Jack Kevorkian

Murad Jacob Jack Kevorkian May 26 1928  June 3 2011 also known by the nickname Dr Death was an American pathologist and euthanasia proponent He publicly championed a terminal patients right to die by physicianassisted suicide embodied in his quote Dying is not a crime He said that he assisted at least 130 patients to that end In the November 22 1998 broadcast of CBS News 60 Minutes he allowed the airing of a videotape he made on September 17 1998 which depicted the voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk 52 who was in the final stages of Lou Gehrigs disease 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 Youks family described the lethal injection as humane not murder He was tried four times for assisting suicides between 1994 and 1997 being acquitted the first three times and the fourth ending in a mistrial In 1998 he was arrested and tried for murder after broadcasting the voluntary euthanasia of a man named Thomas Youk who had Lou Gehrigs disease or ALS He was convicted of seconddegree murder in 1999 and sentenced to a 10to25year prison sentence Reportedly terminally ill with Hepatitis C which he contracted in the 1960s 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 He was released on parole on June 1 2007 on condition he would not offer advice about participate in or be present at the act of any type of euthanasia to any other person nor that he promote or talk about the procedure of assisted suicide He had struggled with kidney problems for years He was diagnosed with liver cancer which may have been caused by hepatitis C according to his longtime friend Neal Nicol He was hospitalized on May 18 2011 with kidney problems and pneumonia His condition rapidly worsened and he died from a thrombosis on June 3 2011