CHICAGO — Jack Kevorkian -- considered a remorseless murderer by some and a compassionate physician by others for helping patients commit suicide -- was released on parole Friday from a Michigan prison after serving eight years.
The frail 79-year-old, wearing his familiar light-blue cardigan and a tie over a button-down shirt and dress slacks, walked slowly out of the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Mich., and grinned cheerfully.
Telling a crowd of reporters outside the detention center that leaving prison was one of the "high points of life," the retired pathologist once dubbed "Dr. Death" waved as he and attorney Mayer Morganroth stepped into a white van and drove away.
In December, the Michigan Parole Board granted Kevorkian's request to leave prison early -- after eight years of a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder -- because of his good behavior and a promise not to conduct any more assisted suicides.
But Kevorkian, who has heart and lung disease and hepatitis C, plans to keep fighting state laws that prevent physician-assisted suicide.
"He has been clear: He will not break the law. But he will do what he can to change it," Morganroth said.
Kevorkian, who will be on parole for two years, is expected to check in with his parole officer weekly. Though he is allowed to publicly advocate his views, state corrections officials say, the physician cannot help others build the so-called suicide machine he had used in the past.
Kevorkian, who plans to live with friends in the Detroit area, has been offered public speaking engagements, "which he is considering, as he has bills to pay and only expects to receive a modest pension," Morganroth said.
In 1998, Kevorkian was charged with murder after injecting lethal drugs into Thomas Youk, 52, a man with Lou Gehrig's disease from Oakland County in Michigan. Youk's death was recorded on a home video that Kevorkian sent to the CBS news show "60 Minutes," which broadcast it. In the tape, Kevorkian dared the legal system to stop him.
It did. He was convicted of second-degree murder.
At the time, Kevorkian claimed he had assisted in at least 130 suicides of terminally or chronically ill people.
Before Kevorkian's arrest, hundreds of people flocked to Michigan to meet with him. He was heralded by some right-to-die proponents as a brave leader who was willing to sacrifice his own freedom to fight for terminally ill Americans' right to choose the time of their death.
