He built a suicide machine, known as the Mercitron or Thanatron, which he operated out of a Volkswagen van to inject a lethal drug dose for people who sought his help in dying. After one of his injections was shown on national television, he served eight years in jail for murder, but lived to see his life made into an award-winning HBO movie last year, starring Al Pacino.
Kervokian provocatively likened himself to Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, but the American Medical Association called him "a reckless instrument of death" who posed a great threat to the public.
For nearly a decade, he evaded efforts to stop him. Four trials resulted in three acquittals and one mistrial. His home state of Michigan had no law against assisted suicide in the early s, but later enacted one in response to Kevorkian's activities. During his trials supporters filled courtrooms wearing "I Back Jack" badges. He called his prosecutors "Nazis", and said that doctors who did not agree with him were "hypocritic oafs".
He had been in hospital since last month with pneumonia and kidney problems, Morganroth said. An official cause of death had not been determined, but Morganroth said it was likely to have been pulmonary thrombosis. Kevorkian was freed in June after serving eight years of a 10 to year sentence for second-degree murder. His lawyers had said he suffered from Hepatitis C, diabetes and other problems, and he had promised in affidavits that he would not assist in a death if he was released.
In , he ran for Congress as an independent, receiving just 2. He said his experience showed the party system was "corrupt" and "has to be completely overhauled from the bottom up. Pacino paid tribute to Kevorkian during his Emmy acceptance speech, saying that he had enjoyed trying to "portray someone as brilliant and interesting and unique" as Kevorkian and that it was a "pleasure to know him". Kevorkian said he liked the movie and enjoyed the attention it generated, but doubted it would inspire much action by a new generation of assisted-dying advocates.
It's been discussed to death," he said. Doctor-assisted suicide essentially became law in Oregon in and in Washington state in The practice of doctors writing prescriptions to help terminally ill patients kill themselves was ultimately upheld as legal by the U. Supreme Court. His career was interrupted by the Korean War, when he served 15 months as an Army medical officer.
After the U. Supreme Court permitted states to reinstate the death penalty in , Kevorkian campaigned for performing medical experiments and harvesting the organs of death row inmates -- with their consent -- before their executions. By Mike Miller 5 Min Read. Factbox: Facts about Michigan's "Dr.
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