Jack Kevorkian Is Out Of Prison
Doctor Served 8 Years For Helping Man Commit Suicide; Says He Won't Again
-
Play CBS Video
Video
Kevorkian Released From Prison
After serving more than eight years behind bars for helping a patient commit suicide, Dr. Jack Kevorkian was released from prison in Michigan. Karen Brown reports.
-
Video
Dr. Kevorkian A Free Man
After serving eight years in prison for assisting in the death of a Michigan man, Dr. Jack Kevorkian is a free man. The 79-year-old doctor claims to have assisted 130 deaths. Cynthia Bowers reports.
-
Video
Dr. Kevorkian Released
CBS News RAW: Dr. Jack Kevorkian was released from Lakeland Correctional Facility, in Lansing, Mich., after serving an eight-year sentence for a second degree murder charge.
-
-
Photo
Dr. Jack Kevorkian leaving the Lakeland Correctional Facility, June 1, 2007. (CBS)
-
Photo
Dr. Jack Kevorkian leaving the Lakeland Correctional Facility, June 1, 2007. (CBS)
-
-
Photo Essay
Jack Kevorkian
Retired pathologist dubbed "Dr. Death" over assisted suicides is released from prison.
-
Interactive
Crime Beat
Statistics and specifics on crime in America.
-
Interactive
HealthWatch
Explore health issues including AIDS, cancer and antibiotics.
He said his release was "one of the high points of life" as he walked out with his attorney.
Inmates inside the prison had been milling about all morning for a glimpse of the 79-year-old, while reporters and television vans greeted him on the outside with cameras, microphones and questions.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace will talk to Kevorkian in his first post-prison interview, to be broadcast this Sunday at 7 p.m. EDT. Click here to read a preview.
Kevorkian attorney Mayer Morganroth said his client planned a news conference next week.
This doctor made house calls, with his homemade suicide machine, saying he was on a mission to help people who wanted to end their lives. He admitted to helping along more than 100 people to their deaths, leaving bodies in hotels and at hospitals. And for the better part of a decade he got away with it.
Throughout the 1990s, Kevorkian challenged authorities to make his actions legal — or try to stop him. He burned state orders against him and showed up at court in costume.
Then in late 1998, 22 million Americans saw a video of Kevorkian injecting ALS victim Thomas Youk with a lethal substance on CBS's 60 Minutes. Kevorkian was charged in Youk's death and convicted of second degree murder.
But Youk's family stood by Kevorkian, then … and now.
"Jack Kevorkian was the only person providing people with a choice when they found themselves in a difficult position at the end of life," Terry Youk, Thomas's brother, told CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.
But many felt his unorthodox methods and unusual personality turned off potential supporters.
"He was kind of a wild-eyed fanatic," bioethicist Art Caplan told Bowers. "He got people's attention, but when you look more carefully, it wasn't the kind of person you wanted to lead the movement."
Kevorkian received a 10- to 25-year sentence, but he earned time off his sentence for good behavior.
He is expected to now move to Bloomfield Hills, just outside Detroit, where he will live with friends and resume the artistic and musical hobbies he missed in prison. His lawyer and friends have said he plans to live on a small pension and Social Security while doing some writing and make some speeches.
Kevorkian has promised never to help in another assisted suicide. But Ruth Holmes, who has worked as his legal assistant and handled his correspondence while he was in prison, said his views on the subject haven't changed.
"This should be a matter that is handled as a fundamental human right that is between the patient, the doctor, his family and his God," Holmes said of Kevorkian's beliefs.
In a recent interview, Kevorkian also made it clear that his support for letting people decide when they want to die hasn't wavered.
"It's got to be legalized. That's the point," he told a Detroit radio station in Detroit. "I'll work to have it legalized. But I won't break any laws doing it."
Kevorkian re-enters a society still largely undecided whether physician assisted suicide should be a right or whether it is wrong. Efforts to legalize it in six states (Maine, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington, Hawaii and Michigan) have failed. The Michigan Catholic Conference says it will oppose any effort to renew the push for assisted suicide in Michigan.
Today only one state — Oregon — allows doctors to offer patients an option, a prescription to end their suffering.
As a condition of parole, Kevorkian promised not to participate in any more deaths. And in an exclusive interview he tells Wallace that if asked to assist a suicide, he would refuse:
"It would be painful for me but I'd have to refuse it, because I gave my word that I won't do it again."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



- 1
- 2
- next
See all 72 CommentsKeeping Terri Schiavo alive on the other hand was immoral.
SHAME ON CBS for news distortion and news embellishment and cheap sensationalism!
Where were they after it was revealed after Terry Shiavo's autopsy that she was in fact completely brain dead and not reacting to anyone or anything. Poof! Right to Lifers disappear,
and Senator Frist, who diagnosed her as vibrant after watching a videotape of her drooling, said nothing.
