Judge Orders Kevorkian to Be Tried in Assisted Suicide

A judge refused Friday to dismiss the last remaining charge against retired pathologist Jack Kevorkian and ordered him to stand trial in the assisted suicide of a man with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge Thomas E. Jackson set the trial for April 19, saying he was not bound by previous rulings that Michigan’s blanket ban on assisted suicide is unconstitutional. Three other charges have been dismissed by other judges.

Kevorkian, who advocates physician-aided suicide for the terminally ill, said a trial would be a “farce.” He has been present at the deaths of 20 people since 1990.

“Nobody’s going to trample my rights,” he said after Friday’s hearing. “This trial is a touch of the Inquisition.”

Kevorkian is charged with helping Thomas Hyde commit suicide last summer. He faces up to four years in prison and a $2,000 fine if convicted in the case.

Defense lawyers want to introduce as evidence a videotape of the 30-year-old Hyde--who could barely speak, swallow or move--asking Kevorkian to help him die.

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Tim Kenny is trying to block introduction of that tape.

“Certainly, it’s an emotional tape that generates a lot of sympathy for the defense,” Kenny said.

Hyde died on Aug. 4 in the back of Kevorkian’s 1968 Volkswagen van. Kevorkian called police to the van, where they found Hyde wearing an oxygen mask hooked to a carbon monoxide canister.

Three circuit court judges in Michigan have found the state’s assisted suicide law unconstitutional on various grounds and dismissed three other charges against Kevorkian. The Michigan Court of Appeals is considering appeals of those rulings.

Kenny said he would have preferred to wait for the higher court ruling before proceeding with the trial. But Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian’s attorney, said he wanted to go forward.

“We don’t want to be held hostage here. We want to go to trial,” Fieger told the judge.

Kevorkian has at times gone to jail, staged a hunger strike and worn an electronic ankle bracelet under house arrest in his battle against the assisted suicide law. It was enacted by the Legislature last year specifically to stop him.

Free on bail in the Hyde case, he is now leading a petition drive for a state constitutional amendment to declare assisted suicide a fundamental constitutional right.