Assisted-suicide cases get spotlight in court.

Proponents and opponents of physician-assisted suicide are looking to the courts this year for clarity in the controversy over whether terminally ill patients have a legal right to seek aid in hastening their deaths.

On the East Coast, the Second Circuit is considering an appeal in which a group of physicians and their patients want the court to recognize a constitutionally protected individual liberty interest in assisted suicides. Quill v. Vacco, No. 95 - 7028 (2d Cir. filed Jan. 11, 1995).) The case came to the federal appeals court after a district judge in New York upheld the state's ban on assisted suicide.

On the West Coast, the Ninth Circuit has been asked to overturn a lower court decision in Washington that made it legal to help terminally ill adults commit suicide. (Compassion in Dying v. Washington, No. 94-35534 (9th Cir. argued Dec. 7,1994).)

Proponents of assisted suicide are waging similar battles in Michigan and Oregon.

At the federal level, a split in the circuits would mean the U.S. Supreme Court could end up deciding whether competent, terminally ill adults may seek assistance - such as doctor-prescribed dosages of lethal drugs - to end their lives.

Oral arguments have yet to be set in the Second Circuit challenge, while attorneys in the Ninth Circuit case are awaiting a decision from the court.

"Ultimately, I would like to see either the Washington case or the New York case accepted for review by the Supreme Court," said Kathryn Tucker, a Seattle attorney who is lead counsel for the patients and doctors in both cases.

"Each case presents the issues extremely clearly and cleanly,- Tucker said. "We need guidance from the Court because each district court came out with exactly opposite reasoning and conclusions."

Michael Tierney, counsel for the Legal Center for the Defense of Life in New York City, contended that the fate of assisted-suicide rights would best be resolved in the country's statehouses rather than its courthouses.

"Because of the gut-level issues assisted suicide represents for people, I think these issues ought to be left to the elected representatives," said Tierney, whose organization has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Second Circuit case, supporting criminalization of assisted suicide.

"If the legislators get it wrong, the people will speak out," he said. "If the judges - who are appointed - get it wrong, then there's much less the people can do about it."

Tierney attributes the recent emergence of right-to-die cases to two factors: rising health care costs, which he believes make some terminally ill people and their families more likely to consider suicide as an alternative to Iengthy hospital stays, and people's fear of dying in pain. He believes that physician-assisted suicide should not be an option for terminally ill patients.

Kari Anne Smith, a Seattle attorney working with Tucker in both appellate suits, said abortion rights cases have served as an example for right-to-die litigation. "This is one of the biggest civil rights issues in the courts that parallels abortion rights," she said. "As in abortion, the issue is whether the Constitution recognizes the liberty interests of individuals to make this kind of personal decision. It's the freedom to make the choice that is at issue."

Nowhere has the issue of assisted suicide received more national attention than in Michigan, where Dr. Jack Kevorkian has been present at 21 suicides since 1990.

His attorneys and the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union said they plan to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of a state supreme court ruling that upheld Michigan's ban on assisted suicide. Michigan v. Kevorkian, No. 99591, 1994 WL 700448 (Mich. Dec. 13, 1994).)

Although most states abide by either common law cases or criminal statutes that bar a person from helping another die, Oregon is the first state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide. That law remains in limbo, however, because the National Right to Life antiabortion group obtained a restraining order that halted its implementation.

Oregon authorities have turned to federal court to try to make sure the voter-approved initiative, the Death with Dignity Act, passed in last November's election, goes into effect.

"I think this has become a hot issue because it's harder to die," said Barbara Coombs Lee, who led the effort to get Oregon's initiative on the ballot. Medical science, in its inexorable march, has created a situation in which we have agonizing, lingering deaths. More people are finding themselves caught in these positions, and there are many more who sit by and watch. They see the reality of the problem. We believe the way to show reverence for life is to die with dignity.

"If the state holds out criminal prosecution for a rational and responsible act, then the government is intruding - acting unconstitutionally - in our fives," she said. "Effectively, the court has put up a barrier to the will of the people."

Decisions in afl of the cases before the courts are not expected for several months.