Jack Kevorkian | |
|---|---|
 Kevorkian in 1996 | |
| Born | Murad Jacob Kevorkian[1] (1928-05-26)May 26, 1928 Pontiac, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | June 3, 2011(2011-06-03) (aged 83) Royal Oak, Michigan, U.S. |
| Education | University of Michigan (MD) |
| Occupation | Pathologist |
| Years active | 1952–2011 |
| Medical career | |
| Institutions | |
| Sub-specialties | Euthanasia medicine |
Murad JacobKevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) was an Americanpathologist andeuthanasia proponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient'sright to die byphysician-assisted suicide, embodied in his quote, "Dying is not a crime".[2] Kevorkian said that he assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He was convicted of murder in 1999 and was often portrayed in the media with the name of "Dr. Death".[3]
Kevorkian was tried four times for assisting suicides between 1994 and 1997, being acquitted the first three times and the fourth ending in a mistrial. In 1998, Kevorkian was arrested and tried for murder after broadcasting thevoluntary euthanasia of a man named Thomas Youk who had Lou Gehrig's disease, orALS. He was convicted ofsecond-degree murder and served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence. He was released on parole on June 1, 2007, on condition he would not offer advice about, participate in, or be present at the act of any type of euthanasia to any other person, nor that he promote or talk about the procedure of assisted suicide.[4]
Murad Jacob Kevorkian (Armenian:Մուրատ Յակոբ Գէորգեան) was born inPontiac, Michigan, on May 26, 1928,[1][5] toArmenian immigrants from theOttoman Empire, in what is nowTurkey. His father, Levon (1891–1960), was born in the village ofPassen, nearErzurum, and his mother, Satenig (1900–1968), was born in the village of Govdun, nearSivas.[6][7] His father left Ottoman Armenia and made his way to Pontiac in 1912, where he found work at an automobile foundry. Satenig fled theArmenian genocide of 1915, finding refuge with relatives in Paris and eventually reuniting with her brother in Pontiac. Levon and Satenig met through the Armenian community in their city, where they married and began their family. The couple had a daughter, Margaret, in 1926, followed by son Murad, and their third and last child, Flora.[8]
When Kevorkian was a child, his parents took him to an Orthodox church weekly.[9] He started questioning the existence of a God, as he believed an all-knowing God would have prevented the Armenian genocide on his extended family. He stopped attending church by the time he was 12.[10]
Kevorkian was achild prodigy, teaching himself multiple languages (including German, Russian, Greek, and Japanese).[11] As such, he was often alienated by his peers.[12] Kevorkian graduated fromPontiac Central High School with honors in 1945, at the age of 17. In 1952, he graduated from theUniversity of Michigan Medical School inAnn Arbor.[13][14][15]
Kevorkian completed residency training in anatomical and clinical pathology and briefly conducted research on blood transfusion.[16]
Over a period of decades, Kevorkian developed several controversial ideas related to death. In a 1959 journal article, he wrote:
I propose that a prisoner condemned to death by due process of law be allowed to submit, by his own free choice, to medical experimentation under complete anaesthesia (at the time appointed for administering the penalty) as a form of execution in lieu of conventional methods prescribed by law.[17]
Senior doctors at the University of Michigan, Kevorkian's employer, opposed his proposal, and Kevorkian chose to leave the university rather than stop advocating his ideas. Ultimately, he gained little support for his plan. He returned to the idea of using death-row inmates for medical purposes after the Supreme Court's 1976 decision inGregg v. Georgia reinstituted thedeath penalty. He advocated harvesting the organs from inmates after the death penalty was carried out for transplant into sick patients, but he failed to gain the cooperation of prison officials.[18]
As apathologist at Pontiac General Hospital, Kevorkian experimented with transfusing blood from the recently deceased into live patients. He drew blood from corpses recently brought into the hospital and transferred it successfully into the bodies of hospital staff members. Kevorkian thought that the U.S. military might be interested in using this technique to help wounded soldiers during a battle, but the Pentagon was not interested.[18]
In the 1980s, Kevorkian wrote a series of articles for the German journalMedicine and Law that laid out his thinking on the ethics ofeuthanasia.[13][19]
In 1987, Kevorkian started advertising in Detroit newspapers as a physician consultant for "death counseling". His first public assisted suicide, of Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old woman diagnosed in 1989 withAlzheimer's disease, took place in 1990. Charges of murder were dropped on December 13, 1990, as there were, at that time, no laws in Michigan regarding assisted suicide.[20] In 1991, however, the State of Michigan revoked Kevorkian'smedical license and made it clear that, given his actions, he was no longer permitted to practice medicine or to work with patients.[21] His California medical license was suspended in April 1993 by anadministrative law judge, with Kevorkian's attorney responding that Kevorkian "will go on assisting people commit suicide. He dares that California judge to come catch him".[22]
