certain, humane and dignified deaths.''
In other action Monday, the court:
* Ruled that police generally can stop motorists for traffic violations even when the officers also are looking for illegal drugs. The court unanimously upheld the convictions of two men who said District of Columbia police stopped them on a traffic violation as a pretext to look for drugs.
* Said people who flee the country to avoid prosecution still can defend themselves against related lawsuits in which the government tries to seize their property. The ruling came in a case from Nevada.
* In a case involving Lockheed Corp., ruled that companies can require employees to give up their right to sue for alleged unfair treatment as a condition of accepting early-retirement incentives.
* Refused to revive Exxon Shipping Co.'s lawsuit over an oil tanker that ran aground in Hawaii. The justices said Exxon's own negligence caused the tanker to run aground after breaking away from its mooring in 1989.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB