Isn’t it amazing that in Minnesota nowadays you can obtain my book FINAL EXIT at bookstores or libraries but you break the law when you verbally tell a person its contents!
The USA nonprofit advice group, FINAL EXIT NETWORK, out of Florida, has been fined $30,000 plus costs for advising a very sick woman who asked where to get the famous book. US Supreme Court declined to hear the Network’s appeal on 1st Amendment grounds.
Below is the latest comment by a distinguished law professor on yet another appeal by the Network that this Minnesota law as it stands now is nonsense.
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Final Exit Network v. Minnesota – 1st Amendment Right to Advise Patients on How to Hasten Death Medical Futility
by Thaddeus Pope, 10 Dec 2018, U.S.
I attended the November 30, 2018 hearing on Minnesota’s motion to dismiss Final Exit Network’s challenge to the Minnesota assisted suicide statute.
The focus of the hearing was on a wide range of standing issues ranging from collateral estoppel, to Rooker Feldman, to the 11th Amendment.
Network lawyer Robert Rivas explained that he is not challenging or seeking re-review of FEN’s conviction in state court. Instead, he is bringing an overbreadth challenge (which is one type of facial challenge). Rivas explained that a librarian who takes the book FINAL EXIT off the shelf and hands it to a patron would be guilty of assisted suicide in Minnesota (or at least in Dakota County).
Moreover, there is a prospect that a FEN exit guide may be assigned to another Minnesota resident and therefore be subject to prosecution. Indeed, current exit guides have already asked Minnesotans to meet them outside Minnesota for counseling. The interpretation of the Minnesota assisted suicide statute to cover mere speech has already created a chilling effect.
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Please note: ‘Final Exit’ is a book by Derek Humphry, not an organization. The assistance organization is the Final Exit Network, nonprofit, based in Florida, covers the USA. Both have web sites.
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