PONTIAC, Mich. -- Dr. Jack Kevorkian's crusade for assisted suicide began nine years ago in the back of his rusted Volkswagen van. There, an Alzheimer's patient from Oregon pushed a button on the retired pathologist's "suicide machine" and lethal drugs flowed into her veins.
Kevorkian has skirted the law and taunted its enforcers ever since, helping 130 people take their own lives. He left bodies in the middle of the night at motels, others at hospital emergency rooms. He burned state orders against him, showed up at court in costume and challenged authorities to do something about it. On Tuesday, they finally did."You had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you," said Judge Jessica Cooper. "Well, sir, consider yourself stopped."
Cooper sentenced Kevorkian to 10 to 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Thomas Youk, a Lou Gehrig's patient whom Kevorkian videotaped as he injected him with a lethal cocktail of chemicals on Sept. 17. The videotape was later broadcast on CBS's "60 Minutes."
"My husband had come to the end of his life as he chose to," Melody Youk said as she pleaded for a lenient sentence. "He was not depressed. He was not a victim. He requested Dr. Kevorkian's help and was grateful for it."
Cooper also sentenced Kevorkian to three to seven years for delivery of a controlled substance. The sentences will run concurrently, and Kevorkian will be eligible for parole after six years and eight months, a prosecutor said. Kevorkian, who turns 71 next month, could have gotten life in prison.
Kevorkian told The Oakland Press of Pontiac that he will begin a hunger strike immediately.
Kevorkian's supporters said the sentence would intensify the debate over euthanasia and assisted suicide.
"I think it's going to spark more debate and discussion on the end of life issue," said Nicholle McClelland, spokeswoman for the Oregon-based Hemlock Society. "This was not murder, this was a very compassionate act."
McClelland said laws against assisted suicide should be on trial, not Kevorkian.
"This is another example . . . that the law needs to change to allow for physician-assisted dying," she said. "Dr. Jack Kevorkian is one of those responsible for making the movement so strong."
But opponents said the sentence was long overdue. Members of Not Dead Yet, a disabled rights group, celebrated the end of what one called Kevorkian's "killing spree."
"Jack Kevorkian has been killing members of the disabled community for years and has been getting away with it," said Cal Montgomery. "I hope this is the end of the euthanasia movement."
The Archdiocese of Detroit issued a statement, saying Kevorkian's "'final solution' approach to pain management has been an unconscionable exploitation of the natural ambivalence to death and suffering."
The sentence, said archdiocese spokesman Ned McGrath, leaves "no doubt that society will neither authorize physicians to kill nor look the other way if they do."
Even Judge Cooper offered her take on the impact of the sentence, telling Kevorkian the debate over assisted suicide will continue "long after this trial and your activities fade from public memory."
At the time of his death, Youk, 52, was confined to a wheelchair, had a feeding tube installed in his stomach and was afraid of choking on his own saliva.
Medical examiners considered the death suspicious. But they had little to go on -- until Kevorkian sent the videotape to "60 Minutes." The tape and the show's interview with Kevorkian were the prosecution's main evidence.
It was the first murder trial for Kevorkian, who says he has been involved in 130 deaths since 1990, and the first time he was found guilty of taking part in a death. His previous trials, all on assisted-suicide charges, resulted in three acquittals and a mistrial.