After deliberating more than five hours Thursday, the jury in Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s murder trial already had spent more time behind closed doors than they had listening to arguments and testimony during the trial.
Jurors were to resume their deliberations Friday.
Kevorkian, who presented no witnesses and acted as his own attorney during the brief trial, argued that his intent was not to kill a terminally ill Michigan man but to ease his suffering. And he indicated his primary intent was to push the right-to-die debate to the limit, even if it meant possible life imprisonment for himself.
Kevorkian, 70, has said he will starve himself to death if convicted.
During the trial that began Monday, prosecutors relied mainly on the videotape that Kevorkian made of Thomas Youk’s death in September, which aired on the CBS news program “60 Minutes.” The tape was replayed for the jury.
In closing arguments marked by repeated objections from the prosecution and a logic equation neatly outlined on the courtroom chalkboard, Kevorkian urged jurors to focus on his merciful goal.
He was trying to provide “a medical service” that would alleviate the “torture” of the 52-year-old Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Kevorkian told jurors in Oakland County Circuit Court that medical service is exempt from certain laws and equated his actions to those of some of history’s great civil rights leaders.
“When Rosa Parks sat on the bus, was that a crime? Did Martin Luther King want to go to jail?” Kevorkian argued.
Speaking directly to the jurors, the retired pathologist said: “Look at me before you. Do you see a criminal? Do you see a murderer? If you do, then you must convict and then take the harsh judgment of history and the harsher judgment of your children and grandchildren when they need that precious choice.
Acquittal “leads to some progress in human society, a little progress, a little protection of rights when we need it most,” Kevorkian said.
Oakland County Prosecutor John Skrzynski argued that the tape showing Kevorkian injecting Youk with lethal drugs left no question as to whether the murder was deliberate and premeditated.
“He came like a medical hitman in the night, with his bag of poison to do his job,” Skrzynski told jurors.
By administering the drugs himself, Kevorkian escalated the controversial end-of-life debate from assisted suicide to euthanasia. In the past, Kevorkian has set up devices by which clients delivered the fatal agents to themselves.
Kevorkian has presided over the deaths of more than 130 people since 1990.
Kevorkian is “furthering a political agenda” and taking the delicate life-and-death decisions out of the hands of the populace and placing them squarely with the 12 jurors, Skrzynski said.
Judge Jessica Cooper told the jurors they could consider convicting Kevorkian of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter, as well as first-degree murder.
She rejected the prosecution’s request for an explicit warning to the jurors against “jury nullification”–setting aside the law out of sympathy for the defendant.
Instead, she simply told the jurors that they must follow the law and that mercy killing is not an excuse for murder.
Kevorkian is also charged with delivering a controlled substance, which would carry a jail term of 7 years if he is convicted.
Kevorkian has been acquitted three times on assisted suicide charges, in part because defense arguments emphasized the suffering of his clients and the merciful intent behind his actions.
But in this case, Kevorkian was not allowed to admit evidence as it related to the suffering of Youk, and Youk’s wife and brother were barred from testifying.
