JACK KEVORKIAN

Kevorkian, silent, starts prison term

April 14, 1999

BY BRIAN MURPHY

Free Press Staff Writer

After waging a scornful and defiant nine-year crusade for assisted suicide, Dr. Jack Kevorkian spoke nary a whisper Tuesday as he was sent to prison for murder, bringing opponents to cheers, supporters to tears and an international movement to a crossroads.

In a stinging lecture to the man who dragged the euthanasia debate into her courtroom with the nationally televised death of Thomas Youk, Oakland County Circuit Judge Jessica Cooper gave Kevorkian 10 to 25 years. He had lethally injected Youk, a 52-year-old Lou Gehrig's disease patient from Waterford Township who sought Kevorkian's help and died Sept. 17.

Kevorkian videotaped the death and sent it to CBS's "60 Minutes," which broadcast Youk's final moments to more than 15 million viewers Nov. 22. He challenged prosecutors to charge him.

"This trial was not about the political or moral correctness of euthanasia," Cooper told Kevorkian, who did not speak to the court but grinned at times. "It was about lawlessness.... No one, sir, is above the law."

Cooper denied a request by Kevorkian's attorneys to free him on bond pending appeals.

Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor John Skrzynski said Kevorkian, 70, will serve at least two-thirds of his minimum sentence, which means the retired pathologist will not be eligible for parole until he is 77.

Kevorkian, who has acknowledged helping 130 people die since 1990, smiled and shook hands with his lawyers and tearful jury consultants, Ruth and Sarah Holmes, before he was handcuffed by Oakland County sheriff's deputies and taken to jail.

After being fingerprinted and photographed, Kevorkian, clad in an orange jail jumpsuit and secured by handcuffs and belly chains, was taken to an intake center in Jackson shortly before 4 p.m. After he is assessed, prison officials will determine where to house him.

Kevorkian was convicted March 26 of second-degree murder and delivery of a controlled substance in Youk's death.

Cooper gave him three to seven years on the drug charge, which will run concurrently with his murder sentence.

The 10-to-25-year term is what state sentencing guidelines call for. Cooper had discretion to sentence outside those boundaries. Probation officials had recommended a minimum six-year term.

The average minimum sentence for second-degree murder in Michigan was 20.3 years in 1997, the most recent year available, said Matt Davis, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

The sentencing left Kevorkian's friends and his current and former attorneys stunned and saddened, and it angered Youk's relatives.

"Any American who has watched this trial and this sentencing should be outraged," said Youk's brother Terry. "I don't believe that Dr. Kevorkian is a criminal, and I don't believe he should be put in prison."

Skrzynski, whose case was aided by Cooper's ruling to block testimony about Youk's suffering from jurors, lauded the judge for following the sentencing guidelines.

"There was so much talk that this man is special and that this crime is special. He's not special," Skrzynski said. "He's a man who broke the law."

Members of the anti-Kevorkian disability-rights group Not Dead Yet, who say he targets vulnerable people, were elated with the sentencing.

They cheered, cried and embraced outside the courtroom, singing and chanting "Dingdong, Jack is gone" and "Get to jail, Jack, and don't you come back."

Meanwhile, right-to-die activists in the Hemlock Society decried the imprisonment of their most outspoken champion.

"His intentions and goals were not vicious or malicious; he was doing what he thought was a help to someone," said Hemlock of Michigan President Shaw Livermore.

The polarized post-mortems followed an emotionally charged one-hour hearing in a stuffy courtroom that was packed with tension and the gravity of history.

Melody Youk spoke eloquently about her husband and the man convicted of murdering him in a tearful plea to Cooper for leniency.

She and Terry Youk spoke of Thomas Youk's courage in battling his disease. They said he sought Kevorkian's help because he didn't want to live his evaporating days unable to walk, talk and eat without help.

Outside the courtroom, Melody Youk issued a warning to supporters of assisted suicide: "You better do something about it now because Jack won't be around for a while, apparently," she said.

Terry Youk, a documentary filmmaker from Vermont, said he plans to become a right-to-die advocate and produce materials supporting assisted suicide.

Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's former attorney who steered him successfully through three prior trials, said the sentence would amount to a death penalty.

"I'm very sad. My heart goes out to him," Fieger said during a break in the civil case he's handling against the "Jenny Jones" show, a trial going on in the same courthouse. "He did things to destroy himself, and it saddens me deeply."

Thirty minutes after Kevorkian was led away smiling in handcuffs, his cadre of attorneys stood glumly in a dim hallway of the courthouse basement, waiting to talk to their client.

After a short meeting, Mayer Morganroth described Kevorkian as upbeat. "His spirits are good. His mood was good. Everybody was very unhappy except him. He was cheering us up."

Morganroth said the defense may appeal the verdict, or ask for a new trial, within six weeks.

After he was charged in November, Kevorkian vowed to starve himself if sentenced to prison. He has since backed off, saying he will wait until his appeals are exhausted.

But if he refuses to eat, correctionsofficials legally cannot force-feed him, said John Truscott, Gov. John Engler's spokesman. "If that's his choice, we can't do anything about it," Truscott said. Asked whether Kevorkian might try a hunger strike, consultant Ruth Holmes said she wasn't sure, "but he ate a good lunch today."

"Don't worry about Dr. Kevorkian. He'll be around for a long time."

bei tempi quelli in cui i radicali si occupavano non solo di liberta' economiche...