[EDITOR'S NOTE: With the third assisted suicide trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian beginning, Court TV challenged Kevorkian's lawyer and a prosecutor opposing him to a Right-to-Die debate. On April 2, 1996, the second day of jury selection, defense lawyer Geoffrey Fieger and prosecutor John Skrzynski met after court in America Online's Main Stage. Questions were posed by the audience.]
Court TV: Welcome to a right-to-die debate. Our guests tonight will be Jack Kevorkian's lawyer Geoffrey Fieger and Oakland County assistant prosecutor John Skrzynski. They are opposing attorneys in the Kevorkian trial that began this week.
Our rules tonight: We will take questions from the audience. Then each lawyer will get a chance to offer his position. They will alternate; Mr. Skrynski will go first.
Question: How does the case last month [against Jack Kevorkian] differ from the one that's starting now?
John Skrzynski: First, neither of the women involved in this case had a terminal illness. [In the last case, those who received assisted suicide had less than six months to live.] And second, the last case was prosecuted under a statute, while this case is being brought under the common law. So the law is different [this time], too. And what we have to prove is different.
As of today, it is still not settled exactly what the elements of the crime are. The Court of Appeals will be deciding that issue soon. The Supreme Court has halted the trial until the Court of Appeals decides.
Geoffrey Fieger: This case is different from the prior case in several ways. First, the prior case was tried under a law that had expired. The jury had found Dr. Kevorkian not guilty on both charges. The jury found that Dr. Kevorkian had intended to relieve pain and
suffering, and was not the killer the prosecutor that the had painted him to be.
The new case is the equivalent of children playing a game and making up the rules as they go along. In Michigan, the appellate court system is populated by right-wing radicals. When they saw that no jury would convict Dr. Kevorkian under a law passed by the legislature, the radicals made up a law and claimed it was an unwritten common law
that had secretly existed -- and no one knew about. Thus, the new case claimed that Dr. Kevorkian, in 1991, violated a secret unwritten law that had not been discovered until late 1994. Can one believe that this is going on in America in 1996?
Question: I understand in this case that the prosecutors are not using the so-called Anti-Kevorkian law. They are using the Michigan common law. What does Michigan common
law say on medically assisted suicide?
Geoffrey Fieger: There is no such thing as unwritten Michigan common law unless you believe in the tooth fairy. Apparently, according to the prosecutor, unwritten law is whatever they can get a fascist on the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court to say it is at any particular time.
John Skrzynski: This is the very first opportunity for [Kevorkian] to be tried under the common law. The court did not find a common law offense existed after Kevorkian was acquitted; rather, they interpreted the law. Originally, under Michigan case law, assisting a suicide was considered murder. That was on our books as early as the 1920's. In 1994, the Michigan Supreme Court modified the law, changing assisting suicide from murder to a five-year felony called criminal assisted suicide.
There is no fascist plot anywhere -- it is simply an interpretation of Michigan's laws. As to what common law is, before laws were collected as statutes, disputes were decided on a case-by-case basis. Gradually courts began to keep records of their findings, and those records were used to guide courts in deciding similar subsequent disputes. This collection of records is the common law. Eventually the common law was codified by legislatures into statutes. Michigan's constitution preserves any of the common law.
Question: What would Dr. Kevorkian do if someone <I>did</I> change their mind at the
last minute? Could he stop the process?
Geoffrey Fieger: The patient always has total control and can stop the process up until the last moment. Dr. Kevorkian has absolutely no control over the process. It is totally under the patient's control. With the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals [decision], and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling today that assisted suicide is a constitutional right, the trial going on in Michigan against Dr. Kevorkian is the equivalent of trying to jail Rosa Parks for riding in the front of the bus.
John Skrzynski: Neither of [those] two federal courts involved Michigan; furthermore, when the Michigan Supreme Court held that assisted suicide is not constitutional right, and Kevorkian tried to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, they refused to hear the case. It is likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse both the Second and Ninth Circuit courts.
Question: I understand Dr. Kevorkian [came to court] dressed like Thomas Jefferson this week and in the last trial he dressed like a prisoner from the Middle Ages. What sort of message is he trying to send by doing this?
John Skrzynski: Kevorkian belittles the system. He has always failed in the system -- and so he belittles it. The only way he has gotten notoriety and attention is by defying
the system. Everything he does demonstrates what an outsider he is. This is just another example.
Geoffrey Fieger: If it weren't for Jack Kevorkian, the Oregon voters would have never
passed the law allowing assisted suicide. It would have never been on the ballot in Washington or California; the Ninth Circuit would not have ruled it was a
fundamental right for the western United States and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals would not have ruled it was a fundament right for the eastern United States. Although Michigan is a progressive state, it has been politically taken over by the radical Christian right wing. As a result, the persecution against Dr. Kevorkian continues and whatever statement he can make to underscore to the world the anachronistic persecution that continues here is appropriate.