According to his lawyerGeoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of 130 terminally ill people between 1990 and 1998. In each of these cases, the individuals themselves allegedly took the final action which resulted in their own deaths. Kevorkian allegedly assisted only by attaching the individual to aeuthanasia device that he had devised and constructed. The individual then pushed a button which released the drugs or chemicals that would end their own life. Two deaths were assisted by means of a device which delivered the euthanizing drugsintravenously. Kevorkian called the device a "Thanatron" ("Death machine", from theGreekthanatos meaning "death").[23] Other people were assisted by a device which employed agas mask fed by a canister ofcarbon monoxide, which Kevorkian called the "Mercitron" ("Mercy machine").[24]
My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized.
According to a report by theDetroit Free Press, 60% of the patients who died with Kevorkian's help were not terminally ill, and at least 13 had not complained of pain. The report further asserted that Kevorkian's counseling was too brief (with at least 19 patients dying less than 24 hours after first meeting Kevorkian) and lacked a psychiatric exam in at least 19 cases, 5 of which involved people with histories of depression, though Kevorkian was sometimes alerted that the patient was unhappy for reasons other than their medical condition. In 1992, Kevorkian himself wrote that it is always necessary to consult a psychiatrist when performing assisted suicides because a person's "mental state is [...] of paramount importance."[26] The report also stated that Kevorkian failed to refer at least 17 patients to a pain specialist after they complained of chronic pain and sometimes failed to obtain a complete medical record for his patients, with at least three autopsies of suicides Kevorkian had assisted with showing the person who committed suicide to have no physical sign of disease. Rebecca Badger, a patient of Kevorkian's and a mentally troubled drug abuser, had been mistakenly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The report also stated that Janet Adkins, Kevorkian's first euthanasia patient, had been chosen without Kevorkian ever speaking to her, only with her husband, and that when Kevorkian first met Adkins two days before her assisted suicide he "made no real effort to discover whether Ms. Adkins wished to end her life," as the Michigan Court of Appeals put it in a 1995 ruling upholding an order against Kevorkian's activity.[26] According toThe Economist: "Studies of those who sought out Dr. Kevorkian, however, suggest that though many had a worsening illness... it was not usually terminal. Autopsies showed five people had no disease at all... Little over a third were in pain. Some presumably suffered from no more than hypochondria or depression."[27]
In response, Kevorkian's attorneyGeoffrey Fieger published an essay stating, "I've never met any doctor who lived by such exacting guidelines as Kevorkian... [H]e published them in an article for theAmerican Journal of Forensic Psychiatry in 1992. Last year he got a committee of doctors, the Physicians of Mercy, to lay down new guidelines, which he scrupulously follows."[26] However, Fieger stated that Kevorkian found it difficult to follow his "exacting guidelines" because of "persecution and prosecution", adding, "[H]e's proposed these guidelines saying this is what ought to be done. These are not to be done in times of war, and we're at war."[26]
In a 2010 interview withSanjay Gupta, Kevorkian stated an objection to the status of assisted suicide inOregon,Washington, andMontana. At that time, only in those three states was assisted suicide legal in the United States, and then only for terminally ill patients. To Gupta, Kevorkian stated, "What difference does it make if someone is terminal? We are all terminal."[28] In his view, a patient had to be suffering but did not have to be terminally ill to be assisted in committing suicide. However, he also said in that same interview that he declined four out of every five assisted suicide requests, on the grounds that the patient needed more treatment or medical records had to be checked.[29]
In 2011,disability rights and anti-legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia group Not Dead Yet spoke out against Kevorkian, citing potentially concerning sentiments he expressed in his published writing.[30] On page 214 ofPrescription: Medicide, the Goodness of Planned Death, Kevorkian wrote that assisting "suffering or doomed persons [to] kill themselves" was "merely the first step, an early distasteful professional obligation... What I find most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of invaluable experiments or other beneficial medical acts under conditions that this first unpleasant step can help establish – in a [portmanteau] word obitiatry." In a journal article titled "The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death", Kevorkian also detailed anesthetizing, experimenting on, and utilizing the organs of a disabled newborn as a token of "daring and highly imaginative research" that would be possible "beyond the constraints of traditional but outmoded, hopelessly inadequate, and essentially irrelevant ethical codes now sustained for the most part by vacuous sentimental reverence".
