Suicide Doctor’s Backers Rally to Demand His Release From Jail

Supporters marched in front of a Detroit jail Saturday to demand the release of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who is staging a hunger strike to advocate doctor-assisted suicide.

Holding placards saying, “Stay Out of My Life, and Death,” the crowd of more than 200 chanted “Free Jack now!” outside the prison where the 65-year-old retired pathologist has been held in a 10-by-10-foot isolated cell since Friday.

Kevorkian has refused all food and is staying in bed, accepting only juice and water, said his lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger.

Emerging from the detention building amid cheers, Fieger said Kevorkian could hear their chants and was so moved that he cried.

Kevorkian was dragged out of a courtroom and jailed Friday when he refused to post a newly raised bond.

Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge Thomas Jackson granted a request from prosecutors to increase the bond to $20,000, requiring Kevorkian to put up $2,000 to be released.

Jackson told Kevorkian he had shown “utter contempt and flagrant violation” of the law by helping 72-year-old cancer patient Donald O’Keefe commit suicide while Kevorkian was free on personal bond pending trial in the Aug. 4 assisted suicide of Thomas Hyde. Hyde, 30, was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Kevorkian also is charged in the Sept. 9 death of O’Keefe. The death of a 73-year-old woman at Kevorkian’s apartment on Oct. 22 is still being investigated.

Kevorkian, who has been present at the deaths of 19 people since 1990, was charged under Michigan’s 8-month-old law banning assisted suicide. Convictions carry penalties of up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine.

Fieger said he would file an appeal Monday to overturn the bond decision.