1990

• June 4: Dr. Jack Kevorkian assists Janet Adkins, 54, an accomplished musician and Alzheimer’s sufferer, in ending her life. Charged with a crime, Dr. Kevorkian defeated the charge because Michigan had no law against assisting in a suicide. He went on to assist at least 130 people in self-deliverance.

• June 25: In Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, the United States Supreme Court rules that for patients who are in a comatose or vegetative state, life support and medical treatment can be suspended if there is clear and convincing evidence that this is the course of action the patient would request if the patient could do so.

• Hemlock of Oregon introduces the Death With Dignity Act into the Oregon legislature. The bill fails to get out of committee.

1991

• Patient Self-Determination Act takes effect. This federal law requires nursing homes, hospitals, home-health agencies, hospices, and HMOs to provide patients with information on state laws governing advance directives.

• Timothy Quill writes about “Diane” in the New England Journal of Medicine, describing his provision of lethal drugs to a leukemia patient who chose to die by her own hand rather than undergo therapy that offered a 25 percent chance of survival.

• Derek Humphry publishes the first edition of Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying. The very existence of this self-help book is considered controversial, yet it has been banned only in France. It was the number 1 bestselling nonfiction book in America for 18 weeks. In April 2007, the editors and book critics of the USA Today selected Final Exit as one of the 25 most memorable books of the last quarter century.

• Washington State voters reject Ballot Initiative 119, which would have legalized physician aid in dying. The vote is 54-46 percent.

1992

• California voters defeat Proposition 161, which would have allowed physicians to hasten death by actively administering or prescribing medications for self-administration by suffering, terminally-ill patients. The vote is 54-46 percent.

1994

• January 24: The Washington-based right to die group Compassion in Dying, a predecessor of today’s Compassion and Choices, joined by five doctors and three patients, files a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. They seek a court declaration that Washington State’s law against assisting in a suicide is unconstitutional as applied to prevent a terminally ill, imminently dying, competent adult from obtaining the assistance of a willing physician in his death. They argue that physician assistance in dying is within a zone of individual privacy protected by the due process and equal protection clauses of the constitution. The case is called Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington.

• May 3: Ruling in Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington, U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein finds Washington’s statute against assisting in a suicide unconstitutional. The State of Washington appeals to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

• July 1: An “anti-Kevorkian law” takes effect in Georgia. The sponsor says section 16-5-5(b) of the Georgia Statutes was enacted to keep “Dr. Kevorkian or someone like him” from “coming to Georgia.” In 2012 Final Exit Network will persuade the Supreme Court of Georgia to declare this statute unconstitutional.

• July 20: A group of physicians and patients led by Dr. Timothy Quill file suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in Manhattan. They seek a court declaration that New York’s law against assisting in a suicide is unconstitutional on the same legal theories as those in the Washington State case. This case comes to be known as Quill v. Vacco.

• November 8: Oregon voters pass Measure 16, the first MAiD law in the world, by 51 percent to 49 percent. Opponents of aid in dying promptly bring a federal court lawsuit seeking to enjoin Measure 16 from being enforced, arguing that it is unconstitutional.

• December 7: In the Oregon lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michael Hogan enters a preliminary injunction that suspends Measure 16 from becoming effective pending further review by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

• December 15: A New York federal district judge rules against Dr. Quill and his co-plaintiffs, dismissing Quill v. Vacco. The plaintiffs appeal to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

1995

• March 9: The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms Judge Rothstein’s decision in Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington, finding that Washington’s statute prohibiting assistance in suicide is unconstitutional to the extent that it interferes with the doctor-patient relationship when a physician seeks to assist a terminally ill, imminently dying, competent adult patient in his death. The State of Washington appeals this decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.

• May 15: Dr. Jack Kevorkian is acquitted of charges that he violated the common law of Michigan by assisting in the deaths of Marjorie Wantz and Sherry Miller.

• September 22: In Australia, the first case of legally assisted death occurs in Darwin under a new law of the Northern Territory, which became effective on July 1.

• November 13: Janet Good, founder of The Hemlock Society of Michigan, is indicted on charges of assisting in a suicide and practicing medicine without authorization. She had worked with Dr. Kevorkian in many hastened deaths. Her indictment is later dropped because of her deteriorating health.