These people only come out of the church pews when there is an intelligent social issue that requires logical debate. Then they spray snake oil and venom into the issue until politicians like Junior have to roll over for them.
Kevorkian will go down in history as a humanitarian and forward thinker, while the neocon nutjobs wave their little protest signs.
I myself have a lung desease that will kill me very slowly and there is no cure. And The law is not there to protect the people. But to stuff the pockets of the medical feild. By sucking the money out of our loved ones.
My mother had teminal cancer. And They kept her alive till my father had spent every thing, sold every thing and barrowed every thing he could. And as soon as he was totally broke. She died.
Kevorkian is a hero ahead of his time!
Posted by ilikeyou1 at 11:33 AM : Jun 01, 2007
How the hell could anybody having a horrible death answer you. Your ignorance is showing....
Posted by marcodele at 11:14 AM : Jun 01, 2007
---
Agree completely.
Posted by marcodele at 11:14 AM : Jun 01, 2007
---
Agree completely.
http://www.wwj.com/pages/529426.php?
Isn't it funny we are more humane to our animals than we are to human life, we don't want to see our animals suffer so we put them to sleep but we are supposed to watch family members suffer, Dr. Kevorkian you did the right thing!
Al Sharpton
J Jackson
Oprah if you feel frisky
And could you kill all those lame "reality"? shows?
LOL
How will we monitor it and what will be the appeal process?
We now have the ability to let people linger and suffer under circumstances that are not natural.
This isn't just about helping someone kill themselves, this is allowing a person to end their suffering if they are suffering, terminal,and choose to do so.
Anyone who doesn't think some of this isn't already happening secretly needs a wakeup call.
Posted by pudd54 at 12:26 PM : Jun 01, 2007
---
Ha-ha! :)
Now please%u2026 let me go back to trying to forget those years of my life ever existed!
He went to prison for helping an ALS patient end his life. It is just wrong to punish him for that. However, he also helped a fat nurse who's worse diagnosis was fibromyalgia kill herself, which I disagree with. We can't just kill everyone who wants to die or most of us would not make it to 20.
How will we monitor these desisions and what will be the appeal process?
Dr. Kervorkian is a hero.
Insane amounts of money are spent keeping terminally ill patient alive in their last months or weeks of life. Wouldn't that money be better spent on a sick, uninsured child or non-terminal patient who could enjoy decades of full health?
The medical system LOVES these kinds of patients. They require EXTREMELY expensive care and yet if they die, they are terminal so there is no liability, impossible to make a mistake!
Hospitals and doctors make a small fortune, right to lifers get to bring out their "life at any cost" attitudes and the patient greatly suffers.
We need sensible euthanasia laws now!
Enough Said and that's why you're going to hell...
We had an elderly couple in town who were very sick, they were in their 80's as I understand, anyhow, they went to a lovers lane that overlooks the city and after he shot her with a shotgun he turned it on himself. Thjey left a not telling of their suffering and decided on this suicide pact.
Now, I ask whats better, the help that Jack offered or the alternative true story above?
How will we monitor these desisions and what will be the appeal process?
Posted by pudd54 at 01:20 PM : Jun 01, 2007
I disagree. The right to die is the ultimate human right and it should apply to anyone who wants it, at any age and in any health condition. If I decide that my quality of life is not what I want it to be, for any reason, then I have a right to end it. It's my life to live or not to, as I see fit.
Liberals are definitely pro-death.
...
Liberals are definitely pro-death.
...
REQUESTED his services.
The abortion debate has no place here.
And if liberals are "pro death" why are all the conservatives encouraging more deaths in Iraq?
"The Catholics in this country are not much better than the Muslims."
"noplace2poop" says,
"Catholics are MUCH WORSE than the Muslims! Muslims believe that they are praying to God....Catholics knowingly pray to statues, images and pictures of Mary & the saints. These pagans also pray to (and for) dead people, such as the saints who lived more than 2000 years ago. Muslims believe SOME of the Bible but Catholics will readily tell you that they don't follow the doctrine of the Bible. They say that their pope and their church government tell them what God wants them to do--not the Bible! They pray to Mary (they also call her the "Queen of Heaven") because they believe God and Jesus will do exactly what Mary asks them to do. People were worshiping the so called "Queen of Heaven" more than 1000 years before the birth of Jesus. Catholics are pagans, not Christians.
...The right to die is the ultimate human right and it should apply to anyone who wants it, at any age and in any health condition. If I decide that my quality of life is not what I want it to be, for any reason, then I have a right to end it. It's my life to live or not to, as I see fit.
