ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996             TAG: 9610020052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-5  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press

SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON ASSISTED SUICIDE OVERTURNED STATE BANS TO BE REVIEWED

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether states may ban doctor-assisted suicides, setting the stage for a momentous ruling on the ``right to die.''

Six years after recognizing a constitutional right to refuse lifesaving treatment, the court said it will decide by July whether doctors can be barred from giving life-ending drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill patients who no longer want to live.

Most states have such laws, but lower courts this year struck down assisted-suicide bans imposed by New York and Washington state. By reviewing those two rulings, the justices are expected to set national guidelines.

``This is one of those watershed legal issues that will be out there until the nation's highest court makes a decision,'' Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said after learning of the court's action.

Susan Dunshee, president of the Seattle-based Compassion in Dying group that successfully challenged the Washington law, said the court now has ``an opportunity to benefit patients throughout the country.''

The constitutional right to die was first recognized by the Supreme Court in 1990. Assuming that such a right exists, the justices said then that a terminally ill person may refuse life-sustaining medical treatment.

Just last year, however, the justices rejected a challenge by Dr. Jack Kevorkian to Michigan's ban on assisted suicide.

One of Kevorkian's attorneys and the prosecutor who three times tried unsuccessfully to have him convicted of helping someone commit suicide said the lower court rulings will be overturned.

``They took the two cases that supported Kevorkian's view so they could overturn them,'' Kevorkian attorney Geoffrey Fieger said.

``It is my prediction that the court will reverse [the New York and Washington] decisions and allow individual states to make political decisions based on policy rather than the Constitution,'' said prosecutor Richard Thompson.

The generally conservative high court may choose to overturn the appeals courts' rulings, said Howard Simon of the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan.

``There is just as much danger that they're going to do violence to the rights of Americans as they are likely to protect the rights of Americans,'' Simon said.

Jumping the gun on its 1996-97 term, which officially begins next week, the court also agreed to review whether Georgia's drug-testing requirement for political candidates violates their freedom from unreasonable searches and right to free speech.

Two former Georgia candidates say the state cannot require such tests of candidates who are not suspected of using illegal drugs, but a lower court upheld the requirement, saying the state was entitled to set qualifications for its elected officials.

LENGTH: Medium:   61 lines
ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC:  Map by AP.