Imprisoned assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian has asked state legislators who advocate lifting Michigan’s 158-year ban on capital punishment to permit the condemned to undergo medical experimentation before death.
In a two-page “Open Letter to Michigan Legislators” written from his prison cell, Kevorkian detailed his opposition to the death penalty, but explained that the practice of lethal injection could provide scientific benefits to researchers allowed to experiment with inmates immediately before they die.
Kevorkian detailed a similar plan in a 1960 booklet he wrote, “Medical Research and the Death Penalty.”
The 75-year-old retired pathologist is being held at the Thumb Correctional Facility in Lapeer, while serving 10 to 25 years for second-degree murder in the 1998 videotaped poisoning of Thomas Youk of Oakland County’s Waterford Township. Youk had Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Kevorkian’s letter was faxed to state legislators this week, his lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, told The Daily Oakland Press.
Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca described Kevorkian’s proposal as “ghoulish.”
“It’s mad, and it’s morbid,” Gorcyca said.
State Rep. Larry Julian, R-Lennon, who is sponsoring death penalty legislation, said he did not expect Kevorkian’s suggestions to become a part of any bill.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Julian said. “I think people have the ability now to donate their bodies to science. But that would be a slippery slope for us.”
The state House was expected this week to take up the proposal to allow capital punishment.
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