***
For the person who actually commits suicide, the legality or illegality of the act is moot, because by definition, the person is dead. So the question of "right to die" is a misnomer in that regard. The question is whether someone else, a third party, whether it is a doctor or someone else, has the right to commit the act on behalf of the patient. To me, the idea that such a person can acquire the right is utterly frightening.
Actually, I also disagree with the premise that anyone has the right to die at any age. Are you saying that children should be able to jump out a window when they want to? How about teens? How about older persons without the requisite mental capacity (and have not by that point signed a living will or power of atty.)? --SJR
Ask a Catholic what they're talking about when they speak of the "Immaculate Conception". Most people misunderstand this and they think Catholics believe that it means that Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin. But that's not what it means to Catholics! Catholics believe that it has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus. Catholics believe that the "Immaculate Conception" is all about the birth of Mary!? Catholics say that God told them that Mary was preserved by an Immaculate Conception when she was conceived in her mother%u2019s body and was miraculously free from the pollution of sin inherited from Adam. They say that she was in soul and body holy, sinless, stainless and of pure innocence for her entire life!!! They believe that Mary never sinned and that she is not only EQUAL to Jesus but that she actually rules over Jesus. Catholics also believe that God told their pope that Mary was a virgin all of her life, although it's written in history (and in the Bible) that she had three or four other children besides Jesus. Catholics make up the rules as they go along. As bad as Muslims are, Catholics are much worse......MUCH WORSE, indeed!!!"
Everything that I've said here is written down in the Roman Catholic Catechism doctrine. Look it up for yourself! If any Catholic ever disagrees with this doctrine, their church government will declare them to be damned and they will be excommunicated. Either agree with them or YOU'RE OUT!!!
Well for me the right to suicide is an absolute right, even if it involves assistance from another person and even if the person dying has no medical problems whatsoever. The "at any age" part was perhaps stated a bit too broadly. What I really meant was any person who is legally an adult and I included it because some people think that only the elderly or the infirm are being talked about in this. Obviously if a person is not able to make their own decisions then they should not have that right unless of course they've stated it in a form of living will.
-----------
Based on the comments in this section and in the abortion articles,
Liberals are definitely pro-death.
...
Posted by processor2 at 02:34 PM : Jun 01, 2007
Your god is the one that invented death, buddy!
Death is part of nature, there is nothing wrong with it, nothing to be afraid of. To me the only life worth living is a meaningful one. I would rather have no life at all than a miserable existence of suffering.
Here it is:
http://www.wxyz.com/news/story.aspx?content_id=72c0b0ba-5b3e-4d6e-a6aa-3f1664e555b5
I had a relative who attempted suicide. She had a disease that caused her immense pain, and the pain meds weren't enough. So, she tried to take an overdose. She was found, in time, and saved. But, due to the overdose damaging her liver, she now isn't given the pain meds she had before! It's all worse, and the medical profession won't let her go, won't let her have enough meds to keep her pain free.
In a truly ethical society, one of two things would have happened. Either she could have had a doctor to help her commit suicide, properly, with the right drugs, after being sure she was making the decision in her right mind, for reasons that were not temporary, or a doctor would have given her enough pain meds to make her life worth living.
Because of religion, fear, whatever, we don't allow option one, and we try to pretend like people will never die, so they still aren't given enough pain meds because we're afraid they'll be 'addicted!'.
We need to let go of this stupid fear of death, this pretense that it will never happen, and treat it as part of life, treated in a realistic way that doesn't pretend like you're never going to die, and doesn't ignore quality of life and the rights of the individual to make their own choices, have their own free will about when and how they die.
Please don't get me wrong. I love all people (i think)--(i hope)! But I have done extensive research on Catholic dogma and Islam. I don't agree with either one of those group's religious practices but the Catholic's way of worship is particularly offensive to anyone that has even a small amount of biblical expository experience.
Who the heck appointed the goverment as ruler over assisted suicides? I sure didn't. I also think religon should not even be in this subject at all. The reason I say that is whether your mormon or baptist or catholic if you believe in your faith and what it says is right or wrong,then that should be your descision to live or die with out everyone bringing religon in to this subject.
Liberals are definitely pro-death.
...
Posted by SusanHelit at 03:21 PM : Jun 01, 2007
What do you expect, when fear of death and what comes after death is the number one trick used by religion to control people? If you told them death was random, natural and definitive you wouldn't be able to tell them what to do to avoid hell, or to be killed by the wrath of god, or other nice stuff like that.
You don't want to die - that's your choice. Just don't impose it on me, when I'm on my deathbed, in torment.
Conservatives are anti-choice - such as, let's say, a conservative governor (G.W. Bush in Texas) who signed a bill allowing your life support to be pulled against your family's wishes.
Based on comments about the death penalty, gun laws and the war in Iraq, Conservatives are definitely pro-death.
- 1
- 2
- next
See all 72 Comments