Jack Kevorkian Trials: 1994-99

The public debate grew intense. California suspended Kevorkian's license. From all over America, the hopelessly ill and severely pained called day and night begging the doctor to help them. In May 1993, he was arrested, then released in his lawyer's custody, for merely being present at a suicide.

Then Michigan Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Stephens declared the hurry up 15-month ban unconstitutional because it was passed without public hearings and contained more than one objective.

Helping his seventeenth suicide, Kevorkian dared the authorities to prosecute him under the questionable law, which was under review by the Michigan Court of Appeals. On August 17, 1993, he was indicted. "I welcome going on trial," he said. "It isn't Kevorkian on trial. It isn't assisted suicide on trial. You know what's on trial? It's your civilization and society."

Eight hours after the judge ordered him to stand trial, the doctor helped his eighteenth suicide. Some one hundred Friends of Dr. Kevorkian rallied before his apartment building. Neighbors expressed fond support when the doctor said that, if jailed, he would go on a hunger strike.

In October, the doctor assisted his nineteenth suicide—the first in his own apartment in Royal Oak, Michigan. Arrested and refusing to post bail or walk from the courtroom, he was dragged to jail. After Jack DeMoss, a stranger who opposed assisted suicide, bailed him out, the doctor helped his twentieth suicide.