Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected news from Arizona:
Lawrence Egbert, 83, an anesthesiologist from Baltimore, was found not guilty of conspiracy to commit manslaughter by aiding suicide in the April 2007 death of Jana Van Voorhis, 58.
But the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision as to whether Franklin Langsner, 86, a retired college professor from Scottsdale, had committed manslaughter by aiding suicide as one of Van Voorhis’ “exit guides,” or whether he was guilty of conspiring with Egbert to help her kill herself.
Langsner had no comment. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said they would retry his case.
Why was it unsurprising? For one thing, important information was kept from the jury:
On its website, Final Exit states that “mentally competent adults have a basic human right to end their lives when they suffer from a fatal or irreversible illness or intractable pain, when their quality of life is personally unacceptable, and the future holds only hopelessness and pain.”
According to attorneys and her family, Van Voorhis suffered from mental illness but was not suffering from physical illnesses, a fact kept from the jury.
I’ll never get this. Part of the defense claims involved the careful “screening” process that FEN says they use. The knowledge that Van Voorhis had no serious physical illness would have belied the claim of any kind of “screening” process – and it might have made the jury view other claims of the group more sceptically. (Personally, it really doesn’t matter to NDY if Van Voorhis was “mentally ill” or not. We’re opposed to the facilitation and encouragement of suicide regardless of whatever diagnoses may or may not be involved.)
I can only hope the prosecution in Georgia makes a stronger case in the courtroom. –Stephen Drake