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MICHIGAN---The two-member Michigan Parole Board voted Wednesday to grant parole in June 2007 to Jack "Dr. Death" Kervorkian, one of the most vocal proponents for assisted suicide for the terminally ill with his promise that he won't assist in any more suicides.
Kervorkian, 78, has served eight years of a 10 to 25-year sentence for second degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, 52, a Michigan man afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease. He had fatally injected drugs in Youk, taping the procedure which was later shown on "60 Minutes", claiming it was euthanasia or mercy killing but the jury said it was murder. The airing of the tape led to his arrest.
Kervorkian was convicted in April 1999 of second degree murder in connection with Youk's death and has been incarcerated at the Thumb Correction Facility in Lapeer, Mich. Kervorkian admitted to participating in at least 130 assisted suicides.
The parole board had turned down previous requests in May and last December for Kervorkian's parole.
In an interview with MSNBC in September 2005, Kervorkian had said if he was released he would campaign to legalize assisted suicide but would not "perform that act again when I get out" or encourage other doctors to do so. He said that he would use legal and legislative means to change the law to have other states join Oregon, the only state currently where assisted suicide is legal.
In his prior requests for parole, Kervorkian's attorneys and doctors had stated that he would probably not survive another year if kept in prison because his health has deteriorated so rapidly. He has become increasingly frail and suffers from seriously high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, temporal arthritis, active Hepatitis C which is violently attacking his liver, the attorney says. Kevorkian contracted the Hepatitis C during Vietnam in the service of his country testing soldiers' blood transfusions.
A MSNBC national poll conducted last year showed that 88% of respondents believed that Kevorkian should be released immediately, according to Morganroth. Similarly, other polls, including one conducted by Comcast, overwhelmingly support Dr. Kevorkian's immediate release from prison, he said.
The parole board also turned down previous requests in 2003 and 2004.
12-13-06
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Country Gazette
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