X-Message-Number: 9170
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:47:47 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Oregon update

ASSOCIATED PRESS wire story
(Feb 16/98; 4:49 pm EST)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                OREGON'S ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW BACK IN COURT

   PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon's assisted suicide law will be back in
   court on Tuesday, when a federal judge considers whether National
   Right to Life lawyers should be allowed to refile their lawsuit
   seeking to overturn it.

   The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of the
   1994 lawsuit last year.

   But U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, who previously ruled the law
   unconstitutional, agreed to consider a request to refile the lawsuit
   on different grounds.

   Most legal experts think the maneuver doesn't have a chance, but
   assisted suicide supporters still are uncertain.

   "Judge Hogan has been a component of this litigation that has caused
   people to second-guess what would be otherwise the expected result,"
   said Eli Stutsman, a lawyer representing sponsors of the Death With
   Dignity Act.

   "He's incredibly tolerant of the plaintiff's efforts to keep this
   litigation alive."

   Specifically, National Right to Life lawyers want to gain standing in
   the case by claiming that their client suffers a "stigmatic injury."

   Courts have recognized such an injury when a law stigmatizes a class
   of people, said Rich Coleson, one of the plaintiff's attorneys.

   The assisted suicide law, by providing an exception to Oregon's law
   banning suicide, effectively singles out the terminally ill as having
   lives less worth living, Coleson said.

   The argument "has been used in discrimination cases, and our argument
   is that this is a discrimination case," he said. Terminally ill people
   are "being treated as second-class citizens."

   Arthur LaFrance, a professor at Northwestern School of Law at Lewis &
   Clark College, said the argument was successful in a case in which
   lawyers were excluding black jurors because of their race.

   "The courts said that a segment of the population may not be
   stigmatized by exclusion from jury service even though in the usual
   sense they did not suffer injury since they were not involved in the
   case as parties," he said.

   However, LaFrance does not believe the argument applies to assisted
   suicide.

   Robert C. L. Moffat, law professor at the University of Florida,
   agrees.

   "If the courts allow that one, the potential for application would be
   very broad," Moffat said. "Potentially, very many new state laws would
   be subject to that kind of challenge."

   Stutsman, who has been fighting the lawsuit for more than three years,
   doesn't think Hogan should consider whether the stigmatic injury
   argument is valid. As he sees it, the 9th Circuit ordered Hogan to
   dismiss the case, and he should finish the job Tuesday and deny the
   motion.

   "It's an irrelevant discussion," Stutsman said. "This litigation is
   over."

   Meanwhile, assisted suicide supporters have turned their attention
   elsewhere. Barbara Coombs Lee, a co-sponsor of the 1994 law, said she
   did not plan to attend Tuesday's hearing. Instead, she is focusing on
   making doctor-assisted suicide available to those who want it.

   Lee said she was not apprehensive about the hearing but acknowledged,
   "There is an element of unpredictability about Judge Hogan's handling
   of this case."

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