From the Huffington Post:
ROYAL OAK, Mich. — A lawyer says assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian is in a Detroit-area hospital with pneumonia and kidney problems.
Mayer (MAY’-uhr) Morganroth says Kevorkian was reluctant but agreed to go to Beaumont Hospital on Wednesday night. He predicts Kevorkian will be there for several days.
Mr. Morganroth wanted to assure fans of Kevorkian that things will be OK, though.:
Kevorkian turns 83 next week. Morganroth says his health is not in grave danger but “it’s not a good thing right now.”
I wouldn’t put great faith in any health assessment by Mr. Morganroth. This is the same guy who filed appeals for Kevorkian’s early release from prison four years in a row – and in each brief claimed that Kevorkian had “less than a year to live.”
Here’s how that tidbit was made public, even though it was promptly forgotten by the press and the public:
Like the boy who cried “wolf,” Mayer Morganroth claimed – year after year – that Kevorkian had “less than a year to live” in his efforts to win an early release for his client. This was laid out and confirmed in an Associated Press story that appeared on December 14th of last year (link is no longer operational):
Some object to Kevorkian’s upcoming release from prison
12/14/2006, 5:34 p.m. ET
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
The Associated Press(excerpt)
Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group based in Forest Park, Ill., also said it was disappointed that Kevorkian would be released in June.“We won’t forget the struggling disabled people he preyed upon. And we won’t be silent,” the group said in a statement.
It added that it expected that the 78-year-old Kevorkian, after leaving prison, will show a “near-miraculous `recovery'” from his health problems, which include diabetes, hepatitis C, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries in his brain and vertigo, according to his attorney.
“We were suspicious his health problems were greatly exaggerated when his lawyer filed appeals for four years in a row claiming Kevorkian was essentially on the brink of death,” the group said.
***
Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said all requests to have sentences commuted for health reasons must first go to the Corrections Department and then to the parole board, which recommends to the governor whether the request should be honored.
Boyd said Morganroth already has made four such requests, in 2003, 2004, 2005 and earlier this year.”In each instance he indicated that Dr. Jack Kevorkian had less than a year to live,” she said.
So don’t put any faith in what Morganroth has to say about Kevorkian’s health now. –Stephen Drake
I thought it was satire when the entry came into my emails. When I saw it on HuffPo, I came back to read this. I still think it’s good satire (having been primed by earlier entry). And I thought he was dead, which gives me a smile to know the url http://www.notdeadyet.org.
Hmm. Wonder what he’d do if they put a DNR on his file!