The Doctor of Death and His Defender: Geoffrey Fieger's Decade-Long Battle for Jack Kevorkian

Jack Kevorkian was not a typical doctor. By 1989, at age 60, he had spent years studying death, not how to prevent it, but how to make it humane. He had witnessed suffering in hospitals and nursing homes that haunted him. He believed that people with painful, incurable conditions should have the right to end their lives on their own terms. And he believed that doctors had a moral obligation to help them.

So Kevorkian built a machine. He called it the "thanatron," from the Greek word for death. It was shockingly simple: an intravenous line connected to three plastic bottles. One bottle contained saline solution. The second held Seconal, a powerful barbiturate that would induce a deep coma. The third contained potassium chloride, the same chemical used in lethal injection executions to stop the heart.

The design was ingenious in its simplicity. Kevorkian would insert the IV line and open the saline drip. Then the patient would flip a switch. That single action would start the flow of Seconal for sixty seconds, putting the patient into unconsciousness. The switch also activated a timer that would open the potassium chloride valve after the Seconal stopped flowing. Death would follow within minutes.

Kevorkian tried to advertise his machine in local newspapers. They all refused. But the request to advertise a suicide machine was newsworthy enough that several publications wrote about it. Soon, Kevorkian was receiving calls from desperate people all over the country.

One of those calls came from Janet Adkins, a teacher from Portland, Oregon, who had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. She was only 54 years old, active and vibrant, but she knew what lay ahead. She had climbed Mount Hood, trekked in Nepal, and hang glided. She was not ready to spend years losing her mind piece by piece. And she was terrified that if she waited too long, she would lose the ability to communicate her wishes.

Kevorkian met with Janet and her husband Ron four separate times. He recorded three of those sessions. He insisted they fill out a seven-page questionnaire. He wanted to be absolutely certain that Janet's decision was firm, voluntary, and unwavering. When it became clear that she was adamant, Kevorkian began looking for a place to use his thanatron.

He lived in an apartment and worried his landlord would evict him. Funeral homes and hotels declined his requests. So he settled on his 1968 Volkswagen van. He bought curtains for the windows and installed a cot. On June 4, 1990, he drove Janet to a campground, hooked her up to a heart monitor, and attached the IV line. She flipped the switch. When the monitor showed a flat line, Kevorkian called the police.

He was arrested. But Michigan had no law against assisting in a suicide. He was released. The next day, Ron Adkins held a press conference and read a statement his wife had written before her death: "I have Alzheimer's disease and I do not want to let it progress any further. I do not want to put my family or myself through the agony of this terrible disease." Dr. Jack Kevorkian had just become the most famous, and most controversial, doctor in America. And he was only getting started.

By 1993, Kevorkian had assisted in the deaths of dozens of people. Michigan had passed a law making assisted suicide a crime, and prosecutors were determined to stop him. Kevorkian needed a lawyer. Not just any lawyer, he needed someone fearless, media-savvy, and willing to take on a case that would make him a pariah in some circles and a hero in others.

He found Geoffrey Fieger. Fieger was already one of Michigan's most successful trial attorneys. He had built a reputation for taking on impossible cases and winning massive verdicts. He was known for his expensive suits, his aggressive courtroom style, and his willingness to say things that other lawyers wouldn't dare. He was combative, confident, and unapologetic. In other words, he was perfect for Jack Kevorkian.

Fieger agreed to represent Kevorkian pro bono, no payment, no fees. He believed in the cause. He believed that people had the right to control their own deaths. And he believed that Jack Kevorkian, for all his eccentricities, was a man of principle trying to alleviate suffering.

What followed was one of the most remarkable winning streaks in legal history. Over the next six years, Geoffrey Fieger would defend Jack Kevorkian in trial after trial, facing murder charges, hostile judges, and a legal system determined to stop his client. And he would win every single time.

The first trial came in September 1993. Kevorkian was charged with murder in the death of Thomas Hyde, a 30-year-old man whose body had been ravaged by ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. Hyde had been an active outdoorsman before his diagnosis. By the time he contacted Kevorkian, he could not walk, could barely speak, and had lost control of his bodily functions. He told Kevorkian he could not endure any more suffering.