1996

• February 16: The Hemlock Society and ACLU of Florida jointly file a lawsuit in Florida state court, seeking to establish a constitutional right to MAiD. While this case makes the same arguments as plaintiffs made in the Washington and New York cases as to the federal constitution, it also argues that the privacy provision of Florida’s state constitution secures the right to MAiD to competent, terminally ill adults.

• April 2: In Quill v. Vacco, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the New York trial court’s dismissal of Dr. Quill’s action. The appeals court rules that MAiD is a right protected by the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution in that there is no logical difference between MAiD and terminal sedation or other forms of death caused by the termination of artificial forms of life support. The State of New York appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States, where this appeal is consolidated with the Washington case, which is now called Washington v. Glucksberg.

1997

• January 31: In the Hemlock Society-sponsored Florida case, state court Judge Joe Davis rules that both the U.S. Constitution and the state Constitution of Florida guarantee the right to MAiD to a terminally ill, imminently dying, competent adult. Judge Davis enjoins the state from punishing Dr. Cecil McIver for assisting the lone surviving patient, Charles Hall, in his death. The State appeals within an hour, thus invoking an automatic stay of the ruling, but Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Lucy Brown immediately vacates the automatic stay. Almost as quickly the appeals court reverses her order, reinstating the stay of the injunction. Thus, for two brief periods, Mr. Hall became the only person in America ever to have a right to legal MAiD under a court’s order. He chose not to die at that time.

• February 27: Concerning Oregon’s Measure 16, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rules that the lawsuit challenging the Oregon Death with Dignity Act must be dismissed because those who are challenging the law lack legal “standing,” which is to say, they cannot show that they themselves face an immediate threat of harm. In practical effect, this ruling means (as the supporters of the law had always argued) nobody would ever have legal standing to sue to have the law declared unconstitutional because the law does not affect anybody except those who voluntarily choose MAiD under the law.

• March 24: Australia’s parliament overturns the Northern Territory law sanctioning euthanasia and assisted suicide. At issue, in addition to the “conscience vote” on euthanasia, is whether a territory has the authority to pass such a law.

• June 26: In Washington v. Glucksberg and Quill v. Vacco, the Supreme Court of the United States reverses the Ninth and Second U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, holding that there is no constitutional right to MAiD. The Court held that while the Constitution does not require the states to allow MAiD, it does allow them to decide for themselves whether to legalize it or criminalize it, setting the stage for a state-by-state political battle over proposals to legalize and regulate MAiD.

• July 17: In Krischer v. McIver, the Supreme Court of Florida follows the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Glucksberg and Quill, but also rules that the privacy provision of the Florida constitution likewise does not guarantee a terminally ill, imminently dying, competent adult the right to MAiD.

• August 26: Janet Good, 73, a lifelong civil rights activist who founded the Hemlock Society of Michigan, dies an assisted death near Detroit. She had assisted Dr. Kevorkian for years. She is later played by Susan Sarandon in the HBO movie You Don’t Know Jack.

• October 14: The Supreme Court of the United States refuses to hear an appeal from the February 27, 1997 decision of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Oregon’s Measure 16, thus ensuring that patients may finally receive physician aid-in-dying under the law’s provisions.

• November 4: Oregon voters reject Measure 51, which would have repealed Measure 16, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.

1998

• March 24: Oregon records the first legal physician-assisted death under the state’s Death with Dignity Act.

• June 5: Attorney General Janet Reno says the Justice Department will not apply federal law to interfere with the Oregon law. Physicians are free to prescribe lethal drugs for qualified patients who request them without fear of penalty.

• November 22: During an interview with Mike Wallace on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Jack Kevorkian shows videotape of how he injected a lethal drug to bring about the death of 52‑year-old Thomas Youk of Detroit. Kevorkian invites the authorities to prosecute him.

• November 25: The Oakland County, Michigan, prosecutor indicts Dr. Kevorkian on charges of first-degree murder, assisting a suicide in violation of the Michigan law, and administering a controlled substance without a medical license (of which he had been stripped).

1999

• March 26: Dr. Kevorkian is convicted of second-degree murder and delivery of a controlled substance. Sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison, he is eligible for parole in May 2007.