Book brings ‘Dr. Death’ back into spotlight

The Daily Oakland Press (Oakland County, Michigan)
Sunday, July 24, 2005

By JACK LESSENBERRY, Special to The Oakland Press

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICHIGAN – Jack Kevorkian was once a regular feature
on the nightly news, a figure of ferocious controversy and a
pop-culture icon at the same time. That was back in the 1990s, when
every American knew his name and virtually nobody had heard of Osama
bin Laden.

Today, Dr. Death sits in a jail cell in Lapeer, 77 years old, out of
touch with the media and nearly forgotten. But if Ruth Holmes has her
way, that may be about to change. Holmes, a handwriting analyst and
document examiner, regards the man who made assisted suicide famous as
a martyr, a hero and a genius.

And the Bloomfield Hills woman wants the world to know he has a new
cause, a new passion and a new book: “Amendment IX: Our Cornucopia of
Rights”, which she and her daughter Sarah helped him put together and
publish.

Simply put, it is about one of the least-known amendments in the Bill
of Rights. The Ninth Amendment says: “The enumeration in the
Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.” For the former pathologist,
that says it all.

“Every human being is born with the lifelong, powerful, unalterable,
essentially instinctual will or drive to absolute personal freedom,”
Kevorkian declares at the beginning of his short (65 pages) paperback
book, which is really more like an extended pamphlet.

“The full power of natural rights is latent in Amendment IX of the
Bill of Rights,” he argues over and over again. According to his
theory, the Ninth Amendment “renders all the bill’s other amendments
superfluous.”

He said he believes the Ninth Amendment guarantees the right of
assisted suicide, or, as he would put it, “the right to seek a
competent medical professional’s assistance in ending unendurable
suffering.”

He also thinks it guarantees the right to marry anyone of any sex,
ride a motorcycle without a helmet, carry concealed weapons or fly the
flag. In short, Kevorkian, who usually voted Libertarian when he voted
at all, is now more concerned with personal freedom than with assisted
suicide.

“This shows that he is interested in moving the philosophical
discussion beyond the (assisted suicide) issue,” said Holmes, who
talks to Kevorkian nearly every day.

Writing even a short book wasn’t easy for the elderly inmate, who is
only allowed to write in longhand and has very limited access to
reference materials. Some of it he mailed out in the form of letters.

Some he dictated over the phone to Sarah Holmes, at considerable
financial cost to her family. Prisoners have to reverse the charges on
any call they make, and a heavy surcharge is added. “We don’t even
talk about the phone bill,” Ruth Holmes said.

The well-written, thought-provoking book only occasionally lapses into
a rant. Whether his arguments are likely to sway the legal community
is doubtful.

Robert Sedler, a professor of constitutional law at Wayne State
University and a supporter of Kevorkian, once noted that “the Ninth
Amendment is a little like Hamburger Helper. It needs to be used in
connection with something else, another legal argument.”

There has never been – as Kevorkian himself said – a U.S. Supreme
Court decision based on the Ninth Amendment. He thinks it is about
time, and unless we start giving it the primacy it deserves, a fascist
America is inevitable, he says.

“(The Ninth Amendment’s) seismic power will help us restore our
struggling Republic’s tarnished glory,” Kevorkian concludes in his
book.

Whether Kevorkian himself will ever be restored to prominence seems
doubtful. After presiding over, he says, more than 130 assisted
suicides, he was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 for
performing euthanasia on Thomas Youk of Waterford Township, who had
Lou Gehrig’s disease and wanted to die.

Ever since, he has been serving a 10- to 25-year
sentence. Technically, he won’t be eligible for parole until May 2007,
but his lawyer, Mayer Morgenroth, plans to file a motion this November
asking the governor to commute his sentence or move up the date when
he is eligible for parole.

That seems unlikely. Though Jack Kevorkian vows he will give up
helping people die, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is highly risk-averse, and
is said to be adamantly opposed to everything Kevorkian has done.

Last winter, CBS’s Mike Wallace called her to ask her to consider
clemency in the case. Wallace, whose report of his euthanasia on “60
Minutes” helped lead to Kevorkian’s conviction, feels that he has been
punished more than enough. But the governor refused to speak to him.

“We won’t give up,” said Holmes, who said that a Hollywood producer is
planning a major movie on Kevorkian, though details are hazy. For now,
she hopes his new book will make a difference.

Jack Lessenberry has covered Dr. Kevorkian and the assisted suicide
issue for The New York Times and many other publications. He opines
weekly for the Detroit Metro Times, and is a Lecturer of Reporting and
Feature Writing at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Getting the book

Jack Kevorkian’s book, “Amendment IX: Our Cornucopia of Rights”, is
available at Ariana Gallery (119 S. Main St., Royal Oak, Michigan
48067 — Day Time Phone: 248-546-8810), or from Penumbra
Inc. (P.O. Box 231, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48303).