Court Proceedings Against Kevorkian Dismissed Again : Assisted Suicide: The prosecutor cancels an inquest, but he warns that homicide charges are still possible against the controversial doctor.

For the third time in three years, right-to-die crusader Jack Kevorkian left a courtroom Monday with proceedings against him dismissed. But the pressure is far from over.

The prosecutor in this Detroit suburb canceled a rare public inquest about four hours after it began but said the possibility of homicide charges against Kevorkian still looms.

Meanwhile, a court fight is in progress over a new Michigan law banning the physician-assisted suicides that have brought the retired pathologist both plaudits and vilification. Kevorkian has said that he will not help any others end their lives until the legality of the measure is settled but that he intends to continue his efforts no matter what the outcome may be.

Monday’s inquest focused on the Feb. 15 death of Hugh E. Gale, a 70-year-old man who became the 13th of 15 people Kevorkian has helped to die. Gale’s death, at the home of a Kevorkian associate in this working-class community, drew attention after an anti-abortion activist turned over to authorities a document suggesting that it may not have been voluntary.

The document, taken from the trash outside the home, quotes Gale as saying, “Take it off!” about 45 seconds after he had placed a plastic mask over his nose and mouth and activated a flow of carbon monoxide to the mask. The mask was immediately removed and oxygen applied. Gale then decided to continue.

But, the report says, Gale later changed his mind again, crying, “Take it off!” once more. The mask was left in place and about eight minutes later, he took his last breath.

Kevorkian’s attorney, Geoffrey N. Fieger, said the paper is an error-ridden draft, which also was dated Feb. 12, three days before Gale’s death. Fieger said it had been thrown out “because that’s all it was, a piece of garbage.”

At the request of Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney Carl J. Marlinga, Roseville District Judge Mark S. Switaski dismissed the inquest--during which a six-member jury decides if a death was unlawful.

Marlinga said he canceled the inquest only because Gale’s widow, Cheryl, and Neal Nicol, in whose home Gale died, have agreed to testify in depositions, tentatively scheduled for this weekend. The prosecutor said he will decide shortly afterward whether to press charges against Kevorkian.

Gale and Nicol had refused to testify at the inquest, citing their right under the Fifth Amendment not to incriminate themselves. Both were offered immunity from prosecution but declined, and Switaski said he would not compel testimony.

Kevorkian also invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, calling the session “an inquisition.”

During a midday break, according to Marlinga, Gale and Nicol said they would take his questions after all--in the privacy of their attorney’s office.

Before the inquest was cut short, a pathologist who conducted the autopsy testified that Gale’s emphysema, while advanced, “was not a terminal state.”

Fieger said later in an interview: “Mr. Gale had not been out of the house in five years. He had not been out of his chair in three years. He couldn’t walk 10 feet to go to a bathroom.”

As the pathologist began speaking, Cheryl Gale hurried into the hallway, biting her lips and clearly fighting back tears.

She also left the room before a police video replayed the death scene, showing her husband slumped against an armchair, mask over his face, right hand on a clip that controlled the flow from a canister of the odorless, colorless poison that killed him.

Gale filed her own lawsuit on Monday, seeking $10 million in damages from the people who spurred Marlinga to act in the first place. Among others, she named Lynn Mills, a local spokeswoman for the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who found the document in the trash, and Richard Thompson, the prosecutor in neighboring Oakland County, who earlier brought charges in two cases involving three deaths in Kevorkian’s presence.

The lawsuit alleges defamation and invasion of privacy. Mills called it “a smoke screen” and Thompson called it “absurdity.”