Kevorkian Set to Leave Prison Friday

Jack Kevorkian, the champion of mercy killing, will be released from prison June 1 after doing eight years for helping a Michigan man commit suicide. The 79-year-old retired pathologist spent a decade assisting terminally ill patients end their lives, using a homemade machine to administer the fatal drugs and then dropping off the bodies at hospitals.

Kevorkian has promised never to engage in the practice again, but will lobby for states to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Oregon is the only state that currently allows it; 292 terminally ill patients have used the law that was passed in 1997. (More Jack Kervorkian stories.)