Assisted-suicide ban voided by Second and Ninth Circuits.The Second and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals have struck down New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and Washington state laws that criminalized physician-assisted suicide Noun 1. physician-assisted suicide - assisted suicide where the assistant is a physician assisted suicide - suicide of a terminally ill person that involves an assistant who serves to make dying as painless and dignified as possible . (Quill v. Vacco, No. 95-7028 (2d Cir. Apr. 2, 1996); Compassion in Dying v. Washington, No. 94-35534, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 3944 (9th Cir. Mar. 6, 1996).) The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to hear arguments in an assisted-suicide case. Last year, the justices turned down review of a case challenging the constitutionality of a Michigan law similar to Washington's and New York's. The Second Circuit found that New York's law violates the Equal Protection Clause The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. of the Fourteenth Amendment Fourteenth Amendment, addition to the U.S. Constitution, adopted 1868. The amendment comprises five sections. Section 1 Section 1 of the amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens and citizens . The three-judge panel said that the state permits terminally ill Terminally Ill When a person is not expected to live more than 12 months. Notes: Any gifts given out by the afflicted person at this time may be considered as a dispersion of the estate rather than a gift. people to refuse life support and, therefore, the state should equally allow them to hasten death if they choose. In the Washington state case, the full Ninth Circuit panel ruled 8-3 that the assisted-suicide ban violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. "A competent, terminally ill adult, having lived nearly the full measure of his life, has a strong liberty interest in choosing a dignified and humane death rather than being reduced at the end of his existence to a childlike state of helplessness --diapered, sedated, incompetent," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the Ninth Circuit majority. Reinhardt's opinion relied heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 landmark abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade Roe v. Wade, case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. . Two days after the Ninth Circuit's ruling, a Michigan jury acquitted physician Jack Kevorkian of violating a state law similar to Washington's, marking the second time he has been cleared of these charges. (People v. Kevorkian, No. 94-130248-FH (Mich., Oakland County Cir. Ct. Mar. 8, 1996).) A third trial against Kevorkian began in early April. |
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