|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Ellen Cans
A former doctor in Arizona is being charged with second-degree manslaughter in New York, in connection with a woman who committed suicide in a Hudson Valley motel room in November.
As reported by the NY Times, former doctor, Stephen P. Miller, 85, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Friday in Ulster County Court and was released after posting a $1 million bond. The manslaughter charge is possible because of a New York State law which makes it a crime to intentionally cause or aid in a suicide.
Mr. Miller’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said the woman who died in the motel room had contacted the Tucson doctor through a national organization which advocates the legalization of medical aid in dying, as a way to help terminally ill patients to have some control over how their lives will end. Providing such assistance in dying is completely legal in ten states, including New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. It is, however, illegal in NY, and a bill to legalize medical aid in dying has repeatedly failed to get the green light from lawmakers in NY over recent years.
So far, law enforcement officials have disclosed very few details about the suicide that Mr. Miller is charged in, making it unclear even whether such legislation would apply. The former doctor is also charged with two counts of assault.
As per the NY Times, the death was discovered on Nov. 9th at around 11:15 a.m., when emergency services workers responded to a call at a Super 8 motel in Kingston, N.Y. Emergency responders found the person who initially appeared to have died by suicide alone in the room, the Kingston police said in a news release. Mr. Lichtman, the defendant’s lawyer, said the woman who died had been suffering with severe, chronic pain and felt she had very few options left for coping. Mr. Lichtman did not specify whether the woman had a terminal illness.
Later, investigators found evidence that a second person who “contributed to or assisted in the suicide” had been in the room, per a news release. The police did not identify the woman or disclose information her or the cause of death. They did not say how Mr. Miller came to be a suspect.
Mr. Miller provided the woman with a book and counseling and traveled to New York from Arizona to witness her death, his lawyer said. Mr. Miller has provided similar services for several other people in recent years, Mr. Lichtman added. “This was done carefully, compassionately and with a lot of research and reflection,” Mr. Lichtman said. “She didn’t want to be alone,” Lichtman said. “He felt empathy for her.” Mr. Lichtman said he was not sure about the official cause of death, but believed that it was asphyxiation, with the woman having inhaled some kind of gas.
“He’s an 85-year-old man who simply wanted to provide comfort and counseling to someone who couldn’t live with the pain in their life anymore,” Lichtman said in a phone interview Tuesday. “For his life to end, dying alone in a jail cell in New York, is, frankly, disgusting.”
Mr. Miller had graduated from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago, Ill., in 1964, per medical board records. He worked in pediatrics early in his career and later moved on to specialize as a family practitioner.
