Jury gets Kevorkian case

March 7, 1996
Web posted at: 6:55 p.m. EST

PONTIAC, Michigan (CNN) -- The jury began deliberations Thursday in the assisted suicide trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Kevorkian's attorney urged jurors to view his client as a doctor acting out of "kindness and compassion" rather than as a criminal.

The six-man, six-woman jury will decide if Kevorkian is guilty of violating Michigan's now-lapsed assisted suicide ban when he helped two terminally ill patients kill themselves by breathing carbon monoxide in 1993.

Kevorkian could receive up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine on each of the two counts.

"We are about to make history," defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger said in closing arguments. "Not so much for Dr. Kevorkian ... but more for the fact that no prosecutor can ever attempt to convince free Americans that any law says kindness and compassion is a crime."

Assistant Oakland County prosecutor John Skrzynski, referring to the carbon monoxide, said, "This stuff is not medicine. It's a toxin. It kills."

At issue in the trial is Kevorkian's intent in the two deaths. Under the now-expired Michigan law, a person is not liable if they give a terminally ill person medicine or administer procedures to hasten death as long as the intent is to relieve pain and not to kill.

Kevorkian said his intent was only to relieve the suffering of Merian Frederick, 72, and Dr. Ali Khalili, 61. Both died in a suburban Detroit apartment rented by Kevorkian. Frederick had Lou Gehrig's disease; Khalili had bone cancer.

CNN's Ed Garsten spoke briefly with the 67-year-old former pathologist after the jury got the case. Kevorkian said he didn't want to guess at the verdict, but said that assisted suicide is a right, not a crime. (221K AIFF sound or 221K WAV sound)

Thursday morning, Judge Jessica Cooper denied a motion to dismiss charges in the case.

Fieger had argued that issues in the trial were rendered moot by a ruling from a Federal Appeals Court Wednesday that struck down Washington state's ban on doctor-assisted suicide.

"We are trying an anachronism," Fieger said.

But Cooper cited Michigan Supreme Court's ruling that there is no constitutional right to suicide. "This is the state system, not the federal system," she said in her decision.

Prosecutor Skrzynski told the jury Kevorkian was an executioner who was fascinated with death, and planned to "create human guinea pigs."

He also said Kevorkian is marketing a plan to create clinics in zones across the country where people could safely end their lives in a doctor's presence.

Fieger said throughout the trial that Kevorkian only wanted to help end the suffering of willing participants who wanted to die with dignity.

Kevorkian has taken part in 27 suicides since 1990. He was acquitted in 1994 in his first trial for assisted suicide.

Related stories:

• Doctor takes stand in assisted-suicide trial - Mar 1, 1996
• Prosecutor asks appeals court to take charge of Kevorkian trial - Feb. 26, 1996
• Kevorkian's lawyer elated as trial opens - Feb 21, 1996
• Kevorkian nonchalant - Feb. 20, 1996
• Jurors chosen in Kevorkian trial - Feb. 15, 1996
• Body found in van registered to Kevorkian - Jan. 29, 1996
• Kevorkian's lawyer says doctor present - Jan. 29, 1996

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