Kevorkian was a jazz musician and composer.The Kevorkian Suite: A Very Still Life was a 1997 limited-release CD of 5,000 copies from the 'Lucid Subjazz' label. It features Kevorkian on the flute and organ playing his own works with "The Morpheus Quintet". It was reviewed inEntertainment Weekly online as "weird" but "good-natured".[31] As of 1997, 1,400 units had been sold.[31] Kevorkian wrote all the songs but one; the album was reviewed injazzreview.com as "very much grooviness" except for one tune, with "stuff in between that's worthy of multiple spins".[32]
He was also an oil painter. His work tended toward the grotesque and surreal, and he had created pieces of symbolic art, such as one "of a child eating the flesh off a decomposing corpse".[19] Of his known works, six were made available in the 1990s for print release. The Ariana Gallery inRoyal Oak, Michigan, is the exclusive distributor of Kevorkian's artwork. The original oil prints are not for release.[33]Sludge metal bandAcid Bath used his painting "For He is Raised" as the cover art for their 1996 albumPaegan Terrorism Tactics.[34]
In 2011, his paintings became the center of a legal entanglement between his sole heir and theArmenian Library and Museum of America.[35]
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Kevorkian was tried four times for assisting suicides between May 1994 and June 1997. With the assistance of Fieger, Kevorkian was acquitted three times. The fourth trial ended in amistrial.[1] The trials helped Kevorkian gain public support for his cause. After Oakland County prosecutor Richard Thompson lost a primary election to a Republican challenger,[36] Thompson attributed the loss in part to the declining public support for the prosecution of Kevorkian and its associated legal expenses.[37]
In the November 22, 1998, broadcast ofCBS News'60 Minutes, Kevorkian allowed the airing of a videotape he made on September 17, 1998, which depicted thevoluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, who was in the final stages ofLou Gehrig's disease. After Youk provided his fullyinformed consent (a sometimes complex legal determination made in this case by editorial consensus) on September 17, 1998, Kevorkian himself administered Thomas Youk a lethal injection. This was highly significant, as all of his earlier clients had reportedly completed the process themselves. During the videotape, Kevorkian dared the authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out mercy killings. Youk's family described the lethal injection as humane, not murder.
On November 25, 1998, Kevorkian was charged with first-degree murder and the delivery of acontrolled substance (administering the lethal injection to Thomas Youk).[13] Because Kevorkian'slicense to practice medicine had been revoked eight years previously, he was not legally allowed to possess the controlled substance.
