Efforts in Florida

By None, Death with Dignity Update, Feb. 17, 2006

Section 782.08 of the Florida Statutes prohibits assisted suicide.

Court Case History
Charles E. Hall had acquired HIV from a blood transfusion, and wanted to ask his doctor, Cecil McIver, M.D., to assist in his suicide at some date in the future when the infection developed into AIDS and his medical condition degraded to the point where he no longer wanted to live. He asked the Florida court to place an injunction against the State Attorney from prosecuting Dr. McIver in the event that he helped Mr. Hall commit suicide.

The court found that Mr. Hall was mentally competent, suffering from deteriorating health and was terminally ill. The court granted the injunction; it based its decision on Florida's privacy provision and the federal Equal Protection Clause. The privacy law states in part: "[e]very natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into his private life." The court required that "the lethal medication must be self administered only after consultation and determination by both physician and patient that Mr. Hall is (1) competent, (2) imminently dying, and (3) prepared to die."

The State Attorney appealed the ruling of the Trial Court. On July 17, 1997, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the earlier decision, reasoning that Florida's privacy provision did not extend to this case, that the state has an interest in preventing suicide, that the integrity of the medical profession must be preserved. They stated that:

"We do not hold that a carefully crafted statute authorizing assisted suicide would be unconstitutional. Nor do we discount the sincerity and strength of the respondents' convictions. However, we have concluded that this case should not be decided on the basis of this Court's own assessment of the weight of the competing moral arguments. By broadly construing the privacy amendment to include the right to assisted suicide, we would run the risk of arrogating to ourselves those powers to make social policy that as a constitutional matter belong only to the legislature."

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