Kevorkian News
3/24/08 - Jack announces his run for Congress today. Link to Press Conference
3/12/08 - Kevorkian planning run for Congress
By CHARLES CRUMM
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, who spent eight years in prison for second-degree murder, says he's running for Congress.
Kevorkian, who will be 80 years old in May, picked up petitions from the Oakland County Clerk's Office on Tuesday to run as a candidate with no party affiliation.
"I plan to," Kevorkian said Tuesday afternoon. "I wouldn't do this otherwise. We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington."
Kevorkian said he would have more to say about his candidacy next week. "Everything's in a formative stage," he said.
Kevorkian, a Pontiac native now living in south Oakland County, will have to gather a minimum of 3,000 signatures on nominating petitions by July 17 to appear as an independent on the November ballot, the Michigan Secretary of State's office said.
He lives in the 9th Congressional District. The seat is held by eightterm incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills. Democrats currently filed to run include former Michigan Lottery Commissioner Gary Peters.
The district encompasses Oakland, Bloomfield and West Bloomfield townships; parts of Orion and Waterford townships; the cities of Farmington, Farmington Hills, Orchard Lake, Keego Harbor, Sylvan Lake, Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Rochester Hills, Rochester, Troy, Clawson, Royal Oak, Berkley, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and Lake Angelus; and the villages of Franklin, Bingham Farms and Beverly Hills.
Michigan law doesn't prevent Kevorkian from running for office, or from voting, now that he's been released from prison.
He was paroled June 1 last year and remains on parole until June 1, 2009, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Oakland County Prosecutor Dave Gorcyca, whose office was responsible for sending Kevorkian to prison, was dismissive of Kevorkian's candidacy.
"I would place Jack Kevorkian's candidacy in the same ranking with (Texas U.S. Rep.) Ron Paul's (presidential run)," Gorcyca said.
"It's probably more of a publicity stunt. To call attention to himself is standard protocol for Jack when he doesn't have the limelight focused on him. I would not consider his candidacy to be a legitimate one."
A Kevorkian candidacy, however, is likely to draw more attention to what is already expected to be one of the more closely contested congressional races in the country.
National Democrats targeted the district this election after Knollenberg won re-election in 2006 with 51.5 percent of the vote.
Knollenberg spokesman Mike Brownfield said the congressman has no immediate comment.
"Everybody has the right to run," Peters spokeswoman Julie Petrick said. "Right now, Gary is focused on bringing real change to Oakland County.
"Knollenberg has heaped mountains of debt on our children, disastrous trade policies that have destroyed our manufacturing sector, and gotten us into a protracted war with no end in sight. It's time for real change in Oakland County and that's what we're focused on."
Contact staff writer Charles Crumm at (248) 745-4649 or charlie.crumm@oakpress.com.
Kevorkian out of prison after 8 years - 6/1/07
COLDWATER, Mich. - Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist dubbed "Dr. Death" for claims that he participated in at least 130 assisted suicides, left prison after eight years Friday still believing people have the right to die.
A smiling Kevorkian said it was "one of the high points of life" as he walked out with his attorney and "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace.
Inmates inside the prison had been milling about all morning for a glimpse of the 79-year-old, while reporters and television vans greeted him on the outside with cameras and questions.
Kevorkian attorney Mayer Morganroth said his client planned a news conference next week.
Throughout the 1990s, Kevorkian challenged authorities to make his actions legal — or try to stop him. He burned state orders against him and showed up at court in costume.
"You think I'm going to obey the law? You're crazy," he said in 1998 shortly before he was accused — and then convicted — of murder after injecting lethal drugs into Thomas Youk, 52, an Oakland County man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease.
That conviction earned Kevorkian a 10- to 25-year sentence for second degree murder, but he earned time off his sentence for good behavior.
He is expected to now move to Bloomfield Hills, just outside Detroit, where he will live with friends and resume the artistic and musical hobbies he missed in prison. His lawyer and friends have said he plans to live on a small pension and
Social Security while doing some writing and make some speeches.
Kevorkian has promised never to help in another assisted suicide. But Ruth Holmes, who has worked as his legal assistant and handled his correspondence while he was in prison, said his views on the subject haven't changed.
"This should be a matter that is handled as a fundamental human right that is between the patient, the doctor, his family and his God," Holmes said of Kevorkian's beliefs.
In a recent interview, Kevorkian also made it clear that his support for letting people decide when they want to die hasn't wavered.
"It's got to be legalized. That's the point," he told WJBK-TV in Detroit. "I'll work to have it legalized. But I won't break any laws doing it."
The Michigan Catholic Conference says it will oppose any effort to renew the push for assisted suicide in Michigan.
The state has had a law banning assisted suicide since 1998, the same year voters rejected a ballot proposal that would have made physician-assisted suicide legal for terminally ill patients.
Right to Life of Michigan, which also opposes any effort to allow assisted suicide, said it distrusts Kevorkian's promise to not help anyone else die. "He made similar false promises prior to a string of deaths, the last of which led to his imprisonment," the group said in a statement this week.
Oregon is the only state in the nation in which a terminally ill patient with six months or less to live can legally ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal amount of medication.
Kevorkian will be on parole for two years, and one of the conditions he must meet is that he can't help anyone else die. He is also prohibited from providing care for anyone who is older than 62 or is disabled. He could go back to prison if he violates his parole.
He will report regularly to a parole officer and won't be able to leave the state without permission. He can speak about assisted suicide, but can't show people how to make a machine like one he invented to give lethal drugs to those who wanted to die, Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said.
Kevorkian did not have many possessions to take out of prison with him, in part because many of them have disappeared.
"Strange as this may seem, last month ... someone stole his manuscript he'd been writing and his belongings," Morganroth said, adding that he expects someone took Kevorkian's clothes and medicine to sell on eBay.
Holmes said Kevorkian was looking forward to eating some of the things he couldn't freely get in prison, including a sandwich of plain sliced turkey on thin lavosh bread.
"He's looking forward to some grapes and apricots," she said. "He loves pistachios."
Working with Kevorkian, Holmes already has sent to a book publisher about 250 of the thousands of letters he got while in prison.
"He wasn't able to answer all of them, but it was very heartwarming to see the number of people who wrote to him from all over the world," she said.
Geoffrey Fieger, Kevorkian's former attorney, said that once Kevorkian is off probation, he should continue assisting people who want to commit suicide.
"He's on a short leash for the next two years," Fieger said Friday. "After that, it will be another story. After two years, he no longer is going to be under their thumb."
12/23/05 - Kevorkian denied parole over illness again
Parole Board Denies Ailing Kevorkian
By AMY F. BAILEY, Associated Press Writer
Thu Dec 22, 1:06 PM ET
LANSING, Mich. - The state parole board rejected a request to pardon assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian or commute his sentence, despite warnings that he is in grave condition.
The 77-year-old former doctor is serving a 10- to 25-year prison sentence for murder for giving a fatal injection of drugs in 1998 to a man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Kevorkian is not eligible for parole until 2007.
His lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, warned last month that Kevorkian was in "dire shape" and might not live that long. Kevorkian suffers from high blood pressure, arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis and Hepatitis C, the lawyer said.
But the parole board, in a 7-2 vote, recommended the governor deny the application, according to documents released Thursday.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm will follow the recommendation, as she has done with similar recommendations on Kevorkian in 2003 and 2004, spokeswoman Liz Boyd said.
"I think the parole board is acting irresponsibly and outrageously," Morganroth said. "The doctor in the prison keeps telling us, `What can I do to get him out? He shouldn't be in here.'"
Of The Oakland Press
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN, Associated Press Writer