Jack Kevorkian, the man best known for helping usher 130 people to their deaths through assisted suicide, has passed away in a Detroit, Michigan hospital. Almost two weeks ago he was rushed to the facility for kidney problems and pneumonia but wasn't considered to be in "grave danger." That changed, and as The Detroit Free Press noted, there were no "no artificial attempts" to keep the 83-year-old alive.

With assisted suicides being no less controversial than during the peak of Kevorkian's prominence, it will be interesting to read what his post-mortems will say in this weekend's newspapers. Actor Al Pacino, who portrayed Kevorkian in the HBO rendition of his life, once summed him up this way: "He turned away the vast majority of people who came to him, he didn't take money for what he did, and he did not see these patients as people he was killing." That wasn't, however, how a jury felt in March 1999 when he was convicted for murder for giving fatal injections.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ehayden at nationaljournal dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Erik Hayden