Jack Kevorkian Is Out Of Prison

Doctor Served 8 Years For Helping Man Commit Suicide; Says He Won't Again

(CBS/AP)  Frail but still feisty, 79-year-old Jack Kevorkian, the man known by some as "Dr. Death," walked to freedom today with a smile.

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."

[randalds]

If Bush and Cheney want to use Dr. Kevorkian's services I will personally pay his fee. The number of lives it would save is staggering. It's only a shame that we didn't have the good doctor around to perform his services on Bush and Cheney BEFORE they murdered so many people in Iraq.

[incog-nito]

President Bush is reported to have retained Dr. Kevorkian as his personal physician. "In light of what's happening in Iraq," Mr. Bush was quoted as saying, "there's a real possibility I might need his services. You just never know."

[mikealford3]

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.
Posted by SlipSter01 at 08:20 PM : Jun 01, 2007

First, Your statement sound like you have never been faced with a horrible and debilitating desease such as ALS or severe cancer.

Second, Is removal of life support in a hospital murder?

Third, If illegal immigration can be made not illegal by a simple law, why can't assisted suicide be made legal by a simple law?

[incog-nito]

Asked by a reporter what he will do out of prison, Dr. Kevorkian flashed a mysterious smile and said, "I'm looking for a fellow named Bush. Have you see him?"

[pared1]

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.
Posted by SlipSter01 at 08:20 PM : Jun 01, 2007
+ report abuse

I'd be happy to assist you if it'll stop your spamming. :)

[toolmangler-2009]

"Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple."
I don't think so Tim..

1. Asssist, To give help or support to, especially as a subordinate or supplement; aid:
2. Suicide (Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of intentionally taking one's own life.
3. Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with "malice aforethought

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/assist

You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.
Posted by SlipSter01 at 08:20 PM : Jun 01, 2007


Assisted-suicide by definition is not murder unless there is malice-aforethought

[kknakamu]

Death is a terrible thing.
I don't think that Dr. Kevorkian is a cold blooded killer. Nor do I believe that he is a saint. I think that he is a normal person faced with an impossible decision. I could not imagine my sister, mother, father, or any one for that matter, coming to me asking for me to kill them. Suicide is a tough topic. Physically suffering is much different than being depressed, which many cases of suicide result from. Many people's physical suffering is chronic and permanent. Depression can be dealt with many different ways.
I do not believe that assisted suicide should be legalized.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[slipster01]

Oh, so it's 'good' to have this being discussed out in the open now, and we 'need' to legalize it?
WHAT the H311 kind of statement is that?

Assisted-suicide is MURDER, plain and simple. I don't care what anybody here has to say about it, it is murder. You can't just 'change a law' and make it magically 'not' murder.

[thgdriver]

Based on comments about the death penalty, "gun laws" and the war in Iraq, Conservatives are definitely pro-death.
Posted by bobgee_1999

So tell me, how do gun laws work if they are not enforced, beings you brought it up??

The two nuts at Columbine broke 17 laws on the books in that state before the even got to the school, so, probably according to you, if their were 18 laws it would have made a difference??

[toolmangler-2009]

If he doesn't have the money to live on, and can't work, may I suggest he 'take some of his own medicine' and decrease the surplus population.
Posted by SlipSter01 at 05:04 PM : Jun 01, 2007

Only if you make all 'illeagles' do the same thing.

Stick around Jack! I will probably need you in a few years, cirrhosis can get that way.

[thgdriver]

Reading all the comments, some pro some con some on the fence, at least, thanks to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, we are talking about it. Now we need action to have it legalized and of course regulated by the medical people. Terminally ill and in great pain would be first on a list working down to folks who will never be well enough to have a quality life and want to end it. Age to give permission should be about 21 and up or parent permission if younger. Probably a panel of Doctors (male and female) at hospitals would have the last word.

[frb01]

Jack Kevorkian may have messed up the message and been the wrong messenger. To see a parent die by inches and needlessly suffer in his last days because someone was afraid that pain medicine would kill him was a stupid thing I will always remember. We know that some of Kevorkians victims may have been too depressed to make rational decisions, but haven't we been dealing with the issues of mental illness in this country lately as well? Seems to me we need to tackle these issues head on. Just like medical pot, we are saving patients from what?