On March 26, 1999, a jury began deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of Kevorkian.[38] He had discharged his attorneys and proceeded through the trialrepresenting himself, a decision he later regretted.[1] The judge ordered a criminal defense attorney to remain available at trial asstandby counsel for information and advice. Inexperienced in law but persisting in his efforts to represent himself, Kevorkian encountered great difficulty in presenting his evidence and arguments. He was not able to call any witnesses to the stand as the judge did not deem the testimony of any of his witnesses relevant.[39]
After a two-day trial, the Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide.[1] Judge Jessica Cooper sentenced Kevorkian to serve 10–25 years in prison and told him:
This is a court of law and you said you invited yourself here to take a final stand. But this trial was not an opportunity for a referendum. The law prohibiting euthanasia was specifically reviewed and clarified by the Michigan Supreme Court several years ago in a decision involving your very own cases, sir. So the charge here should come as no surprise to you. You invited yourself to the wrong forum. Well, we are a nation of laws, and we are a nation that tolerates differences of opinion because we have a civilized and a nonviolent way of resolving our conflicts that weighs the law and adheres to the law. We have the means and the methods to protest the laws with which we disagree. You can criticize the law, you can write or lecture about the law, you can speak to the media or petition the voters.
Kevorkian was sent toLakeland Correctional Facility inColdwater, Michigan, to serve his sentence.[40] After his conviction (and subsequent losses on appeal), Kevorkian was denied parole until 2007.[41]
In anMSNBC interview aired on September 29, 2005, Kevorkian said that if he were granted parole, he would not resume directly helping people die and would restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed. On December 22, 2005, Kevorkian was denied parole by a board on the count of 7–2 recommending not to give parole.[42]
Reportedlyterminally ill withHepatitis C, which he contracted in the 1960s, Kevorkian was expected to die within a year in May 2006.[43] After applying for a pardon, parole, or commutation by the parole board and GovernorJennifer Granholm, he was paroled for good behavior on June 1, 2007. He had spent eight years and two and a half months in prison.[44][45]
Kevorkian was on parole for two years, under the conditions that he would not help anyone else die, or provide care for anyone older than 62 or disabled.[46] Kevorkian said he would abstain from assisting any more terminal patients with death, and his role in the matter would strictly be to persuade states to change their laws on assisted suicide. He was also forbidden by the rules of his parole from commenting about assisted suicide procedure.[47][48]
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Kevorkian gave a number of lectures upon his release. He lectured at universities such as theUniversity of Florida,[49]Nova Southeastern University,[50] and theUniversity of California, Los Angeles.[51] His lectures were not limited to the topic of euthanasia; he also discussed such topics astyranny, thecriminal justice system, politics, theNinth Amendment to the United States Constitution andArmenian culture. He appeared on theFox News Channel'sYour World with Neil Cavuto on September 2, 2009, to discusshealth care reform.
On April 15 and 16, 2010, Kevorkian appeared onCNN'sAnderson Cooper 360°.[52] Cooper asked, "You are saying doctors play God all the time?" Kevorkian said: "Of course. Any time you interfere with a natural process, you are playing God."[53]DirectorBarry Levinson and actorsAl Pacino,Susan Sarandon andJohn Goodman, who appeared inYou Don't Know Jack, a film based on Kevorkian's life, were interviewed alongside Kevorkian. Kevorkian was again interviewed by Cavuto onYour World on April 19, 2010, regarding the movie and Kevorkian'sworld view.You Don't Know Jack premiered April 24, 2010, onHBO.[54] The film premiered April 14 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City. Kevorkian walked the red carpet alongsideAl Pacino, who portrayed him in the film.[55] Pacino receivedEmmy andGolden Globe awards for his portrayal and personally thanked Kevorkian, who was in the audience, upon receiving both of these awards. Kevorkian stated that the film "brings tears to my eyes – and I lived through it".[56]