Hyde died in Kevorkian's van in August 1993. One month later, Kevorkian was charged with murder under Michigan's new assisted suicide law. The law made it a crime to "knowingly provide the physical means or participate in the act of suicide," but it included an exception for acts intended to "relieve pain."

Geoffrey Fieger delivered the opening statement. He told the jury, "You will decide how much suffering all of us must endure before we go into that good night, some of us, not gently." The trial lasted five days. The most emotional moment came when the jury watched a videotape of Thomas Hyde struggling to make his wishes known. In words that could barely be understood, Hyde said, "I want to end this; I want to die." Many jurors cried as they watched.

Kevorkian, for his part, seemed bored. He spent much of the trial studying Japanese vocabulary lists. At one point he said, "I am only going along with it to make Geoffrey feel good."

But Fieger's strategy was brilliant. He did not deny that Kevorkian had helped Hyde die. Instead, he argued that Kevorkian's intent was to eliminate suffering, not to cause death. Death, Fieger said, was merely a consequence of relieving unbearable pain. The jury seemed confused by the law, but they were moved by Hyde's suffering.

After nine hours of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict: Not guilty. One juror said afterward, "He's not a murderer. I don't feel it's our obligation to choose for someone else how much pain and suffering they can go through. That's between them and their God."

Fieger was elated. He told reporters that the jury's decision had "driven a stake" through Michigan's assisted suicide law. He said the verdict vindicated the right of every person suffering from a terrible disease to choose death over agony. Kevorkian had won. But more importantly, Geoffrey Fieger had won. And he was just getting started.

Kevorkian's second trial came in 1994. This time, he was charged in connection with the deaths of two people: Dr. Ali Khalili, a rehabilitation specialist suffering from bone cancer, and an unnamed woman with ALS.

Once again, videotapes played a key role. On tape, Dr. Khalili explained that the pain in his bones could not be relieved by morphine. Kevorkian asked him why he didn't simply prescribe himself the pills that would end his life. Dr. Khalili answered, "Maybe I prefer that it be done by a professional person with the least chance of failure."

An appeals court had made Fieger's job more difficult. They ruled that the state did not need to prove that Kevorkian's "sole intent" was to cause death. Having a primary intent of ending suffering, the court said, should not be enough to save him.

But the jury saw it differently. Once again, they acquitted Kevorkian. Geoffrey Fieger had now won two murder trials in a row. And he was building a national reputation as the lawyer who could defend the indefensible.

Kevorkian's third trial, in December 1994, was his toughest test yet. He was charged in the deaths of Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller, and this time, neither woman was terminally ill. Wantz suffered from multiple sclerosis, but doctors said she still had a long life ahead of her. Miller, just 43 years old, was in constant pain from a series of botched surgeries, but she was not dying.

The charges were also different. This time, the state charged Kevorkian not with violating a statute, but with violating common law, ancient legal principles that dated back centuries. The Michigan Supreme Court had ruled that assisting in a suicide had always been a crime, even in the absence of a specific law. And the Michigan Court of Appeals had issued a ruling that all but mandated a conviction: the jury must convict if the state proved that Kevorkian "by some act assisted" the suicide.

Kevorkian was furious. To protest the use of ancient common law, he showed up to court wearing colonial dress: a powdered wig, knee breeches, and black buckle shoes. On the witness stand, he shouted, "There ain't no law. I only recognize laws passed by the legislature, not made up by courts."

It was vintage Kevorkian, defiant, theatrical, and utterly uncompromising. And it made for great television. The jury deliberated for a long time. For the first time, Kevorkian seemed worried. Four jurors initially voted to convict. But in the end, the jury could not bring themselves to do it. They acquitted Kevorkian once again.

The jury foreman said they had "reasonable doubts." Several jurors said they were troubled by the idea of judge-made crimes. One juror explained that she had an epiphany while raking leaves in her yard the weekend before deliberations. "I didn't want someone to come along three years from now and say that raking leaves back then was illegal, you just didn't know it."

Geoffrey Fieger was jubilant. He told reporters, "This will be the last Kevorkian trial. Thank God for the jury system." Kevorkian, for his part, declined an invitation to attend a victory celebration. "It's my poker night," he explained.

After three acquittals and a fourth case that ended in a mistrial, it seemed clear that no Michigan jury would ever convict Jack Kevorkian. For three years, assisted suicide fell out of the headlines. Kevorkian continued his work, but quietly. And then, in 1998, he made a decision that would change everything.

Thomas Youk was a race car driver, a champion of the Ohio Valley circuit. In 1996, his career came to an end when he was diagnosed with ALS. By 1998, he had a feeding tube in his stomach, his lung capacity was a fraction of normal, and he was almost completely paralyzed. He told his brother that the pain was like having his body plugged into an electric socket.

Youk's family contacted Kevorkian through an address they found on the internet. Kevorkian called them back the next day and arranged a visit. In the Youk family living room, Kevorkian set up a video camera. He recorded Youk describing his suffering. He asked Youk to attempt a series of movements, lifting his hand, moving his arm, to demonstrate the extent of his paralysis. Then Kevorkian described the procedure he would use to end Youk's life.

After hearing the description, Youk read a consent form. It said that he agreed to use "active euthanasia to be administered by a competent medical professional in order to end with certainty my intolerable and hopelessly incurable suffering." Kevorkian asked how long Youk could wait. Youk said he could hold out for another week. "OK," Kevorkian said, "let's not hurry into this."

But the next afternoon, Youk called. He couldn't wait any longer. He wanted to end his suffering now. Kevorkian returned to the Youk home with his equipment, including his video camera. He turned on the camera and started an intravenous line. "Are you sure you want to go ahead now?" he asked. Youk nodded.

This time, Kevorkian did not use his thanatron or his mercitron. This time, he injected the Seconal into Youk's right hand. This time, he injected the lethal dose of potassium chloride. Youk gasped, and his chin fell to his chest. The whole procedure took less than five minutes.

This was not assisted suicide. This was euthanasia. And Kevorkian had it all on tape. Then he did something that stunned Geoffrey Fieger and everyone else who cared about him: he called Mike Wallace of CBS's 60 Minutes and sent him the videotapes.

On November 22, 1998, 60 Minutes broadcast the segment. Millions of Americans watched as Jack Kevorkian injected Thomas Youk with lethal drugs. In the interview, Wallace asked Kevorkian whether what he did could be considered murder. Kevorkian replied, "I don't care what you call it. I know what it is. I'm going to do it. And if you want to convict me, go ahead."

It was a direct challenge to prosecutors. And they accepted. Geoffrey Fieger thought the 60 Minutes videotape was a disaster. He had won four trials by arguing that Kevorkian's intent was to relieve suffering, not to cause death. But this time, Kevorkian had directly administered the lethal drugs. There was no ambiguity. And Kevorkian had publicly dared prosecutors to charge him. Fieger knew what was coming. And he knew it was going to be different this time.

In March 1999, Jack Kevorkian was charged with second-degree murder and delivery of a controlled substance in the death of Thomas Youk. This time, prosecutors were confident. They had a videotape of Kevorkian committing the act. They had Kevorkian's own words admitting what he had done. And they had a jury pool that had watched the 60 Minutes broadcast.

But Geoffrey Fieger would not be defending Kevorkian this time. In a decision that shocked everyone, Kevorkian fired Fieger and announced that he would represent himself.

Fieger was devastated. He had won four trials for Kevorkian. He had kept him out of prison for six years. And now, at the most critical moment, Kevorkian was casting him aside. Kevorkian's reasoning was simple: he no longer wanted to win on technicalities. He wanted to make a political and philosophical statement. He wanted to argue that he had a moral right, even a moral obligation, to help people die. He believed that if he represented himself, he could turn the trial into a referendum on the right to die.

It was a catastrophic miscalculation. The trial judge, Jessica Cooper, barred Kevorkian from arguing a "necessity" defense. He could not tell the jury about Thomas Youk's suffering. He could not argue about the right to die. He could only argue the facts of the case: Did he or did he not inject Youk with lethal drugs?

The answer, of course, was yes. Kevorkian had admitted it. He had videotaped it. He had broadcast it on national television. The jury deliberated for less than two days. On March 26, 1999, they returned a verdict: Guilty of second-degree murder.

Kevorkian, who had seemed invincible for so long, stood in stunned silence as the verdict was read. At sentencing, Judge Cooper was harsh. She told Kevorkian, "You had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did, and dare the legal system to stop you. Well, sir, consider yourself stopped."

Kevorkian was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. He was 70 years old. Geoffrey Fieger watched from the gallery. He had warned Kevorkian that representing himself was a mistake. He had begged him to reconsider. But Kevorkian had refused. Now, the man Fieger had kept free for six years was going to prison. And there was nothing Fieger could do about it.

Jack Kevorkian entered prison in 1999 at age 70. He would not be released until June 1, 2007, eight years later, at age 79. During those years, Kevorkian's health declined. He became less defiant, more reflective. He expressed regret about representing himself. He admitted that firing Geoffrey Fieger had been a mistake.

Fieger, for his part, never stopped advocating for Kevorkian's release. He visited him in prison. He lobbied for parole. He continued to argue that Kevorkian had been a man of principle who had been punished for his compassion.

In 2007, Kevorkian was finally granted parole. The condition was simple: he had to promise never to assist in another suicide. Kevorkian, now frail and elderly, agreed. He kept that promise for the rest of his life. On June 3, 2011, Jack Kevorkian died of a blood clot at age 83. Geoffrey Fieger announced the death to the media. He called Kevorkian "a medical hero" and said that history would vindicate him.

In 2010, a year before Kevorkian's death, HBO released a film called You Don't Know Jack. Directed by Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino as Kevorkian, the film told the story of Kevorkian's crusade and his trials. And playing Geoffrey Fieger was actor Danny Huston.

Huston's portrayal of Fieger was widely praised. Critics called him "fantastic" and noted that he captured Fieger's passion, aggression, and courtroom brilliance. The film showed the deep bond between Kevorkian and Fieger, and it depicted Fieger as a tireless advocate who believed in his client's cause.

Al Pacino won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance as Kevorkian. The film itself won the Emmy for Outstanding Made for Television Movie. It holds a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. For Geoffrey Fieger, the film was a reminder of the most important case of his career. It was a case he had won four times, and a case he had ultimately lost when his client made the fatal decision to represent himself.

Geoffrey Fieger's representation of Jack Kevorkian remains one of the most remarkable legal achievements in modern history. He won acquittals in cases that seemed unwinnable. He defended a man who openly admitted to helping people die. He took on a legal system that was determined to stop his client, and he beat them again and again.

But Fieger's legacy from the Kevorkian case is complicated. He kept Kevorkian out of prison for six years, but he could not save him from himself. He won four trials, but he lost the one that mattered most, because he was not allowed to fight it.

Today, assisted suicide is legal in several states, including Oregon, Washington, and California. The right-to-die movement that Kevorkian championed has gained ground. And Geoffrey Fieger's role in that movement is undeniable.

Fieger himself has said that representing Kevorkian was the most important work of his career. It was pro bono. It was controversial. It made him famous and infamous in equal measure. But it was, he believed, the right thing to do. Jack Kevorkian once said, "While this may be a sin to you, one thing is clear. For any enlightened human being, this can never be a crime." Geoffrey Fieger spent six years proving him right. And when Kevorkian was finally convicted, it was not because Fieger failed, it was because Kevorkian chose to fight alone.

In the end, the story of Geoffrey Fieger and Jack Kevorkian is a story about the limits of the law and the power of conviction. It is a story about a lawyer who believed in his client's cause so deeply that he was willing to become one of the most controversial figures in America. And it is a story about a friendship between two men who believed that compassion should never be a crime.

Fieger won four trials that most lawyers would have considered unwinnable. He defended a man who was called a murderer, a monster, and Dr. Death. He stood beside Kevorkian through arrests, trials, and public condemnation. And he did it all for free, because he believed it was right.

When Kevorkian finally went to prison, it was not because Geoffrey Fieger failed. It was because Kevorkian chose to make a statement rather than win a case. It was because Kevorkian valued principle over freedom.

And perhaps that is the ultimate lesson of their partnership: sometimes, the most important battles are not the ones you win, but the ones you choose to fight. Geoffrey Fieger chose to fight for Jack Kevorkian. And for six years, he won. That legacy will endure long after both men are gone.