Lawyer finds life more meaningful when fighting for a client's right to freeze body.

Lawyer finds life more meaningful when fighting for a client's right to freeze body

Century City lawyer Christopher Ashworth is suing for the right to kill a man who has committed no crime.

But that's the wish of the man, Thomas Donaldson, who is Ashworth's client.

Donaldson, a Sunnyvale mathematician, suffers from a cancerous tumor that threatens to destroy his brain. He wants to have his body frozen in hopes that it can be thawed if scientists find a way to treat the tumor.

Ashworth, a nameplate partner with the Century City law firm of Garfield, Tepper, Ashworth & Epstein, filed a suit in Santa Barbara Superior Court asking for the right to freeze his client's body. The suit also asks the court to prohibit authorities from prosecuting those who freeze Donaldson's body or performing an autopsy on the body. Named as defendants in the suit, which was filed last week, were state Attorney General John Van De Kamp, Santa Barbara District Attorney Thomas W. Sneddon Jr. and Santa Barbara County Coroner James Vizzolini.

"It's the first lawsuit which expressly seeks a judicial determination that will approve of moving a person from being `alive' to `dead' within the meaning of (California) Health and Safety Code section 7180," says Ashworth.

Ashworth, 48, has already taken on two similar cases. In a December decision, he obtained an injunction against the autopsy which would disturb the frozen slumber of a woman's head. The head was frozen after the woman's death by Alcor Life Extension Foundation of Riverside.

In another Alcor case currently pending a trial he seeks an injunction against the filing of charges of practicing medicine without a license against those who freeze bodies, a practice known as cryonics. "Whatever cryonics is, it isn't medicine," Ashworth says.

With his firm 15 years, Ashworth was formerly an attorney with Russell & Schureman, a downtown commercial litigation firm.

His current firm, also involved in a variety of litigation, has represented some controversial constitutional case clients over the years, including the Socialist Workers' Party, the Church of Scientology, and Synanon.

Usually a commercial litigator, Ashworth says that the case has been a breath of fresh air.

"These cases not only do people some good who have a point of view that needs protecting, but it's psychologically energizing," he says.