While Egypt simmers, we are happy to see the byline of John Eligon in the newspaper; he’s the reporter whose snappy dispatches made the Astor Trial such fun to read about. Now he has a new case: lowlife criminal Kenneth Minor claims that he was merely assisting in the suicide of motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker when he stabbed him in the front seat of his automobile. Oh, and that his post-mortem visit to an ATM machine with Locker’s bank card was to collect payment for services rendered. Everybody laughed at the time, but subsequent investigation suggests that the deceased was engaging in insurance fraud. Now, two years later, the matter has come to trial. Question is: will Mr Minor be allowed to avail himself of the assisted-suicide defense, which would lower the charge against him from second-degree murder to second-degree manslaughter. And the other question is: does it matter?

The law reserves assisted-suicide charges for cases in which a person takes a passive role in someone’s suicide, prosecutors say. An example would be providing the gun that a man uses to kill himself.

[snip]

But Mr. Gotlin said New York law did not explicitly say that someone’s actions needed to be passive in order to be considered assisting suicide. Either way, he said, it should be up to the jury to determine whether Mr. Minor’s actions were passive.

Over the past four decades, 16 people in New York have been arrested on accusations of assisting suicide, according to the State Department of Criminal Justice Services. And in that time, only 11 have been convicted of it.

Whatever happens, Mr Eligon will makes us want to find out what happens next.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 10:30 am.