On March 12, 2008, Kevorkian announced plans to run forUnited States Congress to representMichigan's 9th congressional district as an independent against eight-term congressmanJoe Knollenberg (R-Bloomfield Hills), formerMichigan Lottery commissioner andstate senatorGary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township), Adam Goodman (L-Royal Oak) andDouglas Campbell (G-Ferndale). The race had already garnered national attention due to Democrats targeting the historically Republican district based in Oakland County, which Knollenberg barely won in 2006 against a little-known opponent. The district would suffer some of the worst brunt of theGreat Recession due todeclines in Detroit's automotive industry. Upon Kevorkian's entry into the race, one analyst viewed him as a potential spoiler to Peters' candidacy.[57]
Ultimately, Kevorkian received 8,987 votes (2.6% of the vote) in the election, in which Peters defeated the incumbent Knollenberg by a nine-percent margin.[58] Peters would eventually serve three terms in Congress before making a successful run for the United States Senate.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Gary Peters | 183,311 | 52.1 | +5.9 | |
| Republican | Joe Knollenberg (i) | 150,035 | 42.6 | −9.0 | |
| Independent | Jack Kevorkian | 8,987 | 2.6 | N/A | |
| Libertarian | Adam Goodman | 4,893 | 1.4 | −0.1 | |
| Green | Douglas Campbell | 4,737 | 1.3 | +0.4 | |
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | Swing | ||||
Kevorkian had struggled with kidney problems for years.[60] He was diagnosed withliver cancer, which "may have been caused byhepatitis C," according to his longtime friend Neal Nicol.[43] Kevorkian was hospitalized on May 18, 2011, with kidney problems andpneumonia.[1] Kevorkian's condition rapidly worsened and he died from athrombosis on June 3, 2011, atWilliam Beaumont Hospital inRoyal Oak, Michigan.[1][5] According to his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, there were no artificial attempts to keep him alive and his death was painless.[43] Kevorkian was buried inWhite Chapel Memorial Cemetery inTroy, Michigan.[61]
Judge Thomas Jackson, who presided over Kevorkian's first murder trial in 1994, commented that he wanted to express sorrow at Kevorkian's death and that the 1994 case was brought under "a badly written law" aimed at Kevorkian, but he attempted to give him "the best trial possible".Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's lawyer during the 1990s, gave a speech at a press conference in which he stated: "Dr. Jack Kevorkian didn't seek out history, but he made history."[62] Fieger said that Kevorkian revolutionized the concept of suicide by working to help people end their own suffering, because he believed physicians are responsible for alleviating the suffering of patients, even if that meant allowing patients to die.[62]
Kevorkian spoke at Presbyterian and Episcopal churches to gain support for euthanasia.[63][64] John Finn, medical director of palliative care at the Catholic[65] St. John's Hospital, said Kevorkian's methods were unorthodox and inappropriate. He added that many of Kevorkian's patients were isolated, lonely, and potentially depressed, and therefore in no state to mindfully choose whether to live or die.[62]Derek Humphry, author of the suicide handbookFinal Exit, said Kevorkian was "too obsessed, too fanatical, in his interest in death and suicide to offer direction for the nation".[66]
In a 2015Retro Report story about Kevorkian's legacy and the Right to Die movement, journalist Jack Lessenberry said Kevorkian "got a national debate going, which I think he then helped stifle by his own outrageous actions".[67] Howard Markel, a medical historian at theUniversity of Michigan, said that Kevorkian "was a major historical figure in modern medicine".[62] The Catholic Church in Detroit said Kevorkian left behind a "deadly legacy" that denied scores of people their right to "dignified, natural" deaths.[68]Philip Nitschke, founder and director of right-to-die organizationExit International, said that Kevorkian "moved the debate forward in ways the rest of us can only imagine. He started at a time when it was hardly talked about and got people thinking about the issue. He paid one hell of a price, and that is one of the hallmarks of true heroism."[69]
The epitaph on Kevorkian's tombstone reads, "He sacrificed himself for everyone's rights."
In 2015, the 1968Volkswagen Type 2 van in which Jack Kevorkian assisted some of his suicidal patients was bought byparanormal investigatorZak Bagans (from the documentary seriesGhost Adventures) for display in his haunted museum inLas Vegas.[70]
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* = Revised and distributed in 2009 by World Audience, Inc.
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)Thompson, the first Oakland County prosecutor in 24 years to lose an election, agreed that the controversy clearly was an issue in his defeat.
