X-Message-Number: 8831
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:30:50 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Oregon update

The Oregonian newspaper reports November 24, 1997 

Judge back in spotlight on assisted suicide

U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan will revisit the controversial issue
in a hearing Tuesday in Eugene 

Ashbel S. Green of The Oregonian staff 

This week, the focus on physician-assisted suicide shifts from Washington,
D.C., to Eugene.  While U.S. Justice Department lawyers mull over Oregon's
assisted-suicide law, a federal judge in Eugene will hold a status
conference Tuesday on a dismissed lawsuit that prevented the law from
taking effect for nearly three years.
                        
The hearing could involve routine paper-shuffling.  Or it could mark the
start of another drawn-out court battle.  Nobody knows which, except
possibly U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan, and he's not talking. But
his vehement 1995 ruling against Oregon's assisted-suicide law, even though
a higher court reversed him, has created an air of apprehension about
Tuesday's hearing.
                        
"We're all trying to figure it out," said Charles F. Hinkle, an attorney
for Right to Die. "Judge Hogan is sort of a wild card."  In 1994, Oregon
voters approved Measure 16, the Death With Dignity Act. But opponents
challenged the law in court, and Hogan in 1995 declared it
unconstitutional.  [Hogan is a Roman Catholic and is personally vehemently
opposed to assisted suicide.]
                        
A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned Hogan earlier this
year. And in October, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case. The
hearing is for the 9th Circuit decision, which held that the plaintiffs had
no standing to challenge the law. The plaintiffs, a woman with muscular
dystrophy and two doctors, did not have standing to sue because they were
not personally harmed by Oregon's assisted-suicide law, the panel ruled.
                        
According to Measure 16 supporters, that gives Hogan irtually no leeway to
do anything other than formally dismiss the case. "Our assumption is that
the case will be dismissed because that is what the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals ordered," said  Stephen K. Bushong, an assistant Oregon attorney
general. But opponents of assisted suicide are trying to use the hearing to
resuscitate their case. And they have said that if they fail, they might
recruit new plaintiffs to challenge the law.

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