Question: Is jury selection in this sort of case more important than in other
cases, since this issue calls on people's personal beliefs?
Geoffrey Fieger: Yes.
John Skrzynski: I agree.
Question: If a person chooses death because of inadequate help and unaddressed pain relief, are they really making a free choice?
John Skrzynski: Obviously they are under the influence of their pain, and I think you have to ask what kind of legitimate medical treatment they have had. Have they really had adequate treatment for their pain? A lot is available. Unfortunately the medical community may not be doing the best job of informing people of what <i>is</i> available.
Geoffrey Fieger: One of the platitudes always used by the right-to-life organizations is that people who are dying or in tremendous pain are not getting adequate medical treatment or pain relief, and thus their desire to end their suffering by ending their life is the result of inadequate treatment. Until you are the person suffering from the pain, you cannot possibly know how horrible it really is. Who would want right-to-life [advocates] telling us that we have to continue to be tortured by the disease from which we are suffering?
Question: Has anyone suggested putting this trial on hold till the Supreme Court rules on this matter?
Geoffrey Fieger: No one has suggested that this case be put on hold for two reasons: One, we don't want the case put on hold because the jury is going to acquit Dr. Kevorkian and expose the prosecutor for the fascist that he is. Two, the prosecutor does not want to put the case on hold, as any delay in the case might leave it pending during the election in the fall. The voters of Oakland County are sure to throw him out of office for the millions of dollars he has wasted for attempting to persecute Dr. Kevorkian.
John Skrzynski: The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Kevorkian's appeal from Michigan's ruling. The federal courts have held in direct contradiction to Michigan's Supreme Court. Therefore you can predict that the Supreme Court will
reverse the federal court. As to his charges of a waste of taxpayer money, any money spent for the prosecution is part of the prosecutor's budget, allocated by the Board of Commissioners. No money being spent on Kevorkian would otherwise be spent on anything else. All the work that is given to the prosecutor is being done. There is no waste of money.
Question: What other countries permit euthanasia? How is it accepted there?
John Skrzynski: The one that I am most familiar with is the Netherlands. It is not legal there, but the law is simply not enforced. Studies have been done on the Netherlands and show that patients are being euthanized even against their will. So-called assisted suicide is being abused by doctors ors in the Netherlands. That is the true danger of assisted suicide: There is no meaningful way to regulate it. Once you open the floodgates, you lose control.
Geoffrey Fieger: Everything the prosecutor said is bunk. To think that the Netherlands, a progressive western democracy, is liberalizing euthanasia even though the prosecutor claims it is being abused is absurd. Euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal in the following countries and geographic area, either on a <I>de facto</I> or a <I>de jure</I> [basis]: Netherlands, Northern Territories of Australia, Germany, Norway, nine western states of the U.S., including Oregon, California and Washington, New York and the other eastern states which make up the Second Circuit Court of Appeals district.
Question: What does Kevorkian do if there is conflict in the family over
dying? Would he take the case?
Geoffrey Fieger: Dr. Kevorkian has strict set of criteria which would prevent him from taking a case if all the family members did not agree. This was particularly true in the case of Dr. Kloster, whose son felt that God intended that his father should suffer the ravages of Alzheimer's disease rather than end his life before he was curled up into a fetal
position (the manner in which this disease would kill him).
John Skrzynski: Kevorkian's alleged strict criteria arise from his book, <I>Medicide, the Goodness of Planned Death</I>, in which he says that his ultimate aim is not merely helping doomed people kill themselves. Kevorkian writes that he would find the greatest satisfaction in performing experiments and drug trials on live human beings before they are euthanized.
Question: Is it possible that [assisted suicide] will move through each state because of the cost of dying?
John Skrzynski: This is going to be one of the biggest threats of all involving assisted suicide. If assisted suicide becomes an option, I believe that there is a strong financial incentive to substitute assisted suicide for extended health care for those with chronic and terminal illnesses. Once the financial incentive kicks in we will lose control completely over assisted suicide and those who are exposed to it. Rather than an option, assisted suicide will become a duty. These are very real dangers in these times, and something people should think about.
Geoffrey Fieger: The prosicutor mouths the lies of [the] right-to-life [movement] and the moneyed medical society. Can you believe that in America in 1996 we have people like the Oakland County prosicutor not only saying that when we are suffering we can be kept alive against our will, but also that they can take all our money from us while they are keeping us alive? We all need to be protected from these people. These people are really dangerous -- they are the equivalent of communists trying to run our life. Anyone who loves freedom will take a stand against these people. If we don't, they own our lives, and government can tell us when we are allowed to die.
John Skrzynski: Just get Kevorkian's book and read it. I think you will be shocked and amazed by what he really has to say.
CourtTV: I want to thank both our guests.
(Copyright 1996 Court TV; licensed to America Online, Inc.)
