Kevorkian Is Dragged to Jail in Court Protest

With his legs dragging behind him, Dr. Jack Kevorkian on Friday was carried out of a Detroit court to jail, where he vowed to begin a hunger strike in protest of Michigan’s law banning assisted suicides.

The 65-year-old retired pathologist was jailed after he refused Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge Thomas Jackson’s order to post a $20,000 bond.

He then went limp at his seat. Two court deputies lifted him and removed him from the room. He was eventually put in a wheelchair and taken to the Wayne County Jail. Kevorkian was placed in a 10-foot-by-10-foot cell away from other prisoners.

Kevorkian has twice been charged with violating Michigan’s 8-month-old law against aiding suicides, but he had remained free on personal bond, which requires no cash payment to the court, until the judge’s order.

“There is no way he will post bond,” said Kevorkian’s attorney, Geoffrey Fieger. “He will not buy his freedom.” Nor, Fieger said, will Kevorkian eat while behind bars. “This is his last control over his own life. He will not live as a slave,” he said.

But Wayne County officials made preparations to force-feed Kevorkian if necessary. “That’s probably 25 to 30 days from now,” said Sheriff Robert Ficano.

This is the first time Kevorkian has been jailed since he began assisting the terminally ill who want to take their own lives. Since 1990, he has attended 19 deaths, but all murder and assisted-suicide charges were dismissed until September, when Kevorkian was charged with a felony for assisting in the August suicide of Thomas Hyde, 30, who had Lou Gehrig’s disease.

It was the first time Kevorkian had aided a suicide since Michigan enacted its ban on the practice.

Only hours after Kevorkian was released on a personal bond in that case, police responded to an emergency call at the Redford Township, Mich., home of Donald O’Keefe, 73. O’Keefe, a retired tool and die maker, took his life while suffering from bone cancer. Kevorkian was present when police arrived.

“The court rules say that one of the conditions of having a personal bond is that you not commit any more crimes while you are on bond,” said Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Kenny, who argued Friday for an increased bond.

In raising the bond, the judge said Kevorkian had shown “utter contempt and flagrant violation” of the law.

Last month, Merian Frederick, 72, also a victim of Lou Gehrig’s disease, was found dead in Kevorkian’s Royal Oak, Mich., apartment. Again, Kevorkian was present when police responded to a 911 call. No charges have been filed in the case, although the Oakland County medical examiner has declared the death a homicide.

Last August, Kevorkian detailed in a news conference how he assisted in Hyde’s death, using a face mask, tubing and a canister of carbon monoxide in the back of the doctor’s van parked near Belle Isle, Mich.

Kevorkian said he placed the mask on Hyde’s face while Hyde pulled a string releasing the lethal gas.

Kevorkian has not offered public explanations of his involvement in the two most recent deaths.

In 1991, the Michigan Board of Medicine suspended Kevorkian’s medical license. His California medical license was suspended earlier this year.

On Nov. 16, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Kaufman will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the ban on assisted suicide.

To date, two Michigan judges have upheld the law and one has ruled against it. The law remains in effect while it is under review by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, a special state commission on assisted suicide is to begin public hearings on the issue Monday in Detroit.

If convicted of breaking the law in the death of Hyde, Kevorkian faces up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine.

Fieger predicted that Kevorkian will not be freed unless the statute is struck down.

“Right now we’re doing the death watch on Jack Kevorkian,” he said.