Monday, October 6, 2003
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Attorney Geoffrey Fieger plans to argue Wednesday that Jack Kevorkian
should be resentenced to time served and released from prison.
Kevorkian, the 75-year-old assisted suicide proponent, was sentenced to
10 to 25 years after being convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder in
the death of Thomas Youk, who was afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Kevorkian is eligible for parole in 2007.
“Dr. Kevorkian has been more than punished. He has been pilloried,”
Fieger said in a statement Monday. “His continued incarceration is
brutal, inhuman and cruel.”
Fieger on Wednesday will be representing Kevorkian for the first time in
five years.
The attorney persuaded juries on several occasions in the 1990s to
acquit Kevorkian of assisted suicide charges.
Kevorkian represented himself in the Youk trial and had attorney David
Gorosh advise him.
Fieger has said he was not asked to defend Kevorkian in the Youk case.
Gorosh, a former Fieger employee fired over Kevorkian’s defense in a
misdemeanor trial, began representing Kevorkian after the charges were
filed in November 1998.
The request was to be heard by Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rae
Lee Chabot. Fieger said he has asked the court for Kevorkian to be
present during the hearing.
A message seeking comment was left Monday with the county prosecutor’s
office, which has said a county judge isn’t authorized to change
Kevorkian’s sentence.
Kevorkian, imprisoned at the Thumb Correctional Facility near Lapeer,
suffers from a variety of medical problems, his lawyers have said. A
federal judge recently denied a petition asking that Kevorkian be released.
Youk, 52, of Waterford Township, was shown on CBS’ “60 Minutes”
receiving a lethal dose of potassium chloride from Kevorkian, who argued
during his trial that it was a “mercy killing.”
Kevorkian has said he assisted in at least 130 deaths. Michigan banned
assisted suicide in 1998.
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