Free after eight years on lockdown, Jack Kevorkian found prison to be "one of the high points in life."
Dubbed "Dr. Death" for claims that he participated in at least 130 assisted suicides, Kevorkian, 79, challenged authorities to make his actions legal - burning orders against him and showing up at court in costume.
"You think I'm going to obey the law? You're crazy," the retired pathologist said in 1998 shortly before he was accused _ and then convicted of murder after injecting lethal drugs into Thomas Youk, 52, an Oakland County man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. Kevorkian had videotaped Youk's death and sent it to "60 Minutes."
Although conviction earned the good doctor a 10- to 25-year sentence for second degree murder, his sentence was reduced for good behavior.
While promising never to help in another assisted suicide, his views on the subject haven't changed. "I'll work to have it legalized. But I won't break any laws doing it," Kevorkian said.
The state has banned assisted suicide since 1998, the same year voters rejected a ballot proposal that would have made physician-assisted suicide legal for terminally ill patients. Oregon is the only state in the nation in which a terminally ill patient with six months or less to live can legally ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal amount of medication.
Kevorkian will be on parole for two years, and one of the conditions he must meet is that he can't help anyone else die. He is also prohibited from providing care for anyone who is older than 62 or is disabled. He can speak about assisted suicide, but can't show people how to make a machine like the one he invented to give lethal drugs to those who wanted to die.
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