California Appeals to Save Assisted Death Law

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed an appeal on Monday against a ruling by a judge in Riverside County that overturned the state’s assisted suicide law two years after the legislation passed it during a special session on health care funding. The law allows doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients with 6 months or less to live.

In the court document, Becerra claims that the reversal “contradicts both the deference owed the Legislature and an earlier finding by the same court that the act was within the scope of the special session.”

See Taryn Luna, California Appeals to Save Assisted Death Law, The Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2018.

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.