American Notes

Jack Kevorkian -- a.k.a. Dr. Death -- may be back in business. Kevorkian, 62, a retired Michigan pathologist, gained national notoriety last year when he used his home-built suicide machine to help Alzheimer's patient Janet Adkins kill herself. Last week, two days after Oakland County Circuit Judge Alice Gilbert issued a court injunction barring Kevorkian from using the suicide machine, he announced that he had counseled a dentist with cancer who was (and likely still is) contemplating using a similar machine of his own. Said Kevorkian: "I'm just testing the limits of the injunction."

Kevorkian vowed that he would use his machine again "under the correct circumstances." If he does, there may be little his opponents can do about it: murder charges brought against him for Mrs. Adkins' suicide were dismissed last December in part because Michigan has no law against physician-assisted suicide.