Dr. Kevorkian: Michael Jackson “Got What He Wanted”

On the eve of pop singer Michael Jackson being interred at the LA area Forest Lawn Cemetery yesterday Dr. Jack Kevorkian defended Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray, who is the sole target of the investigation into the late pop star’s death by injection. Jackson’s death has been ruled a homicide.

On Wednesday the now-paroled Kevorkian, 81, told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, “I don’t think he (Murray) was malicious. Murder is defined as malice aforethought… Did the doctor have forethought? I doubt it.”

Murray says he injected Jackson with heavy sedatives including the anesthetic propofol at the singer’s request.

“Maybe Jackson craved these things so much he pestered the doctor until he got it.” Kevorkian added, “The patient got what he wanted. He is the one who said yes or no to take a drug.”

As for his own life, Kevorkian says he has “no regrets.”

Jack Kevorkian (pronounced /kɛˈvɔrkiːɛn/ (born May 26, 1928) is a former pathologist sometimes labeled “Dr. Death.” He is most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient’s right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He famously said that “dying is not a crime.” Kevorkian is accused of being a caricature of mercy.

After being tried numerous times he was convicted and between 1999 and 2007, Kevorkian served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder. He was released on June 1, 2007, on parole due to good behavior.

Kevorkian also demonstrated a flair for dramatic publicity stunts, showing up at one trial in a powdered wig. He protested an incarceration pursuant to another trial by staging a hunger strike and wore a placard challenging the Oakland County prosecutor to bring him to trial. Kovorkian adherents say that prosecutor’s subsequent political defeat was the result of a shift toward assisted suicide and euthanasia. Much of that is based on reports from the UK that 70-80% supports both practices although those finding have been challenged as incorrect.

In 2002, 40 percent of respondents to an ABC News/Beliefnet poll thought that doctors should be legally permitted to help terminally ill patients commit suicide by giving them prescriptions for lethal drugs, compared with 48 percent who disapproved.  A 2006 Pew Research Center poll found that 84 percent of Americans believe patients should have the right to refuse life-saving medical treatment, although the public is evenly split at 45 to 46 percent over whether physicians should be able to help patients to end their lives.

Any discussion of this subject opens a Pandora’s Box, and inserting Dr. Kovorkian, and Michael Jackson’s death fans those flames.