Kevorkian represented himself in court Wednesday RELATED VIDEO CNN's Ed Garsten reports from Pontiac, Michigan Windows Media 28K 56K   INTERACTIVE Trace Kevorkian's legal history with an interactive timeline.

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November 25, 1998
Web posted at: 6:37 p.m. EST (2337 GMT)

PONTIAC, Michigan (CNN) -- Retired pathologist and assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian was arraigned Wednesday on first-degree murder charges in the death of a 52-year-old man with Lou Gehrig's disease.

The move sets the stage for a legal showdown over assisted suicide and euthanasia

Kevorkian, who turned himself in to police in nearby Waterford Township, was freed on $750,000 bond Wednesday afternoon after he promised the judge he would not be involved in any deaths while awaiting trial. He would only have to pay the money if he violated that condition.

Prosecutors had wanted no bond set for Kevorkian, citing a past incident in which he appeared in court during the day and assisted in a suicide that night.

Kevorkian is also on a two-year probation in another district court, said Oakland County prosecutor David Gorcyca. "We feel he's a risk," he said.

Kevorkian turned himself in to police about an hour after Gorcyca announced the three-count felony indictment, which also included charges of assistance to a suicide and delivery of a controlled substance.

If convicted on the murder count, Kevorkian could face life in prison.

Gorcyca said he acted after viewing the raw videotape, provided by CBS, of Kevorkian injecting Thomas Youk with a lethal drug, which stopped his heart. An edited version was aired Sunday night on the CBS news program "60 Minutes."

Kevorkian is believed to have injected Youk with a fatal dose of potassium chloride at Youk's Waterford Township home on September 17. Three weeks earlier, Michigan's assisted suicide law went into effect, making the practice a felony.

At the time of the euthanasia, Kevorkian was on trial in an unrelated misdemeanor case, but was free on bail on condition he not participate in any assisted suicides.

Gorcyca is charging Kevorkian with murder

Prosecutors confident of conviction

Gorcyca said there was not a contradiction in charging Kevorkian with both murder and assisted suicide, and said prosecutors felt they could convict him on both counts.

"Not withstanding public sentiment on the issue of assisted suicide, it's incumbent upon me to make charging decisions solely on the law and not emotion or sympathy," Gorcyca said. "In this case there's an obvious violation of the law that I won't turn my back to."

Gorcyca also told reporters several times that it would make no difference if Houck wanted to die.

"Consent is not a viable defense in taking a life of another, even under the most controlled environment," he said.

"The time has come for Kevorkian's violations of the law and involvement in this complicated moral, legal and ethical issue to be resolved in a court of law by a jury of peers, and not in the headlines of the media or editorial pages," Gorcyca said.

The prosecutor also defended his decision not to charge the doctor until seeing the unedited videotape.

Gorcyca said Monday that he would not be "baited" into a charge without having all the evidence.

"It was vital that a decision be made only after all the facts were known," he said.

"I doubt there will come a case where there presents itself such convincing evidence of these crimes as depicted on videotape and in conjunction with admissions to having committed these crimes," Gorcyca said. "Our proofs are strong."

Kevorkian dared prosecutors to charge him

Kevorkian staged the "60 Minutes" interview in hopes that authorities would charge him and force a legal showdown over assisted suicide and euthanasia.

He told CBS' Mike Wallace if he was held in jail he would go on a hunger strike until he dies.

Kevorkian has been charged with murder before, beginning with the 1990 death of Janet Adkins of Portland, Oregon, who Kevorkian says was the first person whose death he attended.

The charge was dropped by a judge who ruled the state had no law banning assisted suicide. A 1992 charge was dropped for the same reason.

The retired pathologist also was acquitted in three trials involving five deaths. A fourth trial was declared a mistrial.

In an interview with the Oakland Press published Monday, Kevorkian said he would give Gorcyca a week to take action.

"Either charge me within a week, or I will resume my practice, and resist with all my power any attempt to arrest or hinder me," he told the paper.

Kevorkian has admitted helping more than 130 people end their lives. But he said Youk's situation was the first time he himself had directly administered the fatal dose.

Kevorkian's actions publicizing the death and challenging prosecutors to charge him have been questioned by his own lawyer, David Gorosh.

Gorosh said Wednesday that Kevorkian asked Wayne State University law professor Robert Sedler on Tuesday to become his new legal adviser.

Sedler said he won't be representing Kevorkian in a traditional sense -- only to provide legal advice.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.