Court Opinion

ID: 9574151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:02:46.275721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:08.505121
License: Public Domain

D. E. Shelton, J.
(dissenting). I dissent, primarily for the reasons set forth in my partial concurring opinion in the consolidated cases of Hobbins v Attorney General, Docket No. 164963, People v Kevorkian, Docket No. 171056, and People v Kevorkian, Docket No. 172399. The majority simply fails to address the obviously controlling constitutional due process issue raised by all four of these cases. The end, and awful, result of the decisions in these four cases is that while it is constitutionally prohibited to charge a felony punishable by four years’ imprisonment against a doctor who assists in the death of a suffering terminally ill patient, it is permissible to charge that doctor with the capital crime of murder. The majority apparently feels that this result is one to which they "are bound by stare decisis,” ante, p 191, but is nevertheless one that is patently unjust. Justice is about nothing if not about the way it actually affects the lives of people.
I also write to distance myself from the majority’s discussion of People v Roberts, 211 Mich 187; 178 NW 690 (1920), and People v Campbell, 124 Mich App 333; 335 NW2d 27 (1983). Neither suicide nor attempted suicide is a crime in this state or in any other state in this Union. It is logically incomprehensible that a person can be charged *193with a capital crime of aiding and abetting a lawful act. The rationalization cited by the majority for the proposition that this obvious logic is "unsound” is that suicide was only decriminalized because it is realistically impossible to punish the dead perpetrator. Even if that were the case, it does not explain the fact that attempted suicide is also not a crime even though the perpetrator is available for "appropriate” punishment. The circuit court correctly ruled with regard to this issue and its decision should be affirmed.