Jacob "Jack" Kevorkian commonly known as "Dr. Death", was an American
pathologist,
euthanasia activist,
painter,
composer and
instrumentalist died from pulmonary thrombosis he was , 83. He is best known for publicly championing a
terminal patient's
right to die via
physician-assisted suicide; he said he assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He famously said, "dying is not a crime".
Beginning in 1999, Kevorkian served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for
second-degree murder. He was released on
parole on June 1, 2007, on condition he would not offer suicide advice to any other person.
As an
oil painter and a
jazz musician, Kevorkian marketed limited quantities of his visual and musical artwork to the public.
(May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011),
Early life
Kevorkian was born in
Pontiac, Michigan to
Armenian immigrants. His father Levon was born in the village of Passen, near the ancient Armenian city of
Garin, and his mother Satenig was born in the village of Govdun, near
Sepastia.
[5] His father moved from Turkey in 1912 and made his way to Pontiac, where he found work at an automobile foundry. Satenig fled the
Armenian Genocide of 1915, finding refuge with relatives in Paris, and eventually reuniting with her brother in Pontiac. Levon and Satenig met through the Armenian community in their city, where they married and began their family. The couple had a daughter, Margaret, in 1926, followed by son Jacob — who later earned the nickname "Jack" from an American teacher who misread the birth certificate
[6] — and, lastly, the third child, a daughter, Flora.
[7] Kevorkian, who taught himself German and Japanese,
[8] graduated from
Pontiac Central High School with honors in 1945, at the age of 17. In 1952, he graduated from the
University of Michigan Medical School in
Ann Arbor.
[9][10][11] Kevorkian never married.
[12]
Career
In the 1980s, Kevorkian wrote a series of articles for the German journal
Medicine and Law that laid out his thinking on the ethics of
euthanasia.
[13][14]
Kevorkian started advertising in
Detroit newspapers in 1987 as a physician consultant for "death counseling". His first public assisted suicide was in 1990, of
Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old woman diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease in 1989. He was charged with
murder, but charges were dropped on December 13, 1990 as there were, at that time, no laws in Michigan regarding assisted suicide.
[15] However, in 1991 the State of Michigan revoked Kevorkian's
medical license and made it clear that given his actions, he was no longer permitted to practice medicine or to work with patients.
[16] Between 1990 and 1998, Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of 130 terminally ill people, according to his lawyer
Geoffrey Fieger. In each of these cases, the individuals themselves allegedly took the final action which resulted in their own deaths. Kevorkian allegedly assisted only by attaching the individual to a
euthanasia device that he had made. The individual then pushed a button which released the drugs or chemicals that would end his or her own life. Two deaths were assisted by means of a device which delivered the euthanizing drugs mechanically through an
I.V. Kevorkian called it a "
Thanatron" (death machine).
[17] Other people were assisted by a device which employed a
gas mask fed by a canister of
carbon monoxide which was called "
Mercitron" (mercy machine).
[18]
Criticism and Kevorkian's Response
According to a report by the
Detroit Free Press, 60% of the patients who committed suicide with Kevorkian's help were not terminally ill - at least 17 of them could have lived indefinitely - and in 13 cases, the patients had no complaints of pain. The report further asserted that Kevorkian's counseling was too brief (with at least 19 patients dying less than 24 hours after first meeting Kevorkian) and lacked a psychiatric exam in at least 19 cases, 5 of which involved people with histories of depression, though Kevorkian was sometimes alerted that the patient was unhappy for reasons other than their medical condition. (In 1992, Kevorkian himself wrote that it is always necessary to consult a psychiatrist when performing assisted suicides because a person's "mental state is . . . of paramount importance."
[19]) The report also stated that Kevorkian failed to refer at least 17 patients to a pain specialist after they complained of chronic pain, and sometimes failed to obtain a complete medical record for his patients, with at least three autopsies of suicides Kevorkian had assisted with showing the person who committed suicide to have no physical sign of disease. Rebecca Badger, a patient of Kevorkian's and a mentally troubled drug abuser, had been mistakenly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The report also stated that Janet Adkins, Kevorkian's first patient, had been chosen without Kevorkian ever speaking to her, only with her husband, and that when Kevorkian first met Adkins two days before her assisted suicide he "made no real effort to discover whether Ms. Adkins wished to end her life," as the Michigan Court of Appeals put it in a 1995 ruling upholding an order against Kevorkian's activity.
[19] Furthermore, according to the
The Economist: "Studies of those who sought out Dr. Kevorkian, however, suggest that though many had a worsening illness ... it was not usually terminal. Autopsies showed five people had no disease at all. ... Little over a third were in pain. Some presumably suffered from no more than hypochondria or depression."
[20]
In response, Kevorkian's attorney Geoffrey Fieger published an essay stating, "I've never met any doctor who lived by such exacting guidelines as Kevorkian ... he published them in an article for the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry in 1992. Last year he got a committee of doctors, the Physicians of Mercy, to lay down new guidelines, which he scrupulously follows."
[19] Fieger stated that Kevorkian found it difficult to follow his "exacting guidelines" due to "persecution and prosecution", adding "[H]e's proposed these guidelines saying this is what ought to be done. These are not to be done in times of war, and we're at war."
[19]
In a 2010 interview with
Sanjay Gupta, Kevorkian stated an objection to the status of assisted suicide in
Oregon,
Washington, and
Montana. Only in those three states is assisted suicide legal in the United States, and then only for terminally ill patients. To Gupta, Kevorkian stated "What difference does it make if someone is terminal? We are all terminal."
[21] In his view, a patient did not have to be terminally ill to be assisted in committing suicide, but did need to be suffering. However, he also said in that same interview that he declined four out of every five assisted suicide requests, on the grounds that the patient needed more treatment or medical records had to be checked.
[22]
Art career
Kevorkian was a
jazz musician and
composer.
The Kevorkian Suite: A Very Still Life was a 1997 limited release CD of 5,000 copies from the 'Lucid Subjazz' label. It features Kevorkian on the
flute and
organ playing his own works with "The Morpheus Quintet". It was reviewed in
Entertainment Weekly online as "weird" but "good natured".
[23] As of 1997, 1,400 units had been sold.
[23] Kevorkian wrote all the songs but one; the album was reviewed in
jazzreview.com as "very much grooviness" except for one tune, with "stuff in between that's worthy of multiple spins."
[24]
He was also an oil painter. His work tended toward the grotesque; he sometimes painted with his own blood, and had created pictures such as one "of a child eating the flesh off a decomposing corpse."
[14] Of his known works, six were made available in the 1990s for print release. The Ariana Gallery in
Royal Oak, Michigan is the exclusive distributor of Kevorkian's artwork. The original oil prints are not for release.
[25] Sludge metal band
Acid Bath used his painting "For He is Raised" as the cover art for their 1996 album
Paegan Terrorism Tactics.
[26]
Trials
Kevorkian was tried four times for assisting suicides between May 1994 to June 1997. With the assistance of Fieger, Kevorkian was acquitted three times. The fourth trial ended in a
mistrial.
[2] The trials helped Kevorkian gain public support for his cause. After Oakland County prosecutor Richard Thompson lost a primary election to a Republican challenger,
[27] Thompson attributed the loss in part to the declining public support for the prosecution of Kevorkian and its associated legal expenses.
[28]
Conviction and imprisonment
On the November 22, 1998 broadcast of
60 Minutes, Kevorkian allowed the airing of a videotape he had made on September 17, 1998, which depicted the
voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, who was in the final stages of
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. After Youk provided his fully informed consent (a sometimes complex legal determination made in this case by editorial consensus) on September 17, 1998, Kevorkian himself administered Thomas Youk a lethal injection. This was highly significant, as all of his earlier clients had reportedly completed the process themselves. During the videotape, Kevorkian dared the authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out mercy killings.
On March 26, 1999, Kevorkian was charged with second-degree
murder and the delivery of a
controlled substance (administering the lethal injection to Thomas Youk).
[9] Kevorkian's
license to practice medicine had been revoked eight years previously; he was not legally allowed to possess the controlled substance. As homicide law is relatively fixed and routine, this trial was markedly different from earlier ones that involved an area of law in flux (assisted suicide). Kevorkian discharged his attorneys and proceeded through the trial
representing himself, a decision he later regretted.
[2] The judge ordered a criminal defense attorney to remain available at trial as
standby counsel for information and advice. Inexperienced in law but persisting in his efforts to represent himself, Kevorkian encountered great difficulty in presenting his evidence and arguments. He was not able to call any witnesses to the stand as the judge did not deem the testimony of any of his witnesses relevant.
[29]
After a two day trial, the Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide.
[2] Judge Jessica Cooper sentenced Kevorkian to serve 10–25 years in prison and told him:
This is a court of law and you said you invited yourself here to take a final stand. But this trial was not an opportunity for a referendum. The law prohibiting euthanasia was specifically reviewed and clarified by the Michigan Supreme Court several years ago in a decision involving your very own cases, sir. So the charge here should come as no surprise to you. You invited yourself to the wrong forum. Well, we are a nation of laws, and we are a nation that tolerates differences of opinion because we have a civilized and a nonviolent way of resolving our conflicts that weighs the law and adheres to the law. We have the means and the methods to protest the laws with which we disagree. You can criticize the law, you can write or lecture about the law, you can speak to the media or petition the voters.
Kevorkian was sent to a prison in
Coldwater, Michigan to serve his sentence.
[30]After his conviction (and subsequent losses on appeal) Kevorkian was denied parole repeatedly until 2007.
[31]
In an
MSNBC interview aired on September 29, 2005, Kevorkian said that if he were granted parole, he would not resume directly helping people die and would restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed. On December 22, 2005, Kevorkian was denied parole by a board on the count of 7–2 recommending not to give parole.
[32]
Reportedly
terminally ill with
Hepatitis C, which he contracted while doing research on
blood transfusions,
[33] Kevorkian was expected to die within a year in May 2006. After applying for a pardon, parole, or commutation by the parole board and Governor
Jennifer Granholm, he was paroled for good behavior on June 1, 2007. He had spent eight years and two and a half months in prison.
[34][35]
Kevorkian was on parole for two years, under the conditions that he not help anyone else die, or provide care for anyone older than 62 or disabled.
[36] Kevorkian said he would abstain from assisting any more terminal patients with death, and his role in the matter would strictly be to persuade states to change their laws on assisted suicide. He was also forbidden by the rules of his parole from commenting about assisted suicide.
[37][38]
Activities after his release from prison
Kevorkian gave a number of lectures upon his release. He lectured at universities such as the
University of Florida,
[39] Nova Southeastern University,
[40] and the
University of California, Los Angeles.
[41] His lectures have not been limited to the topic of euthanasia; he has also discussed such topics as tyranny, the criminal justice system, politics, the
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Armenian culture. He appeared on
Fox News Channel's
Your World with Neil Cavuto on September 2, 2009 to discuss
health care reform.
On April 15 and 16, 2010, Kevorkian appeared on
CNN's
Anderson Cooper 360°,
[42] Anderson asked, "You are saying doctors play God all the time?" Kevorkian said: "Of course. Anytime you interfere with a natural process, you are playing God."
[43] Director
Barry Levinson and actors
Susan Sarandon and
John Goodman, who appeared in
You Don't Know Jack, a film based on Kevorkian's life, were interviewed alongside Kevorkian. Kevorkian was again interviewed by Cavuto on
Your World on April 19, 2010 regarding the movie and Kevorkian's
world view.
You Don't Know Jack premiered April 24, 2010 on
HBO.
[44] The film premiered April 14 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City. Kevorkian walked the red carpet alongside
Al Pacino, who portrayed him in the film.
[45] Pacino received
Emmy and
Golden Globe awards for his portrayal, and personally thanked Kevorkian, who was in the audience, upon receiving both of these awards. Kevorkian stated that both the film and Pacino's performance "brings tears to my eyes – and I lived through it".
[46]
2008 Congressional race
n March 12, 2008, Kevorkian announced plans to run for
United States Congress to represent
Michigan's 9th congressional district against eight-term congressman
Joe Knollenberg (
R-
Bloomfield Hills),
Central Michigan University Professor
Gary Peters (
D-
Bloomfield Township), Adam Goodman (
L-
Royal Oak) and
Douglas Campbell. (
G-
Ferndale). Kevorkian ran as an independent and received 8,987 votes (2.6% of the vote).
[47]
Death
Kevorkian had struggled with kidney problems for years.
[48] He had recently been diagnosed with
liver cancer, which "may have been caused by
hepatitis C," according to his longtime friend Neal Nicol.
[49] Kevorkian was hospitalized on May 18, 2011, with kidney problems and
pneumonia.
[2] Kevorkian's conditions grew rapidly worse and he died from a
thrombosis on June 3, 2011, eight days after his 83rd birthday, at
William Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak, Michigan.
[2] According to his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, there were no artificial attempts to keep him alive and his death was painless.
[49] Judge Thomas Jackson, who presided over Kevorkian's first murder trial in 1994, commented that he wanted to express sorrow at Kevorkian's passing and that the 1994 case was brought under "a badly written law" aimed at Kevorkian, but he tried to give him "the best trial possible". Former Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said "I think it was a certain level of hypocrisy in not choosing suicide" referring to Kevorkian's death. Jack was buried in White Chapel Memorial Park Cemetery Troy, Michigan.
Legacy
Howard Markel, a medical
historian at the
University of Michigan, said Kevorkian “was a major historical figure in modern medicine."
[50] Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's lawyer in the 1990s, said that Kevorkian revolutionized the concept of suicide by working to help people end their own suffering, because he believed physicians are responsible for alleviating the suffering of patients, even if that meant allowing patients to die.
[50] Maria Silveira, a professor of internal medicine, said she became involved with palliative care partly because of the attention Kevorkian brought to the complex issue of unintended suffering, adding that he had a tremendous impact and fueled the public awareness of unintended suffering and the need to address it.
[50] "Dr. Jack Kevorkian didn’t seek out history, but he made history," she said.
Selected publications
Books
- Kevorkian, Jack (2010). When the People Bubble POPs. World Audience, Inc.. ISBN 978-1-935444-91-6.
- Kevorkian, Jack (2009). glimmerIQs. World Audience, Inc.. ISBN 978-1-935444-88-6.
- Kevorkian, Jack (1991). Prescription: Medicide, the Goodness of Planned Death. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0879758721.
- Kevorkian, Jack (2005). Amendment IX: Our Cornucopia of Rights. Penumbra, Inc.. ISBN 0-9602030-I-X.
Journal articles
- Kevorkian, J. (1989). "Marketing of human organs and tissues is justified and necessary". Medicine and Law 7. (6): 557–565. PMID 2495395. edit
- Kevorkian, J. (1988). "The last fearsome taboo: Medical aspects of planned death". Medicine and Law 7 (1): 1–14. PMID 3277000. edit
- Kevorkian, J. (1987). "Capital punishment and organ retrieval". Canadian Medical Association Journal 136 (12): 1240. PMC 1492232. PMID 3580984. edit
- Kevorkian, J. (1985). "Opinions on capital punishment, executions and medical science". Medicine and Law 4 (6): 515–533. PMID 4094526. edit
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