Assisted suiciders arrested — Update

Earlier on this blog, I reported that four members of the Final Exit Network were arrested on February 25, 2009 for their role in the assisted suicide of John Celmer in Georgia.

The following additional information is from Robbie Brown, Arrests Draw New Attention to Assisted Suicide, NY Times, March 11, 2009:

The arrests raised questions about whether the group, which has helped some 200 people commit suicide since 2004, merely watched people take the leap into death, or pushed them over the edge. * * *

According to the [undercover] agent’s affidavit, network members instructed him to buy a helium tank and a plastic “exit mask.”

Thomas E. Goodwin, who was the network president at the time, and Claire Blehr, a member, planned to hold down the agent’s hands while helium flowed into the mask, the affidavit says.

The agent would lose consciousness within seconds and die within minutes, and the guides would remove evidence from the scene.

“They went through a dry run just to let the agent know what would happen,” Mr. Bankhead said. “Mr. Goodwin got on top of the agent and held down both of his hands,” which investigators say would have prevented him from removing the mask if he had changed his mind during a real suicide.

Georgia authorities arrested Mr. Goodwin and Ms. Blehr, and Maryland officials arrested the group’s medical director, Dr. Lawrence D. Egbert, and a regional coordinator, Nicholas Alec Sheridan, for authorizing member suicides. * * *

If brought to trial, legal experts say, the case against the network could clarify the distinctions between the lawful act of witnessing a suicide and the illegal act of assisting one.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that states can set their own laws on suicide assistance. But experts say the term “assistance” can be difficult to define.