You Don't Know Jack About Jack Kevorkian

By Dave Andrusko

The day had to come--although, officially, the HBO clock doesn't chime until April 24. That's when the absurdly titled production "You Don't Know Jack" airs at 9 EST. But while the movie debuts a week from Saturday, according to the Detroit Free Press the first of two in-theater screenings took place yesterday in Manhattan.

Al Pacino as Jack Kevorkian

If you believe Caryn James, writing for NEWSWEEK, Al Pacino's "complicated Kevorkian comes close to being a lovable old coot in a cardigan and fishing hat, but he's also rude and anti-social." How else would you describe a man convicted of second-degree murder and illegal delivery of a controlled substance but as "lovable old coot"?

Anti-social? At the time of his conviction Not Dead Yet's Diane Coleman told the Detroit News "If this had happened sooner, there are 130 people who would still be alive." She added, Kevorkian is "a symbol. But when you get right down to it, he's not the scariest part of this. The scariest part is the people who seem a lot more mainstream than he does. Their agenda is the same. They're just more polite."

Entertainment Weekly [ET.com] concluded that the "result" of HBO's movie "is a pro-euthanasia argument told as a lovable-old-coot story." But Ken Tucker goes much further in buffing out the scratches in Kevorkian's image. Kevorkian went to jail "on a second-degree murder rap cooked up by prosecutors depicted as embarrassed that they'd previously failed to make 'Dr. Death' a public pariah," according to Mr. Tucker.

Of course that does not even bear a fleeting resemblance to the truth. Here's what I wrote back in 1998:

Like a child who taunts authority successfully, Kevorkian was emboldened by four attempts to convict him of assisting in a suicide. Three ended in acquittals, a fourth in a mistrial, producing a bumper crop of publicity for Kevorkian. But that gambit had run out of ethanol. The Detroit county prosecutor won that office precisely because when running he promised no mas - - no more trials on charges of assisting in a suicide, which he believes are fated to lose.

Kevorkian could never live with this. Upping the ante, Kevorkian unnerved even some of his staunchest supporters by harvesting the kidneys of a quadriplegic whom he "assisted" to commit suicide. The attempt by Kevorkian, who was a pathologist before he lost his medical license, was so incompetent the Oakland County medical examiner described it as a "mutilation." Direct killing - - "euthanasia" - - was next."

Kevorkian and "60 Minutes" came to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. In a program aired on November 22, 1998, Kevorkian showed a ghoulish home movie in which he directly injected potassium chloride into 52-year old Thomas Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. This was the first time Kevorkian directly injected the patient--and taped it, to boot.

CBS News President at the time, Andrew Heyward said, in defending the airing of the segment, that, "The fact that Kevorkian was willing to take this to the next level, that's what the news was [emphasis added]." One wonders what Heyward's answer would have been had Kevorkian opened Youk's carotid artery. That also would take the killing "to the next level."

So, nobody roped Kevorkian into anything. He had just become convinced--understandably--that he was bullet proof.

Needless to say, CNN's Anderson Cooper is interviewing Kevorkian tomorrow night. That's be a tough grilling, no doubt.

Please send your comments to me at daveandrusko@gmail.com.