Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian will be paroled and released from a Michigan prison in June, a state official said today.
Kevorkian (78) touched off a firestorm of controversy in the 1990s for presiding as a medical doctor in dozens of assisted suicides by terminally ill patients and advocating for legalization of such procedures in the United States.
Kevorkian has been serving a 10 to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder for giving lethal injections to a man with Lou Gehrig's disease who died with Kevorkian's help in suburban Detroit in 1998.
Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Leo Lalonde said officials interviewed Kevorkian on Thursday. The Michigan Parole Board then voted to release Kevorkian on June 1st, the earliest possible date, he said. Kevorkian, who claims he assisted in 130 deaths, had promised not to assist in another suicide if released from prison.
Although he thwarted four attempts by state prosecutors to convict him, a jury found Kevorkian guilty in 1999 after he videotaped himself administering the lethal shots to 52-year-old Thomas Youk and sent the tape to the CBS news show "60 Minutes." Kevorkian said he had hoped the jury would acquit him and set a legal precedent for assisted suicide in the United States.
Michigan Govenor Jennifer Granholm had repeatedly refused to pardon Kevorkian or commute his sentence. Kevorkian's lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, petitioned for his client's release earlier this year, saying Kevorkian was unlikely to survive in prison until his parole date because